SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I didn't send a letter; I told him in person. Sending a letter, however, would have been a lot easier.

I already know what will happen if I contact him to see how he's doing...that's why I won't contact him...and I told him that.

I've read on here about people who confessed and then cheated again. So to say that confessing now will prevent me from contacting the other guy is false logic. I need to be strong enough to do what's right. I need to work on my own weaknesses. No contact is the first step. That's all I've said and that's where I am.

Attacking the other guy is unproductive and not helpful.

Confessing is not false logic. It informs your BH of what kind of marriage he's in. Right now he doesn't know...that's false logic.

Attacking the other guy is unproductive and not helpful.

I disagree. It takes two to engage in an affair. If you want to reach indifference towards the OM, you have to see him for who he really is. It's hard to do that when you're in the middle of it. We see him for who he is and have no problem calling it out because we don't have any emotional ties to this guy. You do, thus your vision is not clear when it comes to him.

Attacking the other guy is unproductive and not helpful.

I must disagree with this statement and here is why. No one has "attacked" him, only spoken truths. But quite often the truth is very hard to hear. He was not a friend of yours as much as you would like to believe he was. I know it is hard to understand right now but as long as you hold onto the "friendship" you will continue to hold onto those romantic notions of him. As long as you do that, your marriage will be doomed no matter how your husband acts. Part of letting go is understanding the toxic role that person has in your life. The other part is understanding your own toxic behaviors. Which leads me to your justification of being lonely in your marriage.

Sure your husband may be quiet and withdrawn. Sure he may spend way too much time paying attention to the TV rather than you, but you need to start figuring out what it is about you that felt getting attention outside of your marriage was a better solution than working with your husband to get your needs met.

I recommend being careful about making blanket statements regarding knowing what your husband will say or do. I say this from experience. I was certain that my husband did not love me enough to work on our M. From my perspective at that time I felt he had a very low interest in me in general. I felt that he stayed with me more out of obligation than because he truly loved me. I was certain that if he were to find out about my A that he would be upset but for the most part quietly let me go. After all, I had been with this man for more than 15 years. I should be able to properly predict how he will react to a situation.

I could not have been more wrong. I should have given him much more credit. Once he knew there was a problem of this magnitude, he was all in. I saw a side of my husband I never knew existed. Not because he was never willing to show me, but because I never bothered to look or ask to see it. I had never let on to him what state our M was in. And I certainly never let on to how broken I was inside. So my point is, never underestimate how your BS will handle things.

He has a right to know. Every day that you do not tell him is another day of lies. It is another day that he is living his own life under very false pretenses. It is another day that he will feel foolish because he carried on his life as if everything were just fine.

I was caught vs. confessing. It's something I regret deeply. I thought about telling my BH often but then would talk myself out of it, saying that I needed to get things under control first. I was never able to. I was always drawn back in. Then it was too late. The MOM outed me. He did it because it was what he wanted. I wasn't consulted on the matter. It was a selfish move on his part (one I failed to see at the time because I felt he was my friend). It was ugly and public. It should have been the kind of thing that my BH heard from me, privately. But it wasn't because I had too much trust in someone that did not have my best interest at heart. I had no idea that my life was about to come crumbling down in such a monumental way. And as much as I would like to blame the MOM, I only have myself to blame. I was the one who had the power to take control of my life the whole time and do the right thing. But I didn't. That was my choice. And it's something I have to live with now.

Don't make the same mistake. Don't think you have time to "get over" the OM or work on your issues before coming forward about your A with your BH. You never know when the house of cards will come crashing down.

[This message edited by WalkinOnEggshelz at 4:04 PM, May 7th (Tuesday)]

t/j

WoW..great post WOES

end of t/j

floridaredman: I didn't say confessing is false logic. It's false logic to say I won't contact the other guy if I confess. If I confess, I will still have to remain strong and continue the no contact. That struggle isn't going away by confessing.

MissesJai: It's unproductive because it really doesn't matter if he is a great guy or not. I'm moving on. I have no interest in defending him one way or another. I'm not struggling with his failings, I'm struggling with mine. Having anger toward him isn't going to help me. I will miss his friendship whether it was a sincere friendship or not.

I feel like I'm the only person who has on her own decided, "this is wrong and I'm not going to do it anymore." I didn't need to be caught and I didn't need an ultimatum. I needed to come to my senses. And once I came to my senses, I needed the strength to do it.

that's fair and let me say that you are not the first to come to this point:

"this is wrong and I'm not going to do it anymore."

there are MANY here in the same position.

I feel like I'm the only person who has on her own decided, "this is wrong and I'm not going to do it anymore."

You're not. There are quite of few of us, myself included, that did not get caught or were forced to an ultimatum.

I confessed, then faced my husband's pain from my confession square in the eyeballs.

Did he deserve the pain? Absolutely not. And if there had been another way, I would have done it. But the thing is, I couldn't get healthy while hiding this big secret from him. I knew something was broken within me. And if I was going to fix it, I had to start by doing things right. The first step of living an authentic and healthy life is getting it out there. He is the one I wronged and I couldn't possibly get my head screwed back on straight if I didn't tell him the truth.

Not confessing = lie, which most definitely does not = healthy and/or authentic.

That struggle isn't going away by confessing.

No it's not going away, but you would be amazed at how the struggle would be impacted.

[This message edited by floridaredman at 6:26 PM, May 7th (Tuesday)]

My husband is a quiet person and he does not communicate well. If I were to tell him, I think he would shut down completely as he tried to process everything.

I wouldn't assume that. There have been many "quiet" and withdrawn BH's on here that became The raging Incredible Hulk on DDay. I wouldn't assume how he would react.

By doing this..you are already deciding his fate for him..shouldn't he be responsible for that?

[This message edited by floridaredman at 6:39 PM, May 7th (Tuesday)]

So don't tell him. Then every day is a lie. You try to rekindle something with your BH...it is based on falsehood. Or, you maybe are angry at your BH, but maybe you feel like you can't really get mad at him though, because of what you have done now.

So you continue to resent and drift apart.

And so it festers inside you.

Or do you just master compartmentalizing it?

Nothing pretty about an A. It is not a beautiful friendship, you and OM. It is simply cheating - two people making each other feel good without a dose of real married life and with no consequences.

I tucked my secret away for 9 years. I thought I was OK. I turns out I was not. It also led to the lack of intimacy in my M.

You can't white knuckle this. Sorry.

[This message edited by Mrs Panda at 7:42 PM, May 7th (Tuesday)]

So, you've heard it many times in many different ways from people with many different experiences who have all walked a similar path before you. We are all saying you need to come clean to even begin to set yourself and your M straight.

Do you still think you know better?

I have no anger toward my husband.

I'm already a master at compartmentalizing. I mastered that as a child.

I never said I knew better than anyone here.

The condescending comments aren't helpful at all. The personal stories and reflections are.

Not meant to be condescending at all. Sorry it came off that way. Just pointing out that you still haven't come back with a plan to tell your BH after all of the personal stories and reflections you've heard.

Perhaps I should restate it this way: do you still think your current plan is better?

It's only been a day since I've posted anything. No, I don't have a plan to to tell him yet.

I haven't even had time to read through all the suggested threads.

Pushiness never works with me.

One saying we have here is "take what you need and leave the rest." What you perceive from others is honest truth from people who've walked in your shoes. For the most part, we've all had someone who we thought was a friend when really we all made a choice to fuck someone other than our spouse. You're no different. We are all wayward, just like you.

So when you have a group of people pretty much telling you the same thing, and you come up with all these convenient answers as to why your path forward is especially different, who is the one with a skewed outlook?

I'm going to add that it took me quite a while to pull my head out of my ass, so I get that it my take you a while to get to a point where you're open to such different points of view.

Pushiness? Why do you think I'm challenging you? Because I like it? Everyone here is responding to help you, whether you like what they have to say or not. It looks like I'm not the only one seeing a red flag in your plan to not tell your BH. If he finds out before you confess, you've lost a major trust building opportunity that will help you both heal and perhaps facilitate R if that's what you both want, so pardon me for trying to impart a sense of urgency to the situation.

I will gladly back out of this discussion if you'd like, but I stand by my statements. The right thing to do is tell, and soon.

Thank you, BaxtersBFF. I appreciate your comments.

longroadhome, I'm a big girl, I don't care who comments or what they say. If I weren't open to the feedback, I wouldn't read the responses.

Maybe I am reading too much into your comments but they came across to me like, "Well, we all told you what to do, why haven't you done it yet?"

Being a hardass works with some -- and that's usually the type of person I get along with best -- but in this situation, I think I need some compassion coupled with the hardassness. Were you able to figure everything out in 24 hours?

From one trying to another, after reading this thread, I really do think it's a little aggressive. Yeh, sure, it's one thing sharing views and recommending ways forward, but it's another thing pressuring these movements when the person isn't ready.

One thing I still don't feel super comfortable with here (and I feel It would be nice if I could) is get help with my withdrawal. I'm not as strong as llama and stop myself from describing how much I still miss AP. Fact is I do. Withdrawal for each person is different and the timeframe is different too.

From what I gather from reading here, those who were "caught" and have decided they want to R, manage to withdraw faster and with not as much anguish as those who have decided to stop it themselves of their own volition.

What I'm trying to say is despite the attachment to AP being wrong (which we all know) it's still there. We are humans. I spent 8 hours a day with my xAP for 2 and a half years. I think about him and I wonder how he is. I am trying not to but it's a process.

I'd like to feel safe and for others to feel safe to get support from other waywards (and the stop sign is on) and help through the withdrwal process without feeling like I should be over it by now and fully committed to R. I sometimes feel like I should feel ashamed for missing xAP. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

Fact of the matter is, and this is what llama is trying to say (from my interpretation) is "let me let go of one relationship first before I can focus on rebuilding another one".

That is exactly how I feel right now. I'm not "over" AP as much as I'd like to think I am. I cry when I listen to songs, I'm reminded of him daily. I miss him. I need to let it die rather than replace one man with another. I've done that in the past and it hasn't worked and it's not fair on my H.

Is it ok to grieve the loss of a relationship no matter how immoral it was?

On a positive note. There is no desire whatsoever to contact xAP. I couldn't think of anything more opposite to what I'm thinking.