A torn heart....serious long term but ended affair and long term marriage.

[Muddled54]

Name change for this one for obvious reasons...

I left my loving, soulmate affair partner of nearly a year (friends and colleagues for many years before this) to work on what I realised in comparison was a transactionally functioning but emotionally shallow marriage after confessing the affair to my suspecting spouse. If I’m honest I think I subconsciously hoped my husband would then instigate a divorce but instead, being understandably traumatised, he expressed that he’d rather committing suicide, actually waved paracetamol packets in front of me, than live without me. So I decided after 35 years together in an OK but not closely connected marriage, I owed it to him and our three grown up children to stay in the family unit and see why we weren’t connecting as I had managed for the first time in my life with my affair partner.

I knew I’d still have connection with my ex affair partner through work and think subconsciously I knew this meant I'd never 100% had to let him go, although would have drastically reduced contact at my spouse's understandable insistance. My spouse, having been so hurt I sense wanted to see that I was prepared to cause my affair partner and friend pain to show allegiance to him and I am ashamed to say that in my shock at the time I ghosted and gave my affair partner little/no proper closure and followed my husband's demands - he'd read up all about no contact in healing affair situations and I feel wanted me to apply everything that he believed would inflict pain on my affair partner as justly deserved punitive measures. I now feel I handled this tricky situation in an inhumane, inauthentic way as as a child from a broken marriage myself I now see my elderly father so much happier with his second marriage than he ever was with my mum who is also a good person but just they didn't connect I now realise.

My ex affair partner now has told me that this uncomfortable, artificial minimalist contact at work and also my decision of recommitting to my marriage is causing him so much stress and hurt that he wants to resign to allow himself and my marriage distance to heal if that truly is my choice. Now I am finally facing losing the one person on this planet who seemed to ‘get me’ and I feel full of regret and confusion. I did try and speak to my husband at the very first instance the affair started becoming physical and when I knew I had fallen deeply in love with my affair partner - I told my spouse that I had stopped loving him in a way that married people should but still had familial love for him, but his initial reaction was so extreme, again talk of suicide, that the affair continued in secret. Honestly as friends and lovers we were like magnets drawn together- it is not something I understand myself nor had experienced before this. there was nothing fancy about what we did - just walking in each other's company seemed like heaven and i felt for the first time on my life the joy of not feeling alone on some level on this planet. I am bereft but don’t know if I have the strength to handle a suicidal spouse, and the domestic upheaval and potential family fallout all at the same time if I end the marriage…and now having so badly hurt my loving, tender affair partner, he probably could never trust me any more for not seeing through ending the marriage when I should have done, right at the start of realising I’d fallen in love with him.

So bereft, so depressed, so stuck…I feel I’m giving up love with my soulmate out of duty for my loving, hurt husband and sense of duty to work on the marriage as he has asked. Has anyone else experienced this and did the marriage survive and repair once total no contact occurred with a truly loved affair partner? And as an alternative possible ending, if the marriage ends as healing proves impossible and you try at a later stage to reconnect with an ex affair partner you’d rejected and badly hurt, could that relationship recover or does that betrayal (yes, I feel I’ve betrayed my living affair partner in trying to recommit to my husband in all ways (psychologically and sexually!) leave too deep a scar? My husband knows how deeply I felt for the affair partner but he feels family and marriage vows trump all and if he's willing to try to forgive and understand why we didn't connect enough to prevent me finding a beautiful connection through an affair, I owe it to him after such a long marriage to try and work on it too.

Leave and be with the love of your life..your children are adults. They don't need you to stay in the marriage. We are only on this planet for a tiny insignificant amount of time. Be happy. You DH can't keep you by threatening suicide, and is unlikely to carry it out unless he has some underlying severe MH problems.

Your husband didn't attempt suicide did he? You wrote he waved some packets of paracetamol at you.
Divorce and if he threatens suicide, send the police to him.
No need for all the navel gazing, own your choices, live your life.

Why didn't you just leave your husband instead of having an affair? If you'd have left properly and started a new relationship with a clean break and you could have avoided all this drama and now he feels he can emotionally blackmail you to stay.

I don't understand affairs at all, so fucking messy. Just leave someone if you don't want to be with them or get some bloody marriage counselling if you do. These things never end well.

You basically have 2 choices now OP, either leave and try to support your husband through the break up with accessing counselling etc (which is probably what you should do) whilst maintaining distance from the affair partner until it's all sorted or properly seek some relationship counselling and let the affair partner go.

You should leave, regardless of what you do wrt your affair partner. Your marriage isn't happy. It's ok to leave. Infidelity is far less forgivable than calling time.

Just get divorced FGS

Yes your affair is very VERY special. So much more beautiful and special than anyone else's affair. Yours is soulmates, stars aligning, the stuff that inspires music and art.

Get real. It was just as mind numbing selfish and entitled as the next affair.

IMHO you were very conniving about sharing his threats of suicide. You knew that would offer you 'some' sense camaraderie, that you'd received the usual posts about how abusive this is.

Thing is the trauma from affairs does lead to suicidal ideation and in a moment of pure hurt and anguish it's not uncommon.

You removed his personal agency, his right to informed sexual consent and you put his mental and emotional health at risk for a year, lied, gaslit and manipulated... that is abusive behaviour.

You don't feel any remorse for what you have done, that is clear, so let this man go. Reconciliation can't happen while the cheat is pining and navel gazing.

No, she does not need to seek help for him!!

He needs to seek help for himself!!

@Muddled54 leave the marriage, regardless of whether down the line you rekindle your relationship with your former colleague, this isn't the marriage for you. Nobody should stay in a relationship through fear of suicide. Please don't take on that responsibility.

My sister left her abusive husband and in the weeks thar followed she received texts, emails, phone calls, hand written letters and once, a personal visit from each od his siblings holding her responsible if he killed himself.

They were manipulating her and trying to force her to take him back. The marriage wouldn't have worked and it would have been a waste of time for all of them.

Leave him and go live your life.

Cliche tripe. Get a backbone. Leave or don’t. Stop living in a bad romance novel.

Well, yes @scoopoftheday that is more the point. But if she's worried about him acting on it, she can also raise the alarm.

However, I suspect it's just a weapon to beat her with.

Does sound like you are romanticising something that's a bit grimey in reality. Tender is rarely a thing when you have been together years seen each other at your worst had food poisoning together and negotiated sex with young children in the house etc.

Also saying you could go back to this amazing friendship - ie continue the emotional affair that started long before the physical one.

Reality is your marriage is over. Leave your husband and make it clear to people he will need a lot of support - because the self esteem crush of trying to stay with someone who is mooning around after her tender soul mate is probably one of the more toxic parts of all this your husband needs (but does not want) to escape from.

Tbf even the title to your thread is a bit dramatic - torn heart etc. life isn't a mills & boon novel.

It was a dick move of your DH to threaten but you also want to have your cake and eat it- retain your marriage and contact with your ex AP. Life doesn't work like that.

You’re playing the martyr and I’m not sure why. Just get divorced and move on.

I think you should leave your marriage OP, live separately and see how it goes with the other guy- I left my 1st marriage for similar vibes and after an affair on my part 2. Years prior- I didn't leave for the OM as he by then had married someone else. My exH was apparently distraught - so much so that 3 months later he moved someone else in and they have been together now for 33 years. If it's dead, it's dead

god op you only get one life

your children are grown up! I thought when reading your post you were talking about small chidlren - you do not have to stay married.

thankfully we live in a world and culture where it is acceptable and legal and yes allowed - to end a marriage. Your husbands feelings are actually NOT a reason to stay married. You have to behave respectfully and honestly - but above and beyond ie. staying out of pity - no you don't.

@indigovapour why is she a 'cheating scumbag'? who are you to judge her?

Half of all marriages end in divorce - humans make mistakes. I'm sure the OP has had enough dark nights of the soul to have considered her own failings - no need for a total stranger to weigh in with the judgement of some superior person.

when your feelings about your marriage being way past tepid and in fact freezing cold are this well advanced and your feelings towards your husband verge on pity I honestly don’t see how you revive this. There’s nothing left.

There was a whole thread earlier this week about (in this instance) men who make suicide claims to attempt to arrest the passage of time - to force the hand of their spouse - which I think you should read.

If anything will clarify your thoughts then I believe it’s separation. No-one decides they suddenly love their husband because their husband is protesting in this way.

And any marriage break-up - if it comes to this - is much less messy when the person leaving their spouse is not leaving FOR someone else, but is leaving for themselves.

Less messy for your children, especially. But also for you, so that you are not just in a human tug of war fight, you are approaching this as someone with agency.

Which leaves your AP. I think you do owe it to him to explain your thinking, once you have it clearer. Am sure 99% of people here disagree with me on this.

Also, if he leaves his job here will he find another one as good easily?

Give yourself a lot of breaks here. The stuff you say about your parents - is clear. The stuff you say about your feelings towards your marriage - is clear. Don’t run towards the solution of staying because you feel so guilty about your actions. You owe it to your children to show them you can be happy, too. Whatever the outcome.

Very sad situation for you all.

I would follow my heart, life is too short to do otherwise.

Hope you find happiness.

I am going to come at this from the perspective of someone who has been an AP (female). What you’ve said about your feelings I recognise from what my ex said to me. I was always being told I was the love of his life, he’d never felt this way before, the connection we had was special. Maybe that’s just the nature of affairs?

It seems to me that you’ve chosen incorrectly: no one belongs to anyone else. You need to stay in a relationship (marriage or otherwise) mainly because you WANT to be in it - and you do not. But you made the choice and it’s definitely too late to go back to the AP now; the damage is done and the trust has gone there too now. I’m saying that as someone who was hurt in similar circumstances btw. Being an AP is horrible. It brings along feelings of inadequacy, self-loathing, guilt, fear, shame. Probably quite similar feelings to the person who is being cheated on, to he quite honest. You’ve just compounded those feelings in your AP by going back to your spouse.

My advice would be to work on your own character. I don’t mean to be overly harsh (after all, as an AP I’ve played my own part in drama like this) but there is an indication of a weakness in character of someone who has an affair instead of having the courage to leave. Reflect on that and maybe you’ll find an answer to what you really want going forward.

Wow OP
You live a bubble hurting those around you, behave terribly but it’s everyone else’s fault but your own.
If you are unhappy in your marriage you leave.
You don’t string your H and Affair P - who you admit was vulnerable after the break up of his marriage.
Be honest leave and sort yourself out. Your Poor Kids !
Stop being an entitled Martyr !

I think you should leave and give it a go with your AP. You do not owe anyone your duty, especially when it leaves you in misery.

good luck x

Leave your husband asap and work things out with the AP. Your husband’s ego is most likely at play here. He wants to keep you to beat the other guy. He will be lacking connection with you too.

The stark reality is you chose to cheat on your husband: the man you made vows to.
If you were unhappy why didn't you do the decent, honest thing and end the marriage instead of excusing your duplicitous behaviour with the rubbish about soul mates?
You made the choice to have the affair. You can't turn the clock back. Why should anyone sympathise with you?

😂😂 this