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I am currently having an affair. I have been married for eight years, with one child.

I had a LTA with current affair when we were younger. Started at 17 and at 23 I walked away. Neither of us were married but it was an affair in every sense of the word. I did not have contact with affair for 10 years.

About two years ago, my marriage was in trouble. We went to therapy to work on our issues. I reached out to affair. It did not take long for us to fall back into old patterns. He isn't married but also involved and just recently got engaged.

I am currently working on having no contact again. We cannot be friends. We aren't friends. We are two messed up people who had a chance to make it work and didn't.

My husband knows that affair is back in my life and found emails that confirmed his suspicions. This was prior to us consummating the affair and we have a don't ask/don't tell policy in place. We are not getting divorced but the current situation is not sustainable for either him or me.

I found this website and started reading this forum. So much of it rang true. I am addicted to a man who didn't and doesn't want me as his wife. I wish I could turn off my emotions but it is very hard and took a move across the country to rid me of him last time.

I thought I would sign on and actually get some tips on No Contact. I have started to clean him out of life. It has been painful but necessary. I really, really don't want to be the side piece when he gets married. I though he would end things when he got engaged but he didn't and he wasn't honest with me about it.

That is it. I feel a little better writing this down.

smez,

I'm glad that you found us here and were brave enough to speak up and seek help and advice. There are many here that have been where you are and will be able to help you out.

In the mean time maybe you should take a 2nd look at your don't ask/don't tell policy in your marriage and how that policy can actually be harmful in having an open and honest marriage.

Welcome to SI smez.

There's no "easy" way to start NC. It's so hard at first. Because like I'm sure you realize, the AP is like a drug and we're the addict.

Delete him from all devices, block him from all devices, social media, and forms of communication. Draft a NC letter if you feel the need. (I do think you need to talk about that with your husband tho) Something along the lines of, "You were the biggest mistake of my life. I love my husband very much and am committed to him. Do not ever contact me again."

There are days when staying NC is literally moment by moment. Shortly after Dday, I was thankful if I made it 15 minutes without emailing the AP. Then 30 minutes. Then an hour. When thoughts of him would creep in, I would snap a rubber band on my wrist, or picture a giant stop sign in my mind. My house got really organized after Dday. I would use closet cleaning and drawer organizing as ways to occupy me to keep from breaking NC. As time progressed, the physical NC became easier. I was detoxing him from my system. The longer the physical NC, the easier mental NC became. Both were an effort in the initial stages.

Good luck and welcome to SI.

Thanks. I am working on the NC. I know I can do it as I somehow was smarter at 23 than apparently at 36.

The don't ask/don't tell policy is at the request of my husband. We have had long conversations about why I can't seem to let this other person go.

He isn't interested in knowing whether it got physical or not. He read some pretty explicit emails so he understands the nature of our relationship and before we got married, he was aware of this other person.

I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling up and feeling down. I'm tired of letting one person have so much power over my emotions. I went away at 23 because I didn't want to be around to see him marry some other girl and yet at 36 that is EXACTLY where I am. I keep thinking about the hurt she would feel if she ever found out. I suck as a person but I'm not sure I could handle causing that kind of pain to another person.