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writes: Hello CupidsI apologize in advance as this may get a bit long, and any advice is welcome so please do reply if you have any thoughts. I will try to keep it clear and organized but my head is a mess so sorry if this story seems messy too.I am a 30-year old woman in a crappy situation. I have a husband of 8 years, met him when I was 20, got married when I was 22 and he was 27. Things have always been good in our relationship, with the usual ups and downs but generally it has always been good, really good. Whatever problems there's been we have managed to sort them out and we have always been active, doing loads of things together, enjoying our life to the full. We don't have children but we have loads of godchildren and lots of good friends and we love to travel a lot so we have decided not to have kids of our own,at least not yet. In short, things are good. Or at least were.I haven't been single since I was 18 so I suppose I don't really know what it's like to be on my own in the broad sense. This hasn't really bothered me but I suppose it is one of the reasons I am in this mess now, a hidden need to experiment or something. I don't see myself as insecure or a person who needs to fill a void of some sort and I have been racking my brain to try and understand how on earth I ever got myself in this mess. The mess if this: about six months ago I made some new friends whom I began to hang out with occasionally, going to movies, pubs and so on. A group of intruguing and very nice people, great individuals to spend time with. In this group of ours is a guy (let's call him J) and I did notice that I found him attractive, amongst other things. So, he acted a bit flirty with me, I was flirty to him too but even though I developed a bit of a crush on him I didn't make a big deal out of it. I was flattered that I had caught his eye as he had caught mine and so forth, and allowed myself to enjoy his attention as it was all pretty innocent at that point. We became friends and hung out together frequently, sometimes just the two of us. I enjoyed his company a lot and though we had a bit of a thing for one another things seemed perfectly innocent. (This may sound stupid and credulous but that is how it seemed. ) Then things changed when I went abroad with my husband for a few weeks and when I came back I went out to a pub with the group one night. (This was about three months ago.) The irony is that I had just come back from a relaxing and succesfull holiday with my man and I was in a really good mood because of my own guy- and definetely not suffering from a wanderind eye, at least not intentionally. Anyways, at some point during that evening J and I left to share a cab. Whilst in the cab J asked me to join him at his place (if there were any warning signs then I didn't see them, I seriously didn't think there was anything going on) to hang out and I agreed to go. I have many male friends whom I hang out and jokingly flirt with and my husband knows this and is fine with it so I didn't see any danger there. Now this is the odd part: I had no intention of doing anything forbidden I wasn't even thinking about it -or at least I don't think I was- but when we got to J´s flat it took just a glass of wine and a half hour before we were kissing. ( I wasn't really drunk and I wasn't on drugs either so I don't have that excuse. ) We kissed for a while and it made me extremely aroused and completely reckless, we began touching each other and ended up having sex on the floor. I woke up to the worst moral hangover known to man, J was in a panic, telling me that he was sorry he had persued me though he knew that I was married, that he would take full responsibility (which he couldn't of course). He told me he was really crazy about me and thought of me constantly and that he felt bad about it because he knew it couldn't go anywhere. I was stunned to say the least, by his confession and most of all by my own behaviour. After that incident I was wrecked with guilt and feeling worthless and yet still I was thinking about J nonstop- and though he was a gentleman and didn't contact me as I had requested I myself had clearly gone insane. Two weeks after being at his flat I called J and asked him to meet me. He agreed and we met and spent the day in bed. Since then we have been seeing each other and sleeping together pretty much every week.I have come to realize that this guy is like heroin to me. I have never been a very sexual person, I have always liked sex but it hasn't been a dominating thing for me or anything. But since I first slept with J it seems like I had never known how much I actually like it; or like I had never really even had sex before J. I am hooked on the pleasure this guy gives me, I have never had such intense orgasms, I have never experimented like I have with J. I cannot get enough of him. In addition to being a great lover he seems to be like an addiction to me altogether. I want him so much it hurts and I feel like dying when I don't see him. A few days ago I was at his flat when he told me that he has fallen in love with me and that he wants to be with me and cannot share me with another man anymore. He also said he wanted to give me time to think about things as he knows I need it to figure out what I want. What do I want? I have no clue. I am caught in the middle of all of this and I cannot see straight. The worst part is that my dear sweet husband is completely clueless about my terrible behaviour. He has no idea about my infidelity and as I have just now sat down to write this and begun to understand what I have done I have no idea how to handle this. I feel like shit for doing this to my man-as I should of course. I don't know if I should tell my husband. I don't know what I want from J. I am trying to tell myself that I can't be in love with another man and that I have to stop seeing him. I am scared to face this situation but I have to. I want to get a clear head and try to figure this out. I just don't know how. Am I just so hooked on the sex or do I love J? Should I tell my husband and break up with them both to see clearly? What should I do? I haven't told anyone about this and I came to this site probably to confess as much as to ask for advice and I know some of you find me repulsive and a filthy adulterer who should burn in hell, and if that is what you want to tell me then by all means do,any kind of feedback would be great,even the judgemental kind. There is a lot of truth to that judgement for sure.I need to figure this out and I need to do it soon so if you could help me I would be very grateful,thanks in advance to anyone who replies.
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 December 2015): i know this was long time ago but i presume your life must be very different now.you might be married still but that is not amarriage any more..this way or another..life is too short to waste it on the people who lie and abuse you,which cheating is.when he finds out,and he will..it will be over..you must find the reason why you did it for you,so you don't hurt yourself and people who love you..but your husband..you must let him go.what is done is done.when you kill someone,wether on purpose or not,that person is dead.you can't unkill him..in my case i when i found out my way of coping that trmendous pain was to imagine my betrayer dead,gone,killed,whatever..i mourned her and walked away..never even glanced back..and i don't regret it..but that is just me.i would never betray somebody,nor would i forgive a betrayal.but that is just me..i would show no mercy because i expect none..
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reader, anonymous, writes (10 July 2010): It seems that you are quite immature for your age. However this is not an uncommon problem. Many people experience stagnation in their relationships. This often allows, on a hormonal level, for a person to rationally be in love with one person and hormonally in love with another person. Unfortunately as you accurately described, "this guy is like herion." This is because you are experiencing an intense infatuation. What you can learn from this is that this type of infatuation WILL happen again and again. This is why marriage is hard work. You need to evaluate your marital relationship and ask yourself, "do i care at all about my husband or do I only care about myself?" Because once you are in a relationship that is monogamous you are responsible for the emotional damage that your actions may have on your partner. As far as telling your husband goes, ask yourself again, "do i care at all about my husband or do I only care about myself?" This news could destroy him so why bother telling him if you are only doing it because you feel guilty. That would again be sacrificing whatever he has emotionally invested in you.
Another common misconception is the importance of happiness. Many people are not willing to see that the price of their happiness often comes at the expense of others or simply don't care. When you are single it is not a bad idea to put your happiness ahead of everyone else. But in a marriage as I said before you are responsible for the damage that you do to your partner.
If you put any value in the relationship with your husband and your future with him then you need to do some serious GROWING UP, learn to say no to your desires for other men (because this may be the first but will not be the last not matter who you are in a relationship with). The TRUTH is that there are probably many underlying reasons why you decided to turn off your brain that night, so consider therapy if they are not apparent. Unfortunately for many women this is a repeating pattern that is just starting (if it hasn't already been a problem in your past relationships), unless you get this under control you will find that all your relationships end up like this.
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reader, californiaguy  +, writes (10 April 2010):
You absolutely MUST tell your husband. I'm going through this situation right now, and I can tell you that being cheated on is a very painful intense thing. But if I found out much later? Marriage OVER.
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reader, anonymous, writes (3 January 2009): I'm a 42 year old man, married 10 years+ (16+ together, no kids) to the most amazing, beautiful, well-paid professional and intelligent woman of 40 years. She's the best (no offense to the rest of you). Unfortunately, we are in a dangerously tough spot thanks, mostly, to me and my behavior/attitude for the past 3 or so years. I didn't cheat -- and I don't want to think she cheated, either. But she's pissed about a lot of other stuff, and I get it (now I get it). I'm really worried that she's "too far gone" and just wants to end it. Wish us luck (I might even print this and show it to her).Given my perspective, here's my RESPONSE TO YOUR SITUATION: of course, you're well into the crossroads now; the deed is done; it's a very broad intersection, ain't it? And of course, remember... NO ONE is COMPLETELY CLUELESS and it's none-too-wise to second-guess someone else's SIXTH SENSE (like your Spouse's).Would I want to know? Of course not. Who the hell would WANT to KNOW something like that? Really, though... for the rest of my life after our split... it would be better that I did know. It would at least give me a final explanation for what happened -- instead of leaving it intangible and undefined. Yeah. It'd confirm that I wasn't nuts about at least THAT.If a spouse cheats, there WILL be a funky vibe coming off. I'd pick it up and start to think I was going nuts. My wife could distract me with a newly-emotional sexual revolution in our relationship (it's ready for it); more frequent "attention" in a mildly aggressive way would encourage me much. But don't pull out all your new tricks at once! And if you do show too much... just say you want to go with your imagination and, yeah... you look at porn online, too.I want to think I could handle it if my wife told me that she'd cheated. I think that I would even try. I'm just not sure that I could really do it.
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reader, Silhouette  +, writes (31 December 2008):
I can't see the benefit of telling your husband at all.
It may have changed what you require out of your sexual relationship however you could buy a belated christmas or early valentines present as some sort of book. A friend of mine has a book where the pages are actually sealed and depending on the type of night you want to have you select from options. Having unsealed them they give you games to try or fantasies to try out - nothing explicit I understand just about developing your sexual relationship (it did work in their case and it was recommended to me by the female partner just after I'd had the same experience as you - perhaps I should have got it!). Can't remember the name now.
It could give you an opportunity to spice up the area where you may have been lacking and chances are because you and your husband have a long standing bond you may find you get more out of it than with J. And you never know maybe he's feeling it as well.
But telling him means you risk it all and maybe you should be just thinking of it as wake up call. After all 40% of women & 60% of men have affairs at some point in time. The divorce rate isn't that high so some people will be just putting it behind them (successfully)and learning from it.
If this is what you choose perhaps in a few years it'll be a distant memory! Good luck xx
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reader, anonymous, writes (31 December 2008): well i think it would be very selfish to tell your husband. Why hurt him unnecessarily.. that is of course if you are determined to work on your marriage and you know this was a one off mistake.
Stop beating yourself up. nothing anyone writes here will make you feel much better, what will make you feel better is doing the right thing, giving things time to calm down inside you and STOP ANALYSING everything. You made a mistake, put an end to the affair, move on. Your title "i am afraid i have ruined my marriage with this affair" will only come to pass if that is what you want. Do you want to ruin your marriage, then carry on the affair. if not, then dont.
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reader, anonymous, writes (30 December 2008): I can speak from experience of being cheated on that your husband will be devastated that you cheated on him but you need to tell him if you plan on staying married to him. If you are truly remorseful and want to work on your marriage you need to tell him and work on things. I think what happened is like most marriages things have become routine. That is normal, all relationships have their highs and lows. Your downfall was the flirting a person is only so strong and people are going to eventually get burned playing with fire. If you decide to break it off I think you still owe your husband and tell him why. Personally I would want to know why my wife wants a divorce if she asks. Don't complicate things by lying. I don't think you need to separate to clear your head. If you separate you will only continue to see J. Look at it from another perspective. What if your husband came to you and said he had an affair. What would you do if he wanted to work things out. People make mistakes. Honorable people admit them and make things right.
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reader, anonymous, writes (30 December 2008): I sooooo disagree about telling your husband. I think by the time you've had the affair your marriage is highly unlikely to survive anyway. Telling your husband will just hurt him so much and if you subsequently split up he'll have lost his confidence for no reason.
I do agree that it's got to stop now either way. I would strongly recommend a separation where you see neither man, make a decision. If you decide to stay with your husband he needs to know or it will happen again. If you decide to leave he should never know as it will ruin his confidence forever.
Take some time out and decide what you really want
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reader, anonymous, writes (30 December 2008): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionHello again and thank you all so so much for replying!
Silhouette and ginalolobrigida: you both raised some very good questions there. I have myself been pondering if my marriage actually has been kinda taken for granted by the both of us in some way, even though there hasn't been a huge emotional distance between us or anything major like that. But it does make me wonder if the problem was that we didn't work on our relationship while there still was no problem-and now there sure is one.Does one need a problem to wake up and appreciate things? I don't know if I'm getting something from J that I wasn't getting from my own man-and do I really need what I am getting from him or has the situation just made me think that I do; that J somehow gives me something "better" when it really it is not better, just different. I don't know. The sex thing is probably the main reason I am so consumed by this guy-the thing is-like I stated in my original post-that I am suddenly getting something I didn't know I was missing until it was given to me. (I hope I am making sense at least a bit..sorry if my writing is a bit all over the place)me and my husband have usually been having sex about once a week and we've both been fine with that, it is so weird, I didn't think I was that into sex in general,sure I enjoyed having it with my husband but it wasn't about fireworks and hours of experimenting and neither of us felt that it had to be! But now that I have apparently somehow "discovered" my sexuality and a new world has been opened up to me, I don't think I can go back to what used to be. And that means my bedroom behaviour with my husband would change, he would probably start wondering and..I would have to tell him anyways, right?
passionatelynumb: You make a very good point. There are a lot of hazards here that need to be taken into account and my husband is the victim here, no question about that. I just don't know if I can tell him about J. I really don't.
I have never had a problem with spending alonetime with other guys without being tempted to fool around-before J,that is. Before him, I never did anything forbidden (nor did I feel the need to do anything) with other guys, male friends or others, even if there has been some sort of chemistry or whatever. This just goes to show that even I who never thought could do something like this am just as vulnerable as the next person. I am just so stunned by the whole thing still.
I don't want to give up my marriage but I have to either tell my husband about J or take the secret to my grave. Either option seems terrible but I know I have to do something and I have to do it soon. I do love my husband a lot-he is my best friend and one amazing man and I cannot imagine not being with him for the rest of my life..but the feelings I have for J are stirring my thoughts and making me doubt everything and I hate it!! How can he make me question my marriage like that, I don't understand. And I really cannot understand how he can have such an effect on me. I hate that he makes me so weak and so reckless and simultaneously (I'm ashamed to say this) I love it. I hate that he makes me feel these things and makes me want to cheat I really really hate it. And yet the thought of letting him go is killing me though it is the very least I could do after all the crap I've already done,still I make excuses to myself to see him, when I'm not with him I constantly fantasize about him, he just fills my thoughts and I cannot think of anything else, I hate that..
He's clearly a drug to me. Where's the rehab for this kind of addiction?
I cannot let him do this to me.
You all are unanimous about one thing and I agree too: I have to cut J out of my life, that is the first step. I HAVE TO.
Once again, thank you all for replying to me!!! You have given me some wise words, hopefully I will manage to put the into good use. Please reply again if you have any thoughts!! And sorry if my writing isn't very concise, I am such a mess inside and I suppose it shows.
I'll write again..thank you all for your replies, keep them coming.
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reader, passionatelynumb +, writes (30 December 2008):
 Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone should get a second chance, but your HUSBAND DESERVES TO KNOW!
I can't believe how people on this site can flippantly say that your husband doesn't need to know! I guess it doesn't matter that you've made the most important person in your life a cuckold.
Spending a lifetime with him will be a nightmare if you keep a secret this big. It will eat you alive.
What happens when you meet someone else that you have a little sexual chemistry with? Is it okay to jump into bed with them too as long as your husband doesn't ever find out?
What if someone else gets you pregnant?
As long as your husband doesn't know, it will be alright. He can happily raise some other guy's child as his own. What he doesn't know can't hurt him.
What if you give your husband a STD?
OH YEAH, what your husband doesn't know CAN HURT HIM!
You made a vow to stay faithful to your husband. You broke that vow. Not telling him is deceitful, and despicable.
You two need to work this out together.
He will find out sooner or later. If you tell him now, you'll both have a better chance of putting your lives and relationship back together.
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reader, anonymous, writes (30 December 2008): Hey. Whatever you do. DO NOT TELL YOUR HUSBAND if you can live with it. Believe me he will be able to live the rest of his life quite happily without knowing. Do no more harm. Put it behind you and move on. devote time to your marriage and dont get into situations alone with men that breeds opportunities for infidelity. You are only human we are not strong and able to risist when emotions esp strong sex emotions are aroused. Does not make you a bad person just learn not to be alone with men if you want to be faithful to your husband.
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reader, anonymous, writes (29 December 2008): I wouldn't tell your husband. Break things off with 'J' and perhaps suggest a trial separation to your husband whilst you sort your head out. Men find being cheated on the most painful thing and if you do decide to leave him anyway he never needs to know.
You'll never be able to make a decision whilst in contact with J. From what you've said, your relationship with your husband appears to have been good whilst the relationship with J appears to be about sex. Why not suggest a 'tantric sex' weekend or something similar to your husband and see if he's able to satisfy you sexually in the same way as J??
Good luck whatever you decide
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reader, mesugarbabe +, writes (29 December 2008):
You should break it off with J tell him that you need to confess this to your husband. You need to tell your husband as soon as possible if you want any chance at keeping any trust at all with him. Also you want him to hear this for you not an outsider. You need to do this for the man you married that has always treated you right and with respect and put his trust in you as his wife. You have to know that the truth always has a way about comming out sooner or later weather you like it or not. You should be the one to tell him. We all have done things that were not proud of and it so hard to shoulder the truth. You have to be accountable for you actions and hurting others. He has the right to know. The hardest thing you will do in life is to take a look at yourself. Sorry,god bless and I hope you will make better choices in the long run and learn for your mistakes. Sorry for you and your husband cause no one is the winner here, everyone is going to hurt...Please do not prolong this siuation for everyone...
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reader, passionatelynumb +, writes (29 December 2008):
It sounds like a classic seven year itch to me:Well the one bright spot is that you don't have any children, so whatever happens its not going to hurt them.1. Your husband deserves to know what's going on. The more time passes, the more devastated he'll be when he finds out. If you love or care about him at all, you should tell him. 2. You need to figure out what you want. Do you want your husband or do you want your crush. Do you want to give your marraige another go or do you want to move on? Don't beg for your husband's forgiveness and promise to be faithful for the rest of your life if you aren't sure you can keep those promises.
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reader, Silhouette +, writes (29 December 2008):
You don't exactly say how your relationship (including sexually) with your husband is or was prior.Do you love him or are you just 2 friends happily sharing a life. I only ask because I was married and not unhappily. But there was always something that made me think there should be something more. Whilst I could have stayed married forever and been ok I lstarted to question how I'd feel if I looked back at it.I had become a different person to the person that had married him however I still liked him.Anyway unintentionally my eye started to wander and I ended up in situations I would never had thought possible. My relationship with my husband had changed and we'd grown apart.12 months later we have seperated.It is only one thought but perhaps you've also grown apart in someway and you have unintentionally ended up in this affair to add something back into your life you hadn't realised was missing.I would recommend seeing someone to talk to about it. They will have a totally unbiased view and be able to delve into your thoughts to assist you. It was something I did to try and help me figure out what my first fling was and helped me. Perhaps
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