I have really messed up

[WeDontLikeCricket]

I have named changed for this as I am on another section of this forum and very identifiable but have been on here for many years.

I have really messed up and dont know what to do.

DH and I have been having marriage issues for years, we get on very well, like spending time together and do lots of great things, we share mutual interests as a family so spend a lot of time together however we haven't had sex for several years since DH struggled with getting an erection (he is a fair bit older than me but not old enough it should be an issue I guess) and we have ended up in a rut of him being worried about it not happening and me not wanting to instigate anything in case it doesn't happen then both him and I feel awful about it. Sounds pathetic but as time has gone on it seems harder to address so we have ignored it. I don't not fancy him but I don't feel like I want to have sex anymore as it's been so long. I generally have a high sex drive though but I have accepted it's my life.

At our mutual interest we are heavily involved in the running of it, the kids are part of it and we are close friends with lots of the people. Its a very family feel generally, we all socialise together, there is lots of banter which can get flirty but generally openly so it's just a laugh between everyone.

Recently one of the people there has started to get a bit flirty towards me, we ended up chatting via message as we genuinely had to arrange some stuff but the conversation took a turn from his end, stupidly I did respond but it was just a joke from my end at first as he is so much younger than me so didn't take it seriously but it ended up more that that. It was pretty intense and I have no idea why I even responded, it is not me at at all, I have really strong feelings about if you have to hide something from your partner you have gone to far. There's no black and white for me until now.

Anyway this went on a while and ridiculously we met up and had sex. I am literally sat here with no idea how it happened, he is 28 and I am 41, I know I got caught up in the fact that someone was actually interested in me, I guess I am fairly up together but not anything special, any interest previously (not loads but the odd time over the years) I have completely ignored. I have no excuse whatsoever for this, it's not like we were drunk on a night out, we did this with very little thought for anyone and after we are both mortified about it. It definitely won't happen again but I can't even look at DH and god knows how I will face the OM next week.

I guess my question is do I tell DH, this will cause an enormous upset not only with my family but with all our friends, it would be a huge blow up that I want to avoid of course but is there any way forward with this without saying anything. It 100% is over, neither of us can deal with feeling this guilty. I know it's not about my feelings of course now.

I do know how awful it is, I don't need to be told this, I appreciate I don't deserve for anyone to be nice about this either, I woke up today actually in shock that I did it, I feel sick and on the verge of tears constantly, it makes me feel even more selfish as it makes it about me when I am feeling like this. I have told DH I am ill which he believes as I do suffer from regular migraines.

@Sunshinesusan67 I think it would be over with DH if I told him, not necessarily because of the act but because of who it is. OM and DH are not friends as such but it is too close to home and the fact it could affect the kids and our relationship with many people at the club is what makes it so bad. DH has cheated in every long term relationship (other than me AFAIK) but it's not a discussion we have had with regards to what if I cheated, I have told him how I felt but never the other way round.

[quote Myusernameisnotmyusernameno]@EarringsandLipstick I don't think she thought it would happen. Wasn't premeditated. [/quote]
She said it was planned and there were many opportunities for them to have stopped before actually going through with it...

There's no easy solution here.
You fully recognise the weight of the situation and are completely holding your hands up. You know the marital problems that need addressed. I can understand you both not wanting to instigate sex. In this situation each person feels like they've done something wrong and the other perceives it that they're annoyed about it, when in reality it's just an awkward situation where no one is at fault.

Some couples can get through this, but I can't imagine how hard it would be. If you do tell him you stand a better chance of at least trying to work through it because you're not downplaying anything you've done. The right thing to do would be to tell him.
Do you think the guilt will manifest itself in some other way and your husband will pick up on this?

I’d not tell him.
But I’d have a conversation with him about your sexual life and his plan for trying to fix it.
Other than ignoring it and being afraid of not getting an erection - what has he actually tried? Has he seen a doctor? Got his testosterone, etc checked? Tired viagra?
Tried to have on PIV sex with you to make sure you aren’t feeling abandoned and frustrated?

It’s all good for people to lynch ‘the cheater’. But I am sorry - he decided to withdraw from a vital part of a relationship for you and is hiding his head in the sand. You are just expected to live with it. How is that fair from his point of view?
I think it’s fair to hold him to the same standard as the other person in the relationship. If he decided to give up on sex - he needs to be upfront and open about it. He also needs to tell you what he thinks are the options for you as a couple. So you can chose if you want to accept living in a sexless relationship in your 40s, or leave. Or - if he is a fair and strong enough person - he can face it head on and agree to open up your marriage.

@Peach01 I can't answer that re the guilt manifesting, I hope that it won't of course but only time will tell. If DH and I were having regular sex then I would not be able to keep it from him, in the past as a teen if I could never have 2 BFs on the go and have sex with both, if I met someone else I'd move on (I'm talking really short term relationships here, never in a long term one). My hope is that I could have a few days, weeks? to get my head together and work out a way to talk to him about our issues. Earlier in the thread I was thinking after the weekend but there has been a lot on here to make me think twice.

@MMmomDD he went to the doctors years ago, I think he may have had viagra but in honesty he hasn't properly spoken to me about it, he just isn't one for talking about anything. Now and then he will be interested and will want sex (I mean not regularly by any stretch, probably less than once a year, I have lost track) but it is not great as he can't really get an erection, without too much info he can just about manage it but I personally would rather not bother if that's what it is. It's extremely demoralising for want of a better word, and whilst deep down I know it is not personal (AFAIK) it is really difficult knowing your DH cannot get a good enough erection to have decent sex with you. I know what I have done is wrong but to have that sort of attention and something that attracted to you feels amazing after living like this, even though its not the fair thing at all to DH.

Some years ago my then partner cheated on me in very similar circumstances. I would have preferred not to know. That may make me weak and foolish, but finding out was so painful. Truly devastating. It made me doubt everything about myself and my relationship. And I couldn't look at him in the same way ever again. Yes, I had the right to know. But I wish I could have lived in blissful ignorance. Of course, I can only speak for myself, and many people would want to know.

One word of caution, though. Only keep it secret if you are very sure that no one else will tell your husband. I found out when the OW's boyfriend took it upon himself to search me out and contact me, which added an extra layer of awfulness to the revelation. And my DP initially denied everything. He was so trustworthy and we had been together for so long and so happily (I thought) that at first I believed my DP. Knowing the truth was bad enough. Knowing that he had lied to me even after the truth had come out just made it that much worse.

@bargelights there is always the chance his GF will find out but I think it unlikely. I am hoping he has deleted everything. I know how devastating it can be, I never thought I'd be in this position.

@bargelights is it a case of not wanting to know that it happened or wishing that it just hadn't happened in the 1st place? (if that makes sense?)

@bargelights and would it have made a difference to you if your DP had told you himself that it happened rather than the OW partner finding you and telling you? And the fact your DP lied to you after you confronted him about it.

I think the op needs to be honest ASAP to avoid this situation from happening as I think it would turn out worse for her if she lies and her DH finds out by someone else.

Sounds like an exit affair.

Hmmm I’m not quite as judgemental of you as you probably are of yourself. Literally anyone can cheat given the right (or should that be wrong?) circumstances lining up in a certain way. In fact having an extremely self righteous position on it beforehand can leave you wide open to stray which may sound counter-intuitive.

There are reasons that led you to this (note I said reasons and not excuses). Some of those were your responsibility like allowing the communication to falter, and sexually distancing yourself from your husband (probably from fear/feeling rejected). Some of them are most definitely of your own making, like your husbands ED.

What I will say and I cannot stress this strongly enough, hiding this from your Husband is not the right course of action. The reality of the marriage changed the moment you cheated, and he deserves the right and agency to decide how he wants to proceed in the light of this change. Anything less than that is perhaps a bigger betrayal than the act of cheating itself, and shows such a colossal disrespect to him, and if you can’t respect him enough to be honest then I’m sorry to say the marriage is probably doomed anyway, so you may as well stand in your integrity now.

That said I wouldn’t recommend blurting it out straight away. You are perfectly entitled to wrap your own head around it all, perhaps through counselling first.

Personally if I was in your husbands position if it was with a gf I’d call time on the relationship immediately, but if it was with a wife I had children with and had otherwise had a fantastic marriage with, I’d take responsibility for my part in it, try not to pile on any guilt, but still articulate how hurt I was, and put the work in to salvage the marriage.

I really do empathise with you OP you don’t come off as a terrible person. You are just human. I wish you the best possible outcome.

Sorry that line should be most definately NOT of your own making. Apologies

@BeachWaves2, yes for me it would have made a difference if I had learned the truth directly from DP. I mean, as I said I would have rather not known. But if I had to find out, it would have been preferable to hear it from him. Or at the very least for him to admit the truth as soon as I found out. As it was, he denied it for a long time.

In my situation, it was an additional humiliation to have the OW's boyfriend insinuate himself into my private life by seeking me out to reveal the affair. He also chose to contact me in a very creepy way that made it all quite intrusive and distressing.

Thank you @dervel I really appreciate your comments. I definitely need to wrap my head around it all. Too much going on to speak sense to DH right now.

He has a partner

Yeah, no way is this going to be a secret for long. Too many people involved.

What’s your housing situation, OP? If your husband and/or children ask(s) you to leave, will you have somewhere to go?

@VodselForDinner I would be fine either way but I know DH wouldn't want to stay here if it came to that, its a house that's been in my family forever. I'm not even thinking that far ahead right now.

If my husband spelt with someone once, truly was mortified and never done it again I wouldn't want to know. At the same time though, I couldn't be in a relationship where we had no sex life and couldn't even discuss the issues or just order some viagra. If you don't sort the issues within your marriage, it WILL happen again, if not with him then with someone else.

@Scbchl he has had viagra, he doesn't know I know, he hid it from me, that's how little he was willing to talk to me initially about what was happening. I know we need to talk properly about it now, it's the only way to sort things.

[quote WeDontLikeCricket]@VodselForDinner I would be fine either way but I know DH wouldn't want to stay here if it came to that, its a house that's been in my family forever. I'm not even thinking that far ahead right now.[/quote]
Is there other property? If there was a divorce, the house would likely be classed as a marital asset to split.

@VodselForDinner no other property but it wouldn't be an issue financially, we would both be ok.

More I read this this thread the more I feel genuinely sympathetic to both you and your husband. Marrying someone over a decade younger and expecting fidelity when your own sexual capacity is diminished and then being unable to even discuss it is a hell of an ask.

I’m in no way excusing the cheating here, but you haven’t been put in the easiest of positions here. For the marriage to survive there has to be some pretty major improvements in communication, and this was true before the affair.

I would honestly drop the guilt entirely OP, it’s a pretty useless emotion that makes victims out of sinners. Take stock and responsibility for your part, and work on making things better, but you aren’t I’m afraid going to be able to save this marriage on your lonesome.

Really have a deep dive and figure out what you want from this marriage. The status quo has been quite frankly untenable for you for quite some time.

If my DH cheated I would absolutely, definitely 100% want to know .
Then I could make an informed choice on what to do and whether to go or stay.
Everybody deserves that.
I honestly believe that the whole ‘ I don’t want to hurt him ‘ is something we tell ourselves in an attempt to making hiding the truth more palatable.
Hands up who wouldn’t want to know if their DH/DW was messaging someone else many times and meeting them for sex , even if it’s all over now . I’m guessing that would be most of us .

You screwed up, you know this. There were reasons but this doesn't excuse it and to your credit, you've taken full responsibility. There's no point wailing about what's happened, you have to figure out how to move forward.

I would normally have said that you should tell your DH but I have read countless threads on here about infidelity recently. A few in particular related to dalliances from the past which were over. There was even one when a guy had sex with another woman while they were having a trial split.

The one thing that all of the posters have said is that they wish they'd never been told. And interestingly, a lot of the people commenting said that it was selfish for the cheater to have told their spouse just to ease their conscience. The polar opposite of what you're being told on this thread! And that's what I would seriously consider here - the women who had been cheated on in the past all said they wished their DH had never mentioned it because it irrevocably changed things forever. I think most of them went on to end their marriage - over a quick and pointless shag that was over many years before.

We all say we'd want to know but I'm not sure that's really true. If your marriage is loving and happy now, it doesn't matter if you slept with someone 10 years ago, 5 years ago etc. If you ask me if I want to know, even now I'd insist that I'd want to know but in reality, I'd be so badly hurt I doubt I would ever recover from it. And for what? What's the actual purpose other than just "knowing"? The heart of it that no one likes to feel like a fool or to have been deceived. The idea that your partner could have slept with someone without your knowledge is hurtful as it feels so deceptive. The harsh truth is that if it genuinely was just a silly blip which is over, telling you would do more harm than good.

My question to you is why do you want to tell him? To ease your conscience? If that's the case then don't tell him. Why should he have to deal with the pain? I think that by telling him all you're doing is making yourself feel less guilty and asking for forgiveness. That's quite selfish. You're going to cause him a world of hurt just to make you feel better.

I don't think telling him moves you forward in your relationship. You need to hope that the OM is as discreet as he claims. It sounds like he has quite a lot to lose too so he may keep quiet.

The question is, can you keep quiet OP? It will be hard at first but it will fade if you really do want to work at your marriage. But this is a forever deal, you can't suddenly blurt it out in 10 years time. I see it as protecting your DH from unnecessary heartache and your "punishment" is your silence.

I am assuming that there's no chance you could fall pregnant or get an STI from the encounter....because there's no coming back from either of those.

I'm pretty sure your dh does not want to know that you had sex with a man half his age. Especially as your dh has ed.

A friend of mine had an affair. He decided to tell his wife and 'be forgiven.'
He wasn't expecting her to say that's OK because I had an affair last year.
Funnily enough he couldn't forgive his wife.

I think if you tell your dh then your marriage could well be over. Is that what you want?

I don't want the marriage to be over, I guess the main reason most people tell their partners is because they believe its the right thing to do, deep down perhaps it is really to ease the guilt.

I don't want the marriage to be over but I know things need to change. I do think OM will keep quiet, it really isn't in his interest to say anything. He's not a 'lad' who is the sort to be boasting about these things anyway and he does have a lot to lose.

I know I'd always have to keep quiet if i choose not to tell him now, in all honesty, the more I think about it, if I told him now it would be because I want it to be over. I just can't see any coming back from it.