How can I have been so stupid

[Fuzzywig1]

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.

You know what I would do, OP?

I'd end the affair; I'd get a divorce; I'd live on my own with my kids for enough time to get the assistance to get my life - inner and outer - back on track.

Fuzzy, I don’t condemn you in the slightest.
I have been in an almost identical situation.
Both in respect of the marriage and the Other man.
It was many many years ago now and like you I was completely torn and all the time knew it was a hot mess completely of my own making.

I did dump the OM . Please please do the same. I get th impression that is what deep down you want to do but are scared to tell OM.
HE WILL BE FINE .
YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HIM .

Just do it and tell your husband you have done it. Perhaps Do it by phone with your husband by your side .

Looking back I get a cold sweat at the thought that I might have gone with him. It was many years ago and I feel nothing , not even a flicker of love or lust for OM

You never know, this may be just the shock that improves your marriage.

PM me if you like x

So he's agreed to mediation with his wife and you still think or thought he was worth ending your marriage for?

How have you justified that to yourself? If he is claiming to be your soulmate yada, yada, yada, why would he even consider it in the first place?

Believe me OP, the misery you are experiencing in your marriage will be diddly squat compared to that the OM will bring you.

I know it is easy to get swept up in it all, but you have lived 30 years without this man in your life. If you really don't know what to do, tell OM that you want no contact at all for say 1-2 years giving you the chance to work on your marriage once and for all.

If OM loves you as he claims, what is another year or two spent apart to enable you get your head and heart sorted.

If he is no longer around 2 years later, you will have your answer. You will have tried to save your marriage and even though you may not be able to repair it, you will at least know that you tried.

He lived with her, had sex with her but they did not usually sleep in the same bed but it was not 'formal' it sort of gradually happened.
He left she did not kick him out.
But nor did she seem devastated he left. Unhappy yes but not devastated.

We can't know what was going on in their home, but this would probably be how my ex would have described the end of our relatinship, if I hadn't got evidence of his affair.

When he met his OW we were still living in a normal relationship - sex, same bedroom, the usual. After he met her, he changed: stayed out late or overnight, didn't want to come to bed with me, treated me like I was worthless, didn't look me in the eye, stopped talking to me, sabotaged any attempts to do anything nice together, treated me roughly when we did have sex. I suspected an affair but thought I needed proof. But it got so bad that we agreed he should move out. It would have been just as you describe if I hadn't got evidence of his affair and thrown him out.

OW knew nothing about anything. He was telling her that we had lived for years like brother and sister, and I was not bothered. When he left I was in fact diagnosed as severely depressed and on medication, but how would she have known? How do you know if any of the things he tells you are true?

I never for a moment thought about getting him back, though, as he treated me so badly that of course I don't want to be married to him.

Just a little food for thought.

I can't help but think this sounds like a reverse. If not an actual reverse, one that mimics one where the DH and DW are in opposite positions of jobs/income, old flame, and life opportunities.

A man coming on here would have been crucified for posting what the OP has posted, no allowance given: 21 years thrown away for an old flame, and surface concerns for the children. Oh, and he earns 5x as much, but wouldn't want his wife to go without ... sure ... that will last.

I don't have much sympathy for the OP, tbh, male or female. Instead of sorting her marriage out, or looking to end it if she was so terribly unhappy, she pursued a relationship outside of it. And is now more worried about 'his' feelings than her husband and children's feelings. While drip feeding reasons why we should be sympathetic, and yet claiming she's beaten herself up over this.

Sorry, but no. Sort yourself out. Your poor children. And why do you think you'll get custody. If you were truly sorry and worried about them, perhaps their father should keep the house and have primary custody since you can clearly afford to start over easily while he cannot.

Not a reverse. Sigh.

Do you actually want to be with the other guy, or are you just feeling bad because he left his wife "for you", because if its the latter, thats his problem not yours.

If you want honest opinions come back and post as a man.

This was me 5 years ago but the OM was a new friend. We are together. Happy. Deliriously actually . Children v happy. Ex DH remarried and happy. It hurt at the time like he'll but life is better now. My children see love not bare tolerance in a marriage . They love the 4 adults in their lives and their stepsibs. We are a truly happy family.

I have just spoken to the OM.

I was supposed to see him today and i told him i am not going to see him.

He asked me if i wanted to end it. I said yes but it made me feel sick.

He has said he is there and if i want to go and see him then he is there but he will not try and persuade me because it needs to be my choice.

I know what he says is true re leaving etc because i have been there all through it whilst he made his own decision.

Mediation isnt counselling - it is them sorting out their settlement. I have heard his wife on the phone speaking to him and even seen an email from her.

I think i would get shared custody because that is what the solicitor told me.

I was not terribly unhappy. I was lonely.

OM just said he loves me is only happy when in my company and we have an amazing chance to be together. But if i cannot take that chance he will understand. and that this torturing of him, me and my husband needs to end. Which it does.

I am slightly surprised by the way at the attitude to my earning so much. People seem almost cross about it. actually i did not want to be in that posiition (breadwinner).

When kids were small i took time off and worked PT - my husband is self employed. But he does not bother to chase work particularly - he takes what comes. He did when he was younger and worked very hard when the children were very small. Now he doesnt because he doesnt want to.

It does mean he sometimes takes my son to school or picks him up - rather than the nanny. But only on odd occasions and some weeks not at all.

It hasnt been a conscious decision of i will earn the money and you take your foot off to help care for kids as it only makes a small difference ie we still have to have a nanny.

I just spoke to my friend and she is going to come round. she said that before this she would not have said I was unhappy but that OM has a hold on me.

how do i PM people?

Tumblrpigeon how do i do that and thank you

I don't see a relationship with the OM lasting. All the gifts and lovebombing will come to an end and you'll regret it if you leave your H for him.

I have heard his wife on the phone speaking to him and even seen an email from her.

Absolutely not your place to read her emails!

I think i would get shared custody because that is what the solicitor told me.

Not that straight forward. It depends.

I know it isnt my place. OM showed me the email. In fact he pasted it into an email to me.

I thought that was bad of him to do. It was recent. He has been separated for a year.

I'm in a somewhat similar position except we haven't met up, no declarations have been made and I'm leaving, but I'm leaving for me. He doesn't even know I'm leaving. I know there are feelings on both sides but nothing has been spoken about and I want it to stay that way.

Personally I couldn't be with someone that wasn't affectionate. But only you know if it's a deal breaker and if it's something you can work through. I would suggest individual and couples counselling, move away from OM for the time being and choose the path that's right for you and your kids

You PM by clicking on the three dots on the post of the person you want to contact and press PM.

The view may be different on a tablet or computer though.

You seem to be relishing the drama almost too much.

I hate the drama.

I have hated the lying.

I have felt sick since the beginning, i have lost a stone and a half in weight (i was normal sized but am scrawny), i have fallen down stairs, fallen over, got an eye ulcer from stress.

I remember in the first time of being with this man my best friend (male) said to me that he had somehow felt i was not myself and that i had been 'taken over' by the OM>

Why i would allow that to happen to me i do not know and need to think about it.

But i do know that in deciding not to see him today i already feel stronger and like i have some agency and self respect back.

IMy h wrote me a letter a couple of months ago and i just re read it.

I have had doubts about this OM and some of the things you are saying are making me realise that i just squashed them out.

Limmerance makes people stupid - it is an addiction

But it is not real

Sorry but you weren't taken over by him. You're not a victim so stop painting yourself as one. As mentioned previously I am in a similar (ish) position but have made the conscious decision to have no meetings, declarations or promises. You could have done that too.

I think you'll feel better about yourself if you just admit that you are 100% in the wrong and were a willing participant in a 2yr affair

I could have done that yes.

I didnt.

I was weak.

At the beginning it did not feel dangerous. But it was. and i was blind and stupid.

But humans can be.

And i would never have even thought of leaving my husband if this had not happened.

Willing is only in part true. Not all of me is willing.

Are you writing a novel?

Now it appears to he all the OM fault

You were having a full blown affair for years.

You are responsibility for your own actions and stop blaming everyone else.

But you both had the planning and foresight to stop sleeping with your partners. So your eyes were wide open. We all make mistakes of course but please own yours. The way you are painting this story it's almost as if you were coerced into doing something.

I do wonder why people enjoy being mean and umpleasant to strangers.

It is rather cowardly really.

I wonder if they are similar in real life or if they are the sort of people who make sarcastic comments behind people's backs.

I am not proud of what i have done. I made the mess by not being strong enough not to. and if i could turn the clock back i would.

But i would also not have allowed myself to mutter my dissatisfactions into my pillow and would have made my husband attend counselling with me

I do wonder why people enjoy being mean and unpleasant to strangers

I tend to think being mean and unpleasant to a husband or wife is actually shittier.

It is rather cowardly really.

As is having an affair rather than addressing problems in a marriage.