In deep ...need advice

[Joyce]

Your story really is so similar to mine. It's not easy but I really think you took the right steps to helping your marriage. You did the right thing. I know you mentioned counseling.. you really should go. There are a lot of feelings and emotions you will go through that is best to not share with your H. He won't understand all of it. Are you doing ok?

[Sweetz]

I am doing relatively OK considering. I am now just confused emotionally. The feelings of love and hate have now seem to switch. The husband I use to not like now I can't see how I can't do anything but love him. The OM who at one point in time I would have done anything for, the thought of him makes me sickened. The hard part has yet to come. We will run into him and his wife at business meetings and trips but until that day comes, I will deal with what I have to for this day.

 

I definitely need to see counseling. I won't make it through this alone.

[reservoirdog1]

There's still the other affairs, which he's unaware of. Are those OMs still in your life? If so, same rules apply.

 

One thing you should prepare yourself for is the likelihood that your husband will want further details. And when he asks for them, you should give them, however painful or unpleasant that may be. Try to see it from his perspective: you have all of the information. He has a fraction of it. And he will always feel as though you are holding something back from him (and he'll be right, if he doesn't know about the other affairs). The only way you can counteract that -- if you want to save your marriage -- is to tell him everything he wants to know. Don't make the mistake of assuming that "what he doesn't know won't hurt him", because it will.

 

How he reacted last night is no predictor of his emotional state over the next weeks and months. He will have some pretty serious ups and downs, from depression to anger and everything in between. He will probably say some pretty unpleasant things to you. But, if you're serious about changing your ways and recommitting to your marriage, then you have the chance to repair the damage you caused, and to help him heal from it. Just know that it won't be easy, or quick.

 

Fasten your seatbelt and say a prayer (if you're a person of faith). It's going to be a bumpy ride. But I wish you the best.

[Sweetz]

Originally posted by reservoirdog1

There's still the other affairs, which he's unaware of. Are those OMs still in your life? If so, same rules apply.

 

One thing you should prepare yourself for is the likelihood that your husband will want further details. And when he asks for them, you should give them, however painful or unpleasant that may be. Try to see it from his perspective: you have all of the information. He has a fraction of it. And he will always feel as though you are holding something back from him (and he'll be right, if he doesn't know about the other affairs). The only way you can counteract that -- if you want to save your marriage -- is to tell him everything he wants to know. Don't make the mistake of assuming that "what he doesn't know won't hurt him", because it will.

 

How he reacted last night is no predictor of his emotional state over the next weeks and months. He will have some pretty serious ups and downs, from depression to anger and everything in between. He will probably say some pretty unpleasant things to you. But, if you're serious about changing your ways and recommitting to your marriage, then you have the chance to repair the damage you caused, and to help him heal from it. Just know that it won't be easy, or quick.

 

Fasten your seatbelt and say a prayer (if you're a person of faith). It's going to be a bumpy ride. But I wish you the best.

 

The OMs in my life I am no longer in contact with. I have no desire to revisit that part of my life either.

If he wants further details I will tell him as he asks me. Knowing him, what he doesn't know doesn't hurt him so he may not ask too many questions. But time will tell. And you are right. He deserves to know whatver it is he needs to from me, no question there. Telling him is hard, but that's the consequences of my actions, I know that.

I know this is a long and difficult journey I have to go on now. I realize that. Thanks for your comments

[Sweetz]

And to clarify things, I only told him about the most recent OM. I couldn't get myself to tell him about the other OMs in the past on top of what I already told him. I might as well taken a dagger and put it through his heart if I did that. I am sure that would hurt less. I am trying to do right now. I just hope I am not wrong about it.

[Joyce]

I can understand the switch. I after I told my H I admired him for being so strong and more than anything I felt so loved... here was this person that I have lied and slept with his friend and he still loved me. I started to hate my om too. I still go through emotions of hating him and missing him. Even though I don't want him ever again it still hurts to see him with another women and to drive past him. In fact that is the hardest thing right now. It will take a lot of time to get past that. I found it best to concentrate on my H. I make sure he knows where I am and who I am with. I make sure he knows that I truly love him. I remind myself daily of how lucky I am to have someone in my life that loves me as much as he does.

 

I know things are hard for you. I am just sharing my experience and thoughts hoping it will help you.. maybe a little. If you ever need to talk you can PM me.

[Sweetz]

Thank you Joyce. I can use all the help and advice I can get right now.

[Joyce]

Anytime Sweetz! Even if you just want to vent let me know.

[Sweetz]

Originally posted by Joyce

I can understand the switch. I after I told my H I admired him for being so strong and more than anything I felt so loved... here was this person that I have lied and slept with his friend and he still loved me. I started to hate my om too. I still go through emotions of hating him and missing him. Even though I don't want him ever again it still hurts to see him with another women and to drive past him. In fact that is the hardest thing right now. It will take a lot of time to get past that. I found it best to concentrate on my H. I make sure he knows where I am and who I am with. I make sure he knows that I truly love him. I remind myself daily of how lucky I am to have someone in my life that loves me as much as he does.

 

I know things are hard for you. I am just sharing my experience and thoughts hoping it will help you.. maybe a little. If you ever need to talk you can PM me.

 

Yes even though I don't want the OM anymore, it hurts me when I see him and his wife together acting all happy because deep down I know they aren't. She is just too naive to see any wrong in him. His money and position of power takes over and she deals with it I guess. But it hurts to hear through the grapevine that she is trying to get pregnant and start a family. I know it sounds weird but it's the truth. I may not like the OM right now but at one point I swear he could have asked me to do anything and I would have with no question. Sad but true.

[Sweetz]

Originally posted by Joyce

Anytime Sweetz! Even if you just want to vent let me know.

 

I'm venting! I'm venting! I'll be venting all day long. I feel that writing on this forum has given me the chance to say what I want to finally. It feels good to let it all out even if it is on the computer.

[Joyce]

Venting is good.. very good.

 

Does the OM know you told your H?

[Sweetz]

Originally posted by Joyce

Venting is good.. very good.

 

Does the OM know you told your H?

 

No he is out of town right now. He will know something is up when he calls me to meet him and I say NO because I have never said NO to him. I expect that call in the next few days. Knowing my husband, when they do see each other, he will just keep his distance but probably won't confront him. I think that in itself will send the message that "hey, I know what you did and you better stop while you are ahead or I will ruin your reputation".

[Joyce]

My OM was not married but was with someone within a couple of days. I am curious if you think you om will tell his wife? if he doesn't do you have the urge to? Or are you just wanting to concentrate on getting your life back to normal?

[Sweetz]

Originally posted by Joyce

My OM was not married but was with someone within a couple of days. I am curious if you think you om will tell his wife? if he doesn't do you have the urge to? Or are you just wanting to concentrate on getting your life back to normal?

 

Well two years ago, she called me and said "He told me everything". When I asked him what he told her at that time, he said "nothing, she is lying to try and get you to talk". So who knows what he did or didn't say to her. I have no urge to tell her. But I do know for a fact that for the last year, she has no idea we've been in contact since she told me she didn't want to be my friend anymore. I think that made it more convenient for him actually. She knows what kind of man she married. I want to worry about my life and my marriage.

[Joyce]

Good for you. It really hurts to see the OM going on with life and being happy while here you are torn up inside and facing your lies. You really are a good person. You are a better person than he will ever be.

 

Now that you have been open and honest with your H it really will bring you closer. It takes work on both sides... especially while trying to rekindle the spark and passion.

[Owl]

Sweetz- You did the right thing lady. Seriously, as a husband who's been where yours is, I really think you're on the right track now. Get counseling, and if your husband is willing to reconcile your marriage, get marriage/couples counseling too.

 

You are going to have to come clean on everything eventually, but it likely does make sense to let him work through this first part first. Resevoirdog is right on something too...don't make your husband ask for things that you KNOW you should tell him. I've had to go through that with my wife, and its not fair, and it prolongs the healing process a lot. Don't assume he knows something, and don't hold out on something that you know will hurt him when he finds out later. Over the next few weeks is the time when EVERYTHING needs to come out in the open. Beyond that, if he comes across it later, he's going to suspect you were hiding it from him deliberately, and trust will be FAR harder to regain.

 

You're both in for the roughest next month of your lives. You're going to start going into a withdrawl period where you're going to miss your OM terribly, feel guilty as hell over what happened, and at times be angry as heck with your husband as he says and does things that hurt you again. He's going to be going through mood swings like he's never done before...anger, depression, hurt, doubt, mistrust...and sometimes he's going to be calm and work like hell to understand this. Take advantage of those latter times, and work with him.

 

I can tell you this from my own personal experience though...if there was ever love in your marriage, you will be able to work through this and recover. My wife and I are as close and in love as we were when we met. It's worth it, but you're both going to have to WORK to get through it. You're going to have to work hard to show him that you really love him (and that's not really going to be possible until you get over the withdrawl from your OM...and that has to start NOW. Drop him, and DON"T let him back into your life in any way shape or form...ever!!!). You're going to have to do everything remotely possible to prove to your husband that you're being honest with you now...and he's going to doubt it. He's going to have to check up on you to reassure himself if nothing else. Be open, honest, and truthful, even if it hurts you. Concentrate on how good its going to be once you're back "in-synch" with your husband.

 

The healing is going to take a lot longer than you're likely going to expect. But it's worth it. You've taken the hardest (from what I've heard from my wife, and other spouses in your position) step in this...now stick to your guns and do the rest. Take responsibility for what you've done, and make things right from now forward.

 

I don't know you...but I have to say that taking this first step makes me think that you're a much better person already than the one who was having those affairs with her husband. GOOD LUCK!!

[Sweetz]

Thank you Owl for such a great post. I realize that there are going to be a lot of bumps in the road. I know what my weaknesses are. Don't get me wrong. Just because I have taken this first step doesn't mean that I got it all under control. On the contrary, I don't know what the heck to do next.

 

I do have an intense obsession with this OM like none I have felt before. It's unexplainable. I feel like a drug addict being told that I can no longer get high. The thought of that makes me cringe because it was such a big part of my life for the last few years. It was what I made to be normal in my life as crazy as that may be. To cut it off complete will be difficult, but necessary, and I realize that. I can't say I will have an easy time with it but if it needs to be done, it will be done. I know this will in itself be a long healing process. This letting go hurts as well as the other parts of this whole mess I have created. What I don't get is how the OM can be so unaffected by it. I have a strong feeling that there is another OW in his life because that is just the feeling I get from him. I have come to find that he is that type of guy as well. And a damn good liar for sure.

 

You are right in saying that I should not assume anything or hold anything back from my husband. I need to think about that a bit more and come clean eventually. I am not ready to deal with all the aftermath, but I don't think I ever will be so now is the time to just get back on track. Coming completely clean with him scares me because the things that I did were that bad. To him, I am like Mother Theresa. I had a very strict upbringing with good parents and good family. How did I go so wrong? for him to hear the things that I did, the things he felt I was never capable of doing, will completely shock him. But it's the truth so I must face it and in time I will have to.

 

Counseling is definitely on the radar for me. I need it badly. I know that.

[reservoirdog1]

The other problem with not coming clean about everything, Sweetz, is that each subsequent revelation of another infidelity he wasn't aware of (whether because you tell him, or because he finds out another way) will be like a brand new wound. If you want the marriage to work, you can't have him deciding not to recommit fully because he's worried about what else there is out there, waiting to be discovered.

 

It won't do any good to wait for him to "recover" from what you've told him before telling him the rest, because that recovery will take months, if not years. Each new revelation retards that process and will just set things back, and have the added impact of making him doubt you even more than he already does.

 

For that reason above all others, he needs to know everything. Now. I'm not saying it's easy, but it must be done.

 

He's fortunate in that you sound like you genuinely want to build a good marriage with him. I never got that from my TBXWW. The greatest thing you can do to make amends is to spend the rest of your life building a wonderful marriage (which sounds like a lot of work, but if you do it right, it should be a lot of fun and involve a lot of good times). In time, he will reward you for your efforts by forgiving you and leaving the past behind, and hopefully fulfilling your needs in the process.

[Sweetz]

reservoirdog

 

I agree with what you say. Coming clean is a must as hard as it is. I have a lot of thinking to do now. You are so right in the fact the more he finds out later and realizes what I am holding back, the less he will trust me and start the healing process all over. I never thought of that. I thought the opposite. If I tell him a little at a time it won't hurt as bad but I see your point and it makes plenty of sense.

[Owl]

Sweetz- Look at it this way...you came to a good place for advice...all of us here have been involved in something along these lines in one of the three ways...wandering spouse, betrayed spouse, or other person. And none of us have a personal grudge with you...we don't know you. But I think all of us would like to think that it would be nice to know that somone else learned from our mistakes.

 

The addiction you've described isn't a surprise. No one likes to hear that what they're going through is the same as another person's problem, but what you've described sounds exactly like what you'll hear from most of the other people that have been in your position. I didn't understand that it was an addiction like it was when my wife was going through her withdrawls...and I felt so bad that she missed this other person so terribly...it seemed like she missed him far more than she would have missed me if she left. And that may have been true...for a time. But, once reality set in, and the guilt set in, and she realized what she'd done and given up and destroyed, she would have started to feel the same kind of thing about me. So, knowing it IS an addiction, treat it like one. The ONLY way to beat it is COLD TURKEY. Forever. And if you do slip up and contact him again...don't use that as an excuse to keep in contact with him. You'll find that it will take about 3-4 weeks for the worst of the withdrawl to clear out, depending on how long you've been with him and how intense your feelings were. But, you'll still have occasional cravings for a while. It takes that long for you to "unlearn" the habit you've gotten into. And you can still relearn that habit far quicker than before...as you know, since you've done this for the last four years.

 

Again...I seriously recommend the counseling. My wife and I did seperate counseling for each of us, and joint counseling as well. Once we got far enough along, we dropped the seperate and we're still doing the marriage counseling now. Good luck friend.

[Sweetz]

Thank you Owl. I don't feel that without the support of this forum that I would have had the guts to tell my husband what I did. It was the fact that after coming on here, I didn't feel so alone and isolated in my problem so it was comforting to know that much at least. I don't take anything on here that was said to me personally. If anything I welcomed it because it was what I needed to be told to straighten out. I never felt judged. If anything I felt relief that finally I was being told what the truth was and it wasn't sugar coated for me.

 

Yes, the addiction to the whole affair is just that, an addiction. I miss the way I feel around him, I miss the physical tension we use to have together, I miss the anxiety of waiting on whether to find out if we were going to see each other soon. I do. I admit it. And it's going to be hard to work through. But I may use this forum to track my progress over the next 3-4 weeks as I have found this place to be an amazing support group for me thus far. Thanks and I will keep you all up on my progress. Perhaps someone else can learn from my wrong doings as well.

[Sweetz]

This is going to be a long weekend. My husband just called me to let me know about an important phone call I have been waiting for. Our conversation was very brief and to the point. The tone of his voice was not normal. It was disturbed which tells me this is weighing heavily on his mind but he's not speaking his mind to me right now. Perhaps he needs time for it all to sink in. I am expecting the waves of emotions to come lashing towards me soon. He's holding it all in right now but at any given moment he could explode but he has that right. He didn't choose to be put in this predicament. I did this to him. I wish I could change it but since I can't, I have to move forward.

 

I'm just journalizing here folks but feel free to comment.