I had an affair

[hdt76]

This is the first time I’ve written anything like this. I had an affair. I’ve been married nearly 19 years and I had an emotional affair with a good friend. My marriage background - we had grown apart, our sex life was non existent, I wasn’t in love with him anymore, I had suspected my husband had had an affair and felt a lot of anger towards him. I became addicted to my affair partner - we didn’t have sex but had a very passionate time together. every time something happened, I felt guilty, went home and told my husband, swore it wouldn’t happen again and then it did. The other guy works with us and so it became difficult to stay away from my addiction. The more guilty I felt, the more I fed my addiction. I am not asking anyone to feel sorry for me, but I have become so low. My husband has been amazing and I know I don’t deserve him. I have now distanced myself from the other guy and we have spoken and arranged to only see each other at work when we really need to. Me and my husband have been to counselling and I am really really pleased to say that things are going great. I’ve not only fallen back in love with him, I feel stronger towards him than ever before. I love him so much, our sex life is amazing, he’s forgiven me, he’s even spoken to the other guy and we’ve all decided to leave it in the past. I asked my husband to re-marry me (Renew our vows). He said yes and we are now planning our renewal ceremony. I know I am really lucky. But I can’t forgive myself. Everyone else appears to have forgiven me, but I know I dont deserve it. I feel I don’t deserve anything good and cant see a way out

Hey. Hmm, not good then.

Well, it seems classic - something was missing and instead of own up to it (and the fallout) you went behind his back and did the wrong thing.

BUT that has come out in the wash and you say he has forgiven you.

Can I ask how long the timespan is on this? Why can you be so in love with one guy and then back in love with DH and planning to renew vows? Is there any truth in that? Seems a bit 'the lady doth protest too much' to me.....

I'm interested in your last statement too - why don't you deserve anything good, and what do you need a way out of?

Did you ever get to the truth about his alleged affair? It seems that you've been very candid and honest, but you don't mention whether he has.

I'll be blunt. Your post comes across as if you're trying to convince yourself. Sorry if I am wrong....

Something2say I don’t think I was in love with the other guy. I was addicted to the attention, the excitement and I know I was being totally selfish. My lack of honesty about how I was feeling about our marriage led to a lot of confusion and then to have the affair. I know I was wrong and we have discussed everything a hundred times over since. My husband says he didn’t have an affair but that there were some things he didn’t tell me, which led to my confusion. He has now told me everything that happened and I believe him.
After I finished the affair, we stayed up every night talking (sometimes all the way through the night). The communication has been excellent and I felt like I was home. I dont know if that makes sense, but I felt safe, loved and completely “right”. He says he feels the same and we have been getting on better than ever. We talk about everything now - even the awkward stuff - and it feels amazing. The affair went on for about 3 months in total (with some periods of avoiding each other in between). I have always struggled with guilt throughout my life for one reason or other and this has completely floored me. I am so happy that we are good, but the guilt is like a big massive knot inside me.

The thing I need a “way out of” is the guilt. I don’t want a way out of things with my husband - I just want to stop feeling guilty.

The guilt should be about the hurt you’ve caused to someone else or the damage done to your relationship. In your case it seems that your DH probably felt similar- and even if he didn’t act on it, he is able to see that it didn’t mean he didn’t love you or want something different. So he can see that perhaps, if that was how it felt for you, then what was at fault was the state of your relationship, which he is responsible for too.
I think you’ve been very lucky that:

• It wasn’t physical
• it was a short time (3 months)
• you didn’t fall in love with OM - ha was a distraction- albeit a nice one.
• you ended it yourself
• you were honest
• you still had strong feelings for DH that were buried under your relationship problems.
• you have felt guilty- an essential part of rebuilding trust and learning to know yourself a bit better.

So the guilt you feel is necessary- treat it positively as it’s teaching you about becoming better - put it to work for the good. No one gets leaves life without feeling guilt over some of their past acts - but if we use the experience to learn, to do the right thing in future, to grow, then we can make it up in the long run. Good luck OP

Dadaist - Thank you. That all makes perfect sense. I am putting all my efforts into making everything good now and hope that eventually my guilt will fade.