Moving on after having an affair

[Needtomoveon1]

I'd really like some advice and support here, even though I know I don't deserve it and lots of people will want to flame me.

I'm a married man (5 yrs), with one DC, and I had a 6 month affair with another woman that started last year. The other woman is single, says she loves me, and to be honest I think I love her too.... or I'm at least infatuated with her. I ended our affair a few weeks ago and told her that I was going to work on saving my marriage, but I just can't get her out of my mind. I constantly think about her and want to contact her all the time (but I haven't). I've been waiting for things to get better with time but they don't seem to be.

My wife doesn't know and I've decided not to tell her. I know this is controversial and some people will think I should - but if I can resolve all this without causing her pain that seems the best option.

I've not had sex with the OW. We've kissed and been intimate but this affair wasn't about the sex for me. I felt a deep emotional connection with her, and just enjoyed being with her or talking to her. I'm not claiming this is any better (it's not), but I just wanted to provide some context that this wasn't about purely physical stuff.

I want to try and save my marriage, not least for my DC. In hindsight I let things with my wife go stale and we had a passionless marriage. Having a child a few years ago no doubt changed the dynamic of our relationship, and I think we both got lazy and became more like housemates than lovers. The disengagement (on my part) was very gradual and I didn't even realise it was happening until it was too late. The romantic love in our marriage had evaporated and this is what I think the OW provided.

There are of course loads more details in all this that I won't go into in the interests of keeping this post short. My main question is: How do I move on? There must be others out there who have been through similar. Does this get easier or do you always think about your affair partner? Is it possible to save the marriage or have a ruined things?

I'm sorry to all those who have been on the receiving end of affairs, and I really don't want to come across as insensitive. I know what I've done is very wrong and I don't deserve (nor am I looking for) any sympathy. I've made a big mistake and now am in a mess of my own making. Just really want to find my way out of it.

It probably would make me feel better in a weird kind of way! But seriously, egotistical or not, I know that isn’t he case here.

'But seriously, egotistical or not, I know that isn’t he case here.'

Don't kid yourself.

Why do I want my marriage to work? Because I have a great wife who I do love and care for, and was “in love” with at one point. Some of that got lost along the way through both of us taking our focus off the relationship, and then I did what I did which has threatened to destroy it. I’m hoping it can be rediscovered if the right effort is put in.

I guess you’re right though, if this marriage turns out not to be right for me (even after trying my best) then perhaps no marriage is right for me and monogamy doesn’t suit me. I hope that isn’t the case though as the thought of that scares and depresses me really. What that means is I’m going to be incapable of having a life partner and will end up with a string of relationships and then alone.

That last response was very self-centred when I read it back but the question was about why I want marriage and think it’s right for me.

I also think marriage is great for kids and society in general

You can't say that marriage is great for society and children while simultaneously shitting all over it and betraying your wife and child.
Your attitude is repugnant.

Mzcracker - just because I’m shit at it doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a good thing in our society. Don’t get your logic

Needtomoveon, take the responses here with a pinch (large handful) of salt. Nobody else but you and your wife know what your marriage is like and you're largely receiving projected viewpoints here.

No, having affairs isn't a great thing to do. It doesn't need saying really so why people keep on saying the same thing is anybody's guess. You know where you are with your marriage and where you want to be - and you're cognisant of the steps that you will need to take to make that possible. Nobody else's opinion really matters although I'll add smilethoyourheartisbreaking to those worth reading. I'm all for pragmatism; self-flagellation not at all.

You're marriage is already broken, you want to piece it together like glue, fair enough but the cracks are never going to go away.

How you can say you love your wife is beyond me when you were shagging someone else for six months, oh no sorry you never had sex, but you got intimate, same thing in my book OP!

Really not trying to put you down but I think you honestly should tell your wife, split, and then both of you can decide if it something you both want to work on and try and get over.

I honestly don't see how you can love someone and do what you did.

*Your

Thanks Lyingwitch and smileyourheartisbreaking. I know some of it is projection but I understand it, as people who have been on the receiving end of this kind of thing have every right to get annoyed by people like me. I’m on here because I really do appreciate people’s views though, and the ability to get things off my chest. I can’t/won’t talk to my friends and family about this so it’s really helpful

But in all of this there are two women who have been deeply deceived
And now you’ve chose what’s best for you it’s all ok.
I know no one has any sympathy for the OW. But you’ve basically used her to work out how you feel about your marriage.
You could have just done that like a grown up.
Instead of fucking with peoples lives. I’m sure she believed that you truly loved her and now she’s just become some silly infactuation you had when you were feeling a bit stale

I don’t feel sorry for the OW at all. If you fuck about with a married man you deserve what you get.

Hunting - I agree that I’ve fucked her around, but I didn’t set out to hurt her intentionally. And actually I was honest with her all along. I never made any promises of a future and she knew my situation fully. That doesn’t change the fact that I broke her heart. And yes I feel terrible about that too. I’ve chosen to try and put my feelings for OW within the right context as I’m now finally trying to be honest with myself (something I’ve not done for months) about how and why my affair started. The feelings I had about her were real feelings and felt like love, but the fact is that it was a fantasy relationship, not based in he real world. And I agree with people who said I projected my fantasy life into her. Like I said in my initial post, if I had been single and we had a relationship in the real world, then it could have worked... but thinking like that isn’t going to help me move on and reinvest in my marriage.

And this isn’t going to go down well with most, but breaking things off with OW was really hard and worse than any breakup I’ve experienced, even though I knew it was the right thing to do. I didn’t just cast her aside without a second thought

Op all this talking around the houses is getting you nowhere. Yes you're very self centred and only focussed on yourself.
The rest is all excuses and trying to put off what needs to be done.
You've already ruined the lives of 2 women and a child. What else are you waiting for?
I get the feeling you're hedging your bets as you clearly don't want to be honest and transparent.
You're talking out of your arse.

I think the point is the dishonesty of it all. You made both women believe that you loved them. Yes the ow should never have got involved and saying you didn’t promise her anything is a bit of a cop out, I would never say anything to anyone about love unless I knew it was really true, getting swept up in the “fantasy” is just childish
I think you really need to reassess everything about your life.
But anyway I wish you well, and I hope the other women in your life can get over what you’ve done to them

In all honesty, you won't ever be able to 'move on' while you are deceiving your wife.

Tell her what you have done; then you can 'move on' together, or apart.

The affair was caused by your thoughts and beliefs, broadly that your needs (to be happy) were more important than those of your family unit.
You talk about being a horrible person and wanting to do better but still won't be honest with your wife.That is pretty fundamental.You must have talked about your dw negatively to ow..how else did you justify your "unhappiness". What lies or exaggerations did you tell OW? You need to be honest with yourself about this.

I also think your view of OW is distorted.Unless she is very young and inexperienced she has personal responsibility.Surely she didn't fall for the "my wife doesn't understand me, we are like flatmates" line.
She has to take a long hard look at herself, most ow I have met believed that they were "better" than the wife, they convince themselves that the cheater is trading up and only they can make the cheater happy.

However affairs never reveal the true person, its all smoke and mirrors and promises about the future. The attributes you take for granted in your wife may not exist in OW .I have seen this happen often.A relationship conducted in secret is not a real relationship as you don't go through the usual dating steps of meeting family and friends etc and negative traits are usually hidden.
Be honest.I think your dw deserves better.

If you have any respect for your wife at all then tell her and let her decide. It isn't your decision to make and if you wanted to save her from pain then you could have done that 6 months ago. The pain of having your partner be completely distant and cold without knowing why and then discovering the affair through other means and trying to deal with the deception, excuses and lies is the worst. Tell her. Give her that at least.

One thing to mention OP, your other woman, she knew you were married, knew you had a child , so you were either telling her lies/ untruths about your marriage, in order to justify why you were seeing her as well, or she actually hasn't got very good morals, so not quite such a nice person really...,, ... Think on it.

This process of "talking it through" on here and another forum (plus some proper nights sleep etc) is helping me a lot and already starting to provide me with the clarity that my feelings for the OW are a projection of my own issues and most likely nothing like love.

What an utter twat !