How do I get over affair partner? No closure.

[PinkyBrain290]

I don’t even know where to start with this, but I feel lost, torn and expect to get flamed (rightly so).

I’m married, kids, long-term relationship, kid 30's. In December I met someone through work at an event. It wasn’t meant to be anything, but it turned into a connection, a one night stand and us messaging constantly for 3 months straight. He lives 120 miles from me but we are both remote. He landed a job in a town by mine and said he wanted to continue meeting. We met for a drink in January, kissed but nothing more than that. We have only slept together once, and for me that wasn’t casual, I've been with DH for 18 years. AP did initially tell me he was single, but it then unraveled he wasn't and had always been with the mother of his children. When I found out he apologised, said he was scared of what I would think etc "because he liked me".

What messed with my head is that AP was very hot and cold towards the end. One minute it felt like there was something real there, the next he’d pull away. He was also in a serious relationship with 2 children. I think that inconsistency made me want it more.

It all came to a head when I ended up telling his wife. He told me they were planning a wedding... and didn't have sex anymore. I told his wife because I got fed up of the hot and cold. We were supposed to be meeting up in March and when it got to the day of him travelling over, he said his manager wanted to take him out and he wouldn't be able to see me until about 10-11pm at night, but that's when it dawned on me that to him it was sex only. He was in my area for two nights, the first night we could have met for a drink but it was the day before his first day at work and I did feel like it was just general excuses.

Anyway telling his wife to be was a huge reaction on my part and I regret how I handled it. Since then, he’s blocked me completely. No closure, no conversation, nothing (obviously). I blocked him on Instagram and he blocked me on all other platforms.

And now I’m just… stuck with it. It's been over 4 weeks and I'm just not over it.
I can’t message him even though it was wrong. It's like a drug. I can’t get answers. And somehow that’s made it worse. It’s like my brain keeps going over it, trying to make sense of something that’s already done.
What’s confusing is I know I wouldn’t have left my family, and he wouldnt have either.

Ive told my husband everything. Hes upset and wants to make it work with me, however now I’m grieving something that was never really going anywhere.

It’s been hitting me in waves. I’ll be fine, then suddenly I’m crying. It's been over 4 weeks and I've done nothing but secretly cry all weekend.

Ive stupidly looked at his partners social media and it looks like they're staying together so I don't know what rubbish he has told her, however I know I'm wrong.

I guess I’m asking:

• How do you get over someone when there’s no closure?
• Is this just a case of time doing its thing?
• Has anyone else had something like this that felt huge at the time but eventually just… disappeared?

I feel ridiculous even writing this but I'm spiralling and I just want to speak to him - it's bonkers.

Can we have an update about your husband? How has he been since you told him ? Do you care how he has been?

Perhaps you should buy a telescope
So you can see further than the end of your nose.
The woe is me tale is pathetic.

You’re really being passive about this OP, so if you want to move on you need to get accepting what you’ve done, how it has hurt your family and why you did it.

Continually minimising and curating the narrative to excuse yourself is not the way to go. You cheated on your husband, you chose to be involved with the stupid emotional games with your AP, you chose to tell his partner, you’re choosing to waste time with your children crying over him. I guarantee he isn’t crying over you.

Do not make out that his partner is stupid and that he’s told her a fairy tale, you chose to go along with his bollocks for nothing more than one night of sex and some text messages.

I know that sounds harsh but you need to wake up to reality a bit. If you think there are areas of your relationship with your husband that are not working, work on them or leave. None of this is happening to you. You are creating it.

NC for this
OP I was in a similar situation (but messier than yours ). We were all 'friends'. I ended the affair but knew I wasn't going to be able to move on with him still in my life. I told my DH and gave OM an ultimatum of he told his wife or I would.

His wife forgave him, believed every lie he told her. She wrote to me telling me how it was all my fault that I had preyed on her DH when how I was abusive and he was lost. I found out she was pregnant when he told her, I had no idea.

The guilt, shame, anger at him, it was all totally overwhelming. I got therapy. I'm just over a year of it all coming out. I'm working on accepting my guilt and foolishness. It's not easy and it's scary but it's necessary. Good luck.

Why did you tell your fling to tell his wife or you would?

Because we were a group of 4 friends (obviously im aware that what he and I did to our friends are not what friends do) and I couldn't see a way of blocking them out of our lives. I became fixated on the 'truth shall set you free'.

For what it’s worth @BunnyWabbit2000 I think the guilt of being around your friends knowing what you did would be agony and if they found out later it would be even worse I agree that the truth does set you free, you just have to be prepared for the consequences.
So many OW will say their AP was the most amazing connection they ever had, will never forget him, it was electric etc. They all seem to talk about it in the same intense, highly romanticised, other-worldly experience way. Unless the affair relationship translates successfully (if you can call the devastation of two marriages/ families successful), the affair relationship remains in memory as the high-octane fantasy it was, that’s why it’s hard to stop thinking about. It never got real, never got subjected to day to day reality or mundane chores, never got the chance to lose its excitement as secret novelty became everyday routine. It stays artificially in memory as an affair, and affairs are first dates on acid. It’s the high of it at the time that is hard to let go of, the cheating married man never seems to be troubled by such longing and artificial memories for long.

Yes. I look back with such shame because he was nothing. He wasn't a patch on my DH. And the pain I caused my wonderful DH will live with me for the rest of my life and with him and he didn't deserve any of it.
But I take pride in the fact I told the truth. I've faced up to what I've done, I'm doing the hard work.

It could be. But why are you looking for answers when you have all of the answers in the world.

You do have closure. It is very very evident.

If telling his partner isn't closure I don't know know what is.

That's the nuclear option to make sure he never talks to you again, he's hardly going to take that risk.

Um she’s als0 a liar and cheat.

OP it may be there is something missing in your marriage. It may be your life has got boring and this man lit something inside of you and then it became addictive due to the hot and cold dynamic. Or it could be you were sucked into this as it reminded you of a dynamic you had from childhood.
People make mistakes and you accept it was a mistake. I would recommend therapy or counselling even though you said you can’t face talking about your parents, as I suspect you may find this happens again if you go not get to the root cause of it.

You initially believed that this man was single, but it became apparent that not only is he in a serious long-term relationship but has 2 children too. Even knowing he'd lied to you regarding his relationship status, you continued to communicate with and see him.

Of course, the affair with you was about sex. The fact he lied about his relationship status told you right from the start, that your affair wasn't about emotions but sex. He told you what he knew you wanted to hear, in order to get into your knickers!!

By your own admission, you weren't interested in leaving your husband and he wasn't interested in leaving his partner. So where exactly was this affair going to go????!! Once the initial throws of passion and excitement faded, what's left??? The truth is...nothing. Sex and passion can't keep a relationship going, there has to be more and it has to evolve. How can an affair, where neither party is interested in leaving their respective partner's evolve??? It can't.

He started blowing hot/cold, because he'd lost interest in you and was bored. Instead of recognising the affair for what is really was, you romanticised it, into something it wasn't. You should have walked away, when you found he lied to you regarding his relationship, and you definitely should have walked away when his behaviour changed to hot/cold.

You decided to stir a hornets nest, and tell his partner. Why?? He wasn't going to leave her, no more than you were going to leave your husband. It was pointless. You were angry with him for blowing hot/cold, and wanted to teach him a lesson.

You aren't going to get closure. Accept that the affair was wrong and that you are incredibly lucky that your husband is willing to try to save your marriage. Seek some individual therapy and couples and put your energy into your marriage. If you can't, then divorce your husband.

Your poor husband.

Sounds like you’re unhappy in your marriage and matey was bored with his wife. I guarantee you’re not the only woman he’s cheated with, many men working away have affairs like this, it’s very common, a lot of people work away in my town and I have lots of friends over the years who regularly meet these marred guys, I’ve been propositioned numerous times too, it seems to be par for the course.
you meant nothing to him and you need to let go of the fantasy you’re grieving.
your husband must be devastated too , you need to get therapy either alone or together and decide whether your marriage is worth fighting for.
your husband must feel so hurt, you’re very fortunate that he still wants to be with you but he also needs to ensure that he is truly able to move past it for you both to work, if he can’t it will be hell for you both

Her husband will need time to know whether he can move forward and accept this in his marriage, but also he will need OP to be honest and get help.
His future decisions within the marriage depend enormously on OP, on how she treats him and how much help she gets with her issues.
If he can’t trust her it will be hell for them both and at present he shouldn’t trust her, it’s pretty obvious who ended it and why, and if he hadn’t, I think it would still be going on.
The onus in helping her husband heal from the affair is OP’s responsibility, as well as his own need for the truth and honesty from her. Any marriage issues are a joint responsibility, but they are way off fixing that yet, the affair is still festering and OP’s mind is currently elsewhere. Her marriage is ‘pretend normal’ where they are back together on the surface but nowhere near happy by the sound of it.
OP is on here, fixating about the other man. It’s still very much alive for her, no matter how much she insists to her husband that it’s dead.
Ending an affair isn’t enough, her husband thinks she’s learned her lesson and is all-in trying to fix things. She is outwardly and she isn’t internally.
She’s not fixating on her husband, where her attention should be, or getting therapy for her addictive problems. Her husband will have noticed her disconnect and will still be wondering what she’s thinking and if he has the full truth. He doesn’t.
What her husband needs to ensure at the moment is that she’s fully recommitted to him and that he is her priority and that she
loves him, not OM. He wants to be the one she is thinking about and he thinks she’s thinking about the marriage, about him, about how she can make this up to him, if ever. She isn’t.
He has decided to reconcile on the basis of what OP has told him, and we don’t know what that is. The awful truth for him is here, but I doubt OP has told him what she’s telling us.
At present he doesn’t realise the full depth of this for OP and he can’t be asked to ‘move past’ something that isn’t true. He’ll be able to feel in his gut that OP is holding back and the questions won’t end until he knows what this thing he currently can’t put his finger on is. It will show, his gut feelings will tell him all is still not well. Once this happens to you, you become hyper-vigilant, massively more in tune to your partner’s words, actions, expressions and body language. OP is being observed more closely than she thinks. It’s a survival mechanism, he won’t even probably realise he’s doing it.
Radical honesty from OP and OP getting some help with her issues will allow him to make an informed decision, he only has half a tale so far. The other half is here and we’re reading it. He has no idea. Getting past anything is way off yet for both of them, even OP admits she can’t get past it herself. What chance does he stand?
His decision to stay is currently based on OP’s lies about how she now feels. Without courage, honesty and hard work, there are still very stormy seas ahead without a great deal of effort and the courage to get honest and get help.

You have your closure @PinkyBrain290 , just not the closure you'd like.

You wanted to be special to him, so when he became lukewarm, you lobbed a grenade ro try and heat things up. He reacted by cutting you off, and therein is the 'closure'.

He's a cheat who wants to remain with his partner/soon to be wife; and you and your explosive actions are surplus to requirements.

Focus on fixing your own mess now, as you didn't just cheat on your husband; you added an extra layer of risk by trying to blow up your AP's relationship. What was your endgame?

I agree with most of what youve said but OP is not alone in trying to blow up her AP's relationship. Her AP did that the moment he slept with her. He made that decision knowing full well she might do this. He trusted her? What an idiot. Same as she is. Same as I was, same as my AP was.

He played a stupid game and won a stupid prize, just the same as her.

Yes, you need therapy.

I was always looking for something because I had a constant sense of emptiness. Turns out what was missing was part of myself and therapy helped me find that ... Seven years, weekly, f2f and counting.

In the meantime, start a stupidly time intensive project, take up running, redecorate a room, landscape your garden, any busy work will do.

He sure did!

I have no sympathy towards the sexually incontinent fella at all - just pointing out to the OP that after some very decisive actions and him cuttingher off cold; that is the clearest of closures.

You fucked up, deal with it. You have to face the fact that you were played by, and a dumb idiot. What's more is, your DH is being very graceful and giving you a chance. Don't fuck that up either!

OP, I’m not going to drudge up the painful details but I was in a very similar situation which ended late 2024. However, mine went on for a year, not just three months.

It ended similarly, although I never told his wife and he never blocked me, but we had to stop contact, which was all day every day.

I still think of him every day, and sometimes I still miss him. But it is better now than it was a year ago, and I’m starting to move on. It has taken a long time, but it does get better with time. I’m glad I’m no longer where you are - it’s horrible.

You’ll have your scars, but this is not a lesson you need to learn twice - bear that in mind.

After reading most of the thread, yr posts and posters replies, I feel impatient with you. You come across (to me) as having a tanty when you didn’t get what you wanted ie some fun & games with another chap. He blanked you & you didn’t like it, so you replied by telling his partner - right or wrong I don’t know.

You don’t need therapy, again only my opinion, you need to fill your days, keep busy focus on the blessings you have & be blimmen thankful your husband hasn’t turned his back on you. Bury the self pity, and dwelling on what’s been, both serve no purpose.

Apologies, if you find my straight talking unpalatable, but you really have to refocus.

I think you need to think about you & what was it about this relationship that made you so vulnerable to being manipulated and now so desperate that you need to talk to him despite him obviously not wanting any communication with you. Also to act so (sorry to be blunt) selfishly and destructively that you hurt other people in the process - clearly your dh but also the way you told his dw.

I think he did manipulate you, maybe if you had known he was married, some self-preservation would have kicked in earlier, to warn you that he was not someone to be involved with. But you are ultimately responsible for your actions & the hurt you cause other people - and the damage you do to yourself. As far as I can see this relationship has done a lot of damage to you, your self-worth and respect for yourself and the people around you.

Everytime you think about him & this closure you think you need, focus your attention instead on you and what is going on in your head. The addictive parents you mentioned may be a clue to understanding your behaviour. I do think one day the fog will lift & you will look back at this as a time that you regret.

I’m actually very grateful that you posted this, OP. This gives me so much more clarity about what might actually be going on, in my betrayer’s mind.