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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

How can I have been so stupid

568 replies

Fuzzywig1 · 16/02/2018 08:40

I am in a terrible terrible mess and it is all my own fault.

This is long sorry.

Before I post please can I say that anything nasty or mean you say to me I have said to myself and it is not why I am here

I have been married for 21 years to a kind and gentle but emotionally distant man. I know he loves me but he does not find it easy to be vulnerable and show it in some ways. I am very warm and physically affectionate and he is not or not consistently meaning I often would feel lonely. Sex was also always on his terms and less than I wanted.

30 years ago I had an 18 month relationship with who I thought was ‘the one’ . Yes I was very young 22 and he was even younger (19). Anyway after a very very passionate relationship he went off to drama school and decided to leave me. I was heartbroken and never forgot him and never trusted that sort of passion again.

2 years ago and out of the blue an email arrived saying he had seen me at my sons football training. We started emailing agreed to meet ( I told my husband about this first meeting) blah blah yes we started an affair.

From the beginning he told me he always loved me but buried the feelings deep he wants us to be together we are twin souls. He left his wife and now lives on his own.

I did not ask him to do this by the way

I feel somehow enchanted by him and that I lose my reason ....

I have told my husband I want to get divorced but he cannot believe it and says we have always had a lovely and sweet relationship

Eventually he found out and now I am in an awful impasse.

The om said he does not want to put pressure on me but his moving out made its own guilt and pressure. His constant emailing showering of love and gifts etc have made me stupid.

My husband seems to just want to carry on as if nothing has happened and that I’m the end I will ‘cone Back to him’.

Over and over every day I change my mind about what to do. What will cause the least harm.

I have two lovely children aged 13 and 9 and I cannot bear the thought of hurting them. I have already hurt them by being distant from their father and sleeping separately from him.

I think I have now got to the point of knowing that I cannot do this. It is wrong, I have been deluded Abd stupid.

But I am now scared to tell the om who has changed his life for me and will be devastated

This email sounds so stupid.

I don’t think people would believe this of me.

OP posts:
TatianaLarina · 18/02/2018 19:06

I can see how this affair happened. I would be ballistic at carrying the whole domestic load while working FT in a job that enabled my DH to choose to work less. Add that to no affection and your relationship was in trouble way before OM turned up.

Fwiw we have a cleaner for 5 hours 2 days a week. That’s the minimum afaic. With your salary you could easily afford it, but that still leaves the issue of all the other non-cleaning chores.

I would be straight with your DH that to rebuild this marriage he has to step up and pull his weight equally, stop coasting on your high salary and goodwill, and engage himself in the relationship.

TatianaLarina · 18/02/2018 19:07

I mean 10 hours in total. ^^

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 18/02/2018 19:08

You are right but it is so hard as even when I don’t actively seek it there are so many associations

Films we saw, places we went for a drink, songs in Uber. Places I bought him gifts...

The temptation to enail is very strong but I am keeping myself busy

I had a very nice lunch with my friend and her husband and am looking forward ( but also slightly dreading) h and kids coming back. Dreading because I am not quite sure how to behave with h

OP posts:
springydaffs · 18/02/2018 19:21

You're sounding like Harriet with Mr Elton. A bit silly. The dog reminds you of him bcs he used to make a fuss of the dog?? Come on op!

Instead of thinking about him, think of the wonderful peace of him not in your life. Focus on the solution not the problem (

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 18/02/2018 19:33

i had abrief look but i thought im not a sex addict...

But i do seem to be a nutter...

Everything reminds me of him i am afraid.

But i will be ok.

He hasnt i think tried to contact me. Though i wouldnt necessarily know

OP posts:
Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 18/02/2018 19:34

Sorry nutter is not a very appropriate term.....

OP posts:
BackInTheRoom · 18/02/2018 19:53

Hey Fuzzy, have a go at these. science based:

goodmenproject.com/featured-content/hlg-36-questions-can-make-two-strangers-fall-love/

TatianaLarina · 18/02/2018 19:54

You're sounding like Harriet with Mr Elton

🤣

Yep, perhaps put all your billet doux and leaves and bits of string into a box and burn them OP? It’s a shame you can’t burn ITunes...

Every time you’re reminded of him remind yourself also of his insincerity.

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 18/02/2018 19:54

Good luck, Fuzzy. Thanks

You've got a second chance with your husband, and most people wouldn't get that. I wouldn't give it, in his shoes. Make the most of it.

springydaffs · 18/02/2018 19:54

You don't have to be a sex addict to get a lot out of SLAA. Most people I know in SLAA aren't sex addicts but love addicts - obsessive addictive compulsive behaviour in relationships. Aka limerence.

FantasticButtocks · 18/02/2018 21:07

About putting his emails into junk but not deleting them...ask yourself what you want them for. The answer can only be I think - in case I want to look at them again. But then you've said you are aware that that won't help, to hold on to all this. I know it's hard to let go, but it will be much harder if you don't.

A suggestion: Get in the mood and go (without having a last look) and highlight the lot and press delete and then delete your deleted folder. Think of it as your resolve, your confirmation to yourself that you have made a deeply thought out decision for the best and this is you saying goodbye to him in your head and letting go.

Listen to some totally different music, all the Beethoven symphonies at full blast or Scott Joplin or Janice Joplin or whatever, as long as it isn't about him. Walk different routes. Make an actual effort and show yourself your own commitment to what you've decided. Pay yourself that respect. That you refuse to be controlled by this anymore and are taking charge!

You just need to be brave for a bit. And gradually it will become less difficult. Flowers

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 18/02/2018 22:45

Yes that is all true and what I need to do

It is very hard to do though and I am afraid there will be some incremental steps to get there

Part of what is hard is letting go of a belief about something

OP posts:
beachcomber243 · 19/02/2018 09:50

Then do it.

Very hard is: a life threatening diagnosis, losing a child, being paralysed, losing a limb, being homeless/in debt/in poverty...

On one hand you have been given a second chance of a decent family life with a loving, if flawed husband. On the other a real threat to your mental and in the long term, physical health, losing your family, husband and respect of people.

Just click 'delete', that isn't hard. Then deal with healing yourself [yes, that won't be easy but distract yourself]...and think yourself lucky you missed disaster. Get off the romantic fuzziness...and face reality.

I wish you well, that's why I'm being blunt.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 19/02/2018 13:01

I know you are right.

And i am trying but if you have not felt this you would realise it is hard - and of course it is not the same as losing a child.

I have had some very long open chats with my husband and it has been good.

I feel terrible about what i have done to him.

I felt this morning getting ready to go to work how amazing it is just to be able to do normal things and to be able to put some earrings in that h bought me without feeling awful and like i should not wear them.

It has been much better them coming back though i think the space on my own enabled me to actually break it off.

OP posts:
TatianaLarina · 19/02/2018 13:12

I hope on his side your DH feels terrible for leaving you with the domestic load for so long...

Whatwouldkeithrichardsdo · 19/02/2018 13:18

She's probably on here for some rational, balanced advice not clouded by judgement.

Wind your neck in. It's not a witch trial.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 19/02/2018 14:07

be nice everybody! I think Tatiana meant that nicely......

he said today that he had realised he hadnt appreciated me and that we had not given our relationship enough attention...

I know i will get shouted at for this but i am really worried about OM. I know it was all his own choices but i do worry now he is on his own and will feel terrible

I know its all his own fault but as much as i was driven by emotion so was he

OP posts:
springydaffs · 19/02/2018 15:01

Well shoot me down but in my loooong experience you don't have to worry about men bcs, by and large, they are fully capable of looking after themselves. Obviously there are some exceptions but almost all conform to this.

He has shown he knows how to get what he wants. When all this is over you'll look back and realise you were caught up in something that just wasn't real.

Really, you don't need to worry about him.

Original poster
Fuzzywig1 · 19/02/2018 15:52

I expect you are right.

It is just when somebody describes themselves as in unbearable pain and broken it is rather awful.

Oh my what a mess.

How i wish i had listened 2 years ago

OP posts:
Guardsman18 · 19/02/2018 16:25

But Fuzzy, your husband and children would be broken too. Agree that Tatiana was trying to make you see that husband has faults too.

I hope you feel ok today xx

LizzieSiddal · 19/02/2018 16:47

It is just when somebody describes themselves as in unbearable pain and broken it is rather awful

Of course it is, but also if you’d chosen to leave your H, he’d be saying the feeling “broken”.
You can’t just switch off thinking about OM but try to emerge yourself in stuff which keeps you busy and you will start to think less about him.

TatianaLarina · 19/02/2018 17:03

Fwiw I’m not sure that KeithRichards was responding to me (don’t care if it was). I thought it a reply to the earlier posts attacking the OP for having an affair.

TatianaLarina · 19/02/2018 17:04

I understand it’s hard to hear that from OM OP, but it’s intended to be. There will be broken people either way and it’s better that it’s the OM, who broke himself frankly, than your kids.

FantasticButtocks · 19/02/2018 17:43

He may be broken...but you are not the one to fix him, he will have to sort something else out. Him telling you that...is also a way to keep you hooked, and keep him in your mind. And it's working.

If you start communicating again with him, what actual good would it do him? It would give him false hope, and would be cruel. He will recover faster without your input. And so will you.

I understand you feel guilty about your treatment of both these men, in different ways, I really do understand that. But really, you need to keep your attention on your DH and family now, not on OM, or you will drive yourself crazy.

Delete the emails. It is self protection to do so. Also, if you truly feel bad about how you've treated DH, you need to fully engage with him now, and with the process of repair, not with one foot still in OM camp, that's not fair.

IrianOfW · 19/02/2018 17:49

He's so self-indulgent isn't he? He's broken? No more broken that your H I would imagine but he's more emotionally incontinent and doesn't care how he upsets you.