I am so depressed – tell DH or not re: A
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| Wed, 01-26-2005 - 3:28pm |
I am really struggling today and I am of need of some support today. It’s my own fault though, because I am the one that cheated on her H. I don’t know why in the world I did what I did. What made me think it was ok to have an A? I know that the initial reasons were that my DH was a very angry man. It seemed to justify it all at the time. But I still can’t let go of the guilt and sickness I feel for what I have done. I don’t want to tell my DH because it would only crush him and just release my guilt.
I don’t want the easy way out, but is it best for my M that I come out with what I did? I heard so many different opinions on whether you should tell or not. Could someone here that is M tell me what they did after they ended their A? Is it best not to tell? Can I still have a happy M if I don’t tell? Also, will I be able to heal one day? Were you able to have a better M without telling your H? My DH and I are in counseling and that has been a great benefit as far as our communication and his anger outbursts.
When I look back at the 4 ½ months I was in my A. Only 1 ½ months was it more intimate. I am just so disgusted with myself. It’s like I was a completely different person during that time period.
I just am going through the roughest time right now. I can’t begin to tell you how I am sooo glad that I ended my A. But what do I do now? I hope there is someone who is dealing or has dealt with this same issue that can give some type of advice.
Luv
Edited 1/26/2005 3:30 pm ET ET by luv4me2004

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Thank you posie...
I have debating this for a while. But since thinking about it I think I will not
tell my DH. It would only devistate him. Posie I thought like you I want our M to have a clean slate. I wanted my H to have all the info. My DH deserves to know, but I can't tell him. Like Free said I need to do it for my H not for me. And I know my H and I just can't tell him.
At the time of my very short A my H was yelling at me all the time. He is now in
couseling dealing with his anger issues and I see such a change and I see now
such a committment to our M that has not been there for years.
This is probably very selfish but I like how he is now. He's not yelling at me anymore.
See my DH was on the verge of being a verbal abuser, and I felt at the time of my
A that I no other choice. NOW I SEE THE LIGHT! That an A is not the way to go.
This is a touchy subject. I feel now that my H is starting to deal with his anger and I am healing from his years of his yelling.
So I just want to know can a M grow even if I don't tell my H? Has anyone not
told their H of their A and their M still was able to surive and grow? That's
the question?
Luv
Luv
Yes it is do able, BUT BUT BUT you had better of addressed the reason(s) you concluded your husbands wrong to you justified your wrong to him and way you cheated rather then pick another optional wrong IE "spending a lot of money"/"drinking to much"/"yelling back"....if you don't and things have a down turn in the marriage you have a higher likelyhood that you will cheat again.
Two wrongs do not make a right never have never will.
JMHO
Free
luv,
i once thought my marriage was perfect..until OM came along.
i realized fromt he A that OM was giving me the attention DH was not. there was (or still is) something missing in my life that led me to allow OM to enter my life.
telling your H about the A will only hurt him and create other problems.
you have to take the A as an experience in your life and learn from it. grow from it. dont call it a mistake call it a deviation from the right path. you need to find that right path and continue.
life is a learning experience. by telling your H you wont make the wrong you did right. so why tell him then and hurt him. be gratefull that he did not find out and that you have been given a second chance to show him your love.
hope this has helped you...be strong
upsidedown
Hi Luv,
I don't post here very often, but occasionally lurk. I wanted to add my 2 cents for whatever it's worth. My A ended Sept '03 and I was NEVER going to tell my H. Well as time went on and I dealt with all my demons, I decided I needed to tell him. I am glad I waited to tell him until I was in a better place emotionally and mentally. I told him in Apr '04 and he chose at that time to stick his head in the sand and ignore what I told him. I retold him again this past Dec and we are in the early stages of working things out. I am glad I told him and forced him to acknowledge it did happen.
Before I fessed up, I went through many stages, including falling over the deep end. With therapy I have moved on and made myself a better person which enabled me to do what I needed to do to make my marriage better.
We now have reached a level in our relationship I didn't know was possible. Many people decide to rebuild a marriage after an A. My H and I decided we don't want to rebuild something that didn't work very well at all. We have decided to restructure the whole thing. We are taking the things that worked well and incorporating them into our new relationship, improving some things and scraping things that didn't work at all. This never would have happened if I didn't tell him. There would have always been something between us keeping us from achieving what we have now. That something would have been the secret of the A.
If you do decide to tell your H, make sure it's for the right reason. I struggled with telling because for a long time it was for the wrong reasons. I wanted to get back at XMM, I wanted to rid myself of the guilt, etc. Finally, when I made the decision, it was for us. I didn't want any secrets between us because I wanted all that a relationship could be.
My H and I have now adopted a brutal honesty policy. Our M was bad because we didn't communicate. Now we don't stew over things we tell each other what is on our minds. If it's a difficult subject or something is bothering either of us we start out by saying "brutal honesty" and we know it's something delicate to talk about.
Anyway, I hope I'm making sense. I don't know if you have ever visited All Sides of an Affair board. It's a debate board, so if you're not in the right mind frame it can be rough. But it's a good place to read about why telling can be a good thing.
If you want some links to some discussions I can post some. The board is a little slow right now because there is a poster who resurfaces and disrupts things until she gets booted, so a lot of the regulars are staying away. I would suggest reading over there. In the end it is worth telling, at least it was for me.
ALC
Edited 1/27/2005 11:56 am ET ET by alifechoice
Luv,
The choices we make as individuals are ours and ours alone. Each person is different. I made the choice to not tell my husband because I wanted to spare him the pain I knew it would cause. Here is where your questions is going to be answered. When I engaged in my affair it was because I was going through a lot of emotional problem & husband was going through a certain kind of training for his job that took him away from home for a long time. I at the time was dealing with a death & Other health problems. He was not there emotionally nor physically since he couldn't be. OM emotionally fufilled what wasn't there. It only was physical a few times more emotional. Now that my H is there for me & my family fulltime & emotionally HECK YES my marriage is better than ever now that I quit OM Cold turkey and going on NC for well over 7 months. We have been married over almost two decades and still going strong. I don't know if I would be saying that if H found out about my affair & in the end it will not be him I will have to deal with it will be the higher power but for now that I'm on this earth I did what I felt was the right thing and no one or anything can change the decision I made its done and the past must be put behind us or it will never be the PAST.....
Hugs to you its a difficult decision for anyone to make.
Healed
Healed, I know where you are coming from. I was just dealing with a miscarraige that rocked my whole emotional being, plus some other things I can not mention, and on top of that my H was always yelling and being verbally abusive at times. Never had a good thing to say. It was the lowest point in my life when I started the A. Like I was a different person. I didn't seem to care about anything. Not an excuse but at the time I think it justified my actions. Now that the fog has lifted I see I took the wrong path.
I am trying so hard to work on why I choose to have an A and I want to make sure that I don't do it again. It a self-esteem issue with me I think. Still working on it tough.
I don't think I am going to tell my H. I want to spare him the hurt of it all. I think I can now work on my issues of why I would do such a thing and look at it as a learning experience. I'm not going to sit here an put all the blame all on my H because he is the innocent one. I was the one who choose to go outside the bonds of M. I'm the guilty party. My H was not emotionally there after the miscarriage. All he did was rant and rave. He has been that way for a long time. I think I just snapped emotinally and I didn't know what else to do. I felt alone and I felt like I needed to just give up. I guess the thing I learned from all this is what I am capable of and that there are other ways of dealing with hard times.
I guess all I can do is pray for forgiveness. Go on from here and try to be the best W and mother I can. And try to be a little less hard on myself because I can't take back what happened. I'll just have to try to do the best I can and love my husband.
Thanks to all of you. Eventhough we all have different ways of resolving things, we've all been down the same emotional road. It has helped me alot to be able to talk to you all. I might not be strong enough to tell my H. But eventhough I don't tell I will not stop fighting for my M. I realized just how important my family is and how much I risked doing what I did.
Luv
Hiya Toimon,
Welcome and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.
It is very much a personal choice and it was my choice to lay all the cards out on the table in order that my husband could make up his own mind after I had denied him that right.
If we couldn't work on the marriage together, working from the same blueprints, then to my mind it wasn't ever going to be worthwhile to or worthy of either of us.
In addition to MC, my husband and I have also each attended IC and a year onwards my IC is still very much ongoing.
One thing that my husband has been consistent about throughout is that had *I* not come to him with this information, he doubts strongly whether he'd have been able to consider rebuilding. Trust isn't an issue for us, all cards (as well as email accts, cell phones, etc) remain out on the table and for *us* in our circumstances this has worked out for the best.
Strength & peace,
Posie
Toimon,
Hmmmm, I'm out of lurkdom twice today. I'm surprised to see you over here. I have to say that you are someone who made me see the importance of telling my H and forcing him to acknowledge and accept that the A really did happen.
I was reading a lot of my old posts on AS from Apr and May of last year. At that time in my life I didn't understand what you were saying. Now I am glad I was the one who told him and not someone else.
Thank you for kicking my butt a few times, it's what I needed.
For those new to the ending process it's hard to understand this way of thinking. Someday, when you are far removed from this part of it you will understand. It took me a long time, but I do.
Stay strong everyone.
ALC
I haven't had to deal with the excruciating decisions of an affair, but I know that I personally would want to know if my wife had an affair. If I found out ten years later, I'd be even angrier (no recovery). If the situation were reversed, then I'd confess. Perhaps my wife would leave and I'd end up losing her, but I don't view trying to keep all the benefits of a normal marriage as being much different from starting an affair in the first place. After an affair I simply don't think I have a choice in the matter of whether the marriage should continue or not. That's my wife's decision and to deny her that decision would feel wrong to me. Just my .02 cents.
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