Did you have an affair and leave your marriage

[Dandylie]

I am in the throes of ending an affair and I am finding it excruciatingly painful.

I knew I had to end it and try to fix things in my marriage but I can’t get OM out of my head. I feel that I love him (although I know that he has many flaws) and, although my husband is a decent, funny, kind man, my feelings are so much stronger for the OM and I am finding it so hard to stop fantasising about what could be with OM if I left my marriage.

I KNOW that I am being ridiculous and that if I actually left DH for OM it would probably be disastrous and I would soon see that the reality doesn’t live up to the fantasy I have created in my head.

So I am looking for stories from people who have left their DH for their OM and regretted it. Or anyone who stayed with their DH and is really glad they did and their infatuation with OM went away.

(If you left your marriage and are now blissfully happy, I am happy for you but please don’t post, it’s not what I need to hear!)

Please don’t bother telling me what a terrible person I am - I know that already and trust me I would NEVER have an affair again.

It's totally up to you what you do. There's no pressure at all from me. And no judgement at all either. Just what you've said makes me worry about you. It'll work out either way though, ok?

I didn't want to have sex with my exH ever since our DD was born (that was 8 years ago!) He was a abusive in many ways (he blackmailed me for sex millions of times, gropped me in public, etc). I genuinely thought I was asexual. That it wasn't him it was me.

Well I can tell you that after being with another man who is very attractive to me, my sex drive is off the charts and clearly I was never asexual, nor broken.

Water the grass you're on and make it greener instead of jumping the fence.

I left EXH for OM. After a extremely messy divorce, OM and I separated as too much had gone on. I then actually went back to EXH to try again for another 2 years but again, too much had happened.
Now with someone totally new. The OM highlighted the 'flaws' in EXH and whilst I tried to resolve them, had nothing changed when I went back. I would say the grass is not always greener and if you can get rid of the rose tinted specs with the OM, this will help! :-)

Your husband deserves to know so he can make decisions based on reality, not being destined to live a fantasy of having a loving, loyal wife. You keeping it secret from him gives you the upper hand. You don't want him to have an equal say even though it's his life too. Your very focused on yourself in all this, but then that's what people who cheat do, they just think about their wants and are willing to take away the right to choose from their partner.
You've convinced yourself that you're the victim when actually you've been the one doing awful things. You're playing an unfair, cruel game on your husband. If you make it ok in your head to keep this affair secret from him, as if that's doing him some kind of favour... and even though you're talking about ending it, you'll have set the standard for yourself that keeping potentially life-altering facts secret from your husband is ok, therefore when another guy comes along later, you can justify another affair and act like you're doing another "favour" by keeping that one secret too. All the while convincing yourself you're the victim in the story.

Why do you have the right to break your marriage vows, but your husband not have the right to know about it and decide if he wants to stay with you any more?

itinkthereforeima

Brilliant post.

Looking forward to OP's justification of why she can have an affair but not feel her DH is entitled to know.

'I get what people are saying about telling DH but I really don’t think it’s a good idea.'

Good idea for who? You? Probably not, you'll lose control.

It is a good idea for him though. But then, you don't really care about him do you?

Woman up. Tell him. It is better coming from you than from someone else. Affairs are never as secret as you think.

so I hope if I get to the bottom of why I don’t want to have sex with him I might be able to address it

Why does there have to be a specific reason though. It seems that that initial attraction you felt at the start often just fades away by itself over time, even when neither of you have done anything particularly wrong. And this seems to happen much more to woman than to men.

OP I couldn’t respect a man like your husband let alone be married to him. Leave, start again. Time is so precious why waste it with someone you don’t respect.

Scott72 I think because there are reasons why I have lost respect for my DH - to do with work and money. If he can fix them - and I have told him he needs to - I hope my respect and therefore attraction might return.

He’s a good-looking, charming, funny, clever, popular guy. I should be attracted to him, it’s just I am so over having to provide for him! Rightly or wrongly I think a lot of women do find it hard to be attracted to a man they have to provide for. (I know that’s a bit sexist but there it is!)

I think sometimes people do just go off someone sexually and there’s no reason for it, in which case I don’t think there’s much to be done about it, but I’m hoping that’s not the case here.

Yes I missed the posts where you mentioned how you have wound up taking the provider role. This is going to be hard to change if he's comfortable with the status quo.

How can you consider going through marriage counselling with a massive secret?

I’m not sure you need psychosexual counselling but you certainly need to speak to someone and sort yourself out. You’re not happy and you won’t be happy with either your h or om until you sort yourself out.

Personally I think you should tell him. It broke me and the dc to find out h had been having an affair but I’d had my suspicions and I’m glad I know the truth however painful it’s been. I think your h deserves to know the truth and decide whether he wants to work on the marriage or not.

The reality of an affair is that it has consequences. Lots of consequences. Once you see the reality of what you’ve done you’ll probably lose feelings for om.

Not going to tell him.

Trust me, he wouldn’t want to know. He would want to stay in this marriage regardless, I know that.

It’s done, I didn’t have sex, and I would never do it again. That’s all that matter as far as I’m concerned.

You don’t know that. Even he wouldn’t know that initially.

It doesn’t matter about the sex. It’s the lies and deceit.

'DH and I haven’t had sex for 3 years.'

This is bad. Stress, kids, mental load, lack of sex leads to lack of intimacy = resentment.

'I think I have lost respect for him because he relies on me so heavily as the main breadwinner and doesn’t try very hard (in my view) to earn more'**

Does he look after the kids while you're at work? School runs etc?

'....and be less reckless with money.'

Do you have a budget?

'I have a very high-paying job but I hate it and it’s very stressful and long hours'

What would you like to do? Leave the job? Reduce your hours? **

'....and I feel like DH is happy to sit back and let me work myself to the bone in a job a hate while he has a fairly easy ride.

If you didn't have this job, could he go and do something he'd prefer to do? Is he happy doing what he's doing now?

'He has his own business but it doesn’t make much and he isn’t very driven.'

Do you think he's doing this business because he really believes in it and he's happy doing it?

bold fails in the last post!

Trust me, he wouldn’t want to know. He would want to stay in this marriage regardless, I know that

Wow. Leave, please. You have no respect for him and very little for yourself. Go and be a train wreck elsewhere. Give him the chance to find real happiness.

OP has failed to mention that her husband is running a start-up and looking after the kids, one of whom has special needs IIRC. He also has plenty of family money in the background, so it's not like they're risking the breadline.

I agree that you shouldn't tell him.

LaDaronne No - we have a nanny (whom I pay for) who looks after the children. DH does do a bit more childcare than me in that he puts them to bed when the nanny finishes at 6:30pm and looks after them on the odd weekend I have to work. I am never home before 10pm. One child has mild autism but not sure what that has to do with this. His “start-up” he started having left a job I told him not to leave unless he had got financial backing from his family. He lied, said he’d got the financial backing, and left the job anyway (because he didn’t like it), leaving me to pay for absolutely everything.

Yes, his family does have plenty of money but mine sure as hell doesn’t. I have no safety net at all - all my money goes on mortgage/nanny/nursery fees/car/utilities/food/everything bloody else.

Honestly, where do you get off posting that? What’s wrong with you?

@Djnoun - what good reasons could there be for continuing to deceive?

The chances of being discovered are greater than the chances of remaining secret - but the utterly corrosive nature of continued deceit on the relationship is wretched.

OP - you are clearly enjoying your power game. I think I’ve got your number now.

You are distraught that OM may not want you as much as you want him. You want to win him over. And you dont want to hand your DH the upper had by confessing your betrayal- because you would lose your sense of moral superiority- being the major bread winner and decision maker and having all that resentment to justify and nurse.
And now you’ve said that - even if you told him - he would forgive you anyway! - just shows how much disrespect you have for DH. And yet he sleeps with you every night believing you to be his friend, a person he can trust. If he had the sense to get on MN you would be toast!

I imagine you will turn on the tears if he finds out - and plead for understanding- even though you have been merciless in your persuit of every one of your needs over all else.
I have offered you sympathy and support - but I’m now starting to think you are just another cake eater. There is bad karma here. When you tell a truth it becomes part of your past. But a lie becomes part of your future, to retell and relive over and over.

Dadaist You are wrong. I am not enjoying any kind of power game. I do not want to win over my OM - I want to forget him and try to fix my marriage and I am doing all I can to do that.

My DH is not blameless in this - read my previous post. I have been seeing a therapist who was appalled at how my DH has behaved. My DH himself says he can completely understand why I have lost all respect for him and said himself he hasn’t been a good husband.

I work SO hard in a job I hate with all the mental load and responsibility for everything. I have NO support from my DH - either financially or emotionally. And yet I am still here trying to fix the horrible mistake I made and try to find a way to make myself feel attracted to my husband again.

Don’t paint me to be some horrible person because I am just not.

There's always going to be this kind of emotional investment on the relationships board, OP. But it's your decision to make.