Made such a mess - I deserve the fall out

[howdiditcometothis]

I'll try to keep it short.

I've had a brief emotional affair with a married man. I'm also married. Both marriages very much on the rocks.

Background - things been very difficult at home, lots of stonewalling or crying and shouting for approx 2 years - no middle ground. I've spoken to my husband about divorce and living apart - he just got more angry than I've ever seen him and threw crockery across the kicthen (not at me). Raised it a few more times - can't get him to engage with the conversation. Felt completely emotionally numb for a long time.

Anyway, an inappropriate friednship between me and OM developed. Talked about feelings but never sex. In contact every day for last 6 weeks or so. Met in person three times, kissed but nothing more. After the last time we met, we spoke the next day decided that it was getting out of hand and needed to cool it and agree to be friends as neither of us free tp pursue anything other than friendship. Hard but the right thing. So, the contact cooled a bit but still in touch. In meantime, OM's wife calls time on their marriage and they start to agree to plan to separate. Tell the kids, colleagues, family. OM got somewhere to rent etc.

A few days ago, OM's wife accessed his email account and finds a lot of our correspondence. Contacts me and demands the facts.

She thinks (and I can't blame her given the amount of emails etc) that a full blown affair has happened and I have caused the breakdown. Obviously puts different slant on their amicable agreement to part and everybody at rock bottom.

Feel very ashamed and guilty.

WTF should I do?

Sorry, not 1 ounce of sympathy...

you are Married... Simple. if you were not happy you leave

What should you do? Do you mean about your marriage or his?Om marriage issues his problem (I know you are involved).

Re your marriage have you thought about counselling or mediation to agree a way forward? It seems like someone else involvement might ease communications as it's clearly distressing for your husband. Also have you thought about
Moving out to give you both space.

What can you do? Both you and her husband were wrong. An 'emotional affair' is a cop out. You were having an affair. You were intimate with this man. When you have a boyfriend, you don't sleep with him on day 1, do you? When you have an affair, sex doesn't always happen right away. Doesn't make it not an affair.

Their marriage is over. It might make it easier for her to now be able to blame her husband's affair, it might make it harder. But I think there's nothing you can do now that wouldn't just make a bad situation worse.

fwiw, I do have a bit of sympathy for you. You are in a bad place in your own marriage. You did the wrong thing by having a relationship with this man but you did recognise that and in the end tried to do the right thing. It's come back and bit you on the arse and that's unfortunate, but there's nothing you can do about it.

What you need to do now is sort out your marriage. You don't need your husband's permission to leave. You don't need his permission to divorce. You are not helpless in this situation.

Shall I tell her what she wants to know?

We (me and DH) have relate sessions coming up - I was planning to be open about what has happened and hope we can work through it. If not, I have been minded to leave for some time BUT we have a mortgage, I'm by far biggest earner, what about childcare....not sure how it would work or if it could work on a temporary basis.

I know I was wrong - I'm deeply ashamed. I'm not trying to justify it - it was wrong. I just don't know what to do next. Just lost.
Should I answer her or remain silent.

I don't know if you should tell her what she wants to know.

I know that if my husband had been having an affair I would want to know the details.

I doubt she'd believe that you never had sex.

Financially you'd be ok if you left your husband. Childcare is workable - many, many women do it.

I wonder if dropping a bombshell like an affair in a relate setting is the right thing to do. What's your husband like? How do you think he'd react if you told him a) on your own and b) in front of a stranger?

Do you love your husband? Do you want to work things out or do you feel that you 'ought' to?

Regarding the practicalities of how it might work have you spoken to a solicitor? Also I don't know what your childcare situation is but I am sure a compromise could
Be reached(and am sure others on here could share their experience).

Re om wife I wouldn't say anything. Intact as you have already agreed I wouldn't just cool it I would stop contact. As Hecate says you have had an affair(I agree that lack of physical side is just detailed)- you need to work out what it was you were lolling for into the affair as if you are going to save your marriage you need to know not to repeat it --!: if you can't I think you still need to understand what went wrong with your dh and what the affair was Doing so history doesn't repeat.

Foucus on relate and slavain your marriage or trying to make a workable split. I am not sure I being honest with your dh re affair would help as he is clearly atruggling with the usaues you have and wouldn't his make it worse. That sid I'd relate works well (and I am cynical here as my limited personal experience of relate ant good) it may offer an opportunity to being te fair up inthe sessions.

Sorry for typos meant looking not lolling, salvage not silvain.

I can see you are upset and regret it so doesn't seem any point in getting my sewing kit and red letter out.

Thank you for the advice - I'd read that for couple counselling to be effective - you have to put evrything on the table and in the open.

Morally (I know I know)...I feel that I should tell OM's wife what she wants to know. She has been quite calm in asking the questions.

I agree she probably won't believe that we didn't have sex but I'd still like to state that as the truth. I also want to apologise to her. Because the friendship/relationship/affair (I don't know what it was if I'm honest) in the light of day was inappropriate and wrong given our circumstances and if I could go back and change it I would.

I didn't fall into it lightly - many times I stopped contact and tried to get on with my life.

I suppose that if she is calmly asking the questions, the least you owe her is the truth. She deserves that. God knows she's had no respect . And I'm not saying that to bash you, because the person who betrayed her most is her husband.

Answer her questions. But don't try to make it all about you. By that I mean don't try to make excuses for your behaviour, or try to get her to feel sorry for you. Apologise, tell her the truth of the situation but don't try to tell her you're a victim of a horrible life. She won't care.

You don't sound like a horrible person. You aren't enjoying this situation. I hope relate can help you.

I know she won't care how I ended up getting close to him but I do just want to tell the truth - to her, to my DH as well.

If I was her - I reckon that you coud drive yourself mad imagining all sorts when the truth is probably a lot more mundane and pretty pathetic. The people it reflects on as being cowards and cheats are me her DH.

I have been in the position of the wife in your story. Emotional affair again, like in your situation.

You have certainly done wrong. You should have steered clear of him until he had sorted out his own situation, whilst you tried to sort out yours. You had lots of different behaviours available to you if you were unhappy in your marriage, and you made the very worst choice, for which you alone are responsible.

From the OM's wife's perspective I think the main thing she needs to know is that it is all completely over, no further contact of any kind will happen between you. This should come from her H, who is the one who has been unfaithful to her.

You definitely should not contact him to ensure that happens. It will anger the wife even more.

I also really wanted the OW to tell me herself that there had been no sex. But I am glad now I didn't contact her. I could never really have trusted her answer anyway, and at the end of the day it is up to my H to convince me of his honesty and commitment to me.

You really must confess to your H as soon as possible. (Perhaps if you don't, the wife will tell your H for you).

If you show your H your deep regret, remorse and a real desire to fix whatever's been wrong between you, you may stand a chance. But if you deceive him and cover your tracks, things will look much worse, and he may never trust you again.

I think you should tell her everything in as much detail as you can. Just plainly give her the facts. It is then up to her to get the facts from her H and make sure they tally. If you are completely truthful, and he is, she has some chance of being able to trust what you say and maybe can then come to terms with this. Their breakup may then be easier for her. I think you owe her that.

Just reading over your posts again - she might be able to believe that you didn't actually have sex if you give her a totally honest account and this corresponds to the account her H gives her.

But I would say it won't alleviate much of her hurt anyway - you were in daily contact for 6 weeks with her H, probably emailing about minor inconsequential things - that will be the thing that is hurting her the most, I'd imagine - the getting close/getting to know you stuff.

You're not a bad person - you obviously feel really upset about this - you just made bad decisions. You have to do the right thing now by being honest and then accept this for what it was - a difficult time in your life. You will be able to move on and will probably never make those sort of decisions again

Personally, I would give the OM's wife an honest account from start to finish. If that's what she wants, I don't see how it would harm you to give it to her. It would probably be painful for her to hear, but it would help her if she is the sort of person who wants to know the details. At least she can be informed.

DH cheated on me and I spoke face to face with the OW. DH had given me an account of what happened and OW did not know this and gave me her account. Her account was lies - DH confessed to having slept with her and OW said that they had not had sex (because she thought that DH wouldn't tell me).

Whatever you say, your relationship did have something to do with their breakup. OM, even just having inappropriate conversations with you/just a kiss would have been shutting his DW out at the very least - this would have been painful for her, she wouldn't have got any answers and she would have been really upset.

I hate thinking of the hurt we've caused. I've not slept in 2 days and I can't eat. I can't stop crying. I'm going to sit down DH tonight after DD in bed and tell him everything.

Thinking about your situation OP, I suppose now that the wife has asked you straight, you should answer her straight.

She will be checking her H has told her the truth. Who knows if he has or not, as qk points out your stories may not tally.

But you cannot just ignore a straight request.

Ask her to send you a list of questions perhaps, and answer each question clearly and concisely. It will make her think about what information will help her at this point.

If you are about to embark on this with the wife, you really must speak to your H first. Imagine how he'll feel to find out he was the last to know, and you communicated all this to the wife.

I don't know what to suggest to get you through this awful time, other than you are doing the right thing by being honest. I am sure of that.

If my H had been honest about an affair he had, I would have at least been able to feel I was not being further betrayed. OK you have betrayed your H to start with by getting yourself into this situation and you have to accept responsibility for that. But you can do that, ask for forgiveness, say you will be completely and utterly honest and follow through with that. I think if you go through that whole process, you should not carry a burden of guilt with you. We all mess up. None of us is perfect. You will be fine, you just have to be strong to keep with your plan of being honest. It really is the right thing to do IMO

But don't at any point try and shift the blame onto your H - even if things were difficult between you. There were other options open to you at that stage to address your marriage problems, so it would be better to show you realise that and you made bad choices, rather than shift the blame. My H has not shifted blame at all, now we're talking about this, he is accepting he was in thew wrong totally, and that is helping enormously.

Howidit, I get the impression you are more worried about the wife's feelings than your H's.

Thank you for the advice - which I don't deserve. Seems that the consensus is to tell everyone all.

I don't know how to deal with things with DH. I will be honest but I think this is it for us. I will commit to counselling but I struggle to see us together in the future. I'm not sure what comfort I can give him about the future when I deliver this horrid message to him.

I am concerned about DH's feelings. Dreading it of course and don't want to hurt him - I really don't. I have been living in this marriage for the last few years though and know that deep down he knows we are a knife's breadth away from the end. I wonder how surprised he will actually be.

When the wife contacted me she said that the marriage wasn't as shit as OM had told me and I suppose it is that which has shocked me - that in my mind their marriage was over from what I'd been told (oldest story in the book I suppose) and she did not see it that way. I feel absolutely sick about that in particular.

But look maybe you shouldn't stay together in the future. You said you have felt emotionally numb for years and have not been able to get your H to address the issues between you. So maybe it is better if 'this is it' for you.

It must be really hard to imagine yourself saying this to your H tonight. I would not like to be in your position, but what is the alternative? Staying in a marriage where you can't address problems? That's not right. You need to be honest about all of this and brave enough to say it all and just see where it leads.

Good luck with it. Have you got a plan in mind for if it all goes really badly and he gets angry and throws plates again? Are you worried about his temper? Are you worried about your safety? If so, I would change tack completely and get help first from someone who knows how to deal with this type of thing - don't put yourself in a dangerous situation.

You owe the wife the truth.

You should file for divorce from your husband.

What Fab said.

What you should NOT do is stay in a bad marriage because of your own sense of guilt. You know that what you did was wrong, but you are also aware that you did it for a reason: that you were very unhappy and couldn't see a way out. Unfortunately the affair is going to cloud the issue and the breakup is going to end up being all about that instead of the real long-term issues. Those issues still exist and have to be addressed.

At least you won't be tempted to get together with the OM now you've discovered he's a cheating b'stard rather than a sad lonely soul - look on that as a plus.

I think the responses to this are very over the top and make it sound as though the poster has committed a crime worthy or public stoning! The marriage is clearly in a crisis and she did what thousands of people have done before, and will continue to do, and found some solace in the arms of someone else.

The way people are responding anyone would think she had had a full blown affair with half the neighbourhood husbands and was living under some kind of fundamentalist religion

Fab's advice "file for divorce" - don't be ridiculous! You don't run off an get a divorce just because you have developed a crush on someone else. For God's sake, grow up here! If everyone did that there would be no married couples left. What has happened is not particularly unusual or terrible - the melodrama attaching to it is frankly absurd.

Put some perspective into this. Running around wailing about being a terrible person will not help anyone at all. You have no obligation to say anything to anyone, if you don't want to.

She does not "owe" the wife anything.

What this episode demonstrates is that you have some emotional/romantic/sexual needs that are not being met in your current relationship. Not exactly unusual, let's face it. What you chose to do about this is up to you. Sounds like counselling would be helpful.