Affair advice please (only those who've been in affairs themselves please)

[BrokenandEmpty]

Please don't judge me - I need advice and help not to be told how awful I am which I already know.

I am married with two young children and had had an affair with an also married man who has children. Our affair started three years ago, both unhappy in our marriages where we were missing the spark and not feeling loved but knew neither of us was investing in our marriages either. I hate writing and saying this but for me, it was like sharing life with a roommate and nothing more. For MM I know it was the same and our affair spiralled out of all control and over the last few of years I have fallen completely in love with him. His wife found out and forgave him but their marriage was even worse and we tried so many times to stop but we haven't been able to at all. I don't doubt that he loves me but we decided that we couldn't do this to our children - couldn't ruin there lives for our selfishness. We tried but failed and we resumed our affair and decided we were both so miserable without each other so started to take steps to leave our marriages in a way that would cause the least pain to both our spouses - to anyone who hasn't had an affair I know that reads pathetically.

Despite this, he completely broke down and told his wife that he is in love with me. But this is the killer - he didn't tell her he wants us to be together and is now staying to work on his marriage. I am so confused and heartbroken - on the one hand he and I started to plan our life together and now this.

For those of you that have been in this position, did you tell your husband about your affair even if it meant not being with the OM?

Will he ever actually leave his wife? She has forgiven him again and is now even more loving and does everything he asks.

I need to get over this don't I? He is never going to actually leave for us is he? I am completely devastated by the extent to which I've ruined my own marriage which feels irreparable. And I am even more devastated by the fact that it's come to this point and he is staying. He said his marriage will "probably end now anyway" but that shouldn't be enough to keep me hanging on or enough for me to completely devastate my husband by telling him now should it?

I haven't told anyone at all about any of this and I'm a complete mess inside. I think I just need to talk to anyone who has been through this and what you did. What happened? Did your MM leave? If not, how did you get over it? Did you tell your husband everything or just keep going with this enormous shameful secret? It's just too much to bear and the weight of it all is crushing me.

He won't leave her.

I usually try ti be understanding and open minded about even these crappy situations however what standa out to me is this:

1. MAN - yes i had an affair but i want to be with you DW

DW - ok i love you and I'll try to improve myself to.make it work

1. MAN - actually i still love my other woman

DW - Let me bend over backwards and cater to your every need ao tjat you'll stay with me.

His wife has so little self esteem that he is making a mockery of her by telling her he loves you because he KNOWS she will do anything to keep him

This isn't a man wjo has made bad choices and ended up in too deep in an affair. This is a man who loves manipulating women.

Cut all contact.

My dsis ended up with the OM and they have been together for over 10 years BUT the fall out of the affair has completely ruined his dc's lives. End it now and don't look back, for you dc sakes.

First of all give yourself time to grieve over the loss of a future you thought you had with a person you love. He wasn't necessarily lying to you but unable to go through the upheaval of leaving his home and family. Block him (and remove all ways of contacting him). Think about whether you want to stay with your DH. What was missing in your marriage that made you start the affair, is this something you can see you and DH working on to resolve? I wouldn't tell DH, even if he knows or suspects he's decided to stay. What benefit would there be to telling him? If he guessed the affair started he'll soon work out it ended. Try and detach what you want to do about your marriage now the OM is not there. Big hugs

I'll probably read these posts thousands of time until I convince myself just how much he used me
You used each other equally. Don't try to minimize your own responsibility, it's duplicitous.

I was an OW for two years (with a 3 month break and periods of very low contact at my instigation) before my DP left his wife. We are together now and very happy. Slightly simpler situation as they had no children but even so leaving is sometimes not as straight forward as it sounds.

He said he loved me and wanted to be with me - I told him if he wanted to be with me enough then he would be (thanks MN for that mantra), ended it and went NC. Bloody hard but I stuck to it. He came back to me after 3 months, not ready to leave at that point but working towards it and it took almost another year during which we were mostly low/very low contact.

I second the PP's advice The mind trick game you can play with yourself in order to cut all contact now is to say to yourself - "This isn't the right time for this relationship - maybe at some point in the future when both of us are single, we can be together." So, it isn't no contact forever. It's just no contact now, while he is married. This worked for me.

I also found that I was losing respect for him for not being strong enough to make the break (I'd made the break from a bad marriage myself which was very hard and I had 4 DCs) and for the way he was treating his wife. If he was going to stay with her he needed to tell her what he'd done and give her the choice of whether to stay in the marriage. Oh and if she ended things with him it was going to be too late to turn to me - actively choose me or fuck right off.

In my opinion you need to:

• go/stay NC, you CAN do it
• think about if you really want to be with someone who can treat their wife and you so appallingly, start to think negative thoughts about him (if he does ever come back single he needs to earn the right to get back into your life)
• decide what you want to do about you marriage and your life taking OM out of the equation, make your life what you want it to be assuming he's gone
• work on your self esteem and self respect, don't let him treat you badly and still get the benefits of a relationship with you - find your anger
• if you decide to end your marriage then don't tell you husband about the affair it will only make things more difficult
• if you decide to work on your marriage then you need to tell your husband about the affair and allow him to make his choice too

I know it's really, really shit not being able to be open about the pain of your break up in RL. I had friends who knew my situation and supported me but it was still very, very tough and I had to hide my emotions a lot of the time.

Be strong, you can do this. What he ultimately decides to do is out of your hands, you need to take control of your life so that whether he does come back into your life or not you're moving on.

Who knows you might not even want him by then.

🌺💜

Just a bit of advice from someone who has been on his receiving end. Don't play mind games. Leaving your husband guesing why things are not right its tourcherous. Its crule and unfair. Even more crule when you have to piece everything together and find out yourself. Sometimes things don't work out in relationship. But have a heart and be truthful with your husband. It's lies that do the real damage.

No, he won't leave his wife. He has begged her to stay. If he wanted to be with you, he'd be with you. No question. He doesn't.

OP you're being given an extraordinarily easy ride on this thread. You have chosen - and it is a choice, one you continue to make daily - to absent yourself from family relationships and direct your emotional energies elsewhere for fully half of your children's lives. When they realise their childhoods were based on a lie, what do you think it will do to them? You and the OM may indeed belong together - you sound equally weak and self-indulgent - but you have no right to debase so many other lives with your behaviour.

Also and I know stability (family and financial -neither of us are primary breadwinners) always weighed heavily on him suggests he's a bit of a cocklodger. Maybe he thought you couldn't keep him in the style to which he's accustomed. His poor wife.

How can he flip from being so in love with me and so committed to a life together to this. I don't understand how his wife has forgiven him so readily too and how all of a sudden he is fine and happy without us

Quite easily OP, unfortunately. He flipped from being in love with his wife, to being in love with you. You don't understand how his wife has so readily forgiven him? It wouldn't benefit you to know why.

All thats clear is, he has shown you that he has chosen his family and marriage over you. They are together. You need to find a way to accept that and then move on with your life. Only you can decide if you tell your DH - hopefully its not so he can feel as bad as you do now. That won''t help. Think about your children also, and be in the "present" for them.

Yes, Schnitzel, I also picked up on "neither of us are primary breadwinners"
He knows which side his bread is buttered (to continue the bakery theme) and has chosen £££ and his kids instead of you.

He did this because it was the right thing for him, not for his children.

Make an appointment with a Relate counsellor. You can go by yourself - they are very experienced, skilled counsellors and will help you decide what you need to do for yourself and your marriage.

What happens if your Dh says he's been having his own affair and wants to split up/divorce? Then you will be on your own.... If you don't love your Dh why are you still in the relationship?

Thank you to everyone who has replied with kindness and helpful advice.

ILostIt and Ruby - I think you are right that I need to separate the affair and grieve and get over it separately to trying to figure out what to do with my marriage and how/when to tell my h. From everyone's helpful advice it seems confessing all now wouldn't help anything. Ruby you are right about causing my h pain and I know I too would throw myself back into my marriage without first being sure that it's what would be right for my children or me. I know I have to tell him if we are to remain married - and I will. It goes back to what an earlier poster said that it is true - that this lie can't become part of our future. I just don't think telling him now is the right the thing, not when I can barely contain my emotions over my affair.

Closingdate - thank you, truly. You are absolutely right about every single thing and I'm happy (and encouraged) that you got there in the end. I know no contact is the answer and I will do it. It's just so miserable isn't? And feels impossible to go from talking and being with someone for so long to nothing. I know it's achievable - people succeed and I know time heals.

I need to focus on the negatives and ultimately get over him and every promise he made to me. At the end of day, he didn't choose me, he chose his wife children and his comfortable life. And as hurtful as it is and as rejected as I feel, I brought it on myself and have to deal with it and figure out a way through this whether with or without my h - but as many of you have said, it can't be with him if he doesn't know the truth.

I posted because I had hoped that someone would tell me something positive - that this has happened to them and that he came back for you. But I'm learning that it never works that way.
Would it be positive though? It would be if you consider your raw emotions right now because it would feel the emptiness you are desperate for right now, but it probably would end up not what you'd expected because you can't erase what has happened and in your case, that would be that he hesitated and ALMOST chose his wife over you. It would leave you for a long time, if not forever with that constant wonder that he might not love you or be as committed to you as you are to him.

Saying that, can I ask why if you knew he was the one and you were prepared to break your marriage and destabilise your kids, why you didn't leave your husband and took the chance that he would do the same. After all, it sounds like the chance of rekindling your marriage are quite low.

I bet this is why he decided not to do it. Even if he loved you and would have chosen being with you over his wife, if it was a choice of ending up alone if you'd change your mind or being with his wife, the latter was a better position for him. He debated back and forth and went for the latter.

In such situation, someone needs to take the plunge for the other one to follow and it sounds like neither of you were prepared to be the leader.

NightNight - the really messed up thing is that I think I'd feel relieved if her confessed to having his own affair and then I wouldn't feel like I was totally to blame. Why am I still in the relationship? I didn't think I was going to be this time two weeks ago. Why would I stay in it now? Because we have two children together, our families and 18 years of history and the life we made together and if after telling him the truth - when I do - we decide there is anything left to salvage. I can't imagine a happily ever after marriage for us but plenty of people stay in mediocre marriages for their children. He isn't a bad h and despite what I've done, I haven't been a bad wife either. I do everything at home and for him and we do care for each other - we just don't talk or have a relationship with each other independent of children-related activities. I see lots of couples like us, the ones sat at the table next you who also don't say a word to each other at dinner. I know I wouldn't be the only person in the world who can make it enough for them.

You are just going to have to ride the pain through, regardless of the rights and wrongs it sounds like YOU genuinely loved this man and right now it’s really going to hurt.

Unfortunately, the only person he loves is himself. He’s put himself first, before his wife, his children and you. It’s always been about him, he’s thoroughly enjoyed having you adoring him whilst having a wife and children at home.

Please don’t make your husband your back up plan, if you had plans to leave him then you still should as he doesn’t deserve to be your (unknowing) back up plan.

I'm sorry broken. I'm a single mum who left a relationship for different reasons. I posted earlier on in your thread.

I would say to you that your husband and you sound ok in terms of being able to split and co-parent well.

I honestly couldn't live in a relationship with such mediocre expectations. The one thing being a single mum has taught me is that I don't have to compromise and stay in a relationship that makes me unhappy.

At least if you were single you have the prospect of finding someone you really love or your OM being able to make the move himself further down the line.

Swingofthings - I just couldn't do it without him. I am ashamed to admit this but the thought of being alone is terrifying and the worst bit is - even after reading all of the things people have written about what type of man cheats and all that - all I have been thinking about is whether I tell him I love him and that this is it for me. This is his last chance for us to be together before I completely stop all of this.

When his wife found out we resumed our relationship the second time, she had a near total breakdown and the effect it had on his children was what stopped us in our tracks for the longest period we've managed. Then we decided we need to separate from spouses without our affair being the reason so as not to hurt them - this is what I was saying earlier that seems so stupid now and I think only people in affairs would maybe understand. But then he went and told her loved me and she confronted me - she was absolutely devastated and he couldn't hurt her like that. So he has decided to stay. I will tell my husband everything too but my marriage feels over, it has been over for many many years. Now it's whether my h and I can live with this for the sake of our children.

You seriously need to re-write your ‘love’ story. You write like you are some star struck lovers and this is some Shakespearean tragedy. It’s not. You are two adults with your own families, putting yourselves first and living a lie that would completely devastate so many people you love. Rather than saying to yourself ‘I can’t live without him / we love each other / this is my only happiness / I can’t help myself’ tell yourself - ‘thank goodness I haven’t been found out / I’m so pleased I haven’t done my children who I really love irreversible harm.’

If you’re looking for something positive - I’m an adult child of cheating parents and it was and awful and damaging to experience and the fall out and has defined my family life since. If you pull yourself together and stop putting yourself first you can save your family from this, which would definitely be a good thing. I’m also pretty sure the reality wouldn’t be that great, his kids will never really like you which will cause him sadness and effect this happy ending you imagine.

Stolemyusername - I do love him and as much as I am in denial about what you've said about MM - you are probably right and I hate myself for letting this happen, for being so weak and stupid. I'm 41 years old not a teenager and I should have known better. My h isn't going to be my back-up plan at all - I will tell him everything when I can emotionally cope with what it means to decide together whether there is anything worth fighting for.
Jeaux90-thank you. It's just so frightening, the thought of being alone after spending my whole adult life with my h.

However painful it gets op [and pain is, like life up and down.] remember it's always only temporary and there is simply never any need to punish yourself at all - ever.

Perhaps it's time to learn to love yourself first.

London - I'm sorry both for your own experience and that you have read what I've written as some love story. I came on here - not asking for pity but asking for advice to help me with my misery, my guilt and to help me work out what I should do about telling my h and how to get over my affair which people have kindly offered.You are right about having the chance to put my family first and I am trying to figure out the best / least hurtful way to do this with my h.

His wife had a near total breakdown when she found out he was shagging you again?
Jesus OP, have you no compassion? A woman who responds like that is not in a loveless, sexless marriage, she has been utterly betrayed by the man who promise to love and cherish her.
And the idea that you could split AFTER that and pretend your affair wasn't the reason is laughable. Who would ever believe you?