A
female
age
26-29,
*adeAmistake
writes:Please don't judge me!Two years ago I got hired as a live in nanny for a family that I met at a gym. About 9 months after I started working there the father kissed me. There had been some flirting hit I didn't think anything of it until he kissed me. For the next year we had an affair. There were many occasions over the year that I felt guilty and told him it needed to stop but he insisted that he loved me. As for the job it was amazing. I was getting paid almost $5000 a month, plus I was given a car to drive and paid no living expenses. I really started to have feelings for him and believed him when he said he loved me and was going to leave her for me.One night I accidentally walked in on them, he was telling her how much he loved her and how he wanted to have another baby with her.I got so angry, jealous and hurt all at the same time. Normally I'm not a mean person and right up until the affair started I was never ashamed of myself. Even my friends who knew nothing of the affairs said I was different.A few days later I messaged his wife and told her that she needed to come home and I planned it so she would walk in on us having sex. Things got messy, they ended up getting into a huge messy divorce and I was cause of it. Now I'mDealing with such guilt and embarrassment that I amstruggling with moving on. Everyone in our town knows I had an affair with a married man. I feel like a horrible person! How can I get past all the mistakes I made?
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (16 September 2016): "I really hope that by going back to university and never screwing up like that again that people don't hold this against me later. I understand be small town gossip will follow for a while and I guess I'm as prepared as I can be for that."
Not sure if this is any consolation but the "good" thing about small town gossip is that inevitably someone will soon become embroiled in a bigger, messier, juicier scandal and your indiscretion will be yesterday's news.
And in the meantime those who get vicarious thrills from such gossip will likely cast him as the villain for taking advantage of you and breaking up his marriage and family in the process.
A
female
reader, MadeAmistake +, writes (16 September 2016):
MadeAmistake is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you everyone for not judging me.I do need a new job but thankfully I was saving most of my money so I could go back to university. Which I started a few weeks ago. As much as I want to blame him I do take responsibility for my actions too. I knew he was married and I still did what I did. Yes he knew what he was doing and told me things I wanted to hear. I still willing slept with a married man. He was older , he is 37 and I recently found out that I wasn't the first person that he cheated with. I can honestly say I am 100% sorry for everything I did especially how I handled things in the end. I don't except her to forgive but I would hope that some day she realizes that deep down I'm sorry for hurting her. I really hope that by going back to university and never screwing up like that again that people don't hold this against me later . I understand be small town gossip will follow for a while and I guess I'm as prepared as I can be for that.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 September 2016): Wow! That does sound messy and I'm not surprised that you feel the way you do. You can't turn back time, but what you can do is learn the lessons from this experience.Why did you get into that situation in the first place?What was your motives, or what feeling we're you getting from that experience?If you could rewind time, what would you do differently?What can you say that you have learned from the affair?If you can find some sort of clarity to the deeper meaning, it might help to put thing's into perspective. Part of the reason why you probably feel so bad is that your concerned with what others think, but we all make mistakes and that's just the nature of life. If you can find some resolution, taken productive actions where you are putting your time to valuable use, at least then it would put you on a different path to learning from where you have gone wrong and learning to become more valuable as a person, if that makes sense. You need to reach a place of acceptance to what has happened,like learning to forgive yourself regardless and identifying your values as a person and then find a way to move forward.It can get easier with time.
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A
female
reader, llifton  +, writes (15 September 2016):
 Hey there. Reading all the responses and your latest update I get the impression that you genuinely really do feel bad for how everything played out. Try to keep in mind that you were still quite young and you made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes and everybody does things they regret when they are young. Try to forgive yourself.
Maybe someday you can write the wife an apology letter. As you said she opened up her home to you and treated you with nothing but courtesy and respect. And obviously that seems to be what is giving you the most guilt. She may not ever forgive you and most likely she won't. But maybe one day she will. Maybe just simply writing her a letter and explaining how sorry you are and how everything played out can help give you some closure and perhaps it can give her some closure as well. If she doesn't ever respond or basically tells you to shove it, you have to be prepared for it. But maybe just writing her a letter could help alleviate some of this.
Good luck and feel better.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (15 September 2016):
 All you can do is STOP beating yourself and focus on your future and how to BE a better person.
While it IS a big mistake to make, trust me, EVERYONE makes mistakes. That is how we learn and grow. Especially in what NOT to do again.
So focus on what's next in your life. You will need a new job, so what's next?
Also... While she (the wife) might not want to ever see you again, I think you owe her an apology. Not so much for cheating on her with her husband but for taking your anger at him out on her. Which wasn't fair. You are not the only one who has to live with the actions. So make think on that.
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A
female
reader, chigirl  +, writes (15 September 2016):
 How to get past it? Don't do it again. Also, put blame where it belongs. Yes, it wasn't right to have an affair with a married man, but after all he was the married party, you were single. You didn't cheat, he did. I think that it's the person in a relationship who is responsible for keeping it in his pants, not every woman he would happen to run into! Never mind the fact that you are barely legal, and he by all probability was much older than you, and HE SEDUCED YOU, fully and intentionally. You were played by him. He's a low life, and if you ask me you did his wife a favour.
And if you ask me, while people just LOVE to point fingers and blame the mistress, you should just give them all a big, fat "fuck off". The man is a cheating, old pig who took advantage of a young and naive girl. If anyone blames you, it's because they are worried their own husbands are cheating on them, and rather than face the facts (that their husbands are cheats) it is easier to blame the women who "tempted" them into becoming the pigs they already were to begin with....
You can't make a faithful man cheat, no matter how many willing, young ladies you throw at him. It's as simple as that. You didn't do anything to make their marriage fall apart, if it hadn't been you, he would have been cheating with someone else, 100% positive.
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A
female
reader, MadeAmistake +, writes (15 September 2016):
MadeAmistake is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you everyone and Honeypie I do take responsibility for my part in it. I think that is what bothers me the most hat I didn't stop it sooner. And I hate the way that I was spiteful enough to ask her to come home. I honestly have no idea why I did that other then wanting to make her jealous like I felt even though she did nothing wrong. I hate myself for hurting her, she was always beyond nice to me and opened up her home to me and I did this.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (15 September 2016):
You are young. You got caught up in something you KNEW was wrong but it "felt" right.
And now you are here.
Yes, you were complicit in an affair. An affair with the FATHER of the child you were paid to care for. For me, that is a double whammy.
So yes, you ARE partly responsible for the breakup of a family. And yes, I do think you should ACCEPT some culpability in all this mess. You COULD have shut him down. You COULD have chosen to NOT have slept with him, NOT flirted, not continued the affair for a whole year. You were OK with the affair AS LONG as it suited you, which makes you selfish. When you found out that he was just telling you lies to get "sex on tap" you took revenge, NOT caring how it might hurt the wife and the child. AT ALL. Again, selfish.
However, YOU didn't initiate the affair, the MARRIED man did. He thought he could have you as a mistress and little dirty secret RIGHT under his wife's nose. What kind of SHITTY husband does that?!
He is a GROWN man, you a young woman BARELY an adult. So in many ways, I find HIM the person responsible for how his OWN marriage is ending. HE made the CHOICE to cheat on his wife and child. HE made the choice to take advantage of you. HE made the choice to lie to her and you.
He is a piece of shit. I don't think YOU are a piece of shit. I think you were young, naive, selfish, manipulated and ... a tad stupid to fall for this guy's bullshit. But it's not like you are the first young woman to fall for the spoonfed lies of a married man or the last.
Hopefully, you now know better.
LEARN from this. Become a better person. If a guy is taken, married, engaged or "just" having a GF - he should be off-limit to you. Taking revenge is not a great thing to do to others. YOU know how it felt when you overheard him telling his wife he LOVED her, you know how it hurt, yet you CHOSE to hurt HER, to make HER the target of your anger. Don't be that kind of person.
Accept your part in this mess and then move on.
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A
female
reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (15 September 2016):
 I think you feel guilty because not only did you have an affair but you where spiteful and allowed her to find out in the worst way possible. Off course you will feel guilty for breaking up a family, you would not be human if you didn't.
However you are a young woman and he should have known better, he charmed you and came on to you and he knew exactly what he was doing.
The thing will small towns is they do gossip, but it will be forgotten about and it will be someone else they talk about in the future.
There really is nothing you can do now about the past, you need to move on to the future. I think you should sit down and write a letter both to the man and his wife and write down exactly how you feel, let it all out, explain everything, allow yourself to open up. Then when finished simply bin the letters if you don't want to post them and move on with your life. Learn from your mistakes and be a better person.
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A
male
reader, Xearo  +, writes (15 September 2016):
Unfortunately in small towns, that is something that can stick with you forever. I think the best advice would be to find some therapy. Also it may help in talking to other people online who have been in similar situations. I do not think it would be healthy to deny that this stuff ever happened or the alternate that you are solely to blame for this.
Healing will take a long time but it is possible.
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