Finally Over

[BlindsidedTwice]

The MM he's talking about actually started his affair in 2015 and it has just ended.

 

Sounds like, either way, it’s not my xMM/xAP.

 

Despite spiraling out because of another post on another forum, I’ve actually felt really strong and focused. My husband is on my mind a lot.

 

Thank you to everyone who has commented and helped and questioned. You are challenging me in a tough way and it’s helping me open my eyes.

[Zona]

I can tell you, being betrayed by your wife is extremely emasculating for obvious reasons. One thing you mentioned in passing could be utterly soul crushing for your husband if he ever finds out the truth. You mentioned that you were thinking about your AP when you were having sex with your husband, and that made it "bearable". That would just kill him to know, and he would likely ask you about it because most betrayed men obsess over stuff like this. Put yourself in his shoes. How would you feel if he told you that he could only get an erection if he thought about his AP while he was with you? Can you imagine?

[BlindsidedTwice]

Hi! Wow we share a very similar story except we were co workers. I understand all about being infatuated with a person. You seem to be infutuated with him for a very long time which he ultimately knows and can feel. He will use that weakness you have for him to his advantage. You will get over him in time.

Try your best to halt rumination. This entire fantasy of him is all in your head. Not at all real life love that's committed. He doesnt value you and never will.

 

Let him go!!! I'm rooting for you. Btw, IC helps tremendously.

 

Thank you for this reminder. Infatuation is amazingly yucky. He does know I’m infatuated with him. I’ve admitted it. I truly thought I was with someone trustworthy.

 

I’m actually doing a pretty good job of halting the fantasy thoughts. They are causing so much pain, they are not worth it. I have developed a few techniques that are working thus far. And the whole time I thought I was making these feel-good new memories. Wow.

[Buffer]

I love my son more than anyone else in this world, even if there was no proof of that in my post or my actions...

He did not ever meet xMM, but I knew I was being a terrible mom. I wish I had stopped.

 

My husband deserves better than me. He always has. He was absolutely everything I needed when we first met. Time, marriage, bills, kid, careers have taken their toll. I am not attracted to him, so at first I used xMM online convos as a way to feel excited again in my own married sex life. I knew the slope was slippery, and yet I proceeded anyway...

 

First off, sorry for your predicament you are in. The pain will subside, over time if you can remain NC. Can you?

 

Most WW use the ‘My husband deserves better’. This is telling you want out of the marriage. He is too good for you.

 

You sort out this AP and took him into your life, put your husband at risk of a STD and put your self over your son, ‘being a terrible mum’.

How many times did you lie to your family to be with your AP?

Is this a exit A so your husband will divorce you?

 

Do you want a single life or remain in your marriage?

 

Either way you have a responsibility to your marriage, husband, child and extended family.

 

You should tell your BS now, come completely clean, your BS has his suspicions. You couldn’t do what you did without triggering his subconscious.

BS and you need to have a STD/STI check now are you didn’t practice safe sex.

 

Now if you want to remain with the man you have no love for, start IC but don’t lie to the BS or councillor to minimise any hurt as this will only hinder your recovery.

Continue NC, surrounded yourself with positive supportive people who know what you have done but will help, parent siblings a very close friend.

 

Your AP is a pig, if you continue to have feelings, when he contacts you you will fallback into the A.

 

A good reminder for you is the thought of your son calling your BS’s significant other ‘Mum’.

 

If you believe you can remain in your marriage to a man you have no respect for and son you placed second to the MM. Then don’t disclose to BS. Your AP wife can at any time tell your husband, weeks or even years from now. The ramifications will be compounded by the duration of continuous lies over the time period.

 

If R is what you want, then truth will help you. But ultimately it is up to your BS to want to stay with you. It isn’t your call.

 

Good luck ?

[Lov3foo1]

I second the opinion on coming clean with the BS.

 

If repairing the marriage is what you truly want, then coming clean is a must since I'm sure it took two people (you and your spouse) to have the marriage spiral downhill, and so it reasons that it also takes two to bring it back up to a healthy state. I don't think you need be convinced that this will take months if not years of hard work. Repairing a marriage is hard work, but one that is definitely worth it - if that's what you want out of your life. My xMM decided to stay married even if it means just a coparenting relationship with his wife (of course I'll never know for sure if his marriage is as bleak as he claims). I wish my xMM well, and if I can say just one thing to him, it's that if he so chooses to stay married then at least try to make the marriage a good one, so that he'd know with absolute certainty that it was the right decision and not live the rest of his life wondering "what could have been."

 

OP - in one of your response you mentioned something about your husband being a really good man for you and being able to take care of you and what not, but you also have mentally checked out of your marriage. This was the boat I was on, my xH is actually a very good man, in fact the day I told him I wanted a divorce I also told him I'd be hard pressed to find a better man than him. I too was afraid of leaving my M (huge history together, stability, 2 kids) but I did what I needed to do to be at peace with myself and be fair to him. I still remember those moments when I went out to look for my own apartment, when I put down the deposit, when I did furniture shopping. With each of these moment I questioned the sh*t out of myself, am I really do this? I was determined to push through all the fears; I knew it was what I needed to do.

 

Whether you choose to work on your marriage or leave, neither one path will be easy. But either way, at least you'll have an answer and be able to move on, and ultimately be able to attain what you want out of this life. You only have one life! Make it one with no regrets.

 

Pick a path, and move forward. Indecision is still a decision - that's a decision to stay stuck.

[BlindsidedTwice]

Your A has ended. And now you have a chance to change the pattern, change the path.

 

You have a chance to look inward, to ask, why did I think these actions were okay? What did I tell myself that justified my choices? What can I change, inside myself, in order to not make those same choices again (if that's your wish)? Who do I want to be moving forward, and what can I do to get there?

 

If you have issues with your marriage, they need to be dealt with in a healthy manner. Not through an A. That's what I did and it was a terrible path to choose. My H actually said to me at one point that me asking for a divorce would've been less painful than my affair.

 

Channel that negative self-talk into self-examination. Journal. Exercise. IC. Read some books on affairs or self-esteem. And most of all, NC. Not for him, but for you. You've made it 16 days, double that and you've done a month. Take it one day at a time and it will add up.

 

Good luck.

 

 

My update is not really a significant update, as I've kept NC for a MONTH now!!! This past month has been difficult for a lot of reasons, but here are some of the positives...

 

-The fog is starting to lift. I'm not ready to say "it wasn't love!" just yet but I can see things more clearly. I was desperate for attention and used my AP as an ego boost. He was someone who had rejected me in the past, so having him fawn all over me felt GREAT! Almost like an "I told you so!" Now that I'm analyzing, and over-analyzing... I actually didn't realllllly like my AP all that much. I lied to him a lot to boost his confidence/ego/esteem. He told me that his wife wasn't attracted to him, so he craved the attention just as much as I did. He made me feel soo good but thats all I was for him too. We weren't "100% compatible" (like he had said at one point), we just said what the other person wanted to hear. Also, anytime he showed a behavior or attitude that I didn't like, I could just put that in the "oh well, he's not mine!" box and move on to getting more compliments and attention.

 

-I am now in IC and working with my counselor on a plan to disclose my A to my husband, possibly in MC. I love him and I want to be honest with him. He might hate me, divorce me, and move onto a healthier relationship, but thats a consequence for my actions. I messed up big time and I need to own up to it. That being said, I hope with every fiber of my being that I will not lose him completely.

 

-I am exercising, journaling, reading, counseling, spending time with female friends, throwing myself into my work, laughing at my husband's jokes again, and leaving my phone alone when I'm with my son. I am very aware now that my son and husband felt my disconnection. Just the past few weeks of focusing on giving them my undivided attention has made a huge positive difference in our family life.

 

 

All this said, I do still struggle through low moments. Yesterday I was totally triggered and cried on the way home from work. I still think about "does he miss me? does he resent me? does he regret me?" but I know I won't get those answers and they don't actually matter. And although I sometimes still hope for that dopamine hit to show up on my phone, I actually hope to never hear from him again. We ended on [somewhat] good terms and I don't want to stir that painful pot ever again.

 

My main focus is on my husband and son now. I LOVE THEM and I hate what I've done to them.

[brokenandhopeless]

Bravo!!! Keep at it. I can't believe how you dug deep into your reservoir of strength.

[Abetterme]

Such a great update! Keep up the work and self reflection. I’ve seen it said many times on this board, the grass is greenest where you water it!

[BlindsidedTwice]

@Abetterme - is there any way to chat directly on here? I am reading through some of your old posts and threads, and I feel like I am going through very similar stages as you. (No worries if you’re not interested tho!)

[mark clemson]

I believe you have to get to 50 posts to chat, so if you stick around a bit you will be able to

[BlindsidedTwice]

I'm really trying. I'm journaling, exercising, IC, reading, and I have a few close friends who I've been able to mostly open up to. In general, I can feel myself getting better...

 

And yet... the pain is still SO RAW at times. It's been over 5 weeks since my A ended, but I have these moments where I feel like I am back at Day 1. As ridiculous as it may sound, I feel abandoned. When I used to get upset with guilt and shame, he would say, "I know we only have each other in this, but we'll always have each other" and now I'm angry at myself that I ever believed that was true.

 

I know I shouldn't worry about what he's thinking about, but this was a person who told me what he was thinking everyday for three years and now I'm supposed to flip a switch and not care? How could he do it? How could he delete me out of his life so quickly and confidently? We were involved in each other's lives in some capacity for 18 years. So many times I thought about ending it, and I couldn't bring myself to do it because of this history/love/trust/safety I thought we had with each other... [eye roll emoji!!!]

 

About 3 months before the final ending, we had mutually agreed to pull way back on the entire relationship. We set up new boundaries and quit the more destructive parts of what we were doing. It was a little disappointing, but mostly, I felt relieved that the "bad part" of the A was over and that we would still get to be friends. I thought we were doing the friendship thing pretty well, but wrong again. He's gone completely now and I'm here desperately trying to heal.

 

I've poured over these forums and it seems that often these xMM come back around eventually for an ego boost. One of the last things my xMM said to me was that he hoped this wasn't goodbye forever. How do I prepare myself for that "in case he comes back" without feeling hopeful that it will happen? I still want the ego boost too. Yuck.

 

Ultimately, logically, I KNOW this is the right path for me and that is the right path for him. We both have spouses and children who we LOVE. Having a pretend fantasy relationship was unhealthy and needed an end. I am working hard on my marriage and relationship with my son. I have not discussed that much in this particular post because my family is what I think/talk about majority of the time. This forum is a nice outlet for getting the other junk out of my head.

 

I posted an update last Thursday and now re-reading it, it's hard for me to believe that was me. How was I feeling SO STRONG last Thursday and now today I feel like a pile of crap.

[DKT3]

I stopped following your story because you danced around the tougher issues, issues involving your marriage.

 

It's my belief that your marriage is actually over, you cant repair an marriage where you aren't attracted to your spouse.

 

You say you are making plans to confess, do you plan to include that in your confession?

 

As far as MM, yeah he will be back, as soon as he feels it's safe. Unfortunately, the odds are you will be there, be receptive and get sucked back in. The reason is you're just doggy paddling in one spot waiting. The other option is pull up your bootstraps and actually start moving forward. Tell your husband the truth, take some accountability for your actions. You cant fake your way back into your marriage, tons have come here and tried to do just that, it doesn't work. They either end up back in the affair or stuck here posting about the same stuff month after month and in some cases for years.

[BlindsidedTwice]

I stopped following your story because you danced around the tougher issues, issues involving your marriage.

 

It's my belief that your marriage is actually over, you cant repair an marriage where you aren't attracted to your spouse.

 

You say you are making plans to confess, do you plan to include that in your confession?

 

As far as MM, yeah he will be back, as soon as he feels it's safe. Unfortunately, the odds are you will be there, be receptive and get sucked back in. The reason is you're just doggy paddling in one spot waiting. The other option is pull up your bootstraps and actually start moving forward. Tell your husband the truth, take some accountability for your actions. You cant fake your way back into your marriage, tons have come here and tried to do just that, it doesn't work. They either end up back in the affair or stuck here posting about the same stuff month after month and in some cases for years.

 

 

Fair enough. The tougher issues are obviously much tougher for me to discuss...

 

I originally fell in love with my H because he was the most genuine, easy going, least judgmental person I had ever met. I never felt a strong physical attraction to him, but I was coming out of a prior abusive relationship and his personality was exactly what I wanted in a partner. I thought the physical attraction part would not matter because everything else was such a good fit. I slept with him very early on in our relationship, on purpose, so that I would form an attachment to him.

 

As I have started learning, the lack of physical attraction is not the only issue in my marriage. I have a lot of issues with myself, I sensed gaps in my marriage a couple of years ago, and then filled those gaps with someone else - which has created a whole new set of issues. You might be right that my marriage is over, but that is significantly more painful for me to accept than to keep working on it. My IC sessions mostly focus on my marriage, making my confession, and much less on my A and xMM. I think I am making progress. I hope I am not doggy paddling here, but you are right about a lot of it, including - I can't fake my way back into my marriage. All in or all out, then real forward movement can start.

 

Thank you DKT for your thoughts. You have a great way of putting things into perspective, even if it is not what I *want* to hear. I appreciate being brought back to reality.

[DKT3]

Listen, you had issues in your marriage and you ran. Your affair failed, with that failure you are once again faced with the issues in your marriage. Now, while you believe you are making steps, you are really still running. Truth is no therapist or amount of time can prepare you for the fallout. No one can predict how that will go, planning doesn't change that.

 

As for your marriage, I suspected you married for the wrong reasons and wasnt in love with you husband in your first thread. I believe I made the comment about your story not adding up.

 

Recovery from infidelity is hard when you are In love and attracted to your spouse. When you have a strong foundation. You dont have any of that. If I'm being honest, from reading your posts I dont think you love your husband or really want to be married beyond keeping it together because you dont know what else to do. I one for being honest, but if you really don't want to be married maybe not confessing could be an option, maybe you just walk away and save your husband the trauma of taking the pain of your actions out on his next partner

[mark clemson]

On the emotional issue, I think that while one's brain (limbic system) is adjusting to changes like this we have "up" and "down" days/phases. That's why you felt better for a while and then "relapsed" into feeling bad again.

 

I noticed this during a EA where I had limerence. Some days I felt normal, then others I would be feeling all the intense emotions again.

 

Your brain will deal with this eventually, but it's on it's own schedule unfortunately. But it DOES end and things become normal again eventually. It just takes a lot longer than we'd like.

[spiritedaway2003]

I've also been in NC for longer, so I can let you know that it does get better. Sometimes the pain comes in waves. Feel it and let it pass. Grieving is not a linear process.

 

1. At some point, you might want to want to consider coming clean with your spouse. You can't plan for how others would react in a fallout. Now that the xMM is out of the way, you can begin to work on fixing your own marriage (if it's fixable). I wish you luck there.

 

2. In the meantime, remember to be kind to yourself. For some of us, we already beat ourselves up over it. You don't need others to bash you for something that can no longer be undone. And in a lot of ways, that is is where IC helps more than LS. Your therapist won't have the answers for you (you still have to do all the hard and painful work). If you're willing to do it right, you can eventually to a state of true healing. And in your case, that includes addressing those things in your own marriage.

 

It's not clear, but I hope you're practicing NC. NC isn't just about creating distance between you and the other person. If done right, NC will give you the time and distance so that you could see things with greater clarity, from which sound decisions could be made.

 

It doesn't mean you won't be vulnerable to lapses or choices that others disagree with, but you'd be able to see things with a clarity (perspective) that you don't have while you're in it.

 

I don't personally think that NC has to be forever. But know that you cannot be "just" friends when one of you have feelings for the other.

 

Take care of yourself.

[BlindsidedTwice]

Its probably annoying to see me “stalling” but I don’t feel stalled. I was having a really low moment this morning and decided to post on here because it’s some ugly stuff. I wanted it out of my head - and the smack back to reality replies.

 

I have actually gotten a fair amount of clarity with the past 5+ weeks of NC. It may not seem that way in this thread, but I know that today was just a really low day for me. I have to believe that NC is helping, as most of my days are not nearly so bad.

 

Back to working on not being so very self-centered!

[Bittersweetie]

IMO, an affair is a band-aid so that we don't actually have to face the issues with ourselves and/or our marriage. The easy way out is to continue to use band-aids to make ourselves feel better. The hard way is to finally face everything and work through it, despite the pain and consequences of our actions. I think a lot of the time, MW here are so caught up in the MM, and it's because they don't actually want to face the reality of facing things and dealing with them. After my d-day, I found myself thinking of MM more even though I wanted nothing to do with him. It took me a bit to realize I was doing that to "escape" my real life, which was not good as a result of my own choices.

 

So, this is your time to choose your way forward, and possibly work through your stuff. After my affair, I wanted to stay with my H, but I had no idea if that would actually happen. So I decided to fix myself for me, regardless of what my future held. It was painful and hard and took a while, but it was worth it. I am much happier now than I ever was. But there was a lot of ups and downs on that path, a path that continues even today. I think of it as a journey, not a destination.

[oldlion]

I am not going to address the infidelity issue and your affair with your MM. You established that issue in your first post. What I would like to address is the real loser in this situation, your husband. He is being cheated out of the opportunity to be with someone else. To find a woman who is really attracted to him. A woman who will love him and who really wants to be a loyal and loving wife to him. Your husband is walking around thinking he has a fairly good marriage when in reality his whole marriage is a lie. In my long life I have seen so many women and men who have someone who loves them and would do anything for them but they choose to throw it all away for someone who plays them like a violin. In most cases women will throw their married life away for emotional compliments and ego kibbles. With these the man gets, what most men will throw their married life away for, sex. There is one woman on here (posting on SI presently) that did do the right thing when she became involved with a MM. She left her husband and set him free to find someone who will love him and only him. He is now free to find someone who wants him for himself. Right now she is in a state of limbo because things aren't working out the way she hoped. Your husband is in limbo and doesn't even know it. If you don't love him, as a wife should love her husband, then let him go. Yes, he will be hurt but in the end he will be better off. I do wish you well.

Edited August 29, 2019 by oldlion

[BlindsidedTwice]

IMO, an affair is a band-aid so that we don't actually have to face the issues with ourselves and/or our marriage. The easy way out is to continue to use band-aids to make ourselves feel better. The hard way is to finally face everything and work through it, despite the pain and consequences of our actions. I think a lot of the time, MW here are so caught up in the MM, and it's because they don't actually want to face the reality of facing things and dealing with them. After my d-day, I found myself thinking of MM more even though I wanted nothing to do with him. It took me a bit to realize I was doing that to "escape" my real life, which was not good as a result of my own choices.

 

You're right. I guess I still don't want to really face the reality of things... I'm still escaping by playing up this "broken heart" feeling.

 

I know you advocate for honesty, as most everyone does and should. Honesty used to be one of my biggest strengths. Now I harbor this disgusting secret. It is killing me. And clearly I am hesitating on a confession.

 

I've hurt the man I love (yes, I love my husband - with or without our issues, with or without intense physical attraction, with or without us having a child together, with or without us changing over the years) and now I'm going to destroy him and our entire life together. It's easy to type about on a forum and say to a therapist. Actually following through is a different ballgame.

[PhoenixRising8]

Acknowledgement to ones’s self is the first step to healing and setting a new path forward. You post should be encouraging. You are doing that.

[DKT3]

Confession isnt going to destroy your husband, your affair did that. Now what confession does is gives your husband the opportunity to choose for himself, he had no choice in the kind of marriage you've turned it into, if you really love him (by this I mean love is unselfish) and you want what's best for him then allow him the choice.

[Bittersweetie]

I am not going to push you to tell or not tell; that is your choice. Even my own confession was somewhat forced...I hadn't planned to tell ever, but then I found out I had an STD, and I decided I didn't want to lie and hide anymore. And I won't lie now: my d-day was the worst day of my life.

 

But the thing it did was give my husband the truth of his life. He thought things were one way but they were another due to my hiding my actions, and myself. He made life choices that weren't based on truth. I took his truth away from him. After d-day, he could make the right choices for him. I knew those choices may not involve me. Those were the consequences of my actions. It was scary and painful, but I do think one factor in us still being together is that afterward everything was laid out on the table: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We examined not just the affair but things that happened before it.

 

You don't have to decide everything today, and like LKK said, you are acknowledging things that you probably wouldn't have just a few weeks ago. Keep moving forward, good luck.

[Buffer]

Confession isnt going to destroy your husband, your affair did that.

 

Hope you are ok and can now start thinking clearly.

I agree with the above statement DKT3, makes good calls. As some (me included) have stated BS and DS have picked up on your negative vibes and have their suspicions. Their spider senses are tingling.

You are still thinking and shedding tears for POS ‘is he thinking of me’? Turn that around, I hope he isn’t thinking of me! We don’t want POS contacting you, he will gaslight you back into his bedroom. Send a N.C. now please don’t hope he won’t contact.

 

Please get checked for STDs/STIs it is too risky.

 

In regards to telling your BS. Look at your family as a building.

It has to be built on a solid foundation. Keeping this A a secret is both unhealthy to you but severely damaging to any chance of R if/when hubby Finds out months or years away. To him it will be as if it just happened, distance in time is no safeguard.

 

Have you been able to rekindle the desires for your hubby yet? Please don’t think pity sex will suffice, trust me I know. He will know if you aren’t into the bedroom actions.

 

It is great that you are in IC, looking at your issues and working on you.

Good friends, exercise, doing things with Husband and Son can also help bring you back to being desirous for BS.

 

Can I ask you a personal question ‘why do the bad treating boys get the WW’?

Just me I can’t get my head around that negativity attractions for the A to start.

 

I am a fan of R, I hope you get your poop together.

You said you have decided to stay in your marriage, make him want you, make him need to remain with you. That is why the advice is offered to tell your betrayed to show him you are not perfect, but have realised your errors of choices and are fully committed to him. When he finds out by another means it may be too late.

 

Big cyber hugs and good luck.

[Maddie82]

As i'm sure you can understand OP, i am having trouble finding any sympathy for you at all. You sought this guy out who was happily married with a new baby. You created all this. You caused it. Your actions could've destroyed 2 families. Forgive me if i don't feel sympathetic.