I just confessed.

[Raven3321]

Waverly,

 

I know this is hard but remember, there are a lot of people who have been where you are now and survived and overcome. This too shall pass.

 

One thing that has been said but I want to emphasize is get all your thoughts of the affair in order in your mind. Think of everything. Write it out if you have to. You don't necessarily have to share it all unless he asks but have it just in case. Tell him the truth about everything if he asks.

 

Don't leave ANYTHING out by omission.

 

Get it all out there once and be done with it. Pick up the pieces from there.

Edited June 16, 2014 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[Owl6118]

I want to undo this hurt I've inflicted for no reason. I want to be a better person.

 

It can't be undone.

 

But you can do a huge amount to speed his healing from it if you tell him the truth and if you feel and can show remorse. With or without you as his wife, he will heal better and truer the more respect you can now show him. Just please, be truthful. That is whathe needs more than anything. You are the only person in the world who can tell him the truth about so much of his reality. He has no one to turn to but you as he tries to understand where his marriage has reallly been and what it really means.

 

As for being a better person--you already are. Tonight. Now. You already are a better person than the one who woke up today.

 

Goodnight, Waverly. Best wishes to you tonight and in all the days to come.

[twosadthings]

You said you wanted to keep your family intact but didn't say anything about your feelings for your husband or marriage. What you've done is horrible but a false reconciliation would be exponentially worse. If you do want to remain his wife and he wants that too what's to come can be dealt with but not if you're not all in.

 

Your friend/lover is unstable because of his addiction so there will always be the possibility of unforeseen contacts from both him and/or his spouse. Clear your head and do now what you should have done before you left yourself and loved ones open to the consequences to come to somehow minimize or deal with them as best you possibly can.

 

Good luck and stay strong,

 

Twosadthings,

 

P.S. Father's Day? Couldn't you have done it on Saturday to ruin Bastile Day?

[JS84]

I'm glad you confessed. Hopefully things work out for you guys whatever happens. The only advice I can give is when he asks questions just be honest. Please no trickle truth.

[BetrayedH]

Right now, I want it to end with my family intact.

 

I'm sure the whole thing is overwhelming so don't feel pressured to reply. But in your particular case, I think it's really important to reflect on your statement above. As I said before, too many waywards initially try to reconcile out of a sense of guilt, shame, obligation, fear and damage control. As has been stressed here by most posters, being honest, open, and transparent is job one. But some of the things that this demands will be painful for your husband to hear and may even cause him to not want to reconcile. Because of my wife's fear of it all (divorce, anger, exposure), she quickly retreated from the honesty of her forced confession and began leaving out things that would hurt me or affect our reconciliation. In other words, she resumed her wayward behaviors almost immediately. She ommitted, outright lied, and got into contact with the OM. Even after all of this NC, you may have a similar temptation to give your OM a heads up that exposure might be coming. My wife did damage control, trying to control the outcome. It didn't work. In fact, it couldn't have been more counterproductive. We're divorced because of it.

 

I think what's going to be toughest for you is this notion that you would have been with the OM if it had been logistically possible. You would have left your H for him if you could have made it work. Unless your perspective has changed, the result is that you're still in love with your OM and you're going to be faced with these types of questions. What you want (keeping your family intact) is going to come into conflict with being honest. But then again, being a better person was also something you mentioned. I think living an honest and authentic life is a critical part of that.

 

Put some thought into which path you will choose. I think a couple of things you have going for you is that 80-90% of betrayeds do make an initial attempt to reconcile and that men are typically less impacted by the emotional aspect of their wife's affair. Right or wrong, we get focused on the physical stuff. Hell, I was almost dismissive of the emotional aspect of my wife's affair. In other words, you may have a husband that will want to reconcile even in the face of such difficult truths. If your H is anything like me, he will also desperately want to keep his family intact, enough to choke down quite a bit of hard truth. And he will think that you two can reestablish a connection, given the chance. Point being, you may well be able to keep your family intact and be honest at the same time.

[Owl6118]

Good morning Waverly.

 

I had one more thought overnight.

 

Up to now, your husband has been a very shadowy figure to us. You have spoken of him almost not at all. This struck me, because I actually thought of him often, and was very aware how little I knew about this man for whom I had so much sincere sympathy.

 

I don't think its a mystery why. You are a good writer and writing to us always seemed to force a fair amount of honesty from you. I don't think until now you were ready to write about your husband because you could not have done so without seeing him more in the round, and empathizing with him. And that was something you could not afford to do while still living in untruth with him.

 

But things are different today. I suspect you will be seeing him today and in the week to come, really seeing him, for the first time in a long time. And I think your empathy for him has already begun to return as you respond to the reality of his pain.

 

BetrayedHusband is very wise and right. Your husband may offer your reconciliation, or at least, be on the fence about it. You don't need to decide today or tomorrow, but sometime soon, you will have to begin ask yourself if, with the lies removed, your empathy could grow again into love for him--enduring love, rooted in a respect and affection deep enough to cause you to choose him and fight for him, not just accept him as second best since you could not have the one you really wanted. You don't have to feel that right away, but you do have to feel that the capacity for it to exists in you, if you are to walk the road of recovery with him.

 

Maybe, when you are ready, telling us something about him, about who he is, and what you are feeling for him, will help you think it through. Knowing more about him might also help us help you help him. For I am concerned for him, and want him to get all the help he can.

[Waverly]

There's a lot here to reply to, and I thank all of you who have taken the time to post your feedback.

 

Right now, I have barely slept, haven't eaten in 24 hours, and need to somehow get through the day. I'll reply more later.

[fellini]

Right now, I want it to end with my family intact. I understood all the risks I was taking before. But like many others have posted, it wasn't really real until today. I want to undo this hurt I've inflicted for no reason. I want to be a better person.

 

He's sleeping on the couch tonight. (I offered to sleep there but he insisted.) I'm just really really sad and disappointed in myself right now.

 

I'll reply more tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who has responded.

 

Well you have taken the burden off your shoulders and placed it smack on his on father's day. You can take solace in the fact that he is sleeping in the house, or that the two of you are sleeping under the same roof.

 

You say that LS has won, but there is still a large very loud group in here that have yet to win. If your BH finds his way in here to get the kind of advice you sought, and LS wins, you will probably be a divorced woman.

 

Reminder, before RECONCILIATION there is a wee thing called RECOVERY.

He needs to get through the latter before he can deal with the former.

 

It seems to me that you need to read up on what you have to do for a BS, and you should probably start by writing that time line as accurately and detailed as possible BEFORE he asks for it and hand it to him as a starting point. Yesterday would have been a good day to do it. Don't wait for him to ask. If you can put EVERYTHING down there you will be able to focus all your talk around that. If you trickle him, he won't be able to get his head around the details.

 

Good luck. You have ended his life as he knew it, and forced him into one he did not choose to have. That is the flip side of all this talk about confession.

[alwayshere]

there is still a large very loud group in here that have yet to win.

 

I get where this is coming from, but I learned the hard way that being more concerned about strangers than my own H and family is an exercise in futility. Focus on your H and not on people who have nothing practical to do with your life.

Edited June 16, 2014 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[atreides]

For all those asking "why father's day?" ... the way i understand it is that her husband asked her point blank "is there anything i need to know" holding off would have probably added to the fire because waverly is saying she thinks he found out... So if that is the case, he would know somewhat of an affair and it would have been a lie to hold off, from the husband's perspective.

 

Waverly, you did good. Best of luck.

[BetrayedH]

She had a choice between lying straight to his face or coming clean. I'm glad she chose the latter. It's not like she chose the date.

 

In the grand scheme of things, the next few Father's Days will have some extra difficulty, just like any Dday antiversary. But given a few years, the significance will pass and it'll hardly be one of the higher hurdles they've had to jump.

[Got it]

Waverly, while I am sure you feel like you are in the middle of the storm the wonderful thing is you are making actions to actually move through it. You have some amazing resources at your disposal here and online that you can use to start making amends and showing your husband that you are the woman that deserves him.

 

I think you need to quickly figure out how much fortitude you have and if you are committed to reconciling you start showing him at 110%. If not, be kind to him and let him know now, no trickle truth, limbo, etc. Figure out what side of the fence you are on and jump off. That is the kindest thing you can do for him now.

 

If you are committed, start proactively doing things to help his healing and show you are committed. It doesn't mean that he will decide to stay with you but regardless you will work through things to being a better person. Set up IC and ask him if he wants MC, write out a timeline with all details and let him know it is available if/when he wants it, do a NC letter and let him know it is available if/when he wants it sent and pick up "Afte the Affair". It's a hard road but I know you will get a lot of support here and other infidelity sites if you want it.

 

((((((Waverly))))) ((((((Waverly's husband and family)))))))

[velvette]

For all those asking "why father's day?" ... the way i understand it is that her husband asked her point blank "is there anything i need to know" holding off would have probably added to the fire because waverly is saying she thinks he found out... So if that is the case, he would know somewhat of an affair and it would have been a lie to hold off, from the husband's perspective.

 

Waverly, you did good. Best of luck.

 

Rationally correct and no real purpose is served to continue beating on Waverly about it. Still, she should not be surprised if her H latches onto this or fixates on it in the short term.

 

Sometimes people who are hurting fixate on things that are ultimately insignificant to the problem at hand because its to difficult to focus on the real more significant problem(s).

[alwayshere]

For all those asking "why father's day?" ... the way i understand it is that her husband asked her point blank "is there anything i need to know" holding off would have probably added to the fire because waverly is saying she thinks he found out... So if that is the case, he would know somewhat of an affair and it would have been a lie to hold off, from the husband's perspective.

 

Waverly, you did good. Best of luck.

 

Yeah, I mentioned that.....

[violet1]

There's a lot here to reply to, and I thank all of you who have taken the time to post your feedback.

 

Right now, I have barely slept, haven't eaten in 24 hours, and need to somehow get through the day. I'll reply more later.

I know the feeling. For me, the week after confessing was the hardest. I felt like I was walking on egg shells. Take it day by day, it's going to be okay. You did good sweetie. There's never a good day for a confession like this. The ones who keep beating you up about Father's Day really need to chill out. Just remember there's a lot of us who support you and are very proud you made the right decision.

[alwayshere]

Your husband is likely to need you a whole lot more than we do. Use your energy to support him, love him, be transparent with him, and meet his needs.

[aliveagain]

There is no Father's Day, Christmas Day,or any other special day when it comes to infidelity and DD. Right now he is building his anger and wondering "why" so please dig deep and give him a truthful answer, "I don't know why" is a further slap in the face. He is weighing his options, his love for you and keeping his family together verses the betrayal and pain you have caused him. Tell him you are willing to do what ever it takes to fix this, ask him what he needs to give you that second chance. You both need to both decide if saving your marriage is the right thing to do. Take the initiative to be transparent and don't wait for him to demand it. No contact with your affair partner is a must, exposing the affair to OM's wife or girlfriend will go a long way to making you believable again.

 

You did the right thing, be ready for the emotional ride your both on now. Get yourself into independent counselling, you need to fix what is broken in you that allowed you to do this to your marriage. Fix yourself before you can ever have a hope of fixing your relationship. When you fix a car with broken parts you still end up with a broken car.

[Waverly]

I just wrote him a long email outlining the why as best I could.

[tornapart2002]

At least you husband got a confession. I had to dig for all the information and after that it was denials and gaslighting for months. I would have loved for some semblance of honesty in my case.

 

I don't have any advice since I've never been in your shoes, other than a flirty exchange of messages with anothe man after DDay.

 

Just hang in there and know that your confessing was better than him having to drag it all out.

[Bittersweetie]

Waverly, sending you and your family positive thoughts. You've received a lot of good advice. Take things one day at a time and try not to make any large decisions. After d-day my H and I spent ten days apart...I don't know if that is an option for you, but I think it was good for us in that it gave us time to cool off and collect our thoughts. One more piece of advice I'd have is to try not to go back to thinking of xOM at this time. After d-day, I started thinking of him again, I see now as an escape from the reality of my life. It didn't help things.

 

Take care of yourself,

BSW

[HereNorThere]

Since you've already confessed, shouldn't you also offer to move out? From your husband's perspective, I couldn't imagine having to live with someone who betrayed our family. I think leaving for a while, or forever, would probably be one of the best father's day presents you could give a betrayed husband.

[LearningToMoveOn]

Sending strength and thoughts your way Waverly!! You did the RIGHT thing and now it's all out in the open and you can focus on moving forward, one way or the other. You won't have this hanging over your head for the rest of your life and hopefully it will help take some of your focus off the OM and help you to heal. And hopefully it will also help your marriage to heal (if that's what you both decide you want) now that you don't have this huge wall between the two of you.

 

I know it wasn't easy but you should take strength from the fact that you did the right thing by being honest and today is the first day of the rest of your life You are free from this secret. Wishing you and your family all the best.

[drifter777]

I just wrote him a long email outlining the why as best I could.

I get it, but I'm not sure the "why" is in the forefront of his mind right now. He may ask "why" - but it's likely rhetorical. Its a "why" that covers a wide, wide range of the crushing, stunning confusion you have just put him in. Like "why did you do this to me?" and "why am I not good enough" and "why did you choose to find sex outside of our marriage" and "why did you betray me like this" and... well, you get it.

 

The email seems like a pretty good place to start, I just wanted you to understand just how many questions are swimming around in his mind. Within a short time (maybe now?) he will be asking "why do you want to stay with me?" and "why would I think about continuing our marriage after what you have done?" And the roller-coaster begins.

[violet1]

Since you've already confessed, shouldn't you also offer to move out? From your husband's perspective, I couldn't imagine having to live with someone who betrayed our family. I think leaving for a while, or forever, would probably be one of the best father's day presents you could give a betrayed husband.

WTH? Why should she offer to move out? They have young children. They should discuss it together before they make any decisions like that. They have to think about what's best for the kids too. My H is a BH, he didn't want me or him to move out. They both need to process things first. It's not even been 24 hours since she confessed. Don't you think you're jumping the gun a bit?

[alwayshere]

WTH? Why should she offer to move out? They have young children. They should discuss it together before they make any decisions like that. They have to think about what's best for the kids too. My H is a BH, he didn't want me or him to move out. They both need to process things first. It's not even been 24 hours since she confessed. Don't you think you're jumping the gun a bit?

 

That post is par for the course so far, so I'd just ignore it.

 

Waverly, the why will be a catch 22. The robotic, scripted "because I had bad boundaries" answer won't satisfy any BS who has their own thoughts and feelings. However, giving a complete run down of what you were feeling or thinking is likely to sound like justification. Most people, after a time, realize the "why" is not the big "thing." The big thing is do you own it, are you remorseful, and will you work hard to recover and reconcile?

 

Transparency is vital, as are patience, kindness, sensitivity, and taking the initiate to help him feel some semblance of safe. Don't go anywhere alone unless he is fine with it AND you stay in regular contact the whole time - not even the store. There is no room for impatience, irritation, or wondering "when it will all be over" at this point.