Can i ever get my morals and self respect back

[Peppa84]

Please be gentle with me....

Ok. Im married, ive been together with my husband for 10 years nearly. He is moany and stuck in his ways a little but is a fantastic man and father.
Drinking is a slight issue for him. By no means does he has a problem. Doesnt drink monday to friday, but then makes up for it at the wkend, he is the most irritating drunk man.

Anyway, totally off guard last year, and something i said i would never do, i started a dirty sordid affair with a married man. I dont know why, life was pretty good.
Its ended after a few weeks, but then we restarted it again in October. I kept trying to end it, but he kept reeling me back in.... until.... his wife found out.
Im mortified, the fog has lifted and ive realised what we have done. He is still lying to her, telling her we hadnt slept together but either way, she has kicked him out and he 'says' its looking doubtful they will sort it out.
We have finally blocked each other and its now time to move on.
Luckily, he has kept quiet about any of my details so i am now able to have the time to evaluate my life and see what needs fixing and how.
(Very aware he only didnt give my details to save his own bacon)
I feel awful for her and what she has seen, i cant stop thinking about how she felt when she first saw our convo's.
Ive totally fucked things up, i know this... i cant even call it a mistake as it happened more than once despite knowing it was wrong and trying to end things on numerous occasions

The hardest thing is knowing im not a good person. I know its all deserved. But can i be a good person again do you think?

I think that, because you have sounded remorseful, people here have wanted to be supportive. But there are some truths that you aren’t facing up to. You say the fog has lifted but it hasn’t- the affair hasn’t ended at a time if your choosing but because OMs wife has just found out. His life is imploding and you are bothered about whether he’s been nice enough to you.
Meanwhile there is absolutely NO chance that your affair hasn’t impacted on your marriage and deeply affected your DH - even though he doesn’t know. There will be so so many ways in which you will have been distant, distracted, blaming him to make you feel less guilty and deceiving him and therefore projecting distrust into him in turn (because we naturally distrust people we are deceiving).
All your emotions are now about how you OM has treated you - about not wanting this sudden end, about feeling rejected, and wanting to hurt OM and express your anger at being rejected - just because his wife had found out!
You are experiencing emotional turmoil that you can’t share with your DH and must hide from him (how's that going?) and you’ve made an adversary of the person that should be your best friend. His drinking could well be a response to the pain he is feeling from that gut sense that things aren’t right that he can’t explain and can’t put his finger on. Anyone who’s been cheated on knows that feeling.
And the idea that you can not tell your DH - and steal his life from him because he will be hurt to know how you have betrayed him and it will blow your life up - is not a good or moral thing to do. He has choices and deserves a life where he can trust and be loved and not deceived and betrayed by the person he sleeps next to.
Whatever problems led you to an affair are still going to be there. It’s not his fault at all - but these things need fixing. It will be so much harder now that you are planning to hide so much of who you are to expect him to become a better man.
And all your thoughts right now are for you and your guilt and feeling rejected by OM and how in a few weeks your going to think about improving your marriage by tackling the things your DH does and try not to cheat on him with someone else?
When you tell a truth it moves into your past and you grow, when you tell a lie it becomes part of your future.
I think you need to better understand yourself and your marriage and stop kidding yourself that as long as you can get away with it that you can forgive yourself and make things ok- you have a lot of work to do and the more the dishonesty the more the pain you carry into your future.

Thank you dadaist

Alot of what you say does speak sense and truth....
I do feel rejected, but its probably HOW the OM has handled it as to why im upset.
Perhaps because i was just the OW, then that allows for it to be that way, i dont know.
You are very right about the impact it has had on my family, i cant deny that. But, his drinking is not anything to do with that. This drinking 'habit' has been years this way.
Ive thought about telling him, i really have.. but i just cant. I cant see how it would make anything better. It would completely change everything, he may possibly take me back, but it would severely damage him mentally. I know, i should have thought about this before... bit whilst it was all happening, i played it down, that it wasnt as bad as realistically, it was!
It isnt so much a case of me getting away with it, because i now have to live with this, again, all my own doing, but this isnt going to be easy.
Thank you for your words, you have made me think and stopped me from giving OM a piece of my mind!! So you really have helped me.

Excellent post from Dadaist. I think you have doomed yourself to a pretty iffy future. You wanted OM AND DH. OM treated you badly. Poor DH doesn't even know there is a problem. Tell him the truth, and then both of you can decide what your future will be. Or live a lie. Entirely your call . I wish you well.

Everyone has their own views, i appreciate them all...
But, i do believe telling my husband would be the last selfish thing i could do in the long line of already selfish things ive done. Nothing good will come of it.
If i can work on myself, concentrate on my marriage and find more time for me and DH as a couple, not parents, i may be able to put this sorry mess behind me/us and be somewhat happy again. If not, then perhaps things should end... but he will never know about this.

HI OP - I really understand that you can’t face confessing. It really isn’t for his sake but as much yours, but I’m not going to judge you for that. Contemplating the loss of your marriage, your home, family - the shame and devastation - yes - if only these things were in sharper focus before.
So - resolve now that you are going to work at making things better, And if he ever does find out - that you will come clean. Far worse than the betrayal is the lies and gaslighting that people use when protecting themselves from the truth - and the harm then can be unforgivable.
And get some counselling to deal with what’s happened and where you go. Seeking help on here and being honest is an important first step.

Oh - and I’m glad you are resisting the addiction of contact from OM - COD that’s what it is. Just don’t contact OM. EVER. He is going through what you have escaped- life changing catastrophe. however discarded you feel - imagine how much time and energy you’d have to gently put your affair relationship to bed while your DH was finding out what you have done. The fog needs to lift now.

*cos that’s what it is

I've never heard so much claptrap as 'when you lie it grows with you'. No. No it doesn't. Not if you acknowledge the deceit and resolve to act on that yourself so that you don't relive it and don't carry it with you in your future actions.

So much sanctimony and judgement.

I will admit, its not something i agree with much either, however, some of it rings true... but i believe people can move on from being deceitful without owning up.
Ah, my mum is here, and im so tempted to tell her whats happened!!

Hi OP
Nobody on here has never made a mistake.
You've accepted it but not liking yourself for what you've done,but it doesn't make you a bad person.
If there is very little chance of him finding out then imo there is nothing to be gained from telling your husband,it may assuage your guilt but what will be the benefit?
Understanding why you did it won't be easy.I read today that the first step to self awareness was accepting you cannot escape from yourself.
I hope that you can eventually move on from this,don't hold onto it forever.
Good luck

@Bibbidee that was a cracking article

OP first and foremost you are not a bad person, but you are a selfish one as you know. Affairs gain ground and keep going because you have to convince yourself your betrayed partner is less than, is making you do this, when in reality this person is somebody you would rather forget about whist you are shagging someone else, but they are a person, he would be devastated by your actions regardless whether he has a drink on a weekend or not. I will never understand how people who have affairs always blame their cheated partner, if you had a problem with his drinking, let him Know, who. Knows perhaps he is drinking on the weekend because he is unhappy Stop blaming your partner and figure out what made you be a cheat, and how you can connect with your partner, because believe me he knows

babycow, and you're another one. Where has OP blamed her partner for her affair? Nowhere that I can see. You've said yourself, 'I can't understand...'. Well, there is it.

Dont tell him, so much hurt! Of course you can move on and do better next time. But only if you really, really want to. You meed to address the issues in your marriage.

Lyingwitch - a bit more accuracy and imagination needed I think. I said ‘a lie becomes part of your future.’ such as lies to cover the first lie - and so on. Lies don’t just go away - discussions of infidelity where you can’t show too much understanding which may give you away - but can’t be too condemning or you’re a hypocrite - saying you’ve never seen a film you in fact watched with Ow/OM or a place you went, or saying it was with someone else and hoping that person doesn’t inadvertantly reveal it wasn’t with them. People can and of course do live with these things - but it’s painful,and can crop up when you least expect a reminder of the deceit in your past. This stuf can affect us and what I’ve said is not claptrap! I’m not being judgemental I’m being truthful.

And there is a huge difference between saying marriage is impossible and saying because marriage is impossible that infidelity laced with deceit, betrayal is ok. It’s the breech of trust that matters. Why can’t you see that?

I don't need to 'see' your pontificating for anything other than what it is and I don't agree with you. You're not being 'truthful', you're presenting your view as some kind of 'fact'.

Babycow.... please re read this thread, not once have i blamed my husband, not once!

OP please don't tell your husband, at least not yet anyway.
The article Bibbidee gave a link to is by Esther Perel www.estherperel.com/

She has written 2 good books, the latest one is about affairs. She also has some Ted Talks online. Reading some of her articles might be helpful for you.

Good luck.

ps, Esther Perel advises against disclosing an affair to partners in most cases.

Uugh i hate these judgey people who claim to be speaking from a moral point of view while actually parading their own hurt and insecurities. Dadaist are you like this because you've betrayed someone and tried to hide it or because someone has done this to you? Or are you just terrified of something that might happen in the future to spoil your perfect world? Whatever your story i bet I'm right your generalisions are based on personal experience and concerns. There really are NO rules here, no right way to handle things, no guarantee that a will lead to b...
I find the preachy tone so grating but i also feel sorry for you judgey types, thinking you can make your world safe with made up rules. The world of emotions is complex, chaotic and fraught with uncertainty, conflict dilemmas. None of who love someone deeply are ever completely safe in reality and we are all capable of causing great hurt and pain.

Thank you Bixg xxx