SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My Story:

I've been married to my husband for 10 years this summer. We were high school sweethearts and worked hard to do everything right. We were dedicated to our Christian faith, waited until marriage to have sex, graduated college, have great jobs and truly love each other. In the last 6 or so years we had developed somewhat of a rebellious lifestyle, going out the bars, drinking too much, which (long story short) led to us making some poor decisions. It's amazing how your inhibitions can be slowly chipped away at until one day they're no longer there and we do something we regret. I've been having on off and on affair with my husband's best friend for 4 years, beginning always under the influence of alcohol and eventually becoming pre-meditated. I never loved the man but I loved the extra companionship, excitement, and self-confidence. I learned early on that I was not at all compatible with this man, but by this point I was so deep in the fog that I continued for the above reasons and I honestly believed my behavior was acceptable as long as nobody found out. I always told myself that I would never confess to save my husband the pain and just live with the knowledge and regret.

After the birth of my daughter (yes she is my husbands), I slowly realized I no longer wanted to be a part of that lifestyle. After a few more alcohol influenced slip-ups, I broke it off with him last April. 3 weeks later I found out I was pregnant again and had NO idea which one was the father. I was devastated and scared beyond belief, that my careless acts might cause such pain and devastation to my husband and daughter. Long story short, I fell down before God, a broken women, and begged for guidance. The peace I've felt since has been amazing, even while faced with such circumstances. I had a prenatal paternity exam done which I just received the results from last week and it confirmed that my husband IS in fact the baby's father.

However relieved I am at this fact, I now feel led to confess everything to my husband. I have NEVER been that type of person. I have never sacrificed my pride for honor. I've always been the type of person who could easily lie to save someone else pain. People in other forums think I'm crazy for wanting to do this when I could just walk away and pretend it never happened. I would have felt the same way a year ago, but I honestly now believe that I love my husband too much to lie to him any longer. I love him enough to be honest about who I used to be, who I'd like to become, and give him the opportunity to leave me if he would rather. I believe that the truth is always eventually exposed and I would rather face the battle willingly, with honest remorse, than be surprised and forced into confession somewhere down the line. So I've spent months preparing myself for my D-day:

*I've been reading these forums every day and have thoroughly studied "The Healing Library".

*I'm willing to take FULL responsibility for my actions.

*I willing to be a completely open book. No more deleting text messages and emails. I will give him complete access to my phone and email accounts and encourage him to check in on me frequently.

*I'm willing to confess EVERYthing. I want him to re-learn to trust me so I will no longer hold anything back. I cringe at this however, because the full truth is so very ugly. Do I just go ahead and blurt everything out or do I wait for him to ask?

*I am 100% willing for no contact. I have already maintained this for the last 4 months except for twice: I saw OM once for 5 minutes to get a specimen for the paternity test and I texted him 2 weeks later with the results (I felt he deserved to know).

However no contact has been complicated by the fact that we are friends with OM and his wife. We use to see them on a weekly basis, even go on trips with them. This has obviously dwindled. I doubt my husband will care to see either of them after I confess. However, his wife still contacts me for us to get together and I don't know how to handle this. I don't feel it's my place to expose all of this to her. OM is so convinced that if she ever found out she would take their son and leave him forever, to the point where he tried to convince me to have an abortion just to avert the possibility. I would willingly apologize to her if she knew but I don't feel it's my place to initiate a rift in their marriage.

Does anybody (WS and/or BS) have any further advice on how I should proceed with my confession? I have honestly never been more scared in my entire life.

First off, you're doing the right thing by telling him. That's a big step and takes a lot of courage. He may not appreciate it at first, but after the shock wears off a little, it will probably make a big difference to him that you at least spared him the indignity of finding out on his own. That IS an act of kindness and love, because you're showing him that you respect him enough to be honest.

That being said, his whole world is about to be destroyed. Bs is going to need a lot of support to get through this, and he may or may not want that from you.

Be prepared to do whatever you can. You are honestly making such a good choice in telling him, so let the knowledge that you are behaving with integrity help to give you strength as you help him through this. Keep posting here, and if you are comfortable sharing this site with him, encourage him to come on here as well. It's a unique kind of pain that he will be facing, and talking to others who understand can be so helpful.

My other thought right now us that the OM's wife really does deserve to know. OM lost the right to a "secure" marriage when he entered into the affair. I would confess to your BH first, but she really deserves to know. I think you owe that to her. She thought you were her friend. She needs to know what is REALLY going on her life so she can make the best decision for her and her son.

Anyways, just my 2 cents. Please keep posting, there are so many wise and supportive people on here to help you as you go through this. You are doing the right thing!! You should be proud of that.

(((((mrsdwp6)))))

Welcome to SI.

So why did you sleep with the OM in the first place? Being drunk isn't going to be a good enough answer.

Why did you keep going back and not confess after that first time? Liking the extra companionship isn't going to be a good enough answer.

Why did you keep it going for 4 years? Because you convinced yourself that it was better to not tell him is not going to be a good enough answer.

You haven't been NC for 4 months, you have only been NC since you called to let him off the hook about your child. Why didn't you tell your BH and get a sample from him?

It's great that you are here, and I think it is great that you are going to confess, but there really isn't much you can do to prepare for it. You just have to do it and then follow his lead, which he won't even be sure of. so just hold on, learn to listen to him. Learn to communicate. Learn what was missing in you to falter for 4 years.

Good luck. Keep posting and definitely tell the OM's BW.

Start a timeline/story with the details in case your BS wants to know. This way you won't forget and he can read it whenever he wises.

I would willingly apologize to her if she knew but I don't feel it's my place to initiate a rift in their marriage.

You've already initiated a rift in her marriage. It just hasn't been uncovered yet.

I would heed baxterbff's, Sandcrab and Erica8's posts.

There will be no good explanation for betraying him for 4 years with his best friend. Especially if he was a good husband.

Honesty heals faster than deception ever will.

[This message edited by floridaredman at 9:08 PM, August 15th (Monday)]

My 2 cents. I'm a BW.

Also be prepared this might be a deal breaker and your BH might want out of the relationship after being told.

I agree your reasons are not going to be good enough. You need to figure out the real WHY you broke the marriage vows.

Why you needed validation from another man is a starter.

As all WSes will tell you the real whys don't come easy and they can be ugly.

I would do some heavy self work before any confession.

Are you prepared with timelines and intimate details ? He is going to want it all.

How you felt when OM did oral.

What positions and how that felt.

how long before he came ?

What did he said, what did you say.

It's not going to be easy for you and it shouldn't.

I personally wouldn't be doing this pregnant.

I hope you do the hard work for you BH, individually (before confession) and as a couple.

You were his only and now you've shared something very sacred. It's going to hurt like hell for him, a pain he won't think he can recover from. Most of us end up on the floor in a ball for weeks and months after dday.

Hugs and I wish you luck.

gma

bs here.

Don't do it. Please. Truly repent and be done with it. I would give anything in my life to have never gone through this hell. Here I am 3 years later, and the pain is still searing. Your BH is going to be doubley betrayed. Please don't tell him. Promise to yourself and God to never do such a thing again, get control of your alcohol issue, get yourself to IC but spare the poor man this pain.

I wish I could go back to the day before this happened and have my old life back. Nothing has ever been as beautiful again. The world was drained of color that day.

Absolutely CONFESS. Erica8 is speaking from experience here - she is my FWW and is only one of two on here that I know that did this. It saved our marriage. Be prepared for the fact that this might be too much for him but if confessing it is too much then think of how much worse him finding out about it would be - you are right the truth is always exposed eventually and it is better to confess and repent then to be caught and be forced to. Your BH is going to see any repentance after you get caught as insincere.

As for OM, you owe him nothing, pretending to be you BH’s BFF while screwing around with his wife makes his opinion of the situation null and void. DO NOT TELL HIM YOU ARE GOING TO CONFESS. Erica8 made this mistake and it gave OM some time to prepare – not much but enough (and that is the real trick with this; learn from other people’s mistakes). Erica8 called OM’s F and confessed but Om had enough time to prep a story that she stayed even though he has cheated on her several times. He shouldn’t have anything for what he has done to our family. I am not saying that you want to destroy OM’s life, what I mean is if you tell him, he will spin you in a much worse light to his BW then is true just to save his own can. I would tell your BH and then go tell OM’s BW as soon as possible. Give her the details she needs and if she leaves she leaves. She needs to make that decision based on the whole truth not the sham OM has made of their marriage. They need to rebuild – truly rebuild – from scratch just as you do. Whether she can or can’t do that, it’s her right to make that choice based on the truth, not the story he spins out of this.

“I would willingly apologize to her if she knew but I don't feel it's my place to initiate a rift in their marriage.”

It is absolutely your place to expose the truth especially if she is your friend. FRM is right – the rift is already there. If the roles were reversed wouldn’t you want to know?

GMA is also right – he will need the details especially if you waited- again I know from experience. Erica8 is the only woman I have ever slept with and it absolutely killed me to know what they did but it had to be out in the open or it would have festered and I wouldn’t know what I need to forgive her for. GMA is also right (as I mention above) that this might be a deal breaker. Do you love him enough to accept that you may be responsible for ending the M? This is a real possibility you need to be prepared for. Your M can survive and it can even be better then before the A but he has a part to play in that and this could be it. Do you love him enough to fight right until the day he marries someone else? Do you love him enough to understand that if he can’t forgive you, you may eventually have to let him go? If you do then you can make it if he can forgive you.

YOU ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING. Chin up. If anything can save your marriage this act of love and kindness will. Along with a truly repentant heart; read 1 John 1:9 – it’s the truth.

I’m sorry for you HowMany but are you saying you would be happier with you H if he continued to cheat and you just never found out? I’m going to have to completely disagree with that advice. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s ignorance.

Another Betrayed Spouse. Just my two cents, but if it sounds like you have done much soul searching and are truly wanting to turn your life around...and that's a good thing. But truthfully, you are about to open the largest can of snakes you can imagine. Realize that if you do this thing, you may possibly lose everything. I say confess to God, say good-bye to your lover and tell him how you feel about your husband and family. And go about your business of making your husband be the happiest man he can be on this earth. I would not reveal to him what you have done...not now...not ever, as long as you are done with it. Just my very humble opinion.

t/j to answer that question to Tol.

No, I would have been happier if he had seen the error of his ways and took serious efforts to fix himself, as MrsDWP is trying to.

THAT is what I wish could have happened. My life, my children's life and our extended family would have been saved from this horrible pain he inflicted upon all of us. If only he had known how much pain infidelity causes, perhaps he would have done things differently.

My wife and I have been together for ten years. I am 31 and she is 28. We have three beautiful children.

Throughout my life I have always heard people say that I am the happiest person they've ever known. I always could see the positive in anything and I lived my life being the person everyone around me would naturally go to when they were in a crisis.

In January, my wife admitted to me that she had been having an affair with a teacher she taught with at her school. It started as mild flirting in September of 2010, became an emotional relationship in October, and beginning November 2 they started sleeping together.

I feel I am going through what very possibly your husband is going to be going through soon. I don't think I have smiled in eight months. The only portions of my day that are not full of sadness, self hate, rage is that first moment of the day when you wake up and you're in between sleeping and being awake. From there my life is a mess.

I hate myself. Many days I pray that I will go to sleep and not wake up the next since I'm too much of a chicken to kill myself. My first six months of knowing about the affair I had constant suicidal thoughts but that is the one thing that has sort of tapered off over the months.

I don't know if you've read up much on it but there is not a tremendous amount of literature out there that has to do specifically with the wife cheating on the husband. At this point I feel that I have read every "Affair" book that exists and it really hurts that in 90% of them the book is referring to me, the reader, as a betrayed wife..... like this can't happen to a husband.

I feel like I did everything right as a husband. Always brought her flowers, always made sure she knew how beautiful she was.. even, and especially when she was feeling super fat from being pregnant, I ask her about her day, spend the little extra money that we would get to find things for us to do just the two of us. Being this kind of husband, especially when I see the majority of my friends and coworkers being NOT like this at all to their wives, I thought I really had an affair proof marriage. We were happy! When as a betrayed spouse, you know in your heart you gave it your all.. you put everything into your marriage and never thought twice about it.... for something like this to happen, it makes you feel like your best isn't good enough. Like, your best never would have been good enough. If I was so sure about my wife and my marriage and I was wrong about that, what else must I be wrong about?

The night she told me about the affair... I know this may sound like it doesn't need to be said, but short of something happening to my children, there is nothing worse that could ever happen to me. If she had pulled out a gun and shot me in the face, that would have felt better than her telling me such a horrible thing.

I saw one person post, pleading with you not to tell him. There was a time I would have been like the other people on your thread and I would say "Of course you have to tell him! He deserves it!" After everything I've been through... I don't know if I can say that 100% that is the thing you should for sure do. I mean, there really is NO way to tell how he is going to react. I have NEVER felt anything close to a suicidal thought. I have NEVER been a violent person. I have NEVER been someone who could not see any self worth in themselves.

Now, suicide isn't an uncommon thing to think about when I'm just walking around the house, driving to work, playing with my kids. The RAGE, RAGE, RAGE, RAGE, RAGE I feel that this other man has been inside my wife!..... has done things to my wife that only I should do... that my wife has done things to him.... that I actually had met this man and shook his hand while I was holding all three of my children!... the RAGE I felt and still feel. again... that was NEVER the kind of person i ever was. But even now, GOD how I have had to talk myself, plead with myself, scream at myself to NOT go to him and beat him within inches of his life. If this man that I had only met once was a FRIEND of mine... oh my god I don't know how I would react to that. I cannot imagine.

If you tell him... please do not make the mistakes my wife made, which from reading your post, it looks like you did your research and very likely will not do these things. Having kept this a secret for so long, you may naturally feel this rush of relief after you tell him. As I was dying inside.. seeing the relief on my wife's face, seeing how good she felt, it was unbearable. PLEASE do not be negative to him as you tell him. As I was yelling and screaming, which I had NEVER done to my wife until that night, she got defensive and started basically telling me ways in which this was my fault. PLEASE you have to realize that that is probably going to happen. After the tears and the crying and the disbelief... and especially when the mental images, the mental movies of this man and you having sex over and over start running through his head... he is going to YELL.. he is going to SCREAM. I would hope that he doesn't get physical. My wife actually told me she was worried I was going to hit her. I have never hit anyone in my life and have never been a violent person. It made me sad that she thought I was capable of that. And, luckily for your husband, you seem ready to heal. My wife had to be convinced for months to do anything past once a week counseling. When we would talk out of counseling, she would get very upset and start yelling at ME. That would not help the situation.

Also, If you are going to tell him.. always tell the truth. I have seen MANY coping with affairs books that say do not give details about the sex to your betrayed spouse. Most of these books have been written with the mindset that the betrayed spouse is the wife and the one who had the affair was the husband. When I talk to people who are going through this, betrayed wives most times tell me "I wouldn't want details, the fact that it happened is enough." Betrayed husbands demand details and, from experience, kinda need it. Heres my reasoning. With no details... your husband is going to create his own scenarios of what you and this man did. And those scenarios he imagines are going to be ten times worse than the raunchiest and nastiest porno movie. Finding out the details was awful... but it was not as awful as imagining for months that they did disgusting things that you see on the internet. You can try to reason with him.. but if you can tell he needs it, I would consider giving them to him.

DO NOT LIE DO NOT LIE DO NOT LIE. This has been the worst part of our recovery. My wife feels so terrible about hurting me, that she will tell what she sees as little white lies to not let me suffer further pain. What she doesn't understand is that once this bombshell drops... the littlest lie that happens down the road feels like further proof that I shouldn't trust her. You will be earning back his trust so please do not lie.

If you have children, if they are older than three years old they will know something is happening. We have done everything we can to not let our children see us argue and to basically be normal around them. Yet, a week after I found out about the affair, my 7 year old started acting up and being bad in school. Something he never did. As we recovered, he started to go back to normal. Then my wife told some more lies and I started feeling depressed again but STILL not showing to my kids. almost immediately, he was being bad at school again. Keep in mind that your kids are beyond aware that something isn't right and it may affect them.

Lastly, be prepared for the fact that he may walk out the door. Be prepared that he won't be able to handle this. For a LONG time when he sees you in front of him, he is going to see that man having sex with you, he is going to see you performing oral sex on him, he is going to see anything and everything the two of you did or may have did every time he looks at you. A lot of guys can't take that. They can't take knowing their wife could do this with another man.

I hope you and your husband get through this.. whatever you decide to do. It is such a sad feeling reading your post and knowing that your husband is about to go down this road, his life changed forever. These forums are great and you'll want to introduce him to these. If you need additional support, I will not mind private messages from you... or him for that matter should he find himself here. My wife even would be willing to give you support should you need it. Be strong mrsdwp6.... and I so wish you and your husband and family the best.

I am with HowMany.

had my wh ended his disaster and repented, fixed himself and I never knew about it....I would be much happier.

Confession makes the sinner feel better. I wish I had never found out (and it had died on its own)

I realize this is the minority of opinions but.consider....are you wanting to tell him to help HIM or YOU?

You are doing the right thing by telling him. It will be hard and bumpy road.

I hope you will tell him about this site so that we can support him through his shock and healing process.

Honestly is always the best policy in my opinion and BS's can heal from betrayal as can marriages.

Confession makes the sinner feel better. I wish I had never found out (and it had died on its own)

I realize this is the minority of opinions but.consider....are you wanting to tell him to help HIM or YOU?

I must respectfully and vehemently disagree with this line of thought. Opening up yourself and telling is the best and ONLY real way to gain and build real intimacy and trust. Being vunerable is the only way to put your heart and soul on the line, all or nothing. Having all of the real you is better than only having 90% of the real you. Being able to love a person who's deepest darkest secret you know and still love them really is the ultimate initimacy factor in any relationship..think about best friends who share secrets with each other. How close that makes you, how it builds the bond of trust.

How Many and I needmore coffee, I truly understand the desire to alleviate the incredible amount of pain you both are enduring. But anything other than the complete truth would be living a LIE. Having a full understanding and complete truth allows the person to make the best informed decision for themselves without undue influence of lies and half truths. Think of it as a court of the heart where every lie and half truth continuously convicts you and puts you farther away from where you really want to be. Not having the whole truth keeps you chained to that "sin". And as my pastor used to say, "anything you cant talk about freely, keeps you chained to it forever". The power (chains) that the "sin" holds over you must be broken to be free. Remember, "The truth shall set you free".

All of us are here bc we want that freedom to be all of our authentic and real selfs with our spouses no matter that may be. To not give all of you is like saying love this part but not that part. look at all this good and take it but leave the bad which is impossible. We all want real love, whole, truthful, honest, authentic, intimate, caring, nuturing, physical, mental, and spiritual. Bits and pieces arent enough and just wont work.

-please forgive my typing, im working on it.

Telling is the right thing to do. My stbx's first infidelities were deeply concealed. But lies and secrecy erect barriers to intimacy.

There is simply no way to have emotional intimacy in the presence of this type of secret.

It makes my heart sick to read this thread. So much pain.

I thought, too, I would be for sure in the camp of confession...and I stand by that now but with reservations.

I think your husband *deserves* to know the foundation on which his M and life stands. If he thinks it is firm and it's not, what will happen if someone else puts the seed of doubt into his mind? What if OM and wife D and he or she comes forward??

I can't stand the thought that if WH had done something behind my back, with another person, how much of a fool that made me for not knowing -- not that it was my responsibility to know, but it was my RIGHT to know what I was dealing with.

The healing that comes or the separation that comes, comes from a firmer foundation of truth than if the lie was rugswept (not telling is rugsweeping).

It is a hard life's lesson, but I cannot for the life of me find a really good reason to keep a lie, now. Not even just to keep someone else from feeling the pain of a wrong already in progress that they don't see.

I realized my life was out of control but didn't have the courage, the decency, the moral fortitude to confess. I was found out, and that made it so much worse. SO. Much.

There is no right time. Just make sure it's not rushed or hurried, and that you have time to talk, and present your facts. Be prepared for rage and anger, but really? Do it soon. If it will help, I'll say a prayer for you both for strength.

Don't worry about the OM or his BW, you need to take care of your BH first and foremost. That part will come later, if at all.

I am a BW. There are times that I wish I didn't know. He really wouldn't have had to tell me, we were separated when he told me. He started the affair months before we were separated. He was trying to get back together with me and so he broke it off with her, after putting her off for a couple of months and really hardly seeing her. And then he told me...he was suicidal when he told me and I had to talk him out of driving into a tree and talk him thru it to get him to my place. It was really hard to show him compassion but as a human being, it was hard to see someone in that kind of pain. It destroyed him but that would have happened anyway.

I guess the thing is, what if we had just gotten back together and then I found out. I would have been in worse shape had someone else told me. It could have been the other BS, it could have been the OW...he wanted to lay all the cards on the table so that I knew what was going on and I could understand why he was so cold in those months before I left. There was a tiny, teeny amount of relief that it wasn't my fault. Now the affair, tore me apart, it brought me to my knees. It opened rage and anger that I didn't know I was capable of. It caused an ache in my soul that I didn't think I could live through. I have asked myself so many times, why did he tell me...was it to ease his conscience, or was it because I deserved to know. I deserved to know and he earned the right to have to watch all this ugly come out of me. I am stronger than I ever thought I could be, I mean I always was surviving this shit didn't make me stronger, it just proved I was.

He went looking for something to make him feel complete instead of looking for what was lacking inside himself. He found himself lacking. You will need to answer some hard questions, be honest. If you don't know, say you don't, don't make an excuse but be willing to put in the work to find the answer. Because you are a woman, your husband will have so many challenges that he shared you sexually with another man. That seems to be a bigger trigger for men than women, don't get me wrong, it drove me almost nuts for a long time but I am getting better. For me the betrayal felt worse because he talked to her about me, she asked details about me and he fucking told her...I realize now it was because it was conversation, he didn't really care about her to even ask her about her life, he just didn't give a shit. So as long as she did the talking, he would answer. He also began to believe what he was saying about me. He was honest about that and I appreciate that although it hurt. You can't hurt your husband any more than this. He might decide he is finished with you. He might not but you have to be willing to deal with whatever comes and suck it up. Its going to be horrible but its a consequence of your choice.

Good people make mistakes, it happens but then they have to deal with the fallout and own their shit. I believe you are very sorry. I think you are a good person who lived a double life and you were able to justify it to yourself and got wrapped up in it. You need IC, you need it now because until you figure out what the hell you were really thinking, you are at risk.

I wish you well, I sincerely mean that too. It actually helped me heal to read your story. To hear that you were sorry, to know your pain. I hope you can find a small amount of solace in that at least. I love my husband, I didn't like who he was and I have no use for that person. He has truly become the person I knew was there all along. And no, I didn't want to change him, its that I saw him for who he was, he just didn't. Take a deep breath, take care of yourself. I am a little concerned for your pregnancy as the stress you are feeling now might actually feel worse afterwards. My WS said the relief he felt was tremendous but the pain that he created was visual and that was horrendous.

No, I would have been happier if he had seen the error of his ways and took serious efforts to fix himself, as MrsDWP is trying to.

Howmany,

My WH saw the horror of his ways the first time he cheated. 1 year later he was cheating again. There recently was a WS who saw the horror of her ways, was in IC, and she still cheated again.

Seeing the horror, trying to fix it, but never confessing doesn't work.

[This message edited by icbtih8 at 2:51 AM, August 16th (Tuesday)]