I’m craving a closure over ending an affair with a married man

[Stuckhereforgood]

I ended an affair with a married man who was almost twice my age and I called his wife to inform her that we are having an affair because at that time I thought that that was the only way that he would stop contacting me but I didn’t realize that I wasn’t ready for it, about a week I have there my best friend contacting him after seeing how depressed I was and basically what he told her that he wants nothing to do with me he wants no contact with me at all and he doesn’t want to hear for me ever, after about two months I tried contacting him by email apologizing for contacting his wife and compromising his marriage because I’m also married and wonder if there started we had the terms that we will not compromise each other‘s marriages but I received a nasty email in response from his wife instead of him. It’s been three months and I still can’t cope with that every single day I have an urge to contact him I drive by his job about twice a week just gathering my’s thoughts and just Step in to his office where he would have no choice but Closure to me that I need. I forgot to mention that I’m also married and a young mom...I have been severely depressed over the break up I’ve been seeing therapists and taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety he medications it doesn’t seem to be helping at all I’m just looking for some help on this website because I’m sitting here trying to compose an email to send him and reach out one more time to get the proper closure that I need for myself and for my health

[malvern99]

You'll have better luck trying to catch unicorns in a city. There is no such thing as closure. You need to focus on yourself and your "marriage" now.

[S2B]

This closure you're seeking is something YOU give to YOURself!!

 

It has nothing to do with the MM - he's never gonna"give you" that.

 

Why did you cheat while married?

 

What are you accomplishing in counseling?

[somanymistakes]

You already had closure in your hands - you took action to end it. That's what you need to focus on.

 

It's an addiction. 'One last glass of wine' is not going to suddenly cure the craving and make you never want it again. Yes, tapering off can be easier than stopping cold turkey, but that boat has already sailed.

 

Stop. STOP. You will gain nothing but pain by pursuing this. You will hurt yourself, you will hurt other people, and it will not make you stop wanting. It will just go on and on. No good can come of it.

 

Maybe a drastic action to shake up your life will help you break out of this pattern. You could take up a new class, or change jobs, or confess to your husband...

[lostgirl87]

I did exactly what you did for the same reason- to get him away from me for good. I did it twice. He forgave me for both eventually but after the 2nd, it was almost a month where we didn't speak. I also begged him for closure to talk to me one last time bc that would magically make me feel better. We had a few closure talks and let me tell you, nothing was ever enough! I felt better that day but that's about it. It was like I got my fix but the next day or so, I needed another.

 

My situation turned out a bit differently but this is the same: there is no such thing as a closure talk!! Especially when you violate the number 1 rule: you betrayed him by telling his wife. That's the biggest Mistress mistake in a MM's eyes. You wanted him to leave you alone and that's why you told. Well you got exactly what you wanted and there's no baxk and forth. You can move on. You're lucky that they didn't tell your H so that means you can still make your marriage work if that's what you want. If not, then divorce. You can't worry about what MM is doing. When we tell the wife, we need to understand that most of the time, a MM wont forgive that and the affair really will be over.

 

Accept it. If he hasn't reached out by now, he probably won't. Either his wife has access to all his accounts or he is disclosing every attempt at communication by you to her. Either way, she will know you contacted him and you are risking them telling your H in an effort to get you out of their lives. I know how you feel- that anxiety of just being dropped. But remember, you wanted that. You betrayed him to get him out of your life after having an understanding that neither would tell the other's spouse.

 

You'll be ok eventually. Work on your marriage. Don't risk your family by attempting to contact this man again. you forced his hand and he had to make a choice. He chose his marriage. You should do the same if there's even a chance of saving it and you love your H.

 

Good luck!

[BaileyB]

You give yourself closure. You will not get the closure you need from this man.

 

You pushed the kill switch on is relationship - there is no going back. You should be grateful, it should now allow you to focus on your own mental health and your family.

 

Your story breaks my heart. I hope you get the help you need, best wishes to you.

[anika99]

Closure is really just acceptance and nobody can give you that. Your exmm and now his wife have clearly conveyed that the affair is over and all communication from you is unwanted and unwelcome. That is also a type of closure in that he has not been at all ambivalent or vague about this. He is not stringing you along or playing games to keep you confused about his feelings. That's all the closure he is required to give you, the rest of the closure has to come from you and it's mostly about accepting the new reality.

 

Now you need to go no contact with him otherwise you risk looking like a crazy stalker and in fact he and his wife just may go to the police if you don't leave him alone. You might want consider confessing the affair to your husband because you never know when your MM's wife might decide to tell your husband herself. It's only been three months since dday so his wife is still on an emotional roller coaster herself so just because she hasn't outed you yet doesn't mean she still won't do it later.

[burnt]

He already has given you closure. You are in too much pain, grief, and confusion to see it clearly now.

 

The best closure/gift he has given you is:

Showing you his real face.

 

1. He was married but was using a woman half his age for extra fun on the side.

 

2. When it came out, he dumped you without a single thought and put all his energy in his marriage and his wife--not YOU. You were a disposable temporary source of entertainment to him the whole time.

 

3. Despite knowing how much you have been suffering, instead of having the decency to reply with a single goodbye/closure message to help you move on and heal, he gave your last email to HIS WIFE so that she could deal with it and allowing her to send you a humiliating degrading nasty email back to you with a slap on your face. That's how little you mean to him. Now he is using his wife to clean up his dirty mess.

 

4. What is he doing right now? Most likely, telling his wife that SHE is the one who he loved all along, not YOU. He is probably telling her you meant nothing to him. He is having a fabulous life rebuilding his marriage right now. He used you to make his marriage better and to relieve himself from boredom. That's the kind of a man he is.

 

 

• Closure is YOU realizing that you wasted your time on a man who is deceptive, a liar, cheater, a player, and cold-hearted selfish user.

 

• Closure is YOU realizing that though you are in sheer helpless pain right now, in time you will get over him, but his WIFE will be forever stuck with such a characterless cheating man--not to mention she is actually protecting him thinking he was the poor victim in it all.

 

• Closure is YOU realizing that an ugly story has finally ended and that such a useless toxic man is no longer part of your life. But now you have to work hard to repair--yourself and your marriage.

 

Stuckhereforgood, give it a bit of time. You will heal from this. You will NOT be stuck in here for good.

[stillafool]

Did you also inform your husband of your affair when you informed MMs wife?

[BaileyB]

He already has given you closure.

 

Absolutely, he has given you the best closure that he could give - he has made his decision and he has communicated that clearly to you by ending all contact. And, better yet... He has not waivered so there is no confusion.

 

What is left for you is acceptance. This is your closure. You must accept that your relationship has ended with this man and now, it's time to deal with your depression and the problems in your marriage.

 

Continue with your counselling. Best wishes.

[deadsoul]

Closure is a myth.

 

It really is. Even when you get "the perfect" closure, it still hurts and feels bad.

 

Take time to grieve. Read all the other stories here, believe me, you are not the first to go through this and you won't be the last.

[lostgirl87]

Absolutely, he has given you the best closure that he could give - he has made his decision and he has communicated that clearly to you by ending all contact. And, better yet... He has not waivered so there is no confusion.

 

What is left for you is acceptance. This is your closure. You must accept that your relationship has ended with this man and now, it's time to deal with your depression and the problems in your marriage.

 

Continue with your counselling. Best wishes.

I have to agree with this too- the worst thing someone can do is keep us in limbo. That will drive a relatively "normal" person absolutely insane. This hppened to me too and I was a mess. It's actually what led me to disclose the affair to his wife the second time.

 

Be thankful that it's over and it's definite. You'd feel a lot worse if he were going back and forth between being with you or ending it. Trust me. Been there, done that, won't ever do it again.

[Stuckhereforgood]

My husband knows, I I told him as tough as it was we were able to work out our issues and we’re still stuck together however this is leave me alone and thank you all so much for all the kind words and advice is to try to continue with my therapy but it literally gets me nothing it’s just an addiction that I need to feed even though it’s been three months and they crave every single day to seek that one last talked that one last eye contact that one last goodbye... I just can’t do this anymore maybe when I see his ignorance maybe When they see that he really doesn’t care about me I don’t What to do anymore I’m Stark

[BaileyB]

With all due respect, your post with numerous spelling mistakes and no punctuation makes very little sense.

 

I understand that you feel stuck and you are having difficulty letting go and moving forward. What is it that you are seeking here, exactly?

[stillafool]

Tell your therapist that what they're doing isn't working and you're struggling harder than ever. If necessary, change therapists. What is holding you back from moving forward is you haven't accepted that it is over and he never loved you. He is back with his wife where he wants to be. Accept that. If you don't love your husband enough to not cheat seek a divorce and find a man you want to be with. MM is not that man.

[lftbehind]

He already has given you closure. You are in too much pain, grief, and confusion to see it clearly now.

 

The best closure/gift he has given you is:

Showing you his real face.

 

1. He was married but was using a woman half his age for extra fun on the side.

 

2. When it came out, he dumped you without a single thought and put all his energy in his marriage and his wife--not YOU. You were a disposable temporary source of entertainment to him the whole time.

 

3. Despite knowing how much you have been suffering, instead of having the decency to reply with a single goodbye/closure message to help you move on and heal, he gave your last email to HIS WIFE so that she could deal with it and allowing her to send you a humiliating degrading nasty email back to you with a slap on your face. That's how little you mean to him. Now he is using his wife to clean up his dirty mess.

 

4. What is he doing right now? Most likely, telling his wife that SHE is the one who he loved all along, not YOU. He is probably telling her you meant nothing to him. He is having a fabulous life rebuilding his marriage right now. He used you to make his marriage better and to relieve himself from boredom. That's the kind of a man he is.

 

 

• Closure is YOU realizing that you wasted your time on a man who is deceptive, a liar, cheater, a player, and cold-hearted selfish user.

 

• Closure is YOU realizing that though you are in sheer helpless pain right now, in time you will get over him, but his WIFE will be forever stuck with such a characterless cheating man--not to mention she is actually protecting him thinking he was the poor victim in it all.

 

• Closure is YOU realizing that an ugly story has finally ended and that such a useless toxic man is no longer part of your life. But now you have to work hard to repair--yourself and your marriage.

 

Stuckhereforgood, give it a bit of time. You will heal from this. You will NOT be stuck in here for good.

 

How's MM having a fabulous life rebuilding his marriage and how did his being with the OW make his marriage better? I would think that his marriage is worse now.

[imsosad]

Are you sure it's closure you're after?

It seems to me like you call it "closure", but what you really want is a different outcome.

BTW, I don't think it's rare at all. Imo, often people state, and even think, they want closure but what they really want is things to turn out different.

Maybe you're hoping that even if you don't end up together, there is something he can say or do to make you stop hurting.

Doesn not work that way.

Closure is a process, a long term one. I don't even think one can reach closure while still in pain and heartbreak over the relationship. It comes with time, with perspective, with insights- all the things a broken hearted person lacks.

Closure will not make you better right away. There is not one conversation that will spare you the pain.

I think it works the other way around, When you are better- and you will be- you will achieve closure by yourself.

[Vivir]

lftbehind, you posed this question to burnt, which I am hopeful will receive a response from the author:

 

How's MM having a fabulous life rebuilding his marriage and how did his being with the OW make his marriage better? I would think that his marriage is worse now.

 

I liked burnt's post, and would like to give my response on this perspective.

 

Most of us have no idea what is going on in the married partner's home; burnt gave a likely scenario. Whether or not the scenario is actually what's happening, reading such words sometimes help to shock Others living in fantasyland into the reality of their situations.

 

As an xOW, I, too, assume xMM is having a fabulous time - and has been all along - in his marriage, while I continue to struggle with processing what has happened. The difference is his wife has suspected, but doesn't know the truth, unlike Stuckherforgood's xMM's BW. I know for a fact that he has gaslighted her in the past. I have also felt that being with me "made his marriage better" as it supposedly allowed him to cope with (read: escape from) what he conveyed as a horrible situation. In actuality, of course, the affair was like a crude bandage with poisoned ointment.

 

On the other side of that coin, when the married couple is fully aware of an affair and are in true reconciliation, their bond is made stronger over time, based on what I have read on LoveShack to date. Thus, the marriage is actually worse, considering there was an affair and they are trudging through the muck, BUT in time, the marriage becomes better through true reconciliation. The xAP becomes a bad distant memory for both of them, if he or she is remembered at all.

 

Based on what Stuckhereforgood wrote, I can understand why burnt wrote that particular reply.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Vivir

[sandylee1]

I'm sure his marriage is no bed of roses at the moment. I'd also disagree with the view that he used you.

 

It was mutual to go down that road.

 

It's clear your husband isn't enough for you, so why are you still with him?

 

It must be a hit to his self esteem knowing you've been off with a man twice your age and likely a lot older than him.

 

It's now about acceptance and ensuring he and his wife do not file a harassment charge against you.

 

Seriously think about your marriage though.... because it probably isn't the right relationship for you.

[freengreen]

Its lies whilst in the affair.. what makes you think one would be interested in telling you the truth after it?. He stopped caring once you went past the line he drew, he wont give a shoot about you or your craving for closure.

 

Work on yourself, that will give some outcome atleast.

[elaine567]

This is probably about ego.

Faced with the fact this was "just" an affair, most women do not want to think of themselves as a "bit of fun" and the "side piece".

Bad marriage and a supposedly "besotted" older man raises the possibility of a better life.

Old, plain, boring, stupid wife vs young, vibrant, sexy, interesting OW.

No contest.

 

But he wasn't playing ball, he liked the status quo, so he needed a shake up.

Not content to just end things, the OW feels the need to put a bomb under his life so he has to make a choice and yes he WILL choose the OW.

 

Only he doesn't, he shuts her out of his life and scuttles back to the wife. It was a no contest right enough but not in the way envisaged.

 

The problem is that MM may indeed wish to leave their marriage, but few will leave for some other man's cheating wife, or a woman who is "happy" to sleep with him behind his wife's back. Hypocritical yes, but often true.

 

So not only has she lost the validation, comfort, "love" and support of the MM, her ego is severely dented too.

Maybe she didn't want the full blown leaving of the wife, but she at least wanted to see some emotion, some pleading, some begging, some indication he was gutted. Without that, she feels worthless, a little foolish maybe and cast adrift...

 

The closure being sought here is not really closure, it is really a desire for everything to go back to the way it was.

Once the furore dies down the MM may indeed resurface, but the rules have changed, if she accepts his offer of continuing the affair, it is on the condition she is his #2 and it will stay that way.

[merrmeade]

I ended an affair with a married man who was almost twice my age and I called his wife to inform her that we are having an affair because at that time I thought that that was the only way that he would stop contacting me but I didn’t realize that I wasn’t ready for it, about a week I have there my best friend contacting him after seeing how depressed I was and basically what he told her that he wants nothing to do with me he wants no contact with me at all and he doesn’t want to hear for me ever, after about two months I tried contacting him by email apologizing for contacting his wife and compromising his marriage because I’m also married and wonder if there started we had the terms that we will not compromise each other‘s marriages but I received a nasty email in response from his wife instead of him. It’s been three months and I still can’t cope with that every single day I have an urge to contact him I drive by his job about twice a week just gathering my’s thoughts and just Step in to his office where he would have no choice but Closure to me that I need. I forgot to mention that I’m also married and a young mom...I have been severely depressed over the break up I’ve been seeing therapists and taking antidepressants and anti-anxiety he medications it doesn’t seem to be helping at all I’m just looking for some help on this website because I’m sitting here trying to compose an email to send him and reach out one more time to get the proper closure that I need for myself and for my health

Occasionally, I come to this forum to remind myself why my husband's AP was such a basketcase and treated me so strangely and badly (considering she was my sister-in-law). For the longest time, I couldn't get over the fact that she had no clue or care about me or how much I was suffering. Every, every, everything was about her—as if her pain was all that existed (nevermind the devastation she and he had caused in both our families), as if it was up to her whether we had contact or not, as if having her best friend contact my husband didn't count, as if she was the only victim. Only her needs mattered.

 

And because she was incapable of empathy, she was also incapable of understanding her own problems and the delusional thinking that had led her to make such painful choices for herself and, ultimately, for the rest of us sharing our lives with her at the time.

 

Reading this enables me to have a modicum of sympathy for her, however, and, of course, for her family. Affair fog is a state of mind that virtually cancels out any progress you've made toward personal autonomy and emotional maturity. So I realize you had to decide not to take responsibility for your life or for those you were, in fact, already legally and morally responsible for in order to keep up the destructive and unrealistic llongings.

 

You don't need "closure"; you need shock treatment to get back to earth and out of your narcissistic universe of me, me, me.

 

And, just out of curiosity, how do you know who is the father of your baby?