Had an affair...its a mess

[Cosmicunicorn321]

Im not married but have a partner of 8 years and a dd. Om is married 3 kids, older.

Ive been having moatly an emotional affair but we kissed a few times.
I told dp everything and he basically rolled over and forgave me but i find living with the guilt hard and im not over the om.
Om wont leave his wife due to financial reasons and most importantly his children. He said he wanted space for 3 months whilst he figures out if he wants to stay or go. I told him to leave me alone completely.

Dp says im distant and dont show him affection. Ive told him im sorry but im grieving for the om. I love them both but im not in love with dp and told him he doeant deserve this and deserves far better....he still doesnt want to leave. He just wants me to love him.
I think om is the problem and once im over him i can get back to normal but this isnt fair on anyone and i feel like a terrible person. I told dp i will need time to heal but he wants me to start showing him i love him now.
If i leave i will upset dd, financially struggle and upset our immediate families. I dont know where to turn or what to say or think anymore.
I owe it to my dp to try and put the effort in but i feel so much grief for this man and guilt at the same time.
What is the best course of action?

Op - I think you need to get out of the drama triangle. You haven't technically had an affair if you haven't had sex with the OM. Sounds like you have developed an intense attraction and attachment which is hardly a hanging offence in 2019, or at least not in this country, thank goodness.

To all those who say her husband she kick her out - he doesn't WANT to, so why should he? Let HIM at least decide FFS. It's not up to the OP or anyone else what her husband decides to do. He is probably hoping that the whole thing will blow over, which these things nearly always do, especially as the OM does not appear to want to leave his wife. Sounds like the Op's partner is reacting in an authentic way, rather than just responding to his ego. He is hurt but hoping it will all go away as he wants the partner he knew before back.

I do feel for you OP, but really this is all too melodramatic. People who are married or attached form attractions for other people ALL THE TIME. It happens. It is a fact of life. It happened hundreds of years ago and it will happen in hundreds of years time. There mere fact of having a ring on your finger does not make you oblivious to the attractions of other people, despite what Disney would have us believe.

I don't think you are behaving badly, really. You formed an attachment which you are now miserable about. You've been honest with your partner which is a lot more than a lot of people (men) would have done. OM is doing the decent thing by his family. You are detached from your husband at the moment - as he has naturally noticed - because you are still in the throes of a crush. This is normal, although of course upsetting for your partner.

It will all blow over from the sounds of it. If, in due course, you and/or your partner decide you are no longer happy in your relationship then you can decide what you want to do. Take OM out of the equation as he has already stated what he wants for the time being.

You are being far too hard on yourself and far too melodramatic in my opinion. It might help to have a few counselling sessions either alone or with your partner to thrash things out? For what it's worth I've got several sets of friends who had affairs and then got back together afterwards with an even better relationship so I would keep an open mind on everything.

Also, I would like to add that in my experience and my opinion men react differently to their wives' emotional affairs/attachments/crushes than women do. When I was married I not infrequently had crushes and they always had the effect of making my then husband far more attentive and interested than he had been prior to the crush when he was generally obsessed with work and really not that interested in me at all. My 'crushes' forced him to confront the reality that other men were actually interested in the wife that he was neglecting! (Not saying this is the situation in your case, Op, but the fact it one can never become complacent.)

Just sayin'!

Guilt isn’t gonna help. Put your DC and DP first and show some affection. Like ladybee says - it’s not about feeling love, it’s about doing it. How does DP like affection to be shown - meal? Time? Cuddling? Sex? Try and do that stuff. Block om and distract your mind with other things - exercise is probably good.

This happened to me after a miscarriage. At the time I didn't put two and two together but I think it was triggered by the mc. My relationship never recovered. Sorry to hear you are going through this.

You're addicted to the drama and being the centre of attention. Yes, married ppl may develop 'crushes' on other ppl from time to time, but you know that acting on it behind your partners back is wrong. You know the damage it could cause to your family before you go down that path, yet you still did it! What a pathetically selfish way to behave. There is no excuse for it, and no reason which can absolve any of the supposed guilt you feel.
I suggest you go and see someone who will discuss your entitled behaviour with you, and hopefully you will be hit by the reality of how you behaved and how your actions affect so many others. Your poor dh and DC. You've pretty much fucked up your family for the sake of a few kisses, if that's all it was. Get your head out of the clouds and stop mooning about the om, who was another loser who behaved horribly towards his family. He doesn't love you.

So you have been used by a married man but when push comes to shove he decides he doesn't love you enough to give up His comfortable life -money is more important than you.
You are in love with the idea of being in a tragic love story but the truth is he doesn't love you -if he did he would be with you

Your loyal partner offers forgiveness and you demean him by telling us that he ”rolled over.” How cruel and mean-spirited.

You inform him that you need more time to grieve. How narcissistic.

Your statements show that you have no regard for your partner and feel no remorse.

You really should exit stage left, so that he will be free to find a wonderful woman who will not abuse his trust.

I can't see your relationship surviving because you are not doing any of the things you need to do in order to salvage a relationship after an affair.

How awful for your dp to watch you grieving the end of your affair. How awful that you are contemptuous of him for doing so. It is clear you have stayed only because your other option has been withdrawn.

If you are both serious about reconnecting you need couples counselling or at least to read up on the process. If you don't think you can love your dp in the way he deserves, you need to muster a shred of decency and leave, regardless of his desperation to hold on to you.

You and OM are fucking over 2 families you are not the victims

Grow up

@Cosmicunicorn321

It is hard isn't it? I am in a similar sort of position so far as feeling very hurt, though I did have an 8 year affair with someone who has now left me for another woman who is much younger and better looking than me. I am finding that after nearly a month the pain is subsiding a bit but that it is still a big part of my headspace day in day out. I think counselling has a lot to commend it, after two sessions I am being invited to look at some areas of my life that I didn't think were relevant but now seem to be key to all this.
The posts on here to "grow up" and focusing in on what we have done wrong are of course totally and factually correct, but they don't help us, just increase our misery. I can take some consolation from the fact that my ex lover is beyond doubt a total shit who has behaved reprehensibly telling huge lies to both of us for over 3 years.
If you are hankering for your OM I'm sure the painful advice to simply cut him out of your life is the only answer. The end of this relationship is a kind of bereavement and you cannot expect our marriage to flourish again until you have come to terms with it. Be kind to yourself.

Feel really sorry for your dd too. She's got a teenager for a mother who won't put her well being first.

I think your dp should bin you so you can chase after your next boyf. And make a fool of yourself all over again and again and again. Go for it.

Some of these answers are so self-righteous it's nauseating. As though everyone lives in a perfect 2.2 children relationship with roses growing around a picket fence. Honestly, it's pathetic really. People are human - they are flawed and don't act in rational or necessarily 'grown up' ways.

Also, the audacity of some of the posters to tell you what they think your husband should do! They don't know you and they don't know your husband.

If the OP's husband wanted to find another amazing woman I sure he will do so - he doesn't need a bunch of bored strangers on the internet to tell him what to do.

For what it's worth, no-one is perfect. People can and do develop attachments towards people that they 'shouldn't' do all the time.

There. I've said it. Just read these boards.

Op - you sound very self-aware. I can only assume that a lot of the responses are from women who are utterly terrified of the idea that marriage does not always follow the Disney ideal. Either that or they just like slagging off other women.

Weird really.

What you have experienced is part of life's rich tapestry and happens in many relationships and marriages. Yes, people can and do 'jump ship' but the grass is not necessarily greener and the fall-out can be quite ugly. It's better to work on your own relationship and decide if it is salvageable for both of you. Or perhaps have some 'time out'. I know people who have done this and it helped. Yes, it takes a level of maturity that a lot of people don't have but it might help you get out of the fog.

It's a shame that the 'affair' (you didn't even have one ffs!) threads bring out the 1950's fishwives because they are some of the more interesting threads on relationships, imo.

I can take some consolation from the fact that my ex lover is beyond doubt a total shit who has behaved reprehensibly telling huge lies to both of us for over 3 years.

----

This I think is very common indeed. One of the most reprehensible aspects of affairs, imo, is the element of 'competition'. There are people of both genders who get a kick out of 'stealing' something that is not theirs and then gloating over the spoils and the fall-out. This is an undeniably unattractive human trait and it does rear its head in these situations.

the OM doesn't want you and it appears that you don't really want your husband because the absolute dismissive cruelty with which you express disappointment that he has "rolled over" and forgiven you isn't the behaviour of someone who cares.

the utter melodrama with which you decide you need to "grieve" the relationship with someone you've "kissed a few times" makes you sound deeply immature and utterly self absorbed.

Let your DP find someone else to love and care for as you clearly do not. You need to leave and set up somewhere else to live (as we tell women on here whose Hs have had affairs). Your DP should stay in the house until you can afford to sell it and you share your DD 50:50. To say to your DP that you are grieving for the OM is unbelievably cruel

^This.

Just rtft and it sounds to me like you’re acting out.
This isn’t a dismissal of how you feel, I think it’s very real.
You want something to shake up your life, whether it’s a new partner or a fight with your husband.
When you have a miscarriage you mentally prepare for your life to change, a new baby to come, and when it doesn’t happen and you have to go back to your old life where you are completely altered but everything else expects you to be the same it can be crushing.

I would go for councilling about your miscarriage and try and save your marriage.

Yes, butterballs, people get emotionally attached and have affairs pretty regularly. But what has annoyed people about the OP is that she is still making it all about her. She's wallowing in the guilt and doesn't seem to be trying to get over the om. It is narcissistic behaviour and completely unfair on her partner. What they should be doing is deciding for definite and then properly following through. Sometimes even if you're not feeling it you can act it (no I don't mean sex), and often if you act it, you can actually begin to feel that way. (As someone else said above, loving someone is an active thing not just feelings that happen to you.) Her moping around and self indulgence must be awful for her partner, and yes if it was the partner posting here (there often are women who are in a similar position to the OP's partner) everyone would be telling them to leave.

I suspect the OP is thinking about herself as it is her own fucking life and she is posting for advice.

And she's getting plenty of advice.

If this is the same guy she write about elsewhere, then does she still work with him?

That sure,y needs to stop. Either one of you need to leave. You’ll never get over him if yo see him regularly.

@butterballs9

Calm down dear

She does say in her original post that OM is asking for 3 months to see how he feels, it is all the more agony for her if she thinks he might come back to her, though I suspect the 3 months will make that less likely.

butterballs there's a middle ground between being perfect and having an affair with a married father of three kids. And it is an affair. My DH's ex had an emotional affair which split up the family as surely as if she'd been shagging around. Try telling DH's kids that their mum left their dad but that's ok cos she kept her knickers on like hell she did until she'd blown her family apart

He won’t go back to her. At most it would have flattered his ego to have a desperate/lonely/hormonal/grieving for baby woman come on to him. He is a weak twat who deserves fir his wife to kick him out if she knew. But he won’t rock the boat. If she does know then why would you hang around trying to get him? That makes you worse than him in that case.

3 months is time to make it all go away and everyone to move on/back. If the op is half the person she says she is she’ll not try to destroy whatever he has with his wife and their kids.

And it could be a good chance to find your relationship with your oh again. It takes effort. But could be worth it to see how you do feel.

Sensible and kind people would not tell children anything like this. Whatever the circumstances divorce or separation should be dealt with sensitively with children.

Completely agree @butterballs9. Life is never black and white. No matter how much we want it to be