Newbie: reluctantly ended an affair but not sure if i love DH

[MakingAMess]

Oh what a mess...

I am new on here but have seen others post similar things and get some amazing support and advice... I'm not sure I am entitled to any support given what I have done, but it seems others have done similar, and I am now soooo desperate that I will give it a shot.

I have been married to DH for 6.5 years; we have 2 kids aged nearly 4 and 16 months. I have suffered from depression since the eldest was born.

I am now doubting everything about my relationship with DH but I know I loved him at some point. However, even before we were married, I was obsessed with another bloke (my boss at the time). Nothing happened at all - I never talked to him about anything and nothing happened in spite of us travelling across Europe together widely.

Anyway I married DH and had 2 kids with him, feeling increasingly disillusioned over the years. When I went back to work last Sept, I started talking to my boss (via email - we don't work together) and before long, we were mailing all the time. Eventually, the inevitable happened and our relationship became physical.

OM is 11 years older than me, married (terrible marriage - in process of getting out of it), with grown-up kids. He has driven the length of the country to see me most weeks. He absolutely adores me, and I love him too.

Meanwhile, DH and I have been going to counselling to try to see if we can work on our marriage. All the time I have been seeing OM behind DH's back...

I have tried to tell DH that our relationship is over, but he is mad angry and insistent that he can make me happy and all I need to do is be more positive and see all the happy things we have had together. He has said he will change, do all the things I need, be around more, be nicer to me, treat me like I deserve etc.

Meanwhile I just feel like throwing myself under a train - the thought of staying with DH for the rest of my life is unbearable. But how can I leave him when he is so angry and has said he won't co-operate over the children and will fight me for them.

I have ended the affair (only on Monday this week - so I am going through an intense period of withdrawal). All I want to do is call / email the OM, but I know I must not do that.

I know it is possible to fall back in love with your DH if you have fallen out of love. How do I do it? I'm not even sure I want to - in fact, I'm fairly sure I don't. But I need to try...

Hi MaM
I have been where you are but due to DH monitoring MN I have to keep namechanging!
Had an affair after twenty years with DH, have teenagers etc. I was totally shocked at myself because I had believed I was a. happily married and b. not that sort of person (Lying cheat etc).
Now one year later have told DH all, gone NC with XMM and been to individual counselling, Relate (which was okay but not brilliant) and currently to private joint therapist.
Like you I think I don't love DH but he loves me and wants to make things work. There are times when I think all is doomed and I will leave but then there are good weeks like this one when we are getting on better and the counselling is beginning to explain how I got so miserable.
I still miss XMM but less as time goes by. I feel I owe it to my family and DH to try as hard as I can before I give up.
It hurts, I am sad, and I wish I hadn't fallen into the trap of an affair because everything is harder to sort out after that. You are on the right track, and if you try hard as you are and it still doesnt work out you can walk away knowing you did your best. You don't need your DH permission to go. He will never give it!
All the best
When...tea

girls - you are great.

to the two of you who have been where i am - how long has it taken to you to get over the other man, or at least for it to stop feeling like your guts, heart, lungs etc have been ripped out of you?

When...tea - you have told your DH about your affair. so how has he reacted? i cannot imagine ever telling my DH about mine - although i think he would probably not be surprised. but he is an angry man and i think the knowledge of it would be too much for him.

flowergirl - did you tell your partner about yours?

i think, in a way, only by being totally honest with my DH and admitting what i have done can i get him to see where i am. otherwise, i think he will always be in denial and will always think that things were not as bad for me as i feel they have been.

as for why i am giving up my lover when i love him so much? i am asking myself that question every single second of the day. all i want is to bundle the kids into the car and drive to be with him. but i suspect that is not the answer. i know that i have to make the decision to stay with DH or to leave DH and it has to be done with a clear head and knowing that i have explored all the alternatives and chosen the right course for the right reasons. while i am so upset, hysterical, confused and depressed, i will never make the right decision...

Wow, Coolfonz you're a real prick aren't you? Maybe it's altitude sickness from the moral highground.

The OP isn't trying to justify herself or ask to be vindicated, she's held her hands up to doing a stupid, immoral thing already so we don't need you sarcastically pointing out what has already been acknowledged by the OP.

OP, although the affair and your H's anger and promises to change are obviously part of the equation, I think that when you remove them rom the equation for a moment, what you are left with is the fact that you aren't in love with your husband any more and that is at the heart of this all.

I completely understand your wanting to continue to try and repair your marriage with the OM out of the picture, but it sounds to me like even before you got married you were attracted elsewhere which was a massive alarm bell ringing. With that lack of foundation (can you ever really say there was a time at the beginning of your marriage where you were totally in love with your H?), then I don't see you'll be able to move forward very easily.

It really seems like you are trying now to do the right thing and atone for the affair, but if you never loved your H in the first place then I would cut your losses. Life is too short.

maddonawhore (i should have a name like that really) - i am now questioning everything about my relationship with DH, as i said in my original post. but i am looking back over all the years from a point of desperation and depression. i have been on happy pills basically for the last 4 years, so clearly my mental health is not great. but i don't know how to decide whether i really did love my DH at one point and whether i can get myself back there (or get him part of the way to meet me). DH is firmly of the opinion that we have been very happy and specifically i have been very happy in the last 4 years and that i am being excessively negative about everything (which i will be - as that is what depression does).

if i am being perfectly honest, i was probably more in love with the idea of my husband than with the person himself. he allowed me the freedom to do what i wanted (run, swim, cycle, work like crazy, go out with my friends) and we did some stuff alongside each other (running / training mainly - he is too fast / strong for me to keep up with him, so we did stuff at the same time but never together). and we shared interests, perspectives, values, attitudes. and i wanted to be married (most of my friends were); and i wanted kids. and here was a bloke who let me just 'be' and wanted the same things.

but it is that emotional detachment and lack of need for intimacy and connection which has been killing me over the years. and that is why, i think, i have ended up so depressed since the kids have come along. because i have realised that i don't have a soulmate. i have a mate, who is still off on his independent plot, when i am suddenly needy.

he denies all of this (we have talked about it) and says he can and wants to do 'needy' etc. but i still don't see any evidence of it. for instance, he phoned me yesterday from work (quite a rare thing) and i was in tears. he did ask why (as if he wouldn't be able to guess) but then still went ahead with the reason for his call - which was would i mind if he went out for dinner with his boss who was over from germany. so actually he didn't call to find out how i was (don't expect that anyway) - and even though he knew how low i was, he still went out... of course, i didn't want him to stay in because i would have got more grief etc from him if he had. instead i drank a bottle of wine on my own (not good...) and sat obsessing about OM etc.

It doesn't sound as though you really want to be with your husband though, so I am guessing that you are probably acting out of guilt and giving the marriage one last shot before doing something else? Understandable and probably a process that people have to go through in these types of situations.

The thing that would worry me is that your husband seems to be threatening you. He won't cooperate over the children? Why not - that seems to be a very selfish way of dealing with things. It's not their fault that you are having a marriage crisis.

To be honest, if my partner reacted like that I wouldn't want to stay with him in the long run. You can't "insist" on making someone happy. He sounds like a bully. He must realise that by behaving like this he will just drive you further and further away.

I think if I were in your shoes I would use joint counselling sessions to get to a point of mutual agreement over a trial separation period. This would give you both breathing space to work out what you both want.

Perhaps I have unreaslistically high expectations of my partner but I would simply would not want to be with someone who was behaving in the way that your parter is EVEN if I had been unfaithful. I would expect him to be angry, but not threatening to use the children as a blackmail tool. If he started behaving like a stoppy 3 year old I would most definitely decide I wanted to be on my own.

Madonnawhore - nice one!

"DH is firmly of the opinion that we have been very happy and specifically i have been very happy in the last 4 years"

See that's the sort of thing that gives me a problem. You've been on ADs for the whole four years - how is that consistent with you being happy? I expect he'll tell you tonight that you were perfectly happy yesterday when he went out for the evening, too. Which he wouldn't know, because he wasn't there. But in his head, where he lives, yes of course you're happy.

You said earlier you were attracted to men in authority. Let me suggest that you might rather be attracted to men who are unavailable. The first boss you couldn't have, the second is married and lives a long way away, your own husband is emotionally cut off and doing his own thing more often than anything with you. I bet a psychoanalyst would have quite an interesting time with that.

you are a very insightful bunch. hadn't thought about that with blokes, and there may well be something in it. the thing is that the OM is saying i can have him - even though he is still married (technically). his finances are a mess and he can't afford to move out until his house is sold, but he has told me that if i got a place on my own, he would move in like a shot. that is not my idea of how i wish to start a relationship with someone after i finish my marriage. not least i do not want my children forming bonds with another father-figure for me only to decide it was a big mistake and for him to walk out of their lives. aside from all the other reasons why that would not be a smart move. but the OM is so desperate to be with me, he would be here in as long as it takes to drive from wherever he is now (not at home) to where i live.

the counsellor has suggested that in my husband i found someone who was rather like my mother (dominating and controlling) and that is why i ended up marrying him rather than any of the other blokes i had been seeing previously (not that there were that many, in case you were wondering!!)

but yes - you are right about my husband feeling like he has the right to determine my state of mind. and until i can gain some form of acceptance from my husband that i have been unhappy (and yes - there have been times of happiness in the last 4 years, but they have not outweighed the unhappy times) and that this relationship is not right for me, i will gain no co-operation from him over the split. maybe i will, at some point, feel that i need that split more than i need his co-operation. and in that case, i will go. but until that time, i feel like i have to soldier on with what remains.

OP I think you're very wise to end the affair while you sort out your feelings about your marriage, but goodness me, if ever there were a need for solo counselling for you, this is it.

From what you're saying, you need to leave your marriage anyway, but I think the guilt of your undisclosed affair is impairing your judgement here. It sounds extremely unlikely that you will recapture feelings for your H, because they weren't that strong or sound to begin with. I disagree with the poster who said it is not possible to fall in love again, because I did, for one, but it doesn't sound like you fell in love the first time.

Do stop the joint counselling for now. This only works without secrets and you are holding a humdinger of one at the moment. It's not fair to the counsellor, or your H.

I would echo all that has been said about the MM. Marriage coming to an end, but he'll only leave home if you provide one for him?
This is shoddy behaviour to his wife and DCs, just as much as yours has been to your family. If nothing else, let that woman's marriage come to a natural end without interference, if that is it really is in its dying throes - I'd be very dubious myself

Try to divorce the guilt from what you feel about staying in this marriage. Get a safe space to talk to a coounsellor on your own. If you leave the marriage, you don't need anyone's permission, but treat your H kindly because what ever his faults, he is in pain. Arrange a good co-parenting arrangement with him so that he doesn't lose his kids as well as his wife.

Watch the OM's actions once you leave and you're right, don't let him move in with you. But stop seeing him until and unless he sorts his own marriage out and is honest with his wife.

It is always possible after behaving badly, to stop the rot and start treating people with respect and decency. It is not too late for you to do that. It doesn't have to continue being such a mess.

WWIFN, if it ever doesn't work out between you and Mr WWIFN (heaven forbid), may I marry you?

Oh yes Annie. I adore you....

gosh - clarity of thought for the first time in months. i feel like i am getting to the point where i can let go of relationship with OM (at least in this minute) because it is not actually doing me / him / his family any good. i am sure i will feel completely the reverse in 30 seconds time, but you are right, WWIFN, i do need to leave OM to get on with dissecting his own life in whatever way he chooses. i do know that i can't carry on living in this maelstrom of fear, stress, anxiety about him and his situation all the time...

WWIFN what an amazing post.

Hi, blimey your MM sounds like the man I was having an affair with. He wasn't married though had a girlfriend and did actually break up with her, but they had a house together and she wouldn't move out and neither would he so they shared. She was very very bitter and found out about me. My husband had already guessed something was wrong and I confessed but it was nothing at that stage, I told him it had finished but it hadn't and when his ex girlfriend found out about me all hell broke loose, really wouldn't ever want to live last year again. I still couldn't give him up, it took to the point of me and DH seperating for me to decide that it was time to call it quits. I think if the man I was having an affair with was living on his own I might have gone with him, he was prepared to offer me everything.
When my DH moved out I started getting everything into perspective and realised that I do love my husband and we had lost touch with each other after our 2nd baby was born.
It wasn't until the OM told me he was seeing someone else that I finally starting getting over him (and it made me laugh that she was another married woman!) it was around 6 months I suppose.
I have to talk to him regarding work and the conversations always become chatter, I wouldn't go back there, I do still like him but I know where to stop, I should have known this before but I was getting the attention that I wasn't getting at home, such a easy trap to get into when you are feeling lonely and want male attention.
You really have to make the decision yourself, you have a hard time ahead, my DH was the opposite wouldn't get off my case that is what finally made me snap and told him we needed to seperate.
I know I am very luckily that my DH still wanted to be with me, I know there isn't any trust there and I might never get it back.
He has buried the whole affair and has never mentioned it since he moved back in, I don't know if that good or a bad thing sometimes!

Hi MaM

You asked how my DH took it when I told him about my affair. Not to give myself away I gave him so many clues after it ended he couldnt help but guess and then I admitted all. He was hurt and angry, but wanted to stay with me and work at things. He is far too good for me and wants to totally forgive me.

I think I have treated him awfully and have been quite abusive but he doesnt blame me in case I decide to leave him. It is very hard to make a decision that will hurt someone who cares about me so much. But if he had cared more before we would not be in this position.

As for missing XMM, yes I do, every day. But it is getting less with time and total NC. I reflect that life is long and if we are meant to be together then we have to work out our marital problems honestly first. He said he loves his DW and wants to stay with his family and regrets his behaviour. So the odds are very long.

Meanwhile I love my life, my home and my family and it is not hard to invest effort in making that better.