Ending affair

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For 18 months I had an affair with someone we'll call Jenny. It's depressingly cliched, it started as friends, became emotional and then physical. At the time I thought my marriage was over. For the last 6 months my marriage has been improving, I subconsciously started withdrawing from the affair, and then more consciously knew it couldn't continue. Events with Jenny came to a head 3 months ago, at a point where we either left our partners and got together fully, or ended the affair and stayed with our partners. We both have young children.

We made different decisions. I decided to stay with my wife and end the affair. Jenny wanted to leave her husband and for us to get together.

She was completely devastated, she essentially told her husband about us anyway, and their relationship is now all but over.

At the time I thought the kindest thing was to have no more contact with her to give her a chance to recover and move on but she wants to stay in touch.

I don't know how to help her. All the advice about breakups, both affairs and normal is to have an total extended break from each other but this isn't a normal break up. If we weren't both married we would still be together, we still love each other and haven't argued or fallen out.

COVID means she is cooped up at home and can't go out and see people easily. This isn't like a normal relationship ending, it's still secret from everyone so she can't turn to her friends. I am the only person she can talk openly with. Her marriage is disintegrating so she is essentially going through two breakups at once, one is secret, in the middle of a pandemic.

We both went into the affair as equals, but we have come out so differently. We're still meeting in secret, I hug her and we talk and I try to support her but she is so completely broken.

I just don't know how to help her.
Has anyone else been in this position, what helped?

You are still in love with Jenny. You admit that you never fell out , you just made a choice. The physical affair may have ended but the emotional one hasn't. If you read the posts on this forum you will know that emotional affairs are as big a betrayal, if not more of a betrayal than physical ones. So you are still betraying your wife; you are still having an affair with Jenny.
Choose one and move forward, leave the other to rebuild their life which they cannot do with you in it. Walk in their shoes for a while.

Why don’t you tell your wife and let her make the choice.

You are the person who hurt her. You can’t help her feel better. She’s upset and emotional at the moment but at some point the anger will kick n and regardless of what she tells you right now, you are not a couple/team and there’s a good chance she will take out her anger on you or your poor wife. You need to cut all contact. You’re not her friend. Friends don’t have sex with each other. It’s only a matter of time before this blows up in your face. And despite what you say I think you enjoy her depending on you for emotional support except she won’t move on with her life while you are in it.

As PP have said: if you have decided to commit to your wife, you cannot be the one to comfort Jenny. It is absolutely impossible for you to do the right thing by both your wife and Jenny. You need to accept that.

Both you and Jenny have behaved badly but both of you must have known when you embarked on your affair that it was would end in heartbreak for someone, whether that was you or your spouses. It was the risk you and she knowingly took. It’s not your responsibility to fix it for Jenny and you cannot do so without further betraying your wife. You need to decide whether you are in or out of your marriage and then take the steps which are consistent with that decision.

Leave her alone, that's what you need to do and don't bother sniffing around her when you're fed up of your wife again either.

One more thing - please stop with the oh so noble act, it's ridiculous.

And I am worried about her mental health, to the extent I worry she is considering self-harm or worse.

And presumably worried your affair will then be revealed in an inquest so your wife finds out.

Firstly your very naive to think that Jenny won’t ever tell your wife. It’s a very real possibility and one that you should very concerned about.

You should give some serious thought to telling your wife. I understand exactly why you don’t want to, and that telling her is a frightening prospect. That being said the following reasons are exactly why you should tell her, especially if you hope to go forward and continue your marriage.

1. The trust is broken (you broke it) willingly admitting this betrayal and being completely honest will be far more healing in the long run. Should your wife find out any in other way but from you she will forever doubt your honesty, because by this point it will be too late because your honesty will be forced and not chosen, and ultimately this will so much harder for her and you as a couple to recover from. Telling her is not only the brave thing to do, but it’s also the right this to do and gives you the best chance of truly saving and repairing your marriage.

In respect of Jenny, I understand your worries and that you feel very responsible for her suffering and terrible time she is having just now. The fact of the matter though is that you have chosen your wife/marriage, and therefore while you clearly care about Jenny your priority here is to your wife. You need to cut contact with Jenny, there is no reason to be cruel about it, but you do need to be very very clear. As many others have said keeping contact with Jenny is doing nothing other than hurting her more. Jenny can’t see this at the moment and is simply hanging on to the scraps you are giving, end trust me when I say that she won’t be happy with this for long, at some point she is going to get angry. You may feel your helping, or maybe you feel your delaying the inevitable fallout. Mark my words because if you carry on trying to gently appease Jenny it will do none other than bite you in the ass and blow up your life big time. Think about it, she’s lost her husband, her family life the way it was, and she’s lost you....well most of you at this point but not all. You on the other hand still have your wife, still have your family and you still have Jenny (should you want her because she basically sat there hoping and waiting regardless of what she says that is exactly what she’s doing) as soon as Jenny realises that you really are gone, that she doesn’t even have you that is when the bomb will really explode.

You’ve 2 choices:

A controlled detention, where you tell you wife, deal with the fall out and cut contact with Jenny completely.

Or

You can keep going, hoping against hope that the bomb won’t ever go off....except it absolutely will go off, it could go off at any time and cause ten times more devastation than the controlled detonation would have caused.

The choice is yours, it’s up to you.

You are keeping Jenny sweet by fussing over her and trying to support her.
Cutting all ties would be best but given her fragile state, her upset will turn to anger.
I'd put money on the fact that she will tell your wife once she feels angry enough.
Also, she might think it could push your wife into chucking you out and into her arms.
She has nothing to lose at this point as she's already confessed.
You, on the other hand, are well and truly stuffed!

Your loyalty to Jenny is totally misplaced. You can't help her, you are part of the problem. Stop contact, leave her be and focus on your wife.

I too, agree you are very naive if you think Jenny won't tell her. Maybe not now, but she will and your best option is to come clean before you hurt two people even more than you have done already (even if one of them is unaware at this point).

"Because despite being a "horrible cunt" I actually do have some responsibility to her. I had an affair with her, and I ended it. I can't just treat her as collateral damage in all this."

But that is what affairs do - they create collateral damage.

It's already done - either she is collateral damage or your wife is (plus her husband). You have to decide which or they both will be.

I'm sorry but you fucking idiot. I am sick to the back teeth of men like you who attach yourselves to unhappy women and then are like ' oh dear, she is really upset that I am not going to make a new life with her. Oh dear, how can I help her now. I feel a bit bad. Look at me, I 'm such a decent guy because I feel bad now.'

Please learn from this to stop fucking with women's lives. You want to tell yourself you are a nice guy because you feel bad about Jenny, but you have been utterly, utterly selfish here.

There was a thread recently about how men seeking affairs sniff our miserable women. You are not a decent guy. You are a tired cliche.

This isn't about trying to continue an affair, or have-my-cake-and-eat-it, but it is about trying to help someone who is totally devastated stay safe and recover

You devastated her. You took a miserable woman and made her emotionally dependent on you then you showed her you wanted to be with someone else, that she had just been nothing but a temporary escape and fuck for you whilst you sorted your real life out. The person who devastated her cannot be the person who saves her.

If you really care for her transfer five thousand pounds to her account to pay for frequent and long term therapy and then leave her alone. She needs help to find the strength inside herself to cope free from your toxic presence.

Not going to have a go at you but i’m another person who feels if you are so concerned about choice and agency you should not be taking away your wife’s choice and agency about your marriage, armed with the full picture. At the moment you, Jenny and Jenny’s husband all have knowledge and some choice (he may choose to forgive her etc), your wife has none of that.

I think that while you are concerned about Jenny’s mental health, your posts don’t seem to indicate any concern for your wife’s mental health. Which definitely will be affected either by A. being in a marriage with such a big secret and betrayal at the heart of it - which will impact her even if she doesn’t know exactly why and/or B. An almighty shock to her mental health if she is ever told or discovers your affair herself.

If you really are the sort of man who believes in caring for the mental health of someone you love, and in them having agency - how come this doesn’t currently seem to extend to the woman you are married to?

Leave Jenny alone so she can heal. Tell your wife; be honest with her and give her her agency and choice, just as you chose which relationship you wanted.

@StormcloakNord

I think you're being ludicrously unreasonable to expect anyone to want to give you advice when quite frankly you sound like a horrible cunt.

This x10!

I hope your wife finds out and dumps you!

I'm also feeling v sorry for your wife. Whilst it's not nice to hear of anyone going through a terrible time with their mental health, Jenny went into the affair with her eyes open and was prepared to betray her husband. I feel more sympathy for your wife at this point who is sitting watching TV or eating dinner with you, blissfully unaware she has been betrayed by a disloyal spouse who has barely mentioned her, despite apparently having chosen her over Jenny.

Your poor poor wife

You need to tell your wife.

Whether your marriage continues isn’t your choice to make.

Feeling bad isn’t evidence you’re a decent person. Your actions speak volumes here.

Jenny needs to do the decent thing and end her relationship properly with her husband, rather than stringing him along and have it ‘disintegrate’. You need to do the same with your wife or cut all contact and be a decent husband. All this contact is totally disrespectful to your wife and is prolonging this affair. Essentially, you are back to an emotional affair! If you are really concerned about her, you need to let her move on and get on with her life - she can always speak to her GP if she needs professional help but you’re not a professional.

I think you’re in a really risky situation here.
If you continue this sooner or later your wife will find out. The most likely scenario being that she will find a text or some other digital evidence. Or will be contacted by the husband. Or even by Jenny herself when she realises she has nothing left to lose and needs an outlet for her anger. There is also a very real risk that she might take her own life. This happened in my extended family in almost identical circumstances.

You should leave your wife and go to Jenny. You deserve eachother.

If you felt genuine remorse, you would tell your wife so she can make an informed decision on if she wants to be with you. You would go to counselling to sort out the faults in your character that led you to do this, rather than be honest about any marital problems and/or your own entitlement.

But no, you'd rather paint yourself as a hero of your own story, and decide that you have 'punished yourself enough'. that's not up to you. That's up to your wife.

If you can't do that - run to Jenny, like the untrustworthy, unreliable, unfaithful man you are. Be honest - hard as that will be for you.

She WILL tell your wife sooner or later, sorry but she will. She will find her anger at some point, maybe not in a week or a month, but trust me she absolutely will try and destroy your marriage - she's left with literally nothing and in her eyes you're untouched, like nothings ever happened. Dont say we didn't warn you

Op... Leave her alone.
Talk about deathby a thousand cuts.
I had an affair, we fell in love, his wife found out and we had all those awful heart wrenching talks about what ifs and could we..
In the end we went back to our marriages.. He wanted to stay in touch and tried very hard to sell it tgat he loved me, was worried I was hurt, hated he'd hurt me... Blah blah..
But now yrs later (and yes dear reader I married him) he will say off that time, his driver was the fact he wanted contact.
He knew the best thing for me was a clean sharp break... But he didht want to lose the lovely warm fluffy feeling he had with me.
He also very sheepishly admits there was a bit of him tgat liked two women desparate for his attention. Two women bending over backwards for him...

So op stop dressing this up... If you still love this woman do the right thing walk away... Right away... Stop feeding her crumbs of hope.
She will recover... I did... She may take venegence and tell your wife but sorry that is the risk you took when you started the affair.
Tell her to try chump lady and loveshack websites for heaps of support to get through this.
But... You are not her counsellor or her best friend.. You are a bloke who has chosen his wife over her.. You made your choice now follow it through

If you are worried about 'agency', perhaps consider your wife's. You have taken all of it by not giving her all the information. Why does Jenny deserve more than your wife?

Do you love Jenny, or are you just keeping in touch with her out of guilt?
Do you love your wife, or are you just staying with her out of duty?

Think hard about that, and there you have your answer

@ChorleyFMcominginyourears

She WILL tell your wife sooner or later, sorry but she will. She will find her anger at some point, maybe not in a week or a month, but trust me she absolutely will try and destroy your marriage - she's left with literally nothing and in her eyes you're untouched, like nothings ever happened. Dont say we didn't warn you

Or her husband might get there first and tell your wife to get at you. After all, he will think, why should his marriage have deteriorated because of you?