Help

[Shannonkate878]

Please don’t judge no one can hate me more than I hate myself right now.
im 29 been with my partner since 19 we have 4 young kids he’s the most amazing man my best friend my absolute rock and the only person I have.
ive been going through a rough time mentally atm and been in a dark place after falling out with family I felt so alone.
then I went onto his phone and found he’d been on a porn website and felt rock bottom and hurt like I wasn’t even good enough for him either.
im in a group chat with friends and some people they know which i usually ignore but this time i felt so alone and replied, one of them was flirting with me which i went along and joined in with and when they asked if i had a partner i said no.
it went back and forwards in a group chat for a couple days then he started making sexual comments and it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks what id done I said sorry this is making me uncomfortable now and left, no contact since.
however the anxiety and shame of what ive done is eating at me, i had to ring Samaritans as I’ve been having thoughts to end my life due to what ive done and can’t even function six days later ive had to ring my gp for help but i cant see what help they’ll be as ive done the damage now my partner will find out and ill lose everything.
im honestly broken and please dont question why ive done this as i dont know myself I hate myself so much and genuinely dont think i can cope anymore ive never felt pain and disgust in myself like this in my life i just dont know how to make it stop
i can’t even look at my partner or function due to the guilt and anxiety I’ve never done anything like this in ten years and just keep replaying him finding out and leaving me over and over and I genuinely feel like I’m going mad :(

ask MN that should say.

It’s difficult to give very clear advice as you are so very upset and I do understand why.
However, I think while you know you have done something which may upset your partner, it wasn’t anything terrible, and you stopped. You stopped without being told to, you made a decision on your own to, and that is to your credit.
I am no therapist but I think as much as you love your other half your self esteem was probably badly hit from finding out about the porn.
You are ripping yourself in half and saying he will never forgive you, but what about what he has done and its effect on you? You haven’t said you can’t forgive him or you are going to throw him out.
The medication takes a while to settle. Is there someone else you can talk to.
I was thinking about your words and I’m probably twice your age. A time in my life when I was very down, being badly treated, before mobile phones, and a lad I knew used to chat me up in our local pub. I enjoyed the attention, nobody could hear us, we just looked like friends, but I looked forward to seeing him. Then it all blew over, but there was no trail as we didn’t send written messages.
I know it sounds daft to say try not to worry, but at the moment, it’s not the best time to make any decisions. Please be kind to yourself you sound like a lovely person who hit a vulnerable spot, with good reason, and I hope in a few days/weeks you can forgive yourself.
You deserve to.

Thank you so much for your lovely comment I really appreciate it. It’s just the constant replaying in my head off him finding out and leaving and on edge constantly waiting for it to happen I think is what’s mentally exhausting me. I wish I could just switch off but the shame and guilt is eating me alive, I always speak to him about everything and the fact I can’t with this is making it even harder. I just feel like an awful person and like I’m never going to escape this as much as I’m trying. The overthinking is awful

Do you think it would be better to tell him? Could you write a letter?

I don’t think I could tbh. For one there’s no evidence anymore as I deleted everything when I left the chats and blocked him and he’d want to see everything or he’d feel like I was hiding something if he never sees the full thing, so in his head it could be a lot worse than it actually was. Just can’t believe I’d ever get myself into this situation

i think you need to box it away in your brain to a place where it’s just left to gather dust. It’s really not the crime of the century. Loads of people have text flirted other people and a lot worse and their relationships have been fine. Forgive yourself.

To an outsider, the reasons you did it were obvious: You felt betrayed by his use of porn, which made you feel like you're not good/attractive enough. Then someone paid attention to you in a way that made you feel you ARE good/attractive enough. You played along with it just enough to get that reassuring feedback, and put a stop to it as soon as they wanted to take things further.

This is all perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of.

I hope one day you'll be able to talk to him about this. In the meantime, please stop beating yourself up. We are all human!

Thank yous so much I appreciate your comments more than yous know xx

I appreciate that you’re not thinking entirely clearly about all this due to your anxiety. But just stop for one moment and ask yourself if your partner is beating himself up, panicking about you leaving and feeling guilt ridden over his porn use? Put into perspective the fact that you exchanged a few flirty messages and didn’t correct someone who assumed you were single. You weren’t getting off on pictures or videos of him, just (as far as your post goes) chatting in an overly friendly way, until you put a stop to it.

Please just breathe, stop with the self-flagellation and saying you’re the worst person in the world for a single and very tame misdemeanour. You’ve done very little to be ashamed of and really you don’t even need to tell your partner, but if the guilt is going to eat you up, maybe you should. If he doesn’t believe your version of events then the relationship is over anyway because what’s the point without trust?

Either way you need to find some friends, join a club, get together with some school mums, build a network, because you cannot rely on one person for all your emotional needs to be met.

I hope the meds kick in soon and you start to feel some relief. Bear in mind with SSRIs things can get worse before they improve so you really do need to be able to speak to your DP if you’re spiralling so that he can keep an eye on you over the next few weeks. Is he generally loving and supportive of your MH issues?