I've ruined my marriage. I've confessed and it's broken everything

[jdubya3]

So in July, my wife and I had a group of work friends back to our house after a few drinks on the beach. We were all very much under the influence and long story short, my wife caught me in a comprising situation with a colleague - I genuinely don't remember how we got into it as we were both blind drunk by that stage (I have since quit alcohol). But it was obviously devastating. 

I moved out of our home there and then, and quit my job soon after. Nothing happened with this colleague prior to this but I did find her very attractive and we had good chemistry. I had to see her at work every day after and strong lustful mutual feelings began to develop. We met up at a hotel a week or so later and ended up sleeping together - it was the biggest mistake Ive ever made! 

Since August, my W and I have been making small and positive steps in rebuilding our relationship, but the guilt of what I did in the hotel has been eating me alive. I thought if we had any chance of saving our marriage, she deserves to know the truth. So, I confessed everything tonight and feel like I have ruined everything by doing so. I think it was the right thing to do, as she deserves to know the truth, but she is utterly humiliated and I can't see us coming back from it. I would really like for us to speak to a counsellor together, when the time is right, as I so desperately want a shot at rebuilding out 10 year marriage. 

I have completely cut all contact with the other party and had no desire to ever pursue that again. It was a catastrophic mistake, based on a silly attraction and my low self esteem. 

I don't know what I want from posting this, but hopefully someone might be able to relate in some way. 

[d0nnivain]

You need marriage counseling & you could probably benefit from an AA meeting to deal with the alcohol.  If you show your wife that you have changed jobs, gotten sober & are working on being a better husband you might have a prayer of fixing this. 

It obviously would have been better if you had never gone to the hotel.  What were you thinking?  The compromising position while blind drunk your wife may have been able to get past but the deliberate cheating will be much much harder for her to reconcile.  

At any point in here have you actually told your wife you are sorry?  that wasn't in your post.  You have a LOT of begging & groveling to do if you have any shot at getting past this.  

[jdubya3]

Hi, thanks for the reply

I am filled with remorse and have done nothing but apologise. 

The hotel was such a stupid mistake but I was blinded by the fact I felt desired by someone else. Our marriage hasn't been physical for quite some years, but we have never addressed it, so I think that was playing more of a role than I realised. 

I'm speaking to a therapist already to help me try and understand my actions, and also my toxic relationship with alcholol. 

You are right, my W was beginning to forgive me for the drunken incident, but I felt I didn't deserve that without her knowing the full extent. Again, I think confessing was the right thing to do, if we stand a chance of rebuilding something. But, at the moment, I feel it would've been better to have kept it a secret. 

To see what I've done to her,l absolutely breaks me and I can't see how she'll ever be able to move on. 

I feel like such a fool, that I've potentially thrown everything away for acting on a stupid impulse. 

I am so hopeful that we can speak to someone together when the time is right 

[Atwood]

Sometimes facing the terrible consequences of our actions is the right thing to do. You messed up big time, we've all made huge mistakes and they come in different forms. Take comfort in knowing you were brave enough to be honest and you delivered the truth to the person who deserved it. Your wife deserves to know everything that would have an impact on your marriage, and she deserves to make an informed decision as to whether or not she can continue to be in a relationship with you. Again, the fact you have made a terrible mistake cannot be overlooked, but you've done everything you can do if you've told the truth and apologised.

Your wife is going to have some very valid concerns. If I were her, right now I'd be wondering if I hadn't walked in on it, would I have ever got the truth in the first place? Not to mention her trust in you will be broken and trust is very, very fragile. Once broken, it takes a lot of work and communication to fix if both parties are invested in it fully. She may also be feeling that your apology and regret don't mean anything because you already slept with her and can feel satisfied leaving her behind now you've had your cake and eaten it. I wouldn't feel very satisfied taking someone back after that, because it would feel exactly like letting them do that. 

Don't think that telling her was the wrong thing to do. Taking responsibility for hurting someone and being honest about it is the right thing to do. Accept you may have chucked away your marriage and you'll be extremely lucky to be forgiven for this. 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Atwood

[d0nnivain]

I agree that you were right to tell your wife the full truth rather then trying to repair your marriage on a lie. 

If you hadn't been physical in quite a while there may be more going on then just your infidelity.  

Get to a counselor sooner rather then later.  

 

 

[jdubya3]

Thank you for your responses. 

[mark clemson]

Dopamine. You are chasing dopamine.

I'm sure the lack of sex didn't help. But realize that you "get" endogenous dopamine from interacting with this attractive co-worker. Your dopamine also drops precipitously due to the breakup with your wife. So first you're crazy for one, then crazy for the other.

No one blames you for feeling bad. But take a step back and try to realize what's going on in your own brain that impacting you making these decisions. Of course you need to process your feelings, but hopefully recognizing what's going on can help you have better self control.

You don't need to chase this OW. And you don't need to be a desperate spineless pushover with your wife either. Work through it and give yourself the gift of freedom to be decent to your wife and accept whatever decision she needs to make without it turning YOU upside down.

If your wife takes you back, great. Work on that.

If she doesn't, know that you are trying to compensate for a major dopamine drop. That is what's driving your "desperation" for her. Don't become a simpering fool over her. Instead accept responsibility and walk away. Give her a decent settlement if she wants it. You were good enough for this attractive work colleague, you'll be good enough for someone else one day if it comes to that.

Don't make the mistake of not letting your needs be met in a LTR again. That was a part of this. Your morals were a part, AND your inability to handle endogenous dopamine (your "attraction") was also a part.

It's easier said than done, but self-control is what puts the power to make the right decisions FOR YOU back into your own hands.

Edited September 24, 2020 by mark clemson

[mark clemson]

48 minutes ago, d0nnivain said:

.You have a LOT of begging & groveling to do if you have any shot at getting past this.  

Much as I genuinely respect the words of the wise dalmation, this particular point I disagree with. Apologize by all means, but you shouldn't have to beg and grovel. You did not address your needs not being met in your marriage. They won't be met now by begging and grovelling. I've heard that you create a new marriage after a Dday (discovery of infidelity day). Create one where there is mutual respect and BOTH your needs are respected and (to a reasonable extent) met.

Of course it will be some time before she is ready for any of that again (unless there is hysterical bonding). Possibly a year or two. THAT is completely understandable. But if your wife can't eventually give you that, well, if it were me I would leave...

Edited September 24, 2020 by mark clemson

[elaine567]

8 minutes ago, Atwood said:

The fact you have made a terrible mistake cannot be overlooked

It was no terrible mistake, no drunken groping, it was a deliberate action carried out sober in the cold light of day.

What is the history between you and your wife, do you have kids? How old are you?
Why haven't you been physical with your wife for years?

 

[schlumpy]

Quit characterizing a purposeful act as a mistake. It only became a mistake when you were faced with the consequences. 

Was it a mistake when you with your AP?

You do get credit for confessing. For your sake I hope your wife sees it that way to.

Don't harass her or follow her around like a puppy. Let her have alone time to process everything. You should remain remorseful and be passive when she's angry with you. Be available to her if she wants you.

Offer full transparency. She will have access to everything in your life and know where you are at all times. Make her understand that you broke the marriage and it up to you to fix it. It is your fault and your fault alone. She did nothing wrong. Don't hesitate to display remorse. I hope that remorse is real.

Sign yourself up for individual counseling and make sure she knows you did.

No one can predict how your wife will react so be prepared for anything but always try to point her in the direction of saving the marriage if she's willing to talk about it.

It's up to you to create a place in this marriage where she feels safe with you once more and don't expect a pat on the back for the effort you put in. You will only be restoring what you had.

How you do that is up to you.

 

[jdubya3]

1 minute ago, elaine567 said:

It was no terrible mistake, no drunken groping, it was a deliberate action carried out sober in the cold light of day.

What is the history between you and your wife, do you have kids? How old are you?
Why haven't you been physical with your wife for years?

 

Hi. I'm 40 and my wife is 39. 

We have a very tactile relationship but the physical side has been lacking for a long time. We have brushed over it and never sought help to allow us to understand the reasons why. We have tried to discuss it over the years but it never gets anywhere. 

We don't have children and made a conscious decision before we got married that we didn't want them. 

I appreciate, in hindsight, that we should have taken our lack of Intimacy a lot more seriously, and I would really like to try and explore that with my W if she allows it.

What a mess! 

[elaine567]

If you had kids then you may have been in with a chance of her forgiving you.
Does she work? If not then she may forgive you.
If she is perfectly capable of surviving financially on her own she may not.
It is early days. 
As for the lack of sex, whose fault is that really?
I get the mutual lack of interest but were you initiating and she was rejecting, or was she looking for it and you couldn't be bothered...
Do you find her sexually attractive? Does she find you sexually attractive?
The lack of intimacy for years may push her towards divorce, because A) she felt neglected and unloved or B) She had lost that loving feeling and desire for you.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

1 hour ago, jdubya3 said:

So in July, my wife and I had a group of work friends back to our house after a few drinks on the beach. We were all very much under the influence and long story short, my wife caught me in a comprising situation with a colleague - I genuinely don't remember how we got into it as we were both blind drunk by that stage (I have since quit alcohol). But it was obviously devastating. 

I moved out of our home there and then, and quit my job soon after. Nothing happened with this colleague prior to this but I did find her very attractive and we had good chemistry. I had to see her at work every day after and strong lustful mutual feelings began to develop. We met up at a hotel a week or so later and ended up sleeping together - it was the biggest mistake Ive ever made! 

Since August, my W and I have been making small and positive steps in rebuilding our relationship, but the guilt of what I did in the hotel has been eating me alive. I thought if we had any chance of saving our marriage, she deserves to know the truth. So, I confessed everything tonight and feel like I have ruined everything by doing so. I think it was the right thing to do, as she deserves to know the truth, but she is utterly humiliated and I can't see us coming back from it. I would really like for us to speak to a counsellor together, when the time is right, as I so desperately want a shot at rebuilding out 10 year marriage. 

I have completely cut all contact with the other party and had no desire to ever pursue that again. It was a catastrophic mistake, based on a silly attraction and my low self esteem. 

I don't know what I want from posting this, but hopefully someone might be able to relate in some way. 

 

You...  were majorly drunk when your wife caught you.

 

You ...  MOVED OUT of your home (presumably "OUT of your relationship" other than merely on paper)  at that point

 

and THEN you spent time in a motel with the same woman from earlier?

 

In Maury Povich terms:     "you were on a break" (from your relationship)

 

(though usually, on Maury,   the 'break'  lasted only long enough for a kid to be conceived with the other party)

 

 

So I say that you're still completely guilty of the first offense...  but that the 2nd does precisely nothing to aggravate your degree of guilt.

 

 

 

I suggest that you pursue a reconciliation with your wife AS YOU MIGHT HAVE were the first indiscretion your only offense.

 

 

 

[Wiseman2]

1 hour ago, jdubya3 said:

I'm speaking to a therapist already to help me try and understand my actions, and also my toxic relationship with alcholol.

Focus on this.  try not to blame alcohol impulsiveness or 'we're like roommates" for your choice and actions.  The most important thing is to stop feeling sorry for yourself and making excuses.

[jdubya3]

9 minutes ago, elaine567 said:

If you had kids then you may have been in with a chance of her forgiving you.
Does she work? If not then she may forgive you.
If she is perfectly capable of surviving financially on her own she may not.
It is early days. 
As for the lack of sex, whose fault is that really?
I get the mutual lack of interest but were you initiating and she was rejecting, or was she looking for it and you couldn't be bothered...
Do you find her sexually attractive? Does she find you sexually attractive?
The lack of intimacy for years may push her towards divorce, because A) she felt neglected and unloved or B) She had lost that loving feeling and desire for you.

We don't have kids and she is fairly financially stable. 

It's difficult to pinpoint where the responsibility of lack of intimacy lies. I think we are both responsible, but I definitely have a higher sex drive. 

I felt our marriage was fairly solid, but it's clear there are issues that need addressing. From speaking with a therapist over the last couple of months, I'm beginning to understand my personal issues, but I do think it's very important that we can discuss us with a professional. 

 

[elaine567]

With individual counselling and marital counselling and a desire to stay married, it takes around 3-5 years to get over the initial effects of cheating. Some take longer and some never get over it Some will divorce and some will end up in a marriage where trust is absent, blame is doled out regularly and both are miserable. Some will rug sweep and suffer from it daily.
There is no easy fix, your "issues" just got magnified a hundredfold.
Are you willing to put in the work necessary or is this a convenient juncture to just walk away?

[central]

IMO, your marriage has to be (have been) really good to be worth all the crap you'll have to go through to preserve it (and it may not work anyway).  If your marriage is not all that great then I'd suggest cutting your losses and move on ASAP.  And if sex was a problem before, it will become a much greater problem for years, and may never recover.

[sandylee1]

No sex in a marriage where you have no kids, was the elephant in the room. Years of no intimacy cannot be ignored in a couple your age.

Was the physical side ever really good or frequent?

I agree that if it wasn't a really good marriage before this...is it worth what you'll go through if you reconciled. A lifetime of celibacy. 

Maybe you're both not compatible. 

[Lotsgoingon]

6 hours ago, jdubya3 said:

.Our marriage hasn't been physical for quite some years, but we have never addressed it, so I think that was playing more of a role than I realised. 

I'm speaking to a therapist already to help me try and understand my actions, and also my toxic relationship with alcholol. 

 

I think a starting point for you right now is getting out of denial about how bad your marriage was. I'm gonna be blunt: you don't have time or energy to be dumb right now, and your statement that you have ruined the marriage is just melodramatic dumb. The marriage was tottering. You guys hadn't been physical for years? Dude, that's not a sign of a stable and flourishing marriage. That's a fragile, cold marriage, which happens to be the perfect breeding ground for one or both partners to have an affair. Do you know for a fact that your wife has not had a kissing episode or a fling with someone else?  

Any marriage counselor will tell you that a distant, cold, non-nurturing, non-intimate marriage raises the chances of infidelity. But now I come to something that strikes me as strange and unbalanced.  Sounds like the first strong feeling you've felt is guilt? Why didn't you feel strong feelings of dissatisfaction about the marriage? Why didn't you take action? Recommend couples counseling? Insist on couples counseling? Get yourself to therapy? ... or just confront your wife and have it out with her to figure out how to get your marriage back on track? Sounds like you just went passive--this is what happens when people pretend things are fine when they are not fine.

Quit all this self-berating and work on figuring out what happened between you and your wife, how you lost your voice, why you sat back passive and let the marriage fall into roommate living. Your passivity or disconnection or blindness to your own feelings is what got you in this mess. Time for you to hustle and learn something about yourself and emotions and relationships. Guarantee you that your wife thinks you're out of touch with your feelings and has a hard time communicating with you or knowing what you feel. Guarantee it.

Berating yourself and getting lost in guilt at this point helps nothing. Sure, you are going to have no remorse, but self-criticizing yourself harshly without insight or wisdom is just foolish, nearly as foolish as having the fling, nearly as foolish at acting so passive in the marriage. The marriage was already floundering--your affair just was the final thing that crashed it. It was already on heading towards the ground and a National Transportation Safety Board Investigation. 

You can repair this, but you got a lot of work to do in therapy--about paying attention to your feelings, standing up, negotiating, asking for what you want, confronting problems and basically taking care of yourself ... and then taking care of your wife.  BTW: I guarantee you that your wife would love for you to be clearer on what you want and how you feel ... and you think apologizing forever and feeling awful is the solution. Dude, can you get to therapy two times a week. You gotta a lot of catching up to do.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Lotsgoingon

[ajequals]

Not that you should follow any advice I have But this makes me think of something my father told me long ago. Never admit anything you have ever done. even if caught. it wasn't you. ..I have never used his wisdom in my life. but it might have helped in your case. the truth is not always the best option

[Zona]

8 hours ago, jdubya3 said:

So, I confessed everything tonight and feel like I have ruined everything by doing so. 

It was a catastrophic mistake, based on a silly attraction and my low self esteem. 

It's not the confession that ruined your marriage, it was the fact that you had sex in a hotel with a co-worker.

And also it wasn't a mistake. Mistakes generally don't require a whole bunch of planning and deception.

You do seem remorseful though. Keep working on yourself. As they say, actions speak louder than words, so show your BW through your actions that you are making changes to become a safe partner.

[Dork Vader]

7 hours ago, jdubya3 said:

We don't have kids and she is fairly financially stable. 

It's difficult to pinpoint where the responsibility of lack of intimacy lies. I think we are both responsible, but I definitely have a higher sex drive. 

I felt our marriage was fairly solid, but it's clear there are issues that need addressing. From speaking with a therapist over the last couple of months, I'm beginning to understand my personal issues, but I do think it's very important that we can discuss us with a professional. 

 

Good luck on the rebuild. You have dug yourself into a major hole. I agree with the other responses, you need to seek an LMFT if your marriage stands any chance at repair. 

if you have a drinking problem, I'd suggest you start going to AA. The half measure of giving it up because something bad happened, won't last long on its own. You'll need some type of recovery program to help you understand what alcoholism, what the pitfalls are and how to successfully maintain sobriety. If you don't,  you might make it a few months to a year, but you'll eventually slip. When you do slip up you'll end up right back where you started. There is a ton of support and help out there if you want it. 

[Caauug]

10 hours ago, jdubya3 said:

Our marriage hasn't been physical for quite some years, but we have never addressed it

This was your first mistake. If you had properly addressed this issue, the attraction may not have been as strong with the AP... 

You had the affair, that was not good. But your wife is not blameless in the demise of the marriage as she also played a part in the lack of "Physical".  One of your primary needs were not being met. There is a hundred different reasons that this can happen but it falls on both you and your wife why this was not corrected earlier. 

11 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

You have a LOT of begging & groveling to do if you have any shot at getting past this

His wife has lost respect for him, how will this gain it back? It will just show more weakness on his part. Apologize and stay open and supportive.

The marriage took years of neglect to get to this state, it's going to take as long get it back. It takes TWO to repair the marriage, you can not do it by yourself. 

Why has your wife not pushed for a divorce when there is no intimacy in your marriage? Where is she getting it from?

10 hours ago, jdubya3 said:

What a mess! 

Yes, many times it is easier and less painful to just call it.  The damage is done, you can not turn back time.

Divorce and split assets. 

[ExpatInItaly]

Do you feel you and you wife are more friends than anything else, OP?

Are you still married because you genuinely want this as your lifetime relationship, or because it's comfortable and familiar?

[HadMeOverABarrel]

17 hours ago, jdubya3 said:

But, at the moment, I feel it would've been better to have kept it a secret. 

"Your sickness is in your secrets."

Actually the mistake was not that you told her, rather you should have told her sooner. I surmise she now is questioning how sincere your efforts at rebuilding your relationship have been since you were still withholding that secret while attempting to rebuild. Possibly she's wondering how much more you are now keeping from her.  Trickle truth is a common theme in these threads. Study up on it so you can know one of your wife's probable fears. 

You're going to have to be extra empathetic to her to have a shot at rebuilding your marriage. 

Finally, if you had not told her at all, it would be a part of you that would never truly reconnect to her.