do not understand/plain torn...
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| Sat, 10-30-2004 - 12:24pm |
My seven-month affair with MM officially ended March 2004. I am still married to my current spouse. What is disturbing me is prior to the affair, my husband and I were not getting along for three years, discussed divorce options.
After the affair ended, it appears my husband wants desperately to save, preserve the marriage. I am up for this...but he is not aware of the affair. Because of this lack of knowledge, I find it impossible for me to even work it out with my husband; I cannot be close to him without telling him. At the same time, I have NO INTENTION of ever telling him. For months I have been aloof, withdrawing from my husband...when he is trying to figure out what's wrong with me, etc.. I love my husband but I cannot and will not tell him the truth which is driving me further away. Also, I resent my husband for "ignoring" me emotionally/physically for years...now he wants to play all lovey-dovey? Deep down, I feel a divorce would help me in ridding of my guilt, etc.. Now, I am at a crossroads.

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Have you tried counseling? Sometimes even one session can help you sort out these kind of feelings. I did not tell my DH about my A--when in counseling I was asked why I wanted to tell--was it to ease my own guilt or was it to help my husband? Each situation is different, but for me, I wanted to tell my DH to ease my own guilt, not to help him. So I made the decision not to tell -- I will not be continuing the A, there is not much of a chance anyone will ever find out that there was an A, and my DH has always been a a great guy--he was not exhibiting any abusive or negative behaviors that I need to address or to come to terms with.
On the flip side, Posie and some others on this board have done very well in rebuilding their marriages after coming clean about their A--I think this is something you need to explore for your own situation -- not only because you are torn about it, but because your DH was not acting like the most loving H in the past, which probably was part of the reason you were susceptible to becoming involved in an A. I'm not sure that your inability to become close with your H is related to your guilt, or related to your unresolved feelings about the way your H has acted toward you.
Once you figure out your own feelings, and if you are indeed feeling the effects of the way he treated you in the past, then perhaps you can go to a couple counsleing session together???
(Also--Try to think back about what made you fall in love with your H in the first place? Can you find that guy again?)
Good luck with this--it's doesn't seem like an easy situation, but once you take a step back and try to evaluate this from an outsider's point of view, you will get the answers you need.
Meg
Thank you Meg at Peace:
To be honest, prior to marrying my husband, I was never really in love with him...simply love, respect and adore him. Either way I was willing to work with my husband, to build on experiences, etc.. Yes, we have gone through counseling (prior to the affair) to only have us arguiing (LOUDLY) more, including the drives home (from the sessions). We stopped going all together. The can of worms exploded...
My husband has some issues...especially relating to his mother (she used to try to control, cajoled and emotionally abused him while growing up). His "habits" got in the way of the marriage. For years, I could not seem to really "reach him," was cold...
I am not exactly perfect...after all, who is?
In all, the affair was the disastrous mistake I have ever made. All for what? To feel that glimmer of warmth, showered with attention I was not getting at home...was receiving the THAW treatment instead. Anyway, I PAID EMOTIONALLY for it (affair), was not worth it, was a human yo-yo for months...even today, I still feel the pain of it, not certain that it will ever end- will haunt me forever. No matter what I do, I wish I can forget about it entirely.
I am not certain if men can sense there's trouble (wife looking elsewhere, etc...) looming ahead, possibly explaining why they put on their "best behavior." Why now...my husband trying to be that "Hubby of the Year"? After feeling the devastation of a heart-break...could not tell anyone about it, was alone, experienced depression...which is why AFFAIRS are the worst, cannot freely call up your friend and ask her advice about a "no-no" whereas in an accepted relationship, you can.
I cannot tell my husband because he has had horrific experiences with women...possibly explains why I could not win with him, has that passive-aggressive behavior. Even if I were to leave him...I would always protect him from this information, it would devastate him beyond redemption.
The only thing left to try, in my opinion, is to spend time with him on a regular basis. Really commit, and see what happens. Many times when a couple is having trouble, it's because they don't spend enough one-on-one time with each other. I read a book that said couples should have at least one date a week (night-time or an afternoon), one weekend getaway (no kids) at least once a quarter, and one whole week per year away from others. How many of us have let our everday lives interfere with spending the time that we should nurturing our M?? I know I haven't, and I daresay that if we had, we would not be on this board :-)
If you try that and still find out that the relationship can't be salvaged, then at least you have given it an honest effort. If you were never in love with him in the first place, you may find that there is nothing left to save, but it's worth a try. He seems to be trying, so take advantage of it.
Good luck!
Meg
Hi Meg:
I am willing to work on it. What gets to me is the guilt...he looks at me as though I am the next best thing since sliced bread. If only he knew...
Overall, I feel as though I am deceiving him. Did you ever feel this way? If so, do you still feel this way...or if not, how long did it take for you to cope with the "guilt"?
Again thank you...
Take some advice from someone who has, as your name says, "been there". DO NOT TELL YOUR HUSBAND!!!!!!!!! Let's face it, the only reason you want to do so is to assuage your own guilt. It's certainly not going to do him any good. And it will open up a world of hurt for BOTH of you. And, depending on what type of personality your husband has, may completely ruin everything. Why CAN'T you work on your marriage without revealing this devastating information? Why on earth would you get divorced in order to deal with your guilt? Go to a priest, a therapist, a trusted confidant and tell it. But to throw this kind of devastating wrench into the thing will not help your relationship. If you truly love your husband and want to work the marriage out, my advice is to put the past where it belongs and focus on doing the next right thing and moving forward. Don't hurt your husband to make yourself feel better. Sometimes keeping something to yourself is for the best when all telling someone else will do is hurt them greatly. It may seem dishonest, but it's far better than hurting them just to make yourself breathe easier. That's just my two cents, but it's coming from a place of knowledge. I wish I had never told my H anything.
There is only one way out that I know and that is to forgive yourself for this mistake and don't repeat it.
Maybe your husband sees you better then you see yourself, be the woman that he sees.
Free
I'm the other face of the one who's been there/done that. I have been completely honest & open, I have a 23mos old daughter fathered by exOM, and I am rather happily rebuilding with my husband.
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No surprise that I strongly disagree with this. My decision to be open & honest had vry little to do with assauging my own sense of guilt - It had everything to do with having enough respect for my husband to allow him to make up his own mind having all the facts laid before him. If you view a marriage as an equal partnership, would you really want to be making long-term partnership decisions based on only some of all the information available to you? When all cards are face up on the table, then both partners have an equal say in how best to proceed. People are far more than just their personality types.
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I can only tell you why I couldn't. You see, I grew up in an environment where one of my parents was a serial adulterer and I was party to this information, aware of at least a dozen or so OW in his life over the years and I was most often my father's alibi for his visits to various OW (just taking Posie to the skating rink, mall, stables, etc). So, having grown up in an atmosphere of lies, deception and an undercurrent of dishonesty, I knew this was not a cycle I wished to be perpetuating in my own adult life.
An honest, open, above-board relationship was more important to me than covering my own rather exposed arse and in order to achieve that it meant that I needed to be honest, open & above-board first myself. I also believed that DH had the right to make his own informed decisions about whether he wanted to be in a relationship with me.
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Predictably, my advice would be the exact opposite. If you truly love your husband and wish to rebuild the marriage, you need to both be working from the same set of blueprints. Putting the past behind you together works and enables both of you to focus on all aspects of the rebuilding together. To be honest, I don't know how long I could face staying in a relationship with someone who was only with me because I didn't give him all the facts.
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Equally, don't cover your arse in order to ensure someone stays with you. Lying by omission is still a lie and I'm not a liar anymore.
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Sure, if you can live with knowing your partner is only with you because he doesn't have all the facts and if an atmosphere of lies & deception is what you are aiming for or are happy with... Regardless of outcome of telling, isn't honesty one of the basic ingredients for the foundation of a marriage/long-term relationship? Substitute ingredients by all means; just be aware that when you go making huge ingredient changes, the whole recipe produces something rather different than whatever was intended.
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Seem? It *IS* dishonest.
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Not in my experience. Perhaps this might be so *if* the reason is to make yourself breathe easier rather than having sufficient respect for one's partner to ensure they have all the relevant facts before them in order to decide for themselves what the best way forward might be.
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And these are just my own $0.02. coming from my own experience and place of knowledge.
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I am glad I told my husband everything. And so is he.
Wishing you strength & peace,
Posie
Thank you for putting my feelings so eloquently into words. I felt like a leper thinking that people should come clean re: their A's. I totally agree. I feel that you are still living a lie and it is extremely disrespectful to not tell your mate. If this person is your life partner then they should know this about you. It is extremely important, I believe.
One night my XMM's wife had a make out session in a car followed by an unfinished brief romp in the hotel room, came to her senses before the deed was even complete and ran from the room hysterical. She came clean a week later. XMM berated her (called her a ho, etc),screamed, yelled, left for the evening, and then later made her take all sorts of STD tests, making sure he took her to the skankiest clinic in the city, and has made her suffer ever since. Then he took up with me a few months later for almost a year. Does he still torture her about her indiscretion? Yes. Has he come clean about me? Nope. Will he ever? Nope. He says he doesn't want her to "feel the same pain he felt". This man is clearley covering his arse. IMO it has not so much to do with hurting her as what she may do (leave him and break his family apart?)to him. Survival of the fittest, I guess?
Take Care,
Need2
I'm glad you found some comfort & support in what I had to say.
It wouldn't be fair not to warn you that this is NOT an easy road and that it may be a very long time before you receive any thanks from your DH, if ever.
Also be aware that when you give someone else the full facts in order that they can make up their own mind, they do tend to make their very own decisions which may or may not be what we'd hope or expect.
We can't control anyone else but ourselves (even our children we can only ever really guide as best we can)and there is a great deal of freedom and power in really accepting this.
My work involves my having signed the Official Secrets Act and therefore I had no option but to disclose all to my employers. Nothing obligated me to tell my husband except my own respect for him as a person.
Your story about how exMM treated his wife show much more about his own level of emotional maturity and desire for control than anything else. If nothing else right now, you can see you've clearly dodged a bullet, eh?
If I had it to do all over again, and *regardless* of the outcome, I would come clean every time. Honesty and truth really are that important to me and I have more than enough respect for my husband to allow him to make his very own decisions especially when it's regarding OUR relationship.
DH & I have worked hard in marriage counselling as well as our own individual counselling. Our relationship is forever changed, but our relationship was forever changed when I had my affair - it's just a matter of him also knowing exactly why the relationship has changed. While I will not thank my affair for those positive changes since we could just as easily accomplished to positive changes in counselling without my having had an affair, my affair is all part & parcel of our relationship history. My affair doesn't define our relationship, but neither do we deny it having happened.
It's been a rough & sometimes wearisome road, Need2, and to begin with neither of us were certain we wanted to attempt such a difficult task. Once we made the decision, we've both kept pouring the cement for the new foundations, levelling it out, smoothing out the bubbles, and both of us kept simply hammering away. Often we've spied the other flagging and we've both downed tools in order to pick each other up.
It's hard work, but our foundation is now being built on honesty, respect, and the crystal clear intentions of us BOTH being around for a very long time to enjoy the marriage we are rebuilding from the ground upwards.
Wishing you strength & peace,
Posie
I understand and agree with what you're saying...in theory. It's great that you were able to tell your H about your A and be able to work things out with him. I will say this, though, since you had OM's baby, you kinda had to tell him, didn't you? I mean, you really didn't have a choice...there was a baby. The thing is, though, not everyone has the same kind of man as a H as you do. As Jack Nicholson says in "A Few Good Men", some "can't handle the truth". Of course it isn't completely, 100%, dyed-in-the-wool honest to not tell. But honesty is not necessarily ALWAYS the best policy. And being honest doesn't always make everything better.
I told my H about affair against my better judgement. I know what he's like. He's always been very jealous to begin with, and before this, I was always completely devoted and faithful to him. And this from someone who has cheated on me! I really didn't want to tell him, but had to, because I, essentially, was found out. It did not make anything better for us. Instead of him focusing on what was wrong with our relationship to beging with, all he focuses on is my mistakes. Don't get me wrong...I completely own them. I wish it had never happened, and I was in huge error in getting involved in that A. But the A was not our problem...merely a symptom. My relationship with him is not unlike Beenthere's with hers.
The bottom line is that when you have a partner who obsesses and can't seem to move beyond, telling them something like this, when it's over, you're not running off with the person and he would never need to know is not, in my opinion and experience, the best course of action. Someone once told me that honesty is the best thing, "except when to do so would injure them or others". Meaning, if it will cause the other person pain or harm, if it would cause someone else harm (other M or W), then what is the point? As long as you have come clean with yourself, and, if you're a religious person, your God, there isn't always a need to spill it out to someone else. Not everyone can handle things in a healthy and adult manner. But I really am glad for you that yours can.
God bless,
Silly
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