SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I had an affair starting in Sept'13. It was emotional affair with kissing involved. Either way I'm married and it was inexcusable. I denied having it / flat out lying to his face many times over. Which probably hurts more than the affair itself. Finally came clean when he confronted with more "evidence". We started therapy immediately and have been going weekly for the most part since February.

What led to my vulnerability was my husband is OCPD. Our therapist has advised he's on the spectrum, but has not said that he is "clinical". Since she's trying to save our marriage I'm not sure how far she'll push him to address/change his behaviors but she has suggested he see another counselor to help.

So not only do we need to get thru the affair, but we also need to work thru the emotional abuse that I'm trying to understand and come to terms with. Guess I thought he'd divorce me and it would be over. But, he has proven to me that he loves me, so I in return have made the committment to end the affair and try to find the love that we once had. We have two small children in elementary school that have a huge factor in all of this too.

Good to hear everyones stories and hope that I can find some healing and help with dealing with my affair and the effect that it has had on my DH..

Hi, welcome to SI. This is a great place to begin your healing. You'll find lots of help and support from the members here. Well done on taking the first step!

You said you're in MC (marriage counselling) with your BH (betrayed husband) are you in any sort of IC (individual counselling)? Because the reasons for your A (affair) don't lie in your marriage, they lie in you.

It sounds like your marriage had some issues but I suggest exploring how and why your coping mechanisms that would normally allow you to cope with those issues, failed you. Please do not blame this all on your BH, you need to accept full responsibility for your decision to cheat.

The FAQ and articles in The Healing Library are a fantastic place to start (yellow, top left hand corner of the web page) and the book 'How to help your spouse heal from your affair' is essential reading.

There is also a thread on here 'things that every WS (wayward spouse) need to know', I'll bump it for you so you can take a look.

You have a long road ahead of you but it sounds like you're determined. Wishing you and your BH the best of luck.

[This message edited by BrokenButTrying at 3:36 PM, May 6th (Tuesday)]

One of the first things we're going to encourage you to do, here, is to take full responsibility for your A. Many of us came here blaming our spouses or marriages. But that's never the actual cause of infidelity. Even if your (I mean in geneal, not you personally) spouse cheats on you or verbally/physically abuses you, that is not what led to the A.

What led to my vulnerability was my husband is OCPD

Bzzzt. Wrong. You made a choice to betray him. That was 100% on you.

we also need to work thru the emotional abuse that I'm trying to understand and come to terms with

The emotional abuse you inflicted on BH by cheating and lying? Or were you referring to something else?

Welcome JustWant2BHappy,

How long were you M before the A? Did you know about the OCPD before you got M?

Many of us here presumed our spouses would leave us once the A was exposed. The better questions might be; why didn't you get a divorce before you started the EA and the kissing? Why did you have to go down that path? Because by choosing to have the A, were you hoping to not be the bad guy and letting your BH end the M on his terms? See...it's really some messed up thinking. Don't get me wrong...I did the same stuff.

I hope you find some answers here.

We have been married 12 years. I did not know about the OCPD until we were engaged and moved in with eachother. And from there, I felt our engagment was "marriage" in our eyes and did not realize exactly what it was and/or the affect it would have in our marriage.

The A was entirely my decision and I take full responsibility for that. But, the OCPD is what brought me to the vulnerable place in my marriage. If you are unfamiliear with OCPD it's a perfectionist view. It in the last few years went from not keeping the house to the level of perfection that he wanted but also went to my appearance that was the most detrimental and hurt my self asteem to my core. He withheld his love and positive emotions towards me. He has admitted that he felt if he told me that I was pretty or beautiful I might leave him. In the end I was not getting the emotional support that I needed from our marriage and instead of leaving/divorcing I made the terrible decision of unfaithfulness. Being called lazy & "chubby" and that I didn't love him if I couldn't clean enough to his standards was a form of emotional abuse. I was in such a "fog" and buried my feelings for so long I didn't recognize the hurt I was going through.

He has not yet made the appointment with the other counseler but I hope that he will get one within the next couple of weeks.

We are both seeing our marriage counseler together and a couple of times in individual meetings.

There are some great questions being asked above that I'm not sure I know the answers to. Why didn't I ask for the divorce.. I guess b/c I didn't want one. I wanted him to stop hurting me with the OCPD high standards and the negative comments, but when he was loving and we were away from the house cleaning we are amazing together. But, for many years I tried to push for the T but it was always that I was too sensitive and we didn't have the time for that or we couldn't find the right T, etc.. I took the cowards way to finding happiness. And didn't find it. In the end found and created a lot of HURT!

He withheld his love and positive emotions towards me. He has admitted that he felt if he told me that I was pretty or beautiful I might leave him. In the end I was not getting the emotional support that I needed from our marriage

I hear you. My BH did exactly the same, said exactly the same thing. He used to put me down and deliberately keep my confidence low so I would feel grateful to be with him and wouldn't leave him.

Thing is, it's still not the reason I cheated. It isn't yours either.

Your self esteem shouldn't be linked to what other people think of you. Your value and self worth should come from within. If it did, you wouldn't need external validation and wouldn't have gone looking for it outside your marriage, outside yourself.

Does your BH recognize the issues in the M which have resulted from the OCPD? Does he see how it has affected you? In other words, do you have any indication as to whether he will be able to work through his own issues?

I think it is very difficult for the WS to separate the problems in the M from the whole A thing. Yes, we know we cheated, we see too late that we inflicted almost unimaginable hurt, except that it is something our BS's don't have to imagine because they are experiencing it first hand. So, there are pre-A issues in the M. Fine. We get that. And that is something you two can hopefully work through. There is still work to do to figure out the things that BBT points out above. Why do you need the external validation?

You have a level of mess added to this since his OCPD is directly related to your self-esteem problems. How were you able to handle it earlier in your marriage? What finally snapped that you could no longer handle it and had to get involved with another man?

buried my feelings for so long I didn't recognize the hurt I was going through.

IMO, this is pointing towards your "why." And hopefully towards fixing you. Why weren't you able to stand up and say "I deserve better than this."

I know, I've BTDT. Instead of putting in the positive work of fixing the things around me, I took the quick fix of an A. Every day I wish I would have had the courage to speak up.

Lots of good stuff to read here. Good luck.