I know I’m a bad person. But I need help. Please don’t judge, although I’m pretty sure I deserve it.
Me and my partner live together and have a 3 year old DS , we also own our house jointly, but are not married.
My DP was constantly miserable and I felt like I was walking on eggshells with him all the time, he was always snapping at me and making me feel on edge frequently.
He is a good person though and would never be unfaithful to me, he’s also an amazing dad to our son and goes above and beyond.
Shortly before lockdown last year he told me he didn’t know if he wanted to get married (we were engaged) because he wanted me to ‘change’ first. So that was very hurtful to be honest. I felt unloved and unappreciated. Anyway none of this justifies what happened, but I’m just building the scene.
I started talking to a man online, we met through a mutual interest group, not a dating site or anything.
It started friendly and to be honest, I was feeling so lonely and isolated that it was refreshing to be able to talk to someone who seemed genuinely interested in me. A lot of the time when talking to my DP he didn’t seem interested in what I had to say and was more concerned with playing on the computer game on his phone.
So me and the OM started talking daily, it become a routine I was looking forward too, however at this point I’d never met him.
About a month or so after we started talking we organised to meet up. In a public place and just for a drink.
The first time we saw each other, it sounds cliched, but I felt familiarity instantly and any worries I had about meeting him just melted away. We had a really nice time, laughing and joking together, he was a real gentleman holding the door open for me etc.
Anyway, fast forward a few months later and we’d met a couple of times more and had ended up kissing, he started sending me cards and gifts in the post that I obviously had to hide from my DP. Then the second lockdown happened (Christmas one) so we couldn’t meet for about 3 months, it was horrible and I felt suicidal during that time. My DP was awful to live with during that time as he was working from home and found it really stressful, so was constantly in a bad mood.
Me and OM started writing each other letters, which he sprayed with his aftershave and I sprayed with my perfume.
The next part I’m even more ashamed of, we started sending each other naughty pictures and sexting most nights when my DP and DS were asleep.
Me and DP hadn’t been intimate together for about 3 months at that point.
Anyway shortly after lockdown ended me and OM met up and we did some stuff in the car, which I’m not proud of obviously, but at the time there was a lot of sexual tension and it just happened.
A few weeks later, I told my DP I was going to stay with a friend for the night, and I ended up staying with OM for the first time and we did end up having sex. I felt so guilty in the morning, going back and seeing my DP and DS.
Fast forward to the present, OM says he loves me and wants us to be together. FYI he is single and doesn’t have any children. So there isn’t another party involved.
My head and my heart are saying two different things, the last 6 weeks or so over the summer holidays, DP has been making more of an effort and we have been getting on better, but I do have these strong feelings for OM which I can’t deny. It’s like an addiction, we talk daily and even when I tried not to talk to him for a couple of days, neither of us could manage it and we started messaging and FaceTiming again, because of the distance between us (about 3 hours drive) we only see each other now and again, but the fact is I’m scared. Scared that my DP will find out and I’ll be left with nothing. I am also financially dependent on him as I’m not in work at the moment, although I’m currently job searching.
I also rely heavily on his family to help me out with DS as my family don’t live nearby.
I’m full of guilt and spoke to OM last night telling him I think we need to end it and he got very upset and kept saying how much he loves me and how he wants us to be together.
I can’t imagine my life without him now , but equally I don’t want to further ruin the life I have here with my DP and DS, not to mention what our family and friends would think of me.