I hate myself. Had an affair. Trying to get over it.

[Darksoul]

I’m feeling broken.

Keeping it short.. dh and I together 20 years. 2 teenagers.
Last year I had a brief affair and came clean. DH devastated, we wanted to work through and get back on track. Both acknowledged there were issues before, and the affair was a symptom not a cause of the breakdown and what was happening in our marriage.

We’ve carried on for 6 months, but it’s awful. I cannot forgive myself. I hate myself. DH makes little comments almost punishing me, and I enjoy the torture. We didn’t used to be like this. Everyone envied us.

DH wants me to initiate intimacy and I just can’t. I have a wall I can’t jump across. I know he needs this from me, the more pressure he puts on the more I can’t.

Last week we had a huge row, he said some things to me that I can’t come back from. The way he looked at me... it’s broken me.

We’ve discussed separating for the time being. He is more reluctant than me, but our house is toxic, the kids are aware of what’s happening. I’m now devastated. Can’t stop crying. I want to go back to how it was, but there’s ‘something’ missing.

I’m not sure what I want from this thread, please be kind. I’m at my desk sobbing.

Had you really separated or were you just in separate bedrooms?

Had he come to you to tell you that he was dating someone would you have accepted it because you had split up?

How did your friends find out about the affair? Who told them - you, your DH or the OM? TBH, having an affair with a member of your friendship group is never going to end well is it? Of course people will take sides. Was the OM married too? If so, that's going to split the group even more.

All you can do is give counseling a go and see what happens once you've unpacked all this.

Sounds like he is being very controlling and cruel, OP.

Was he a drinker and drug taker before he had something to blame it on?

I say this with all kindness OP but you need to separate - you’ve been together since you were 14? You were a child, you’ve changed massively & so has he. You make each other miserable and I can’t see how either if you can get past this.

End the anguish for everyone’s sake

@ScreamingLadySutch that's dead right, you are spot on. OP should never have said anything, look at all the trouble it's caused, and for what? Who has benefited from this unnecessary revelation? Nobody.

@Darksoul for goodness sake, stop answering intrusive questions about what you did with this man, it is just rubbing salt in the wounds. Get some counselling. And next time DH asks you personal questions about whose dick was bigger and who received a blow job, tell him "We need to focus on OUR relationship so that it can be better in the future, and that's why we are going to counselling. The conversation about any private business I may have conducted with someone else is now closed." And then stick to it.

You are both pointlessly torturing yourselves by going over and over the details.

The Facebook stuff is hideous, OP.

He's a really dark person.

Presumably he's very sure that he's got you In a place where you won't also share the 'at a minimum, you got off with Louise* and have been a pissed, coked-up unbearable bully for the last two years...' news on Facebook, so he's sure of remaining the wronged one.

• whatever her name was - and sadly I would say if he 'kissed' someone two years ago and had been unbearable for years, it won't be the only thing.

To all those excusing the Op with it’s not an affair - it depends on the ‘separation’ there is a big difference between let’s move into different bedrooms while we try work on our marriage and it’s over let’s move into different bedrooms while we sort out somewhere else to live. It sounds like op was in the first category in which case it’s not only a affair it’s a horrendous breach of trust.

If my DH said let’s move into separate bedrooms and work through this rough patch then turned around and started sleeping with a friend in our wider circle I would be crushed. How horrible.

And I 100% agree if this was a woman posting that her husband had had an affair with a friend in their social circle while she grieved the loss of her parents (never mind the loss of cousin and niece) had done this there would be an unanimous LTB. Serious double standards. How many would in this scenario tell the woman that her poor husband needs to forgive himself and stop feeling so guilty the poor man and it wasn’t really an affair

OP your husband probably felt he could forgive you and now is finding it too hard. Either leave him or start counselling again.

Additionally if a man ever posts here about an affair he is told there is no excuse whatsoever for not ending the relationship properly before embarking on an affair. Why is it that when a woman has an affair it’s all a if how her husband was awful and don’t blame yourself etc.

@SiriusBlack94 I think it's very clear the OP knows all of that and is already beating herself up and doesn't need us to do it too.

She's said she was on the edge of a breakdown so if you think she still needs berating then you carry on. Just don't expect everyone else to join in.

@GiveHerHellFromUs I am not saying she needs berating but the Sugar coating of an affair on this thread is shocking.

Next time a woman comes on and posts her DH had an affair will the same advice stand? Tell her well you both bear a responsibility for where your relationship ended up your poor husband needs to forgive himself and stop feeling guilty, you have no right to ask him about any details of the affair as it’s over. Your poor husband needs to go to counselling and see why he feels his relationship with you was so lacking Stop trying to make yourself out to be the wronged one. your poor DH just found comfort in someone else.

The double standards are outrageous.

Why are posters blaming the DH for posting it on Facebook? Op doesn't say it was him

.. I admitted the affair, as did the om once he knew I’d come clean. He is part of our wider circle. And then things spiralled, all our friends ‘sided’ (need a better word than that) with my dh - someone plastered it on FB for our small community and it floored me. I wasn’t coping, lots of nasty messages from friends and wider family.

She also says that the om admitted to the affair, so I wonder if he is also married? Maybe his wife was the one telling people? Whoever it was, it doesn't read like it was the DH.

So if I’m reading this correctly, the OP wanted a TRIAL separation and her and her DH were in separate bedrooms under the same roof. She hadn’t actually left him and was free to persue another relationship. Is it really on to fuck someone within her and her DH’s friendship group in those circumstances?

I think it’s rather shitty that while he was struggling to come to terms with his losses that you felt he ‘had nothing left for me’. Sounds quite self absorbed to me, hence the affair instead of deciding to make or break your marriage and being honest with your DH.

I would leave in your situation OP. He shouldn’t have to.

@SiriusBlack94 I'm not actually disputing what you're saying but I don't think there's any point reiterating the things she already knows and feels about her own behaviour.

The relationship clearly isn't healthy and it's fine to say they were happy but he kissed someone else then she slept with someone else and now the relationship is toxic.

However, @FunkyFreida what's the point in a trial separation if you don't actually do things you didn't do in the relationship? In my eyes there's no such thing as a trial separation. You separate or you don't. She clearly understood they were free to do whatever they pleased and he didn't.

There are some pretty nasty people on this thread. Thankfully not many

Yes. She had an affair. Always bad. However, she is beating herself up about it to the point where she can barely function. That still not enough? Should she / we continue to berate the OP till the point she's suicidal?

For goodness sake! Of course an affair isn't good. No one ever says it is. Sometimes on this board I wonder what it is that people want.

I understand many of us have been the victims here. But to belittle someone who is already on a knife edge, to the point where she can't cope - unbelievable. (And yes, I'd say that if she were male too. As a fellow human being)

"How can we move on if dh still wants to talk about sexual things with om."

But this is how the pain bears out. Women are more upset about the intimacy, men are obsessed with the fear that the OM is better than them sexually.

In the words of a therapist trying to deal with our mess (very similar to you, OP)

"Affairs are a big mistake in trying to make ourselves happy". They are part of the 10 Commandments of big no nos for a reason - because they cause the kind of destruction that is going on here.

OP all you can do is keep repeating to your H that you regret it, you really wish you had't done it, it is not something you like thinking about, that you want to heal the mistakes BOTH of you made (him deal with his feelings with drugs and you dealing with your feelings with attention and flattery),

that you love him, but if he keeps on degrading you like this, you are going to have to separate to give him the space to stop being tormented by your presence.

Keep wishing out loud that you had never gone down that path. That you really want to heal and reassure him, but he cannot carry on attacking you like this.

If OP truly believed they had separated and it wasn't really an affair, she wouldn't be as wracked with guilt as she says she is.

If OP truly believed they had separated and it wasn't really an affair, she wouldn't be as wracked with guilt as she says she is.

Apart from she believed they'd separated until he convinced her they hadn't.

Do you really believe that?

Yes because I doubt OP is going to pour her heart out to strangers on the internet then lie about semantics.

OP says repeatedly that she 'came clean' about the affair, and that it was the bravest thing she's ever done etc. If she was just telling him about her new partner/boyfriend/fuck buddy it wouldn't be "coming clean" or "brave", it would have been stating a fact

I think people are getting sidetracked about whether it was technically an affair.

The issue here is a marriage that has intimate betrayal in it, and the desperate hurt and rage of the betrayed partner.

OP has to face this whilst also protecting herself from the abuse in his hurt and rage.

Separate.

I can't believe people are saying it's not that bad. You shagged another man at a time your partner needed you most. That's unforgiveable. You should have been there for him, not in the arms of another man.

Have you tried watching the affair recovery videos on you tube? They helped my husband and I a lot in recovery from his emotional affair.

Also letterstomyhusbandsaffair.wordpress.com was really helpful with lots of resources.

My husband went through a period of hating himself and I went through a very angry period. It's to be expected really. You can move on, we are very happy now.

It can take 2-5 years to get over an affair according to some experts. I never could forgive my husband and ended up divorcing.

It sounds like your relationship wasn't great anyway and it was an utterly shitty thing you have done. Not sure this is going to work out.

Love the fact that the first post and suggested your DH was being abusive for being pissed off at you. There is always someone on MN to forgive a woman anything and believe their male partners are abusive. Sigh.

Can't believe people are making a simple kiss, which we know little about, as in, was it to comfort someone at a funeral, who initiated it, etc, no follow on from this, with a full blown sexual affair! FFS I've kissed other people and it's meant nothing to me or to DH.

OP has brought this up to deflect from what she's done. Her DH lost family members recently and then his wife completely betrays his trust, and people are trying to blame him?

Maybe the relationship had run its course, but to betray someone who was losing family members and was depressed is pretty low. If this were reversed the advice would,have been to LTB without any sympathy for his POV. Real double standards.