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Hey there lord. I’m sorry you’re here. I understand you’re pain. You are still in the early stages.

Are you planning on telling your BS? I hope that you are. When that happens, it will certainly help to end the fog. You will feel even worse than you do now but it’s a new pain. A raw pain. One that will help you to build a new future, with or without your BS is TBD but once you see the pain that you’ve caused her, your outlook will change and you will certainly care much less about AP. It takes a while to get them out of your system. I still dream about mine and my lord do I hate myself when I wake up and remember the dreams. But it really does get less and less.

As far a writing a letter to AP to officially end things, I know how you feel on that one too. I don’t think it’s a good idea. It could just perpetuate the cycle. Furthermore when you do come clean to your wife, if that is your intent, she may want to talk to AP and APs new flame. Either way, AP will know that it’s over one way or another once it truly is. Just my thoughts.

Oh and another reason not to write a letter is bc you are still in the fog. You may see things different in a few months. Heck, I see things different today than I did a couple weeks ago. I think back to the letter I wrote and it was far too kind considering what I think now. All the lies, selfishness, fantasy bullshit that I misconstrued as love... that’s the part that was real and he deserved a giant fuck off letter rather than the one I wrote. I wish I could take it back but I wrote it in the fog. So there’s that. Once you have reality back, things will look different I think.

sorry

Stop sign😬

[This message edited by Sadwife53 at 9:11 PM, May 15th (Tuesday)]

My best advise would be to tell your wife sooner rather than later. When you do, do not lie, do not minimize, and answer every question honestly no matter how difficult or painful it may be to answer. It will make things so much worse. If you're honest your relationship will still have a glimmer of trust left, because you were honest. If you lie and deceive for your own self preservation, my bf says this brought more pain and damage than the affair itself. I was sad, scared, and a coward. Please learn from my mistakes and just be honest. It will be heart breaking and soul crushing, your relationship will never be the same but that is the painful consequence of our ww choices.

All the best, I can completely relate to your feelings for your AP. Maintain NC and stay strong, it will get easier each day without them. Especially after you see the pain you both have inflicted on your spouse.

Thank you all for your posts. It has really helped.

To FoenixRising - Thanks for the advice. This is good counsel and what I needed. I definitely need to wait before I send my 'final' letter, if I do at all. I think that by the time I am ready, I probably wont need to send it.

I know I have many reasons for wanting 'closure' with my AP. But the main one is this. I feel that my AP has been in control from the beginning .She initiated it, knew how to exploit my weaknesses for her advantage, strung me along until she found someone else, then lied to me for months until I accidently found out, then shut me out of her life as if I meant nothing to her at all.

By sending her a letter that says ' I HAVE DECIDED IT IS OVER', I feel it empowers me in a way that I will never have the temptation to try to go back....and So that she cannot come back to me again and again when it suits her. Is this selfish of me, or helpful? I am so confused.

All....I think I am moving from the denial and bargaining stage to the anger stage. I am so pissed at myself for falling into this trap, and for how I was manipulated. I let it happen so I have only myself to blame. But still, when I think about all of the pain and hurt it has caused me (and not my AP) , and even more the hurt and pain it will cause my spouse and family, it makes me sick to my stomach.

My AP was so amazing at the time. Respectful, thoughtful, intellectually stimulating, sexually interested in me ( I am 14 years older than her), it was hard to believe that it was not real.

But now I know it wasn't.

to WhatHaveIDone23- Thank so you so much. I have not decided yet whether to tell my BS. I know that I have to, but I have not yet the courage or emotional stability to do so. I pray I will be able to someday. It will be the subject of another separate post from me.

To Sadwife53- thank you for your post. I managed to read it before you retracted it. It actually helps to hear from a BS, especially one married for 31 years, like I am. I would like to hear your story. I used the stop sign only because I am still very new to all of this and am not sure I could handle the raw and critical challenges that I know I deserve...….Please send me your story. I would like to hear it - it may help me better calibrate where I really need to spend my energy.

lord tennyson