Moving on from affair

[wutan]

About 3 years ago I had a child with my DH. He has a much more demanding job than me (it feels like it's often the third person in our relationship), but we've always wanted two children, and it would give us a shared purpose. I guess I thought that after our child was born his work would take a back seat, but in the first year of our child he was applying for promotion and trying to complete a masters. He almost had a nervous breakdown due to work stress and all this in the middle of COVID, whilst we had a new baby. It seemed like I was looking after two children. We had no intimacy, it was pure survival.

To cut a long story short, a supportive friendship for me became an affair and it blew me away. I know all the cliches about affairs, but we really did connect deeply in way I never have with anyone before, and never have with my DH. I've had previous relationships before being married, and never felt or experienced being so closely aligned with someone as this.

My affair partner already has two children and wanted us to leave our spouses and be together. I couldn't do it, I couldn't abandon my DH in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and face the thought of shipping our only child back and forth between us. At least my AP has two children, they will always have each other.

Eventually my AP left his wife anyway, she knew something was going on, and he couldn't go back to her after feeling how he did for me. He's met someone else now, ended our affair, and is very happy. (FWIW his wife has also met someone else, and I think is also happier).

My DH got his promotion and finished his masters, and our home life has become much calmer but our relationship hasn't recovered. I can't feel for him the same now I know what I gave up, the level of intensity and emotion I had with someone else. We could have sex just to have another child, but it would be mechanical, I don't want to have him in me anymore, I don't have that desire for him now.

I can't face leaving though, and giving up all chance of giving our beautiful boy a sibling to grow up with and I'm too old to have time to find someone else to have a second child with.

Also if I left him, it would have all been for nothing, I'll know I could have left earlier and kept my affair partner. I'll risk being alone for ever now, I'll never find someone the same again.

I've completely screwed myself, my husband and our child.

I don't know what I want by posting this, there's something therapeutic in just putting it anonymously onto the internet, but if anyone has been in a similar position and has any advice let me know....

You need to talk to a therapist. An impartial party who’s there to listen to you and help you get it all out there in a safe space.

With the benefit of hindsight you should have left. Your husband deserves the truth so he can have the chance to meet somebody who truly loves did respects him. Do the decent thing and confess

Your relationship with your husband is all but over. You can't continue to be with him feeling as you do, that's not a marriage. Separation is the only way forward for the both of you. Whether you tell him about the affair is up to you, you no longer want him so what would be the point in hurting him further.

The trouble is, your marriage is dead in the bedroom, so for all your hand-wringing about not giving your child a sibling or having to share custody, it's almost certainly going to happen anyway when your husband bails out.

You've had your realisation of what a relationship can be - don't you think your husband deserves that too? Set each other free. Your child will be fine as long as you co-parent amicably - which will be much easier to do at this stage than after another couple of affairs on either side when all communication has broken down and you actually hate each other.

I agree with the PP that said a therapist might help.

How did you feel about your husband before the breakdown and affair?

I would say that you could come back from it, though not wanting to shag him at all isn't a good sign.

I think you need to consider if all the passion and excitement etc with the AP would still be there if you had moved in together and had the normal daily grind. The answer is almost certainly not.
Then you need to think about your marriage and what you do next. There's an awful lot to be said for a good decent man who works even harder to provide for his family after a baby arrives which it sounds like it's the case here. Lockdown was a very strange time.

Basically you need to take a long hard look at yourself, forget about the what ifs and de use whether it was a big mistake or an indication of issues in the marriage which can be fixed (or not) and then decide what you should do. Does your husband know about the affair?

I'd never stay with someone just because I didn't want to be alone. That's a sad, sad existence.

You never bothered to tell your husband about your affair? So the marriage is a farce, a sham, all for your own self indulgence. Do the decent thing, ffs.

Wtf? You need to get this comment removed

Not been in your shoes but

Firstly I would think if AP has found someone else… this shows he was desperate to get out of his marriage but didn’t want to be alone & has just grabbed on to the next person quick

secondly you may think AP was amazing but 10 years on would they be…you’d be living together in another routine

Thirdly I think if you thought AP was the one you’d have left DH you could have had a child with him which would have given your child a sibling and had 2 step siblings

Fourthly if you don’t want to try and reinvigorate your marriage you should leave him, you’ll be happier for it & can focus on being happy on your own before maybe meeting someone in a few years

You need appropriate help and to read the right resources right now... as you're thinking is still very off base.

'He almost had a nervous breakdown due to work stress and all this in the middle of COVID, whilst we had a new baby.'

Your husband was having a breakdown and your response is an affair. Your poor coping strategies are evident (as is your pure selfishness and entitlement).

'I know all the cliches about affairs, but we really did connect deeply in way I never have with anyone before, and never have with my DH. I've had previous relationships before being married, and never felt or experienced being so closely aligned with someone as this.'

No it wasn't any of this. You are the epitome of a woman involved in an affair. This is limerance. Your brain has created a narrative that your conscience could live with. It was not true love, soulmates, kismet or any of that nonsense. If it was he wouldn't have ended it and ran off with the first safely available women after leaving his wife.

'(FWIW his wife has also met someone else, and I think is also happier).'

Don't assume anything about his betrayed wife. New partner or not, your actions and that of her ex husband will have long reaching implication on her life as well as her children. You're displaying zero remorse for the pain and hurt the affair caused.

The rest of your post is just me, me, me. You're very much still in affair fog. You're another affair waiting to happen.

Affair recovery site with their videos for people who've cheated and surviving infidelity 'wayward' board will help you move forward. How to help your spouse heal from your affair and just good friends are great books. Getting yourself into counselling and unpicking done if this would help too.

Nothing you had with this man was special, once you start unpicking that you will start to move forward.

You suffered a lot of pain when your marriage went wrong; having a baby is a difficult time for many women, and if your DH voluntarily absentee himself from supporting you by throwing himself into work to the point he broke his own MH, I'm guessing you felt very lost and lonely. Comparing what you hoped your little family would be with what you ended up with, can be extremely hard. The disappointment and emotional agony there leaves you vulnerable. You start to look outside the marriage, needing validation that you aren't an unlikable person, needing the support and care of another adult, craving emotional and physical intimacy that proves you can stil be loved despite now being a mum.

Finding an AP when you are vulnerable is a common solution, and the wrong one. As you have seen, it doesnt end well.

If you confess the affair to your partner now, it is likely your marriage will not survive. If you continue without confessing, it is likely you will never get over the guilt, and never get the marriage back on a secure footing.

You have to pick your path, and stick with it. If you continue on your current path, you have to absolutely decide you want to stay with your DH and throw yourself into winning him back. This means, you need to initiate some conversations with him about what he wants, how he sees the marriage continuing, whether he is content to live in a sexless marriage. You have to ask yourself: can you live without sex potentially for the rest of your married life? For many people that would be unacceptable. But you may be able to learn to love with the compromise.

It takes time to heal yourself after you've turned your own life upside down with an affair. You need to give yourself time to get over it. To get to a place where months go by and you don't think of your AP. You will get to that place.

My advice is to fill your life with things that create good karma. Love your child. Try to find common ground with your DH - encourage him to find a work-life balance and spend time together as a family. Look for activities that make you happier and fulfilled in your own self - a career, make female friends and see them lots, host playdates, learn to bake, go to a gym or go running, charity work or help at your kids school, gardening, helping elderly relatives.

You have to stop dwelling on the affair and navel-gazing and look up and forwards to what you can fill your life with.

Give it two years. It sounds a lot, but already you've made the decision not to leave your DH. So now invest in making that decision the right one.

In that space of time, if things are unbearable, then you marriage is over. But at least you tried.

There is no single right answer to how to live your life. Too often - as you now know to your cost - an affair is a recipe for personal hell. You have created a huge amount of anguish for yourself, but the agony of ending the affair is the right decision. You need to be convinced of that.

Despite what pps have said, it is unlikely you would have engaged in the affair simply because you are basically a bad person with no moral compass. So you need to backtrack to that 'fork in the road'when the marriage went badly wrong and you looked elsewhere. Backtrack and forgive your DH for participating in allowing the marriage to go so wrong. And spend the rest of your life fixing it.

It is possible. It will never be the same again, and you will doubtless have periods when you are miserable. But it is possible you can find a spark again, get some form of intimacy again, and cobble together a marriage of sorts.

I hope you have the strength and courage to try.

Thankyou for the replies. Sorry about the delay, after writing this I just ran away for a bit, it was all too much. I really appreciate you all for taking the time to reply.

I’m not judging you life gets tough and we all manage it differently.
Could you and your husband try counselling together. Perhaps on your own also?
It sounds like you don’t want to be alone and would love another baby. But there are bigger issues.
I don’t think he needs to be hurt about the affair but you both deserve to be happy.