Made a mess of everything

[lashington]

I wonder if I am unhinged. I am unable to cope with my life at the moment and don't know where to start to detangle...

I've been married 10 years. I am/was having an affair. It's been going on and off and on and off for about 3 years. He left his wife, not because of me, but I think I was the catalyst if that makes sense. I have not left my husband but have continued the affair. He wanted to be with me, properly. I had a lot of things to sort out - working out what I want, I have 2 small ish children. He has two children that don't live with him. That sort of thing. Me and the affair partner go round in circles, very passionately, very emotively, back and forward, spending the most wonderful times together and then having the most awful arguments, usually via Whatsapp, where tone and thought gets lost. We both miss each other when we're apart. We are currently apart after I pushed him away again because he was unkind to me again. I reached out, he told me that he wasn't in a place to talk to me until after the New Year. I lost it, got all desperate and made a tit of myself.

I feel very lonely in my life without him. My life is horribly busy as it is - full time job, kids, a hobby that takes up my time and makes me tired but is almost essential for my mental health. He got cross that I didn't make time for him. I had very little time but gave him as much as I could. He had an affair before he met me and I am a very suspicious person (probs because I know what I'm capable of). He is similar to me in terms of emotional passion, but I wonder if that creates too much volatility between us. I feel like he is a drug to me.

Is this all sounding like a total shit show so far?

My husband knew that I had an affair but thought it was over a year ago. Nothing really changed as a result of me having an affair. Obviously Covid made it tricky. He is very busy at work, works nearly every evening, and is incapable of multi tasking - so our relationship has suffered/become invisible/pushed down the priority list, after pretty much everything. I care about him very much, but in a sort of platonic way. I don't want to feel like this. I can't think straight. Is the affair love this intense because it isnt real? How do I pull away when I can't stop thinking about him, even though it is destroying me. Could there be a happy conclusion for us, despite everything that's happened? Is this feeling of intense longing something that never sticks around in a long term relationship? Can I start to love my husband again? Where do I go with all of this?

I am prepared for honest responses, but also please be mindful that I am also looking at inpatient mental health facilities as I am not coping.

@ArthurApples

Had you already met OM when you were setting things up to give yourself permission to have an affair?

No

@Tiredofbs123

You could also try the affair recovery videos. They have many many videos and really do help. Read the wayward section on surviving infidelity is another option. But don’t expect it to be easy.

Thanks, will take a look.

I appreciate it sounds like a cheaters script, but it's my life, and I recognise that I maybe, maybe, have one chance to sort it out before I get left with nothing. I guess to do the work with myself, so that I never allow myself to be in this position again

As I said I actually have sympathy. I’m reconciled with a man who was exactly where you are. He has travelled a hard path. He has pulled himself back from a terrible place. That’s why I’m posting because affairs are damaging, nasty, life destroying things. You need to refund your moral compass.

Refind

Actually forget that question, it has happened, its not ok, but you need to do something about it now. No it didnt happen in a vacuum, but you made choices to do this, you weren't helpless. Your kids are though, they need you and they trust you.
There's not much anyone on the Internet can tell you that will magically change things and your thinking for you, you are making your own mental health problems worse, driving your own dysfunction to the point that you want to be admitted for help, to avoid the harder work of ending an affair that is hurting you and your family. OM is not the person to hang your future on. He has given you an opportunity in a way, you can block him everywhere for contact and go and see a GP and ask for help with your mental health. Cut him off, permanently. You are ill, it isn't safe. Fill the time you have spent on damaging yourself with him with self care and love for your kids. Talk to your DP about relationship counselling, get it all out in the open. Focus on your kids, maybe you can recover your marriage, maybe not, but stop making everything worse by keeping in touch with OM, it will destroy you. Take responsibility, control, it will be awful at first but eventually, weeks, months years even you'll stop checking your phone and the infatuation will fade.

I do have sympathy with you and I think OM has manipulated you but you made a choice that first time anything happened. However it has happened and I really wish you well.

Stop seeing OM and focus on yourself and your family. Think about who you are, where you would like to be and what might work best for you if you didn't have a partner (which might ultimately be the solution).

OM isn't bringing you happiness and he certainly isn't fulfilling the role of safe haven - in fact he sounds like a nightmare. If he is 'the one' for you, he will still be 'the one' in six months so for now draw a line. Tell him it's over, block him and get some counselling for yourself. And do it soon. Then, when you feel stronger, talk honestly with your DH.

All this deceit, distraction and manipulation will damage you and your family unnecessarily but you still have time to bring things under control. If your marriage isn't going to work you need to address that directly with DH so you can be disentangled together with DCs best interest at heart. You do not need OM in the picture for this. It's quite obvious he doesn't have your best interest at heart.

It will be hard for you to believe now but it is likely that at some point the blinkers will fall from your eyes and you will see OM for what he is - a manipulative, demanding, dishonest man. You will then be horrified that you let him have such a hold on you and your family's well-being. Stop seeing him now, get counselling and divert the energy you spend on him to caring for yourself so you can make good decisions.

You are in a special kind of hell, it is torturous, and the OM isn't your way out I'm afraid.

Because he doesn't actually sound very safe, or even very nice, with his ultimatums and his imposed deadlines. Out of the frying pan and into the fire I think, from what you've said.

Him making demands, getting 'cross' sulking and flouncing, when he knows the state you are in, are not the actions of the kind of man who is worth leaving your life for.

All the stuff you are getting from him, the attention and passion etc, is trying to fill an empty space in you. But that's not going to work. You need therapeutic help to work out why that space is there and what you can do about it.

The affair is keeping you so busy in your head that you are not attending to your own deepest needs.

In years to come you will regret anything that causes you to be emotionally unavailable to your children.

If you do the work on yourself, the other stuff will work itself out. You will work things out.

Everything @FantasticButtocks said in spades.

In your OP you asked some questions. Have some of posts helped answer these even a little?

Is the affair love this intense because it isn't real? Probably
How do I pull away when I can't stop thinking about him You find inner strength and reserves you may not believe you have (but do) in order to spend time working on yourself
Could there be a happy conclusion for us, despite everything that's happened? Maybe, but you know it's a risk and a long shot.
Is this feeling of intense longing something that never sticks around in a long term relationship? It;s a longing because you aren't together all the time. I'm sure you know the answer is that the intensity doesn't last and in this case is almost certainly related to it being an affair not 'real life'. Can you really see it lasting if you have children and normal daily life interfering?
Can I start to love my husband again? Well that's the $64,000 question. Has he changed since your affair? Does he understand how desperate you were/are? Will he step up in the way you need? Can you change and step up too? At the end of the day love cannot be forced but maybe with time you can find a connection again. But that won't happen whilst you continue this affair.
Where do I go with all of this? Like the other posters I think you have to back away from affair, maybe even a temporary separation of some sorts with your husband as well and see what that feels like. You need time and space, to concentrate on yourself and your children and talk (really talk) to your husband about the future and your needs and goals, and see where that takes you.

Interesting to read how everybody is so nice and understanding ...

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

Interesting to read how everybody is so nice and understanding ...

If you have something to say, just say it.

I am going to be honest I would leave both men. A relationship that started as an affair is very difficult to maintain. How can you trust each other?

Add four children in the process . No way I would do that.

I'm really grateful to all who've taken the time to reply and to offer some advice and answers. It seems that I have some way to go to stop feeling like this, and I do know that I'm the only one who can take each of the steps.

I'm not expecting sympathy, I know what I've been doing is wrong and hurtful. I hate that my happiness has been so dependent on another person's words or actions. I broke the marriage vows. I was/am being selfish. I do know this.

I'm just trying to get suggestions on how to start to unscramble this mess with the least amount of collective pain.

And it seems this guy likely isn't it. despite me wanting a fairytale happy ending, given I will still have two lovely children and given how long this has been going on, and the hurt that we've both caused each other (he would say that I've hurt him by not choosing him, when if I loved him as much as I say I do, it would come naturally), there is too much water under the bridge and too much hurt/to-Ing and fro'ing and indecision on my part, and it would be a shit set of foundations.

@ArthurApples thank you for your message. I cannot seem to reply privately, but do really appreciate what you wrote

I'm glad you got it and it was received as it was meant. Someone up thread rightly said he's an albatross round your neck, that's spot on, free yourself from him, actively choose to end it and block all communication, your mental health and will recover. He's a total wrong un that has sold you a lie, keep yourself and your kids safe from him and the hurt this has caused your family. Try and frame ending it as protecting them and yourself if that helps, rather than agonise over him, he's a dickhead. It will get easier, but only if you cut it off dead.

I was the OW to a man who sounds just like your affair partner. He told me all the same things, him and his wife should never have got married, thry were unsuited, it would be different with me. Yeah… it wasn’t. We got married. He cheated on me. Twice (that I know about).

@Newnameagainagainagain

I was the OW to a man who sounds just like your affair partner. He told me all the same things, him and his wife should never have got married, thry were unsuited, it would be different with me. Yeah… it wasn’t. We got married. He cheated on me. Twice (that I know about).

Thanks for sharing this. I feel like a part of me would always be waiting for this to happen in some way.

Lots to try and think about from what everyone's said - and thanks again for taking the time to reply.

The problem is, OM (no matter how ridiculous his behaviour is) is your escape from day to day married life with kids. Yes, you should cut ties with him but the only way this will be successful permanently is if you fill the void he will leave with something else. Your marriage clearly doesn't fulfil you, you're miserable and lonely. Remove OM without filling the void and you'll likely spiral and end up making contact again.

If you were in a healthy loving relationship you wouldn't feel this void and you wouldn't need someone to fill it, to make life tolerable. End your marriage. You know you need to. Allow yourself time to breathe! Be alone. With your kids. Deal with the fallout. Move on without guilt for DH and longing for OM. Clear the slate. Hopefully in time, as the shit settles you will meet someone new and you'll allow this healthy, new love to fill the void.

I've been where you are. Affair partner of 2 years with a very similar set of circumstances. It's pure hell. Mental torture. You're emotionally distant and miles away, all the time, although on the surface you're great... good mum, working, running a house and family. It's a charade and it does all come falling down eventually.

If you dont make some decisions I think you'll find they will be made for you. Such is life. Take control while you still can, while you can minimise the hurt to DH.

Prepare yourself for an avalanche of emotions. Missing OM. Mourning your marriage. Guilt for the kids and the disruption to their lives. You'll feel it all so take a deep breath. Once you're through it though, I promise you, you'll breathe easy again.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

Interesting to read how everybody is so nice and understanding ...

What is to be gained by not being nice and understanding?

I care about him very much
Do you though?

Come on OP
You know this is wrong.

Sounds like the affair is just a bit of excitement that you're lacking in your marriage. The fact that he's been unkind to you again, as you put it, doesn't sound good. The grass isn't always greener. Either work on your marriage or leave both. Either way, if you leave to be with your affair, it might be be out if the frying pan...Take off your rose coloured glasses. He's not the man you need and is probably causing you stress that is causing you emotional/mental health issues. Once you have cut ties, you might find that the relief will be immense.

@lashington you’re welcome. “Luckily”, there were no children involved in DH’s first marriage (the one we exploded together). Silly me was stupid enough to marry him and have kids with him so we are now in a right mess. Previous posters are right, the affair is exciting & filling a void for both you and the OM right now because it’s not real life. When the stress and strain of real life creeps into your relationship with OM, he will do it again (or you will).