Hi all - i am reposting to allow BS comments also. I meant to allow it originally but could not figure out how to change just that. To the people who commented originally, thank you, your comments were appreciated.
Long post...sorry!
Let me first share my story and then explain why I am here.
Over the 10 years of our relationship I have developed a culture within myself of deceit and selfishness. Always putting myself and my own needs/wants first. This lead to issues with addiction (smoking, gambling), lying (i lied as a general rule about things i was hiding and about everyday things that i probably didnt even need to lie about), and the pursuit of self gratifying behaviors which included illicit relations with three different OW.I should qualify here that by 'pursuit' i do not refer to a pro-active seeking out of these relations, but rather a complete and utter refusal to dismiss them when they came knocking and a strong desire to keep them alive once i let them in.
EA#1 with an ex colleague with whom i eventually strayed online & by phone. EA#2 with an old friend from high school with whom I confided about EA#1 knowing she had committed worse offences herself - with her I exchanged inappropriate emails & was sent explicit photos. And PA (partial affair)most recently with an ex customer with whom i did all of the above and also secretly met and physically interacted with (no sex)over a period of 3 months. I want to be very clear on this point - while i am aware that in the context of my BS's pain it is almost irrelevant and despite all the statistics and histories being against me here and although this will be at odds with the beliefs of many of not most of the BS's on SI, i did NOT sleep with this woman. I have been with BS for 10yrs and never slept with anyone but her, and only the one person before her. I make this point so harshly for reasons ill get to shortly.
I became infatuated with OW#3 and allowed myself to believe that i must be in love with her if i were to behave the way i was behaving. I convinced OW#2 (with whom i confided yet again) that i was, just so i would have someone telling me i was not a bad person. Over the 3 months i was driven to a sort of madness while we swung back and forth between acknowledging the wrong in what was happening and both trying to hang on to it. As the time went on the secrecy and severity of the rendevouxs escalated. I risked my career (which has since taken a hit) to make time to go and see OW#3. The worst part is - these 3 months, were the last 3 months of my BS's pregnancy with our DS. Our first. During this time i also comitted the heinous acts of seeing OW#3 on the same date as the 10yr anniversary of BS and I meeting. I wrote to OW#3 while BS was labouring in agony from a chair on the other side of the labour room. I even lied to my employer to get a personal day so i could chase OW#3 when she was not speaking to me - at the same time as i was missing my DS's final ultra sound.
My msg thread with OW#2 was discovered on my phone on DDay#1. On that day, my lost and wayward mind and heart injured my BS irreparably by starting off the conversation with 'I fell in love with another woman' (a sentiment I not only reject now but that makes me feel physically ill). We then talked, screamed & cried for hours while my BS began learning the details and unbeknownst to me, was desperately waiting for the words - 'i choose you, i want you, i beg your forgiveness, please dont leave me'.
But i was so convinced that this act meant the end of our relationship no matter what i said or did, that I sat there and offered no reassurance or fight to stay at all. I was shell shocked. And it wasnt until the most emotionally charged and powerful embrace i have ever felt in my entire life, that i realised i was dealing with a betrayed wife who was actually sitting there in the face of all of this horror - FIGHTING FOR ME!?!?! And that was the moment where my head cleared (at least for a time) and i realised the extremity of the love i had in front of me and how precious it was, and told my BS that i wasnt going anywhere, that i loved her and i was staying.
I insisted on breaking it off with OW3 on person, which she allowed (in retrospect she shouldnt have and i am ashamed for asking). I went to her, i spent about 2 hours discussing it with her and to my own detriment, softened it for her a fair bit because i didnt want to break two hearts that day. Pathetic. At one point, she asked me if this meant BS would leave me, and I said it didnt look that way, had i SLEPT with you, that would end it no doubt - and OW3 then joked about sending through a text saying we did sleep together just to force the break up and then followed that up with - 'dont worry, i would never do that'. I ended it, I left. That was that.
Two days later the stirrings in my head about everything in my past (OW 1 & 2, never quitting smoking) really started to scream at me and weigh down on my soul. The day it came out, OW#2 had told me that I had to stop lying to my BS when i was asking her to keep certain details of the PA a secret if BS ever asked her about it. As the day wore on (DDay#2), i gradually came to a realisation that all of this pain and suffering was pointless and meaningless if i did not put EVERYTHING out on the table. Every lie, every woman, everything. I realised that if i truly loved this woman and this child, that I owed them the opportunity to move forward with their lives based on the whole truth, and knowing who they were married to and lived with.
And so with great fear and anxiety, i put our son to bed, and i came out with the lot. This almost broke us as you can imagine. What REALLY didnt do us any favours was a very unexpected text message from OW3. I hadnt heard from her in two days and was not expecting to at all. But there it was nonetheless. A scathing message meant 100% for my BS, stating that 'the only reason she ever contacted me and SLEPT WITH ME... was because she thought i was single and didnt know i had a baby on the way'! So that scenario she joked about and said she would never really go through with... she did anyway. So there i was having revealed all, freed myself of all of my lifes horrendous bullshit - and OW3 throws that lovely spanner into it on Dday! As i have said, this did not happen. But I'm sure you will understand how much harder it made things receiving that msg. The last i have ever received from her.
I am sure many of you will be familiar with how things go for a while from that point so i wont bore you with those details (if you are still reading this far in, youve done well, thank you :))
So this is why I am here. I have sworn an oath of truth, openness, fidelity and commitment for the rest of our lives from DDay#2. Since then I have not spoken a word of a lie to BS - even when the information i know will near kill her (affair details etc). I have not been in contact with any of the OW at all. Nor have i wanted to. I have severed them all form my life in every way i can. I have deleted all social media accounts i held, i have changed my phone number, I have been regularly swapping phones with my BS and also making sure that where possible, the phone remains with her or in her view when i leave the room. We are both doing IC and MC. I have committed to ongoing IC well and truly beyond our marriage concerns because i believe i have some very deep and troubling longer term issues that may have played a part in the way i was living and i dont want that in her future or in our sons. I have repeatedly reinforced my stance that i never slept with any OW. I will reinforce it forever. And that is after having made my promises of honesty and dedication to this family. Should that turn out to be a lie, it would destroy BS utterly and wholly - i know this and i remain undeterred in my position.
I am here because after 3 months, we are having extreme peaks and troughs (to be expected i know) and when its good it can be amazing, when its bad it can feel like DDay all over again and feel like we are about to lose eachother. I am TRYING as many things and as much as i can think of to show my dedication and determination, to reassure BS of my commitment even in the face of constant and agonising reminders of what i did and what that made her feel and also in the face of all the questions about details that do nothing but hurt and destroy her more. (by the way, im more than aware that i deserve every minute of all of that and dont avoid it for a minute)
I dont feel like im doing enough though. I want to do more, i want more ways to show this woman that I can be the exception to what she is viewing as the 'rule'. That I wont relapse, i wont go back and give her another DDay, i wont ever do this again and more importantly i will never WANT to ever again.
Please WS's - PLEASE, can you share with me some of the ways that you have been able to demonstrate through your own pro-active actions that you are genuine, that you really do want to stay and to give yourself the way you promised you would when you got married. The way it was supposed to be. I am desperate to make this BS's reality. And i am willing to do and sacrifice ANYTHING in order to make it so.
Thanks so very much if you have read this much! And thank you in advance for any replies. It means the world to me.
