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.

*or quite a long time

I know you only wanted a response from someone who has had an affair or been in your situation but I'm going to put my two penneth in. I think you should leave your husband. I don't know whether you should tell him about the affair, but the right thing to do is to leave the marriage. You should not carry on with this OM because he will not leave his wife. He would have done so a long time ago if he was going to. A wise person once told me you can tell a lot about a person by their actions. He has chosen to stay. He is definitely not leaving.

I feel for you because it must be an awful situation to be in but in the past I have been tempted to cheat, and that is when I chose to get out.

Be kind to yourself. This will be rough no matter what you choose.

What MM has done by exposing the A to his OH, is exploding it. By telling her he's in love with you, he's shared your sordid little secret and brought it out in the open. Affairs thrive from being hidden and secret. As he's apparently "chosen" to stay with his wife - or rather she with him - try and get your head around the fact that he may have come to his senses and realized it's not you he wants.

But feel free to feel like star crossed lovers. Sprinkle yourself with fairy dust, saddle your unicorn and ride off into the golden sunset.

This so-called ultimatum that his wife made - you or the children - is likely to be untrue in that his wife can’t prevent him sharing custody if he wanted it.

My ex left me for his OW. I had a 2 year old and was 31 weeks pregnant with our daughter at the time.
It does happen. Admittedly not often, and unfortunately it happened to me.

You never know, you may well get your happy ever after.

I haven't read all the posts, as in a bit of a rush, but didn't want to read and run. So apologies if I am repeating here...

OP, you are going through the grieving process. I will dispute anyone who says that you aren't, you have lost someone important to you, sadly who has essentially betrayed you... and so you need to deal with this first. You can only do this by cutting him off. None of this, 'oh but I tried and I can't business.' You can! and you have to! There is no other way. He is filling your head with things, and nothing is making sense in your mind. How can you possibly move forward with all this still happening? So first off.... now, right now... block and delete his number. His email address. HIs Facebook account. However you are able to be in contact. And no, don't go writing down his number, just in case you need it. You DONT need it, just delete it. All of it.

Then, chances are you are going to feel this gaping hole.... it is normal. Then you start. Day one. Take it each day. Whether you speak to your dh now, or at another time, is up to you. You need to be in the right frame of mind for it, and I don't think you are right now. Your whole life and thinking is about MM right now. Then you think about what it is you want. I am not saying that you must go and tell your dh right now, but I am going to go with the fact that he surely must know something isn't right. But that is phase 2. Phase 1 is getting through the day, any way possible. I know heartache, and heartbreak. It feels like you will never get there. But you will OP. But you need to be the strong one here.

I don't think he has told his wife everything. But, she is willing to give him a chance, and she is his wife. She gets that right, he said he doesn't want to leave her, and she is giving him a chance to make right everything he has told her (that I doubt he has told you).

Try to break your daily routine somehow. If you would msg at 7pm for example.... be sure to be on a walk, just doing something else that breaks from the norm of the past 3 years.

He isn't going to leave her OP. You must see that now.

I wish you strength OP. You have more than you think you do right now.

I am just going to post from a different point of view, because I have been there too.

My DP loves me but dithered over leaving his wife. He wanted to but never quite was brave enough to, mainly due to children.

It’s a big step to change yours and someone else’s life over night.

In my situation I waited and he did leave her. We now have a DD and ex has remarried and they have a new DD too.

Read isthismylifenow's post very carefully. It is very true

I've not had an affair but something you said stood out to me. You said he was everything missing in your life - but what I've read here sounds like a good portion of your time together has been - heartache, longing, denial, betrayal, lies, pain, drama, angst, shame and guilt.

Pretty sure it's ok to 'miss' those things out of life as far as possible.

(you might say 'everything missing' is a figure of speech - but it's a way of blocking out the real negativity that is a huge part of, if not the majority of, this whole situation. For you, him, your spouses and the children.)

Popping on to agree with isthismylifenow I posted similar y'day.

To reiterate:

OP you do need to accept that the affair is over and he has closed the door on you. But for goodness sake do not rush into telling your H or making any hasty decisions right now.

Please try to ignore the people posting from the moral high ground urging you to hasty action to tell your husband or leave him. Words are cheap and they aren't going to have to live with the fall-out. Any couples counsellor will tell you this.

I’m not giving you any pity whatsoever! I think you are feeling sorry for yourself when in fact you should feel sorry for everyone else apart from the MM.

Also, on your comment earlier saying that aside from this you are a good wife. I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that. Just because you cook him dinner is doesn’t mean you can have an affair. I think he should be the judge of that once you’ve given him the information, I’d be very surprised if he agreed with you.

My husband and I were discussing your predicament at breakfast and we both agreed that the ‘way to tell him’ is as soon as possible so that he has all the information on what his marriage really is. If you had the choice of knowing you were being cheated on or not, would you honestly want to be kept on the dark?

In a very similar situation
I did leave my dp. He didn't leave his, though confessed all.
I have no words of wisdom. Though I agree it's like being an addict. I swing between total anger and total love. Neither of which is normal
Seeing a therapist helps. I'm not sure I'll ever get over this.
The only thing I don't regret is leaving my dp. Even when I am fucking lonely, I know it's better to be like this than fucking lonely and stuck

Three years.

Of him lying, cheating, betraying, not just his wife, but his kids, too.....

His wife had a near, total breakdown, poor bloody girl, but what about their kids !? I bet their kids emotions were dragged through the grinder, not once but TWICE !!!!!

Just because you could get your emotional fix and he could get his shag on the side whilst professing verbal ' love ' diarrhoea '

His wife's mind must be in total and constant mental torture and turmoil !? The kids, in their inner most consciousness must feel the hurt and tension.

Your husband. You say you will tell him all, when you are emotionally strong enough and ' We'll see if there is anything worth saving '

Seriously !? Do you think you really have any right to have a say in it ?

I'm sure as many others have said, your husband has been mentally tortured as well, but unlike the MM's wife, didn't have the benefit of knowing why.

You say you want to know how to get over ' it '

Well, you take a leaf out of MM's book, and you unburden yourself, you sit your husband down and tell him, that you had an affair because you fell out of love with him and you fell in love with someone else and you planned to leave him and set up a new life with him and all the children......

Then do the same thing with your kids.

But I'm not sure if you will, I think at best you'll minimise things.

The other guy will never leave his wife, but if not you, he'll find some other shag on the side whilst professing undying love.

It maybe your husband will want to save the marriage, but it isn't your choice, if you tell him the whole truth, he'll be in a shit hot lawyers ' office A.S.A.P. arranging a divorce.

The MM is ' sorted '. His breadwinner wife is bending over backwards and probably giving him a deluge of sex.

When your husband knows the full extent of your betrayal, he'll want out, and the chance to build a new life with someone who he can love and cherish, and who will return that love, because clearly, you can't.

And you. You'll have a clear conscience. You can grieve, be honest with yourself and others, and plan a new life that revolves around you and the kids, and in time, hopefully meet someone who is a free as you.

Sometimes a married cheater will stay in an unsatisfactory marriage because they don't want to compromise their involvement with their children, or sometimes because they fear their spouse (their children's other parent, who they don't hate, they have just fallen out of love with) won't be able to cope with them separating.

I haven't had an affair, but I'm going to comment anyway.

You are second best. That is absolutely clear. He could have left his wife, he hasn't. For whatever reason, you come after her in his list of priorities. This has probably always been the case.

In my experience of watching friends have affairs, most men have them as a way of amusing themselves and not being bored. I would be willing to bet that less than half of them really have any intention of ever leaving. It's almost like they go into an alternate reality for a while which is dreamy and fun and a total fantasy, but when the shit hits the fan and the affair is exposed and it becomes a real life choice between spouse and OW, the spouse tends to weigh more heavily.

I feel sorry for his poor wife, who should kick his arse and leave.

Oh OP, it will get better one step at a time.

There are 2 issues here, MM (who you are well and truly blinded by) and your current marriage.

You don't know MM, I know you feel like you do. But the truth is that only MM knows his true self- he's lied to his wife and he's lied to you. I bet you have lots of things in common with him, I bet you share the same outlook on life, same dreams, same goals. Only you don't, it's all part of his bullshitting act to make another woman fall for him and keep both you and his wife exactly where he wants you. You've effectively been having sex with a stranger. Why would you do that?

You've got to go NC, delete his number/email/social media. Change your own phone number too so he can't get to you again. I promise you a few months down the line you won't believe you ever gave that arsehole the time of day.

You need to understand WHY you had an affair in the first place, people in happy relationships DON'T have affairs. If you can't understand/learn to meet your own emotional needs you are just as likely to succumb to an affair again. Counselling is helpful for this.

As for your husband, I'm not going to say whether or not you should tell him but he probably suspects something has been wrong over the past 3 years. You may well find that once you've started paying attention to how your own grass is growing instead of how green someone else's looks that you want to save your marriage and put in the effort and counselling needed to do so.

Oh op.... I am sending you huge unmumsnet hugs.
I had a similar situation.
Our affair was discovered after 18months
Again it was the children that stopped us... People often say men will leave if they really want to... I don't believe that.
I also don't always believe that all men are just lying to the ow to keep having sex. Men do genuinely fall in love too... But actually leaving a marriage and children is very hard and when faced with it can feel too hard.
In my case we talked about it and stayed in our marriages, it was miserable, we didn't last long and our affair resumed. It was very different then, we had both agreed we weren't leaving our familie until children older.
We had same plans as you to do it without disclosing affair.
My dp left his wife 5yrs later, well before I expected him too... He did without me to run to, he did because.... Well I don't know why just at that point.
I know those intervening yrs were difficult, I don't care what people say about it must have been difficult for his ex wife eyc etc... I hated thinking of him being happy with the status quo... Jumping through hoops as his ex wife never forgave him and policed his every move for years...to keep her happy.
But we did make it the end, and we are very happy, the girls are all OK and we are good friends with my ex and his new dp.
My dp ex wife still has not accepted it.

Basically op... He may have admitted all as the pressure of all the lies etc got to him, maybe after finding out his wife has been monitoring him every second and it all got too much, maybe he hoped she'd chuck him out and make decision for him, maybe she used kids as bargaining tools, who knows.... I know it feels like hell now but do not tell your dh.
You are looking for consoling,you want someone to talk to, your dh isn't going to help you.
Unless you want to leave, keep quiet.

Pm me if you want.

I find some of these comments unsavoury and awkward to read.

It's very concerning how some people have absolute no concern for their own partner or the wife of the man they were cheating with....

Surely if it's 'true love' you would be happy for them even if they choose to stay with their wife? It just screams me me me and selfishness all round.

It's bloody awful.

He won't leave. He might, who can really know until it happens.
But in either case you need to take things day by day. You need to get it out of your system somehow. I don't think you are horrid or despicable. I do however think that you need to have an honest discussion with your husband.

Clearly, the only not way that you’d end up together is if his wife threw him out and declared the marriage over.

If you don’t love your husband then you need to leave him. It sounds like you don’t and it’s extremely unfair to string him along which you wait for MM’s wife to throw him out. If you care about your h you need to confess and let him go. It’s cruel for him to worry about his marriage when you’ve checked out.

It’s much easier to find the spark with a person who you’re not sharing boring adult responsibilities with. MM wants his wife to throw him out before he commits. He’s either a liar who’s lying to both of you or a coward who knows that your affair won’t be as passionate once you’re a couple and dealing with the mundane like who clears up the vomit when one of the kids puke or not seeing his kids on Christmas every year.

I would think about sorting out your own malfunctions before you entertain the prospect of the future and relationships. The impression I get from when I read about your husband its that he's a good guy but doesn't bring you happiness, your in a bad place. Only you can give your self happiness, you can expect others to be your happiness providers.

Lots of people have relationships that don't work out. But not everyone cheats. Cheating is indicative of someone who needs to learn how to deal with their own personal issues in a mature manner. Rather than running away in search of other happiness providers. Stop cheating DH like a dick, its very disrespectful. Be honest, own the mistakes you have made in a tangible way. Show some respect to your other half and be truthful with him. Its easy to say oh ill do it at some point down the line. But everyday you hold it off is another day you show a complete lack of respect for him. Then you need to work on sorting your own flaws out. Maybe get some counselling to help you locate the source of your unhappiness. If you don't you'll keep repeating these mistakes and never find the way to be personally happy. Mistake that hurt not just your self. Learn how to be the provider of your own happiness, discover your self.

Thank you to everyone who has responded - especially to those who have responded with helpful thoughtful advice, I am very grateful.

Breaking up with your current h will mean that if you meet Mr Right then you’ll be ready to pursue an honest this healthier relationship. It’s best to break up with your h sooner rather than later so that you can show some respect to your children’s father and work towards a healthy co-parenting relationship.