For as many Wayward Spouses (WS) as we have here, registered and contributing to this forum, I have no doubt we have many who are reading but who are not yet sure if they want to take the step to register for this forum and share their story.
To all of you who are in this place, I offer the following:
Welcome to SI. While I am saddened that you find yourself here, you have made the first of what will hopefully be many "right choices". Here you will find healing, guidance, support and knowledge. It requires nothing of you, save some time to read what has been given so freely by others. I am glad you have found your way here, and offer my encouragement to you to make the most of this resource.
If you have not already done so, click on the Library link in the menu and read the content in the Healing Library. There are a large number of contributions which will help you sort through the maze of emotions you are feeling right now. We have all, at one time or another, been where you are. We freely offer to help you figure out this whole thing.
Provided you have made the decision to make healthy choices, be sure you are taking the immediate steps required of any recovering WS. You need to go no contact (NC) with your other person (OP) now. Regardless of how your brain tells you that you feel - that you want to save your marriage or that you want to leave to be with your OP - you need to give yourself the ability to make such decisions with clarity of thought. You simply cannot do so in the presence of an affair. If you step back for a while and still want to make the choice to leave, you can do so with far more confidence and peace of mind than if you are influenced by the addictive properties of an affair.
You need to seek out counseling and support. Regardless of how you felt about your marriage, your choice to enter an affair was a wrong one. You need to identify why you allowed yourself to make that choice, and to change the thought process that enabled your affair to avoid the possibility of repeating the same problem in the future.
You need to gain as many perspectives on what has happened as you can. Read the books you see repeated here most often: "After the Affair", "Not Just Friends", "The Five Love Languages" and many others which can help you see through the confusion you may feel now. Seek out and obtain Individual Counseling (IC) on your own - don't wait for your Betrayed Spouse (BS) to ask it of you or set it up for you. This is part of the process you need to own yourself in order for it to work.
Become fully transparent to your BS. Tell the full story the first time - don't let pieces leak out as "trickle truth". Yes, it will hurt them deeply. But it's far better to create one large hurt and find a path forward than to have several smaller hurts that repeat over and over, with each one cutting deeper and more painfully. Share all ID's and passwords to your email, IM, cell and other communication accounts. Since you have gone NC, there is no longer any reason to fear your BS seeing what you are up to. This is NOT an invasion of your privacy. When you married, two became as one. If the marriage is to survive and grow strong, you need to have no secrets between you so that you are each prepared to help the other through their challenges.
Finally, I encourage you to register for this site, and to contribute your story at your own pace and speed. You will expand the benefit you receive from SI a hundredfold if you share your experience. Others here are prepared to offer you support, guidance and care, leveraging their experiences so that you don't have to "reinvent the wheel".
Again, welcome to SI. We stand ready to help you heal and find the peace you want in life.
(Original post created by Listeningclosely)
