I am so sad..

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-25-2005
I am so sad..
4
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 10:55am
Hi every one,
I am new to the board. And really need some thoughts, ideas and support from women smart women who have some insight. I am married 10 yrs yesterday. My marriage on the outside was great - we are both professionals in our community, have a great life, financially secure. But I just kept thinking something was missing. I met a another man 8 months ago and started an affair. I knew it was wrong but I couldn't end it. My husband found out about the affair 2 months into it and I moved out. The affair continued, even thought i told my H it was over. In fact it continued until a week ago. My H and I started marraige counseling in Dec, but it just didn't go anywhere. I know...probably because I was still secretly seeing other guy. I need to come clean with my H. He is the all around great guy, good looking, nice, smart, fun to be with - there was never any abuse or close to it. It was the classic too nice of a guy who just didn't do it for me. And we never had a deep meaningful relationship - sharing our thoughts, desires feelings. The other guy is the same, but there is a spark between us, and we have done it differently. We talked about our hopes, dreams, shared everything. Even when we were feeling sad, bad, guilty etc about our marriages. Last week i told the other guy I needed to seperate from him to figure this out. I thougth I was ending my marraige and I needed to do it alone. Two days later my H tells me he's done with this and he wants to get a divorce. He loves me and wants to be married but he can't do this anymore. Now I am distraught. I feel awful about the affair, and now am beginning to wonder if I should try my marriage again. Maybe because I want what I can't have??? And I will feel incredibly awful about the other guy - I can't imagine being without him. I know I sound like a crazy woman. I am in counseling and have been. I guess my questions are this - is it worth divorcing a really good guy or am I just feeling guilty and need to get over it? This is compounded by the fact that I have almsot no support. My friends have been supporting my H and I am alone every night wallowing in this mess I've created. Any advice would be appreciated.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-08-2004
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 11:59am

Hello, and welcome. It sounds like you've had enough people beating up on you, so I'm not going to join in and do that! You sound like you've already beat yourself up about your choices, too.


Right now, you're in therapy, and that's fantastic. Keep going! Now, it's a matter of figuring out what you want. At a minimum, take a few weeks to yourself without the influence of your H or the other guy. I think you'll realize, usually, your heart knows what you really want. What does your instinct tell you? Do you really want to stay in this marriage for the long term?


Also, there are a couple of other boards on ivillage where you may get some additional help from people that have been in your position:


My Affair Support

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2003
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 12:34pm

hi and welcome.

I think that what you really need to do is to work on your own issues - apart from your H and apart from the other guy. but this takes a lot of work and committment. its not just saying - ok, i'll go to therapy. you have to really do the work. because its not *just* the fact that you had an affair - but you lied, and snuck around, you chose this path instead of solving issues, and so on.

<<>>
i don't know the answer to this. guilty feelings is something you can work on in therapy.

good luck

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-08-2006
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 8:34pm

My question would be...once you come clean with your husband will there be an option to try your marriage again? You said he's done, you might not have that option anymore. I agree that you should take this time to really figure out some things that are going on with you (why you had an affair, and all that stuff).
I'm not sure if this is helpful or not but I hope you can figure things out and you and your husband can go on to have happy healthy relationships with or without each other.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 04-02-2006
Sat, 04-22-2006 - 10:07pm

Hi. I'm so sorry you're in this situation. It sounds kind of familiar. I had an affair over three years ago and my STBX found out and I stopped it. But since then, and especially since i confessed a year ago that more happened than he originally knew, he's punished me. It's been blame, anger, distancing, mental ping-pong with wanting/not wanting divorce, and just all around stress. After three years of mental abuse (that's what it was), I finally followed his demands to seek a divorce ( esp. after he even told me he didn't love me and was miserable). He kept wavering for six months ("I don't WANT to work on the marriage..." to the opposite...."I didn't mean it and you know it."

If your husband is continuing to blame and harass you, then it may never be back to what you had, or more importantly, to a better marriage. You had an affair for some reason. Soul search and try to figure out why. My reason was the lack of attention/help at home, low self-esteem, excitement of somebody else, and just good old escape from everyone and everything. I learned it wasn't worth it though. I've also read that 5% of relationships based on an affair don't make it. Could you trust the other man to be committed and faithful? WOuld he trust you? Would your ex make life more difficult for you if you went back to the other man? Would your children/family accept him?

Maybe if you separate from your spouse for awhile, you both can rationally decide what you want/need to do. It's hard to cool down when you're both in the same house. My husband initially INSISTED on a dissolution and even bought another house and moved out. Now he's the one crying and wishing it hadn't come to this. I don't even have the energy and revenge left to say "I told you so..."

Good luck! Take some time out to do something enjoyable, see the counselor by yourself, get some good self-help/relationship books, and take care of yourself. :) Jo