Just plain stuck....and don't know

[FallenAngel12]

I just discovered this resource and am glad to know I'm not alone. That is how one feels at times when in an A. I have so many dilemmas that I'm battling with and, until now, could not have a frank discussion about them!

 

Here is my background. I've been married over 12 years with 2 children under the age of 7. My marriage has been far from what I anticipated as I truly did not get to know my current H as well as I should have. Now I know that he's very controlling, has anger management issues and is all about appearances. He's not a bad husband or father, but it's all about "his" needs and demands.

 

2 years ago I stayed out late partying with some friends in our neighborhood and ended up having sex with a MM. I was shocked with what I did, but realized the underlying reason...unfulfilled needs. This discovery was mutual and we began an A. We have been sustaining this PA and EA for over 2-years now, and at this point, there is a deep connection within our souls. He makes me a better person(I know, how can an A do this?). It just that my H brings out the worst in me, not the best. While in the A, I am loved, respected and complete.

 

We are in the same social circle and even live on the same street so we are always spending time together in the presence of our spouses. In fact, his wife and I are good friends:eek: which leads me to my biggest dilemma....the lies and the deception. I have always felt extreme feelings of guilt, but deep down know that everything happens for a reason..including my A with this wonderful man. We do everything possible to find opportunities to be together, but where does it end? I know there really is no simple answer.

We could

1) get busted and hurt so many people, including kids

2) come clean with our spouses and face the wrath....probably D

3) break it off, work on our miserable marriages and try to move on, knowing we will still be faced with seeing each other all the time in social scenarios and in passing several times per week.

4) leave our spouses and try to start a life together

 

We have talked about this several times and both are at a loss of direction. He believes in living in the moment without worrying about the future. Maybe, I'm just a realist and need to make this REAL! Now I am finding it harder to live this double life without the interference of extreme emotions. We both have our family time, holidays and vacations apart, but it's wearing me down. For some reason just a simple pic of him and BS on FB sipping a margarita in vacation sent me into a fit of sobbing. We both are just co-existing with our BSs...going through the motions. How do i navigate from this point?

[veryhappy]

Let me save you some heartache...

 

He believes in living in the moment, so he's not into items 2, 3, 4 which leaves you pretty much with the messiest one: item 1. He's not trying to sort anything out, he's just cruising along enjoying life because it is great.

 

I suggest you agree on some sort of a predetermined break where you don't contact each other and go to IC( and you really don't contact him). I'd say 3 months. Your soulmate might come back with no other plans other than continuing the A and you'll know where you stand. That should get you unstuck.

[thefooloftheyear]

There is no way out without a lot of pain.

 

.

 

Agree...

 

This has very ugly written all over it...

 

TFOY

[LFH]

I find it very telling that a picture like that can make you so upset...why does it upset you so much?

 

I may be wrong, but I think that a part of you knows that his marriage isn't they way he portrays it to be. Otherwise, the picture of the two of them happily sipping drinks together while on vacation wouldn't bother you so much that you're sobbing...

 

Not true. I know exactly how my MM's family life is, yet pictures of them doing things can randomly upset me. Even if I knew it, expected it and already had heard about the day.

People don't like to see images of people they care about with other people. We aren't "wired" that way.

 

Fallen Angel, what are you looking to get out of this relationship? Because right now, you are saying you get a lot.. but I have to ask you, is it worth the risk? Is it worth what it may cost you?

[Poppy fields]

You sound very unsatisfied with the state of your affair. From your post, I get the impression that you want much more out of this relationship than he does. If you truly want to be with him, you have to let him know that, and if he is not willing to go through the mess that you guys coming clean will cause, then you need to end any PA/EA you are having with him. Are you ready for the mess that you guys coming clean will cause?

 

Demand respect and stand up for what you want. It sounds to me like you are not sure what it is that you do want though.

[Silver_Lining]

My heart goes out to you at this time of struggle, conflict and pain!

Albeit the "A" as fulfilling as that is on so many levels should never have happened, but it did and so you find yourself with tough decisions moving forward.

 

My thoughts on this matter as so many others is that as difficult as this is and the fallout which will occur as a result of the A is to keep your head high and do not beat yourself up to bad.

Good people do get involved in situations that tear at the very fabric of the soul and if looked at in the proper perspective can be a tremendous opportunity for growth and self-evaluation and understanding.

I realize your marriage may not have been what you had hoped or expected... with that said however YOU OWN the decision you made, but you already know that

 

So where to go from here?

 

1) get busted and hurt so many people, including kids

Yes a real option that is not entirely within your control and probably the worst way to be exposed. Others will get hurt no matter the manner this A is exposed. The question becomes one of riding it out and waiting in turmoil for that fallout or taking a stance of control and disclosing on your terms.

2) come clean with our spouses and face the wrath....probably D

3) break it off, work on our miserable marriages and try to move on, knowing we will still be faced with seeing each other all the time in social scenarios and in passing several times per week.

I feel that the decision to work on or not within your marriage is a decision you must make for yourself regardless of the A... Very hard to set aside the added complications and taking a good hard look at your own relation can be tough especially when things have happened how they have. Of course it goes without saying that you can easily become the scapegoat for the failed marriage as a result of your actions and regardless if you choose to work out or not the marriageMUST be a decision you make for you and your husband willing and NOT on the emotions and feelings of the A

4) leave our spouses and try to start a life together

Ah.. the biggest question of all and very hard to separate from the A and the experiences and heartfelt emotions of love and tenderness you have experienced as a result of your A.

I have become and am understanding more the desire to be happy and become happy for the right reasons. This is the toughest call of all and deserves careful and thoughtful consideration all things aside.

This goes back again to a careful introspection of you as an individual and what it is you really want out of life, love and relation to another.

Whether getting married in the first place to your current H was a mistake or things have not worked out as planned. You must determine and decide for you what is best for your well being and happiness moving forward. You will live with that decision the rest of your life.

No doubt you hand your AP have real feelings and are probably far more compatible than the relation you are currently in.

Change is tough, will it be worth it? How will others react? Are you strong enough and is the bond strong enough to overcome all those challenges moving forward that you can only begin to see and even those you cannot at this time? Only you can decide and determine that my friend

Change can be good and can lead to a more fulfilling and enriched life of commitment and happiness for sure!

Take your time, weigh your options, consider those around you and find peace and understanding within your heart... simply because at the end of the day you answer to yourself when honestly taking a good hard look at you!

What price are you willing to pay either way?

Is there a right or wrong answer in this? That is for you to decide...

[FallenAngel12]

I appreciate all of your perspectives, as that is why I posted this initially. I was looking for all ends of the spectrum. There are so many truths to these posts. Yes, things could get somewhat violent with my husband if things blow up. I don't feel it will get physically violent, but definitively verbal and extremely dramatic. And his wife and I were friend prior to the A, so that would be a devastating blow. UGLY NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

 

I realize in this tight-knit community, we could very well be ostracized, but I never thought my children could struggle with this.....something to think about. I do worry about their well-being, even though they have a much happier mom now than they had 2-years ago. A's actually happen more frequently than I ever imagined around here, as I know at least 3 couples split up this past year over A's! Something in the water?? Even if I attempted NC, it would be nearly impossible, without cutting off our entire social circle. What a mess

 

So, SILVER LINING, I am with you. There are so many things I need to evaluate in myself and my situation. For years I feel I have been the "giver" and living a lie in my marriage. I paint this picture to those looking in that we are the PERFECT family. So, when the A started, it was the first time I felt like I actually did something for ME. I felt guilty, selfish, scared, and exhilarated all at once. Then throughout the past 2-years with this MM...I found ME. I found someone that spoke to my soul...giving that up is horrifying. I am so afraid of going back to being someone I am not.

 

So, while I do guess he may compartmentalize this relationship better than me, I know we are both looking for the same thing....

 

I saw him last week and left early for fear of getting caught and said "I don't want it to end badly." He replied, "I don't want it to end EVER!" I will see him later this week and will bring this statement up to him to see where he stands. "You don't want it to end EVER, so how do you see us getting to that place?"

 

Maybe that will give me some closure.

[georgia girl]

Few people ever post here and I have thought that there are very, very few good outs for them. Yours is one... not to scare you!

 

But if I can take a second to bojectively state your situation as I interpreted it.

 

1) Your husband is controlling and you are unsure of whether or not he would get violent but you are pretty sure that the confrontation would be at the very least verbally abusive

2) You have young children and their stability rests with you and your husband

3) You have a very tight-knit community and you are actually friends with his wife.

 

Normally, in any dating situation I would say that you have a 1 in 3 shot of the thing working out well. Either A) he breaks up with you; B) you break up with him or C) you get married

 

In your situation, let's say C actually happens. The path from to there is literally littered with problems 1-3 listed above. Those are not easy hurdles to overcome and each one has so many pitfalls that it would be difficult to navigate those pitfalls successfully without being in an emotionally charged situation. Yours will be highly, highly emotionally charged.

 

My suggestion would be to end your affair, get individual counselling and try to talk to your husband about marital counselling. Then, if through counselling, the two of you decide that you have an irretrievable marriage, you have had a cooling off period with a qualified mediator to do this with the minimum amount of collateral damage to everyone.

 

It's not what you want to hear. I'm so sorry, but I think you don't really have a good outcome here.

 

Please don't let me scare you off posting. You will need the support here and I think you will find it.

[FallenAngel12]

See bolded

 

 

 

Why are you going to let him decide what is best for you and your family? You've gave everything to him, at much cost to yourself and those around you. His comment about him not wanting it to ever end is very telling, it portrays a man who is very selfish and has no consideration for what this affair might do to his own family and your family.

 

You are sitting on the mother of all bombs and I'm afraid if it explodes you aren't going to know what hit you and you are going to look at the body parts all around you and be sick.

 

I AM NOT going to let him decide! I just will bring his comment up to him and see how he thinks this can possibly happen... Bottom line...it probably cannot happen. And he will see this. Not without a lot of pain and suffering with many. So, I hope this will help empower me to take the next step and end it.

[secretlady76]

I was in a very similar situation as you. Spouses were informed and quite frankly the fall out was way worse than I ever imagined.....the impact spreads wide and far.

 

I cannot emphasis enough how bad it gets. I am not joking when I say it was/is one of the worst things I have ever had to endure.

 

I wouldn't put to much thought into what your MM says to you. Don't over-analyse his words. Speaking from experience, they will promise you the world, say what you want to hear to keep you on the line, but quite frankly his ACTIONS are what you need to guage.

 

Normally what happens is after DDay is that the MM scuttles back to the 'hideous' wife, tail between legs, falls off the radar and YOU are left picking up the pieces, wondering where it all went wrong, how his loving words turned to dust. Then you have your own husband despising you, every person in the neighbourhood slagging you off (because it will be seen to be all YOUR fault), you'll be ignored, hated and despised. MM's wife will make dam sure that everyone knows how much of a b**** you are and everyone will believe her not you. In this time of turmoil, the very person who you thought would support you (the MM) couldn't really care any less as he is too busy at home trying to sort out his own interests.

 

...and then to add insult to injury, he may well come sniffing back to you once the dust has settled and you like a drug addict will fall back into it.

 

Good luck.

[FallenAngel12]

Ok, so I appreciate all the advice and feedback, and it has help me see things in all sorts of ways...honestly. BUT, I realize after reading everything on here that I do need some sort of IC. There is a lot more to this A than I've got into on the forum, and I feel like I am having to justify things. For example, when I said I discover myself with him...it wasn't through him per say. He encouraged me to be a better me ( I know, again how can a MM do this?). He is the one that pushed me to take my passion and start my own business. My H was never supportive of this because it was something he could not CONTROL.

 

I need marriage counseling too. If things do not change in this household...I do need to get out. And if my A is meant to be my H someday...it will happen.

 

I realized on this forum how depressed I am, how clouded my thoughts are and instead of feeling empowered...I just want to curl up in a ball. Maybe I need to grow some balls! But, right now this once strong woman is feeling too frail

[FallenAngel12]

Could it be you were expecting your H to make you happy and he failed?

 

Could it be you are expecting the OM to make you happy and you know he will also fail because he is married?

 

 

Very possible...

 

However, I'm supposed to be in charge of my own happiness. Maybe on to something?

[ComingInHot]

Fallen,

You say your H is controlling and volitle. So is/was mine. I TOTALLY understand feeling like instead of the promise my H made to "protect" & "support" me, he sees it as trying to "define" & "isolate" me from anything/anyone & Everything.

 

Also, along w/these traits of my H, came a sense of entitlement where he ended up having the A.

 

It CRUSHED me. It also empowered me to get Myself "back" & start being Me again w/or w/out him.

 

I was depressed, lost my sense of self & could easily have had an A. I certainly could have justified it...

 

I just couldn't lose myself more though to become someone I loathed and disrespected as much as I did my H & OW.

 

When the A was outed by H's exOW, That is when when things changed. H & I redefined what our roles were in our M. His expectations and understanding of what a H is and does.

We are R'd now.

I still have moments but we are Both where we want to be And he is becoming the H HE wants to be & I need*

 

The exOW, unfortunately, I was correct in that she was her own worst enemy & life (last time I heard from her & before cease letter) from our attorney, she was Not in a good place.

Unfortunately again, for her, it seems the OW many times, takes the worst of it. She lost her job, ostricized publicly and struggled personally w/the realization that she had some things to work on in her life.

 

Please don't let this continue to Blow up on your face. Make changes Now to better your life.

[ForeverHopeful1]

My friend was in this same situation. He had a small child and was married. She was not a mother but was married herself. She is now divorced, and he lives with his wife and child in Hungary. Her MM ended up coming clean and in turn, when he told his wife, she went and told EVERYONE, including my friends husband. My friend and her partner are not together anymore, so she not only lost her husband, but also lost her MM. He came out to his wife. She lost it. Obviously. She had given birth to their daughter and 27 days later, he was having sex with my friend. Their relationship was a fairytale. For a few months. They often spoke about ending their marriages but he always said he didn't know how to leave his wife. Eventually he told her he wouldn't ever leave his wife but still wanted her around. She stayed.

 

What ended up happening was she lost her husband, her home, her everything. She even lost him because the BS, after finding out said the only way they were going to work it out was to move back home and never live in Canada again. He chose his wife and daughter and NOT my friend, as most cheating husbands do, and decided to move back to Hungary with their 6 month old daughter and start fresh. So his wife still has him but before leaving Canada, destroyed my friends life. She deserved it and knows she deserved it.

 

So my friend lost her husband, her home, her MM, and will never speak to him again because he has moved to Hungary to rebuild his life with his wife - the woman he loves. It was a fantasy for him and nothing more. He played it off as if he was miserable but never left his wife. Of course he told her he was miserable. How many women will sleep with a man who says, "I'm extremely happy with my wife and my marriage, but lets have sex anyway and have an A!!!" Of course your MM is "miserable." You wouldn't be so happy if he was happy with his wife. He's feeding you this stuff so you continue the A.

 

So she is now almost 30 and has lost EVERYTHING she ever cared about. She realized she also dearly loved her husband, although not the man she had hoped he was, but there is NO chance of reconciliation now. She realized she didn't love the MM and did love her husband and what she loved was the thrill of the A. She got bored in her marriage. Of course they were happy together. They lived in dream world where nothing mattered. Money wasn't an issue. They got along great. Why wouldn't they? He had no ties to her and didn't really have to care about husband and wife things with my friend. It was like she was able to be a teenager.

 

I learned early on that "if they will do it with you, they will do it to you." Even if you did end up with this man and he was yours, would you not always worry he would just cheat on you as well or vice versa?

 

Married men rarely destroy their entire lives for sex. What he tells you of his marriage is that he is unhappy, but if he was as unhappy as he says he is, then why won't be with you? Open your eyes wide here and realize its just not as important to him as it is to you.

 

Rarely do these things actually work out. So save what you can before everyone knows. Cut your losses. If you're meant for one another, you will both get a divorce, do the hard work and then start seeing one another as single people.

 

I wish you nothing but the best. Remember, if it is meant to be, you will be together in the right way.

[lilmisscantbewrong]

I appreciate all of your perspectives, as that is why I posted this initially. I was looking for all ends of the spectrum. There are so many truths to these posts. Yes, things could get somewhat violent with my husband if things blow up. I don't feel it will get physically violent, but definitively verbal and extremely dramatic. And his wife and I were friend prior to the A, so that would be a devastating blow. UGLY NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT

 

I realize in this tight-knit community, we could very well be ostracized, but I never thought my children could struggle with this.....something to think about. I do worry about their well-being, even though they have a much happier mom now than they had 2-years ago. A's actually happen more frequently than I ever imagined around here, as I know at least 3 couples split up this past year over A's! Something in the water?? Even if I attempted NC, it would be nearly impossible, without cutting off our entire social circle. What a mess

 

So, SILVER LINING, I am with you. There are so many things I need to evaluate in myself and my situation. For years I feel I have been the "giver" and living a lie in my marriage. I paint this picture to those looking in that we are the PERFECT family. So, when the A started, it was the first time I felt like I actually did something for ME. I felt guilty, selfish, scared, and exhilarated all at once. Then throughout the past 2-years with this MM...I found ME. I found someone that spoke to my soul...giving that up is horrifying. I am so afraid of going back to being someone I am not.

 

So, while I do guess he may compartmentalize this relationship better than me, I know we are both looking for the same thing....

 

I saw him last week and left early for fear of getting caught and said "I don't want it to end badly." He replied, "I don't want it to end EVER!" I will see him later this week and will bring this statement up to him to see where he stands. "You don't want it to end EVER, so how do you see us getting to that place?"

 

Maybe that will give me some closure.

 

I agree with all of the previous posters. Listen, I have personally lived this. Our social circles the same, friends with his wife, vacationing as families together, we worked together closely in church leadership positions, friendship very deep, etc. All of the same type of conversations you are having with your MM I had with my xMM and they will say they will not want it to end badly (and I don't believe they do) and they will not throw you under the bus, but when the rubber meets the road all bets are off.

 

You also cannot predict what your husband and his wife will do. You might expect the worst (as we both did) and expect that they would want to divorce but you know what? More than likely that will not be the case - they will fight to save the marriages. No contact will have to occur and it will divide everyone.

 

I am from a very small community too. My situation blew big time (names announce in church - horrible) - he got to go off to another place because he lived in another town, started to get involved in another church and I had to stay and face it all - by myself. He absolutely threw me under the bus after promising me he would stand beside me (I have letters written to me saying he would stand by me).

 

In many ways, I am stronger for it. The community thought how the church handled it was absolutely horrible, the pastors pretty much lost their jobs over it (for not just that decision but even mishandling afterwards), and the community has rallied around me and 3 years later I am strong and thought well of, oddly enough.

 

But there is no good way for this to end. I'm not saying there isn't a possibility of you ending up together, one never knows. But the odds are against you for sure. And there will definitely be "side picking" by all of the friends involved. I had to even cut off some people that I knew were having contact with xMM and his wife because it hurt too much.

 

There are those that still believe I was the predator - really?? I don't think so. Unfortunately women are looked at as the ones who "tempt" these poor, weak males and we haven't evolved enough yet to not blame the OW entirely. It's ridiculous, but unfortunately that is how it is.

 

I am so sorry you are in this situation. I feel for you and everyone involved. Honestly your best bet is to cut this thing off as soon as you can. But I also understand how hard it is to do that...