SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi again Joneswoman

Wow! That is a lot. I appreciate you sharing those intimate details. I wonder how differently my situation would be if my BH had confronted me. I do believe I would have chosen him. All the what if's. So hard to think about. It sounds like your BH was willing to work things out after you admitted the A?

Well he confronted me a number of times that he was unhappy with life as it was (me spending loads of time with AP, staying over at his house, him staying at ours, me going on trips with his family) and kept saying "I don't want to live this way." And I would come close to confessing and then chicken out at the last second. I would just say "Things will change, they'll be better."

There were plenty of other things he was unhappy about besides AP: I was unemployed and spent my free time hanging out with AP or online in the game we both played or sometimes both at the same time. I did the shopping and some cooking but that was about it. The house was a mess, our finances were a mess, I was avoidant of doing anything that felt hard or boring. So in my liar's mind I thought I could say "things will be better" and it would mean that I would get a job (I didn't), start keeping the house clean (I didn't), straighten out our finances (I sort of did) and I could let myself avoid what he was actually talking about, the fact that I was clearly and inappropriately emotionally (and unbeknownst to him physically) tangled up with AP and that my relationship with AP was supporting reinforcing my worst character traits. We went around that block several times. The last time, the time of the ultimatum, he made it clear that not choosing was choosing. He had reached his limit and could not go another day with AP in our lives.

He did want to work on the marriage. More than I did, at the outset. I was ambivalent but I was honest about it. It took me a pretty long time to have concern about anyone's happiness or well-being but my own. I felt bad about his pain, but I felt worse about the fact that I had caused it because it meant I would be seen as a bad person. In fact we started couples counseling about six weeks after D-day and after just a few sessions she sent me packing to individual counseling. She said I wasn't ready at all to work on the marriage and she was right.

BS could see how broken I was. He actually felt sorry for me. He worked at that time with screwed up teenagers and he could see that I had been acting just like one of the screwed up teenage girls he dealt with every day. And he was right. And he was also not willing to let me stay that way. He kept pushing and calling me on my shit, which given his training was not that hard for him to see.

After much digging down on the whys I discovered that a serious physical and psychological trauma I had at age 18 arrested my emotional development right there. A critical part of my healing was acknowledging and processing that trauma. When I look back on all the decisions I made in my adult life from that time forward through the lens of what I was like at 18, they make a lot more sense.

If you want to read the long version of how I got into the affair and how I got out of it and changed how I saw AP and BS, it's written out in a lot of detail on pages 25 and 26 or the thread "BS Questions for WS" in the "I Can Relate" forum here on SI.

I know you're getting some tough feedback from the BS's and that stuff is really hard and sometimes shocking to hear. We Waywards frequently start out here with brain wiring that has resulted in us deriving our sense of self-worth from our perception of how other people see us, so when the criticism and blame comes rolling in our sense of self-worth crumbles and we feel terribly unworthy of connection...in a word, shame. The fact that you've had back to back relationships makes me think you might have that kind of thinking going on and if that's the case you have a lot of work to do to become critically aware of it and then to change it, but it can be done. It takes a long time, but if I can untangle the huge ball of awful that was in my brain a week after going NC, you can too.

Education is key. Learning about infidelity and how it impacts the people involved and learning about shame, what causes it and how to become shame-resilient and learning how to stay grounded when emotions become intense and threaten to overwhelm will give you the tools you need to make the journey.

Glad you're still here.

Best to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.

Great post Evolvingsoul!

I struggled with that as well. Sometimes we fail to see how our past shaped us. It's no excuse of course. We are all adults now. Our choices are our own but our past plays a part in who we are. If we don't understand that it can bite you in the ass. If we don't understand that we can have trouble changing ourself.

[This message edited by Adotta at 11:35 PM, April 17th (Tuesday)]

Sometimes we fail to see how our past shaped us. It's no excuse of course. We are all adults now. Our choices are our own but our past plays a part in who we are.

No it's not an excuse, rather it's an explanation. We are in adult bodies but a lot of us aren't operating as adults at all.

I did a lot of thinking about what it means to become and adult and the best thing I learned about it (I can't remember precisely where I read this but it really stuck with me) has to do with the idea of interdependence. As kids we are completely dependent on other people for everything. Our food, clothing, shelter, emotional needs, everything. Becoming an adult is not about becoming independent and meeting all our own needs. It's not about becoming completely autonomous. It's about becoming someone upon whom others can rely. It's about accepting the interdependent nature of our species and being able to reliably do our part.

If we are unable to do that, then we even though we are in adult bodies, we haven't really reached adulthood, I don't think. And some people go all the way to the end of the line never actually emotionally maturing into adulthood and having no idea that there is actually any other way to think. For me it took the crucible of infidelity and its aftermath to get me to see that there was in fact another way to think and then a lot of time striving to learn how.

Sometimes it feels like I have packed about 30 years worth of emotional growth into less than 10 and for the first several years it felt like a lot of the work was underground, like growing a root system before the parts of the plant that actually make the fruit can even be built. Now, almost 8 years out, we have gotten into some good and tasty fruit. And it is glorious. 1000% worth the work.

So AP doesn't want to end the relationship, and knows you want to get back together with BH? What makes you think he won't tell BH just to sabotage your chances? If you want to EVER have a chance with BH, you need to tell him all.

Again I would really like to know the build up to the affair getting started and how exactly you detached from your husband. It's important. All we have now is bare bone skeleton of the story.

I keep hearing that as well. My new counselor even brought it up today. I really don't have a good answer, so maybe there isn't one. We had a pretty good marriage. There was nothing that my BH did to push me away. I did it to myself because I got curious, and liked the feelings I was getting by pursuing a relationship with AP. It was 100% selfish on my part. My BH is not perfect, but definitely did not drive me to want to be unfaithful.

This sounds like "I did it for the excitement and ego kibbles".

While probably true in a sense it simply lacks depth. It is essential that you dig deeper. I'm not sure you will ever be a safe partner to anyone if you don't get to the bottom of it.

You made a lifetime commitment to your H. Had children with him. Had a reasonably good marriage. And you gave all of that up for a little excitement and ego kibbles. Why was that enough to destroy yours and your kids' lives?

Probably ought to start with your family and self esteem.

Joneswoman

If I read right you told your BH, yes?? More back on that.

I read this morning what has transpired, wow. Being a BH myself I can relate what the BS’s posted. What some posted was rough around the edges, but I believe their hearts are in the right place. I would have tried to warn you that it’s one thing to suspect the person you love is up to no good, and a totally another to know with absolute certainty for it to be true.

To say it’s easy for a “circuit breaker to pop in your head” and shut down thought than be emotionally overwhelmed. Depending on how and what you told him, he’s still processing it on a multitude of levels. He may say nothing or unleash hell on you – it just depends on character and temperament.

I did read your response that it was a “family friend” (not meant to be sarcastic on the quotes, but I want it to stand out). I know you had feelings for him, but he’s not a friend. My POSOM was a so-called friend (almost best-man at my wedding). True friends don’t do that, I would rather be surrounded by enemies. With an enemy you at least know they don’t care what they do to you or how harming you makes you feel. In some way they’re more honest with you. This so-called friend lied to him everyday as his M and family life was being consumed. Smiled and stabbed him in the back every chance he could. Your H will never have fond memories of this person. Will you ever know if he encouraged your H to D? You stated it OM loves you, if your husband was on the fence to D would OM have “helped” out his decision to proceed?

You may never have an answer to if this scenario occurred, because one, the mutual “friend” probably may have felt bad knowing his part in this or two didn’t want to spoil anything between the two of you by saying anything to you; but did it ever occur that your H shared with OM about the problems he was having in his marriage???

BTW, you can bet your bottom dollar if your H did share what was occurring in his M with OM, an anger tornado is building up in him. I give it 50/50 that he could get fired or arrested by walking up to him and beating him to a pulp. And just in case you think not the case? – as in size difference or not the type to get that angry, don’t bet on it. A baseball bat up to the head when someone is not expecting it is a great equalizer. I’m hoping not the case, but still a potential possibility.

You will never know if OM misguided him on purpose, so he could be with you. Downplayed (aka gaslighting) his (your H) feelings that something was wrong, and didn’t know what to do. I know you don’t want to entertain this thought, but you don’t know if he told some of his coworkers (you know, just OM’s real close friend(s), and word got out or at least rumors got back to your H. H may have initially dismissed it, but now knows for sure it was true. You don’t know if OM shared something with a coworker that got back to your H.

You stated there were Red Flags. Did your H make accusations? At some point did he ask you point blank are you cheating? On a personal level, I did, more than once. No web site in 1992, my so-called friend had became distant so “lucky” for me, I never discussed it with him during the EA stage. A BH really doesn’t want to go there when he thinks his W is seeing someone else. You want to trust that your imagination is running wild.

Oh, a little bit of history, either April 17th or 24th (1992), my wife will meet OM for lunch at a restaurant, and when they leave they will kiss for the first time, almost two months exactly from when she started talking to them. She will tell me later that when they kissed she knew she wanted to pursue it further to see where it goes; the birth of the EA. BTW, she for the most part was “faithful” to him, so no sex for me, with the exception of she tried two days after our anniversary day to make an attempt at sex. Ready for this, with him in the living room, and us in the master bedroom. By that time, I believe she was in an active affair, and refused. After D-Day, that episode caused a huge wedge between us, it would last for years and almost caused the ending of our M. Sorry to digress.

I want you to save all the postings (especially what you wrote about OM, AP sounds too nice) that you made during this time period. I want you to read what you wrote a year from now, tell me how you feel about that person from April of 2018.

The reason I bring this up, you need to read on Limerance, and the psycho-sexual reactions that occur. Read about the addictive chemicals that are released in your brain; especially before sex has initiated and then after the sexual bonding has occurred. A therapist will state if they can catch the woman in the limerance stage before sex has occurred, the ability of breaking the affair bond and saving the M is great. But once sex has occurred and the chemical bonding has initiated, it becomes extremely impossible to break the affair. Think of yourself as a recovering alcoholic or drug addict. When you post right now we are not all convinced that you are not going to fall off the wagon. When I said “congrads” I meant it, the first step is recognizing the problem exists.

Once he (H) has processed what you have told him, he may have questions. Now because he has sort of moved on, he may not care. Remember the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. At least if the other person is mad at you they still somewhat care.

I don’t know if this may come up with your H, but if it does have two time lines of the A. One is the PG to R version, names, dates, places of major events. When boundaries were crossed, when he started flirting (for real) and you reciprocated. You stated two months, it wasn’t just talk before that first kiss (Side Bar read “Not Just Friends” by Shirley Glass, especially the amount of energy it requires to pass the first kiss threshold). The PA part just doesn’t just happen, once you decided to have sex, conscience effort had to be made (It’s never a mistake). All the elements of the affair go into the timeline.

Did OM & you talk about you H behind his back?, about what? When or did you say “I Love You”? Needs to be in the timeline. This is not a time to leave key information out.

Did you H ever hang out or call the friend when you were away? How did OM cover for that?

Now do a second time line, this one is more rated X. He may ask detailed questions, and you are going to have answer them with a lot of tact without lying about it Don’t initially give him this time line right off the bat; remember the circuit breaker. I pray tell you didn’t do anything with OM that was refused by you to your H. (You don’t have to answer that in open forum). If you did, it may be an end game on any potential R, but you can’t control the outcome (remember that). Which means you have to tell him the truth.

Scenario, OM gets mad that you’re never come back and seeks revenge. Has proof of certain sex was done, and you lied to H when asked. Game Over. It’s the continued lies that kill the remaining trust or trust building. Your H will forever shut down to any R at all with you if he finds out you lied.

Telling the truth about the details of an A have to be difficult, for one after the fog clears, and you (WW) still want a potential at putting your M together; not telling the truth can cause it to end. Telling the truth can still end the M because the BS just can’t or won’t want to be in a M with you anymore.

Last as much as you got slammed on how you felt about OM, I didn’t recall you saying it was a mistake,

Or

He meant nothing to me

Or

We never had sex, all BS triggers. My wife actual after some time passed, said he meant nothing to me, and I said so our marriage meant less than nothing to you. She didn’t respond back to that.

Even by some chance you make it, it can take years for a M to move past this.

what is the point of admitting it and causing him and I more pain? What I am trying to do is start my journey to healing me, accepting what I have done, and forgiving myself.

Not sure how anyone thinks they can be a better person while running from the truth. Not possible. I have been here for some time, and have yet to see anyone live a changed happy life while hiding the truth. You are still the same person. Hiding from fear and pain while lying and manipulating. That isn't a marriage, that is a cage that you own. If you never tell him, he isn't loving you but an imposter. He is a caged bird living a lie, he isn't free to make informed choices. He isn't free to love the true you with all your faults. Just you getting what you want. A one sided taker (you) thinking it is a relationship that will sink again because he will be married to the same person who chose to cheat on him before.

I am a believer in God, and I truly believe with God, all things are possible, including changing mine and my husband's hearts, and bringing us back together.

Well, if you are a believer in God then you know you shouldn't lie. That you must repent. That includes admitting the truth and dispelling the darkness of manipulating lies and hearts.

Also, is this really considered a "back up plan" to want to have my family back together? I left AP at my own free will. Something I feel was a huge step for me. I have been unable to detach myself from him for 2 solid years. I actually broke things off on the 2 year anniversary of our first kiss. I didn't let things run it's course with my A. My AP still very much wants to be with me and have a life together. I am just finally at a spot where I can see the A has caused so much damage in my life and inside my head/heart, that I am gaining the strength to move on. My H is not my back up plan IMO.

People are saying you should let your husband go, because they see that everything is about you and what you want. You are like a dog with a bone. Didn't give a shit about the bone till you lost it and someone else now has it. They see regret and not remorse. You never mentioned once how this has affected him or your family. Just yourself and your fears. So, of course readers are going to say you aren't entitled and you don't deserve him. You can't even tell him the truth due to your fears. So, earn the chance to earn him. Regret. You want kudos and slaps on the back because you decided that after leaving and being with the AP, you realized that he can't make you happy. No way. No one can make you happy but yourself.

If you don't want your ex-husband to feel like plan B anymore, which I agree he was since you did leave him. Sorry, but it is a fact now. You left with AP. No amount of it just "wasn't meant to be" is going to change that so start owning it. Husband was plan B. Then I suggest you work on not having any fond feelings for the man that helped you wreck his life and your childrens. You can't have fond memories and feelings for AP and hope to have your husband back.

Hey there Joneswoman,

How are you doing?

I immediately withdrew from BH when the A started. I absolutely could not sleep with 2 men at the same time. I was also emotionally unavailable and became very depressed. I was never mean or cold directly towards my BH (except for the A obviously), but I was not trying to make him hate me or want to leave. I wanted to end things very early on, but I was too scared he would hate me, and never forgive me.

Your actions ended your marriage. Your thinking right now is still wayward.

I suspect since affairs are very addictive you'll be back with your AP soon. Only the truth may solve that but as I said you're still in the wayward mindset.

I hope your ok Joneswoman.

Whatever happens I just hope you take care of your health and take care of your kids. It can seem pretty bad when your going through this stuff but keep your head up. Things get better.

I know this forum can be brutal, but hold on their is light at the end.

You made a conscience choice to end this, not because someone found out; no, because you chose for it to stop. Now you need to see this through.

The biggest thing now is not to see OM. It is your Achilles heal, it will erase all that you've started.

Stay on the path, be there for your children, let go of the outcome and focus on being a better you.

Don't dwell on the past, but understand how you got here. Work on yourself and let the future play out. I hope you've been doing some reading.

Hope to hear from you.

How are you joneswoman? I think about you from time to time. I hope you and your children are doing well.