A
female
age
,
anonymous
writes:I recently ended an affair that I've been in for seven months. If I could go back in time I would NEVER have done it. I was bored with my husband who I have been married to for 20 years. I actually thought that I could flirt around and that nothing would come from it. Instead I fell in love with someone 15 years younger than me who was a total loser. I can hardly believe that I put my marriage and family at risk for what - a little excitement. The chemistry was amazing and I haven't felt passion like that in years. It was so much fun to spend time with someone that actually wanted to do things together - go out and have fun. He was married too when we met but quickly separated from his wife after we started seeing each other. I was tempted to leave too but didn't want to make an irrevocable mistake, plus by then I was starting to notice some huge red flags. He's 32 years old and lived with his mother (hello???) He has two college degrees but couldn't find a job in his field so he was doing construction very sporadically. We talked and laughed and I felt so loved. We spent every minute that we could together. He was in serious debt and was always broke. I started paying for everything so we could keep having fun going out but I quickly started feeling used. I'm so ashamed that not only did I have this affair but that I fell in love with someone that was so obviously wrong for me - why would I do that? He borrowed money from me which of course he never paid back. I got him a job where I worked to try to help him get on his feet. Needless to say the sex started going downhill fast since I was no longer feeling special or truly loved. We broke up because we both felt guilty about me being married and being together. It was really really hard not to be with him anymore which is crazy. I should have been screaming from the roof with joy that I was away from him but instead I felt alone and rejected and constantly wanted to get back together with him. I actually tried to tell myself that I would never had cheated unless we were meant to be together. (aaaah)If was extremely difficult working together, seeing him every day and not being together but knowing that some of what we shared had been wonderful and wanting somehow to get that back before everything went to the crapper. He eventually got fired since he couldn't bother to show up for work (very embarrasing since everyone knew I had recommended him). I went to counseling to try to figure out why I had an affair (I'd never done that before) and why with someone so wrong for me. After working on that for awhile my husband joined me so we could work on our marriage together. He doesn't know I had an affair which is something I'll have to live with forever but he shouldn't have to. It's getting better every day now that I don't see him anymore. I wish I could say that I'm over him but I still can't completely get rid of the feeling of rejection or feeling stupid for letting someone use me just because he said he loved me. I wish I could go back in time and walk out the second I saw him. It was SO not worth it. I wish I could stop thinking about it or him or us. I think my hustand and I could work again if I could just let it all go. Help!
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (2 February 2011): There is no easy way, just time and hard work.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (2 February 2011): This is more common than you might think.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (1 February 2011): “There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout:
This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Look at me! Take me... or leave me. Look at me! Accept me - or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, Look at me, just because I don't fit your idea of who I should be don't try to change me to fit your mold. Look at me, If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.
When you are strong enough to love yourself and still look at me 100%, good and bad while looking at me - you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you while looking at me.”
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (31 January 2011): I live with the yin and yang symbol around my neck and tattooed on my back to always remind to find my balance and help others find their balance in this world. I'm open to any questions you may want to ask me, I promise I will do my best. I'm not afraid to cry or show emotion but I will also kick butt with eight years of Shotokan karate training.Yeah, it's plain to see that baby you're beautiful And there's nothing wrong with you... It's me, I'm a freak but thanks for lovin' me Cause you're doing it perfectly
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (30 January 2011): You will eventually cheat again.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (30 January 2011): Face each new day, and work through it.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (26 January 2011): Forgiving yourself may be one of, it not THE hardest thing. There is no easy way, just time and hard work. Face each new day and work thru it. There will finally come anday when it doesn't consue your every thought.. When everything you do isn't a reminder of him. This is more common than you might think. If you are bored but plan to stay with your husband, the best thing you can do is figure out a way to inject some fun and excitement into your marriage. If you don't you will eventually cheat again. Time is the best healer... Good luck
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (24 January 2011): i think it is very disrespectful of you if you still choose not to tell your hb about your affair.right now, your hb thinks it is only him right now your hb is in the dark, blaming himself for the state of your marriage.your therapist is very unethical to admit your hb into counselling by not being upfront with him. basically you and your therapist are in corhorts and your hb is just a "pawn" in your sessions.you want to move on from this affair. then become the decent human being i am sure you once were. this means that you need to admit your wrongdoing and making peace that your younger guy used you.in the end if you can sleep with all these lies, then you should question your humanity and your integrity.HOW CAN YOUR HB FIX HIS MARRIAGE IF HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT IT IS SO DAMAGED/DESTROYED.You will not tell the truth because you have a vested interest in leading this twisted dual life. it serves you well (in your own best interest) to remain silent on your affair.If you want to show that you have changed, that you have grown, that you have some sort of decency, then you will opt to do the right thing. Anything else is mere lip service. This advice is not only for you, OP, it is for all the others who conveniently say I will not speak the truth bec the truth will hurt my spouse. This is utter crap. And you all know this.I have more respect for someone who does wrong yet have the moral convictions and dignity to speak the truth. That person can actually be trusted. All others are untrustworthy.LoveGirl
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2011): I understand how you feel as I am struggling with this too. I feel I made a mistake too. I'm sure this guy flattered you and gave you the kind of attention you haven't gotten from your husband in a very long time. You've gotten a lot of different responses here, but only you know what you should or should not tell your husband, and what you need to work on in marriage counseling. Personally, I am of the mind that, if it is over, you should not tell your husband. Telling him will most likely hurt him more than it will help you. I wouldn't burden him with it, if possible.Men are very wounded by affairs. It seems they are more upset about the physical aspect than anything else and have a very hard time getting past that, even though the physical aspect sometimes doesn't mean that much to a woman. You say you fell in love with this guy. Did you really fall in love with him, or did you just fall in love with the attention? I know how intoxicating it can be when someone expresses such desire for you, but that really isn't love. That's just a lot of brain chemistry stuff making you temporarily insane. I may be projecting my own situation on you, but it sounds like true love lies in your marriage and that you are more angry at yourself than anything else for having the affair.If you can address the problems within your marriage without telling him you had an affair, it's probably best. You had the affair because there is something missing in your marriage. You just need to figure out what that is. Believe me this sounds easier than it is, as I am searching for answers myself. I think the key is that you were in love with your husband once. What happened? A lot can happen in twenty years.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2011): There will finally come anday when it doesn't consue your every thought.. When everything you do isn't a reminder of him.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 January 2011): If you are bored but plan to stay with your husband, the best thing you can do is figure out a way to inject some fun and excitement into your marriage.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (21 January 2011): There is no easy way, just time and hard work.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (21 January 2011): I admit I'm not a big fan of a spouse who had an affair trying to go back to the marriage and especially when keeping it a secret. This is not just any kind of baggage that every relationship has due to humans being imperfect. This is lying and breaking of trust of the worst kind. Studies have shown that betrayed spouses feel more traumatized by the affair than by their spouses' death. In my mind, once an affair has happened, the marriage is OVER, even if it's legally kept together by not getting divorced. The relationship is certainly changed forever so continuing it may actually be more harmful to everyone involved than ending it and allowing the betrayed spouse to start over and find someone new.
I've seen too many situations where the unfaithful spouse went back to the marriage (either because the affair partner left them or they got caught and threatened with something by the spouse). Usually the unfaithful spouse doesn't go back to the marriage out of love for their spouse, but because something negative happened preventing the affair from continuing or going further.
The marriage relationship is never the same, with or without the unfaithful spouse telling the truth. it can be a years long or even lifelong struggle and things seem to improve then suddenly years later the betrayed spouse gets flashbacks again and has to relive the drama again...it's so painful to be living with your spouse's affair for the rest of your life, and I think that as long as the marriage is kept intact you and your spouse are forever living with the affair. it is never truly "over" in the betrayed spouse's mind.
I realize that there's a lot to lose by getting divorced especially if there are kids in the picture. But somehow, for a marriage to recover from an affair is extremely difficult and my personal feeling is that it is MORE damaging to the betrayed spouse to be kept in that situation longer and having to struggle daily with feelings of mistrust and betrayal and self-esteem blows and suspicion and hate and all those other things...
I know there are those who say their marriages healed and even became stronger. I think they are the exceptions, or they are lying and deluding themselves or others to save face. They may still be married, that's true, but at what ongoing personal cost and did they have to lower expectations of what marriage should be in order to continue to live in it?
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (20 January 2011): Time is the best healer... Good luck
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (20 January 2011): The first and more foremost thing you must do, is come clean to your husband.
You are hurting him even more now, you just don't know it. He WILL find out eventually. And the sooner it happens, and from you and you alone, the more chance you have of salvaging whatever there is left after you were done cheating it all away.
Don't lie to yourself. You do not care about hurting or not hurting your husband now. If cared, you'd never have cheated in the first place.
It is no longer your choice whether the relationship survives. It's his. He alone knows whether or not he can forgive you and work on the relationship problems (for his own sanity, he will need to forgive you at some point).
You are despicable person and this shame and hurt you feel is what you deserve. Did you think there weren't going to be consequences?
You have one chance to regain some honour here. Come clean to your husband at the first opportunity and hope against hope that he is more forgiving then I would be.
Flynn 24
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2011): Keep going to counseling.Read some books on affairs. You are a classic case. I'm married to a classic case as well, your counselor should be really helping with this a lot if they get you to confront the hard issues. Hard to accept that you do what you do with who you do it and why you do it when you are face to face with it."He doesn't know I had an affair which is something I'll have to live with forever but he shouldn't have to."Well, he has to live with it, either knowingly, or unknowingly, and you are going to have to figure this out. In my wife's case, I lived with it for nearly a decade, unknowingly, and wondered why we continued to have intimacy problems. The exposure of the affair resolved those issues, while bringing up more issues we had to deal with. The most telling thing I read that explained this was as follows..."When engaged in an affair, the unfaithful partner finds it very easy to suppress thoughts of the betrayed partner when with their affair partner, but when with their partner they find it very difficult if not impossible to suppress thoughts of the affair partner."It really fucks you up.Remember, every lie you tell your husband is an act of infidelity and cheating because you are not being fair to him. Cheating is "not being fair". Start being fair to him.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2011): I'm sorry, but I never buy the "I'm not telling my husband/wife" because I don't want to hurt them, or in your case "he shouldn't have to live with it". He has every right to know you cheated on him and it should be HIS decision to continue with a marriage that YOU, in effect, gave up on. What you actually mean is that you want to be selfish and hide the fact that you cheated on him. You get away scot free. You say you think you and your husband can make it work if you could just let it all go. I'm afraid this will ALWAYS niggle away at you, and it will not work until you come completely clean.You MAY lose your marriage. But if you don't tell him voluntarily or it somehow comes out later on, you will DEFINITELY lose it.Yes, he doesn't deserve to live with it. Point is, he doesn't have to. He can walk away from you. You should give him the choice. If you don't tell him, the whole marriage is a lie.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2011): This is more common than you might think. If you are bored but plan to stay with your husband, the best thing you can do is figure out a way to inject some fun and excitement into your marriage. If you don't you will eventually cheat again.
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A
male
reader, Kilcardy +, writes (19 January 2011):
It's a matter of time and making a commitment to working on your marriage. As for the intrusive thoughts, just roll with them. If you fight it, it will take longer for it to go away. You also need to forgive yourself. We're all human, we're all imperfect, and we all make mistakes. You are right to ask yourself "why"? Obviously, there is something in your marriage that contributed to all of this. Focus on that. If whatshisname pops into your head, keep in mind that he's just a complete fantasy. He was a diversion from your real-life problems. You will let it all go at some point in time. It doesn't happen all at once. So, time and taking action to make your marriage better are keys for you. Good luck.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2011): You know that is what happened whenever you have an affair. It is surprisinf to see you not regrating for cheating but losing your affair. It failed not because of his behaviour it is because it is alwayes like that.
I'm sorry for your husband. You are so selfish. He deserve better than you. You should have tried to work it out with your husband. Now it is too late and you are not changed. Pack and leave him alone.
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A
female
reader, DenimandLace44 +, writes (19 January 2011):
 Forgiving yourself may be one of, it not THE hardest thing. There is no easy way, just time and hard work. Face each new day and work thru it. There will finally come anday when it doesn't consue your every thought.. When everything you do isn't a reminder of him. This is more common than you might think. If you are bored but plan to stay with your husband, the best thing you can do is figure out a way to inject some fun and excitement into your marriage. If you don't you will eventually cheat again. Time is the best healer... Good luck
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2011): I am struggling with this too. I hope you can find the answers. I had an affair while I was still engaged, but still married my husband. I am still struggling to forget. And like you I did not tell my husband because I did not want to hurt him any further than I did. I went to counseling briefly, but at the time my counselor suggested I tell him, and it was something I was not ready to do. The pressure I was put under was too much to handle so I didn't go back. It's been 2 1/2 years since it happened. I just want to move on with my life! My affair did not start out physical, but emotional, and that's where I went wrong. I definitely understand your pain. I hope you are able to move on and I can start getting past this too!
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