Affair advice

[Iammeandunhappy]

Hello. Just that really.

Anyone on here, who had an affair, and would be willing to privately get in touch with me to discuss it with me?

I am not after any advice/comment on the wrong doings of my affair, nor do I want to disclose any details of it.

Anyone on here, who had an affair, and would be happy to share with me? My husband knows and we are working through things. I would like to hear of stories of whether you managed to move on! How long did it take to forget AP. How did you deal with triggers? How did your help your husband?

There must be someone out there, please!

As I said, there will be many women triggered just by the title! I do not have to be told I deserve all that is happening to me. I am fully aware of that. Please refrain from negative comments if possible.

Thank you 😊

You say you want somebody to tell you all will be good. Nobody can tell you that. Some marriages recover from the betrayal of an affair but many don't.

OP I think you've had some deeply insightful posts - particularly from @EthicalNonMahogany and @Thewookiemustgo
I would only add that going forward you need to appreciate that your old marriage is now dead. If you think you are picking up where you left off and trying to take different choices, then you might not appreciate the impact of infidelity on most partnerships.

Once the trust is damaged, its not like a broken plate - more like a plant that you have both nurtured. It might have grown into a tree - but the damage of betrayal will have cut it back - it may only be a stump. And although some green shoots appear - it may never grow to what it was.
Your DH is also working through this and his feelings, perspective and reflection will change over time. At the initial shock the betrayed may feel a deep need to recapture what they fear they have lost. Try to move forward with more realiasation and honest. Hysterical bonding is very common. But he will now see a very different person in you. And over time the two versions of you (you as he has imagined for so many years and the you that has deceived so fiendishly) he has to reconcile both versions. That won't happen overnight.
Anger, and a sense that he sacrificed fulfilling his desires while you didn't- and your apparent lack of guilt for the actual infidelity- may lead him to be less guarding of his own fidelity.
So - while you are struggling to see how you might recapture feelings you once had, be prepared for a moving changing stream, rather than a still pool to return to. Although, ironically this might help rather than hinder a new partnership with your DH.

@Iammeandunhappy
ME
Started off as just someone who I was drawn to at work, wanted to get to know.
Soon escalated into texting all the time, nothing sexual or flirty but I was spending more time getting to know him than working on relatinship with partner.
I kidded myself for ages until I engineered a 'break' with partner at the time and lo and behold slept with guy.
This is a night I still think about now because it was amazing.
I confessed the next day and we tried to make it work which was futile, my heart was broken because I had fallen in love with my affair (the feelings were reciprocated and he was single)

I regret the timing and the disrespect and hurt caused to my ex partner. I should have had the balls to walk away before the break.We get along better now (Co. Parenting) and genuinely can talk with respect and have a laugh.

It's not going to work with your husband if you're I love with another man. I'm sorry but it isn't and you might aswell save yourselves the pain of trying.

If you're wondering what happened with affair.
We are still together, married and children.
I'm sure many will say I will get my karma but this is the one and only time I've ever done this and many years later I still feel sick for hurting my ex but we weren't right for each other. I should have handled it better but I'm human

EthicalNonMahogany

i found what you wrote about limerence very beautiful

I’m in a different place but I’m also struggling after a break up
I’m coping your post into my notes

Your attachment to your AP shows your need for validation to be as insatiable as the big blue ocean. Will it stop there? What about once you have been together for 10 yrs? Co parenting, haggard from working to cover bills on your halved assets. Not so romantic methinks. Till you get to know thyself and what you want out if life you are aimless and misguided no matter who you’re with.

What incredible posts from three incredble posters !

You know who you are.

Such insight, I love @Seadad your quote

So - while you are struggling to see how you might recapture feelings
you once had, be prepared for a moving changing stream, rather than a
still pool to return to.
Very true but I think in my case it was probably a raging torent on many occasions.

And @EthicalNonMahogany your description of a marriage being ossified is perfect, and so difficult to fix when broken.

I suppose I think of it in terms of chipping away the calcified exterior to reveal with time a softer more flexible interior as the trust begins to build.

Sadly for me, although I tried to open up after the hurt I realised I was ill equiped to understand, forgive or trust, so badly had I been affected but that was because there was also abuse involved, that was unforgivable.
Intellegence and patience seem stand out requirements for recovery plus a whole lot more, I wish sometimes I could have had the chance to try, if the abuse had not existed.

I feel if you want try to to stay together you need to make a commitment, and for you to be thankful for the chance, especially if you have someone who is as understanding as @Thewookiemustgo she's the go to for affair recovery and you also need to know thyself, as they say, are you up for the job?

You have a lot of learning to take on if you are prepared for the journey.
That is the first step, making that decision to really commit.

@EthicalNonMahogany absolutely agree, the betrayer needs to do their work but so must the betrayed, as unfair as that sounds. That is not to blame the betrayed in any way, I was in no way responsible for my husband’s choice to have an affair, the blame and responsibility for his actions are his alone. I did have to look at our relationship in a new light, decide how my 50% share in responsibility for our marriage was going to look going forward, and take responsibility for my reactions and the mental health problems I suffered, even though I did not cause those things. Life is not fair, that fact is the hardest thing to grasp growing up in a world where Disney movies and fairy tales tell us as we grow, that good people get good things and bad people get what they deserve. Life tells a different story. Being a victim of something is not a choice, no. But remaining in victimhood and snarling and spitting from within, wrongly believing we are justified, is a choice.
I think the emphasis lands more on the betrayer, especially on forums, in that typically the betrayer tends to do less work than the betrayed towards healing the relationship, or even actively avoids it.

It is very hard for the betrayer or indeed anyone who has done something appalling to face the fact that they have made terrible choices, that they are responsible for it and nobody else is, then to find some humility and look within, and get to true remorse rather than guilt. After my husband’s affair, as they betrayed when I witnessed his pain I admit I fluctuated between a boo bloody hoo attitude in my pain and anger and then feeling terribly sorry for him, believe it it not. The love never switched off for either of us and whilst he hurt me beyond description, it also hurt me deeply to see the pain it caused him to face up to how far he’d fallen from his own standards. He couldn’t undo what he’d done to me and I couldn’t stop his pain of what he’d done to himself. In the middle of the day one awful morning after DDay he texted out of the blue “I hate myself. I hate what I have done and I hate what it’s done to our life and I hate what it’s done to you.”
Here on MN I’d have been told it was a crock of shit and the old spiel of “he’s not sorry he did it, he’s sorry he got caught.” In his case that’s not true. I know broken when I see it and it broke him.
Here’s the thing though, he couldn’t undo what he did, I couldn’t undo what he did, but we could both stop the pain getting any worse, we could help it heal, and build back a life and a future. Both parties can make the pain way worse for each other for years. A betrayer who just wants it all gone and won’t do the work hurts the betrayed further. The betrayed who says they are staying in the relationship but wields the misdeeds of the past like an ever-threatened weapon, hanging onto resentment and anger and seeking forever to punish, damages the relationship they say they want to save further.
At some point acceptance in the present and looking to the future have to be in the driving seat, not the affair and the past. Letting go of the past doesn’t mean forgetting stuff ever happened, however, it doesn’t mean the betrayer ‘got away with it’, it means allowing the relationship to grow within the new status quo. The past informs the new boundaries mutually set, what will and will not be tolerated by both sides and will result in the loss of the relationship. Both parties need to openly and honestly discuss this and not do and say things to keep the pain alive in the present.
A new plant won’t grow if it’s choked by weeds from both sides.

Hi, I am in a similar situation if you are still looking to chat with people. Let me know and I’ll dm