SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Have you done the basics? You must have no contact with the AP forever. Hence, a no contact letter. If he's married has his wife been informed?

Was there any enabling friends? They would have to be cut off as well.

The thing is once somethings said or written you can't unsay or unwrite it. All you can do at this point is answer his questions truthfully. This is up to him and out of your hands at this point.

As a rule of thumb. Reconcillition takes 2-5 years with no guarantee.

Infidelity is the gift that keeps on giving.

That's what your in for.

Can you handle that?

Yes I told my AP that sex was better with him than my husband and that I loved him more than I ever loved my husband. I believed both of these at the time because my feelings were so intense. The affair was like a drug that caused my feelings to be so intense they were overwhelming. When my affair bubble popped my sexual and emotional feelings for my AP decreased substantially over a very short period of time. Now I am disgusted that I ever had sex with the man or thought I loved him. I now know he was just using me for sex and I was using him to feel the intense emotions that come from being desired. I wanted to be desired. He wanted sex. That was the trade off. I even embellished the sex and sexting to get the desire from him. None of this helps my husband understand what happened because he does not understand the motives for affair nor does he believe in limerence or the fog. The fact that I will probably lose my husband and full time access to my children is devastating to me. The fact that my behavior will probably force my husband to lose full time access to his children is devastating to him. The fact that our children will probably lose full time access to both parents will be devastating to them.

[This message edited by 1970 at 5:38 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

Yes I have done the basics. I have not talked to the AP since Dday. I have also given my BH full access to all my devices and accounts. He doesnt seem to care about transparency or accountability which I take as an indication he does not care if our marriage continues. I dont think he cares what I do or where I go. He goes through long periods of time where he will barely look at me much less talk to me.

We havent hugged or kissed or had sex for six months.

Like I said I am pretty sure he is only staying for the children.

[This message edited by 1970 at 5:40 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

Full disclosure, I don't believe in limerance or the fog either. I believe you had the ability at every step of your affair to think about what you were doing and come to the conclusion that any decent, thinking person would - that what you were doing was horrific and inexcusable. You just didn't care. You wanted what you wanted and your husband could rot.

Your feelings are one thing, but you have the ability to regulate them and decide if and how you'll act on them just like everyone else. You found a man who evidently excited you and turned you on in a way your husband never did or could and you felt entitled to engage in an illicit relationship with him.

I have no good news to offer you. You didn't just cheat, you specficially demeaned your husband, his attractiveness, and his sexual prowess to your affair partner many times over and took what would've already been a massive blow to his ego and self-worth and made it something he may never recover from whether he stays with you or not. It was cruelty on an unimaginable level. I can guarantee you he's only staying for the children because there is literally no reason at all to stay with someone who has the capacity within them to do that to an innocent person.

What was it that possessed you to go from lies and sneaking around to outright cruelty? You need to know the answer to this question, not just for your husband but for yourself. "Getting swept up in the feelings" is not a reason nor is it an excuse.

[This message edited by firenze at 5:46 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

1970,

The good news is that you have told him the complete and detailed truth. Trickle Truth is a killer and resets the clock to zero or negative even. He has two to five years of recovery ahead of him after he hears the last relevant detail.

The reason he keeps asking is to see if your story changes. Please tolerate this as he has to use whatever he has at his disposal to confirm your honesty.

Did you write out a timeline and offer to take a polygraph, perhaps a post nuptial agreement?

In his mind he will never again be special to you and will never measure up, he is likely having non-stop mind movies and nightmares.

Has he confirmed your stories with the OM, and has he confronted the OM and exposed him.

It sounds like no one knows about this but BH, You and OM, someone once said that have a WW help you was like having your rapist for a therapist.

[This message edited by survrus at 6:35 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

1970,

One other issue is please don't try to convince him what he wrote was not real, that's close to gas lighting, which is a cruel form of psychological abuse.

The other important question is how was your sex life before the affair, if it was infrequent or you rarely reached orgasm, or were dry your BH remembers now, and this affair just confirmed what he already knew.

1970, if you read much here on SI you'll see the term "shit sandwich" used a lot to describe what a WW serves to her BH via her PA. There are various portion sizes of this meal. I'm inferring from the large number of graphic messages that yours was a long term highly sexual A. Since you demeaned and belittled your BH's sexual prowess in writing, and I'll go out on a limb and infer that you even did things that your BH will interpret as preferring the AP over him sexually, such as avoiding sex with your BH in favor of sex with the AP, or doing sex acts with the AP that your BH desired but was denied. Or perhaps sloppy seconds with your BH. Etc.

The point is, your BH has a full pound of shit in his sandwich. In context, the distinction you're trying to have him grasp, even if true, is akin to saying: "It's not the full 16 oz you think it is. Really, if you knew the truth, you'd realize it's only 15.5 oz."

In other words, the distinction you are drawing is immaterial at best, and to most of us it sounds like the kind of mental gymnastic reverse engineering newly minted WW's do to try to minimize the extent of their betrayal.

If you want a chance of R, the worst thing you can do is minimize. Really, your only hope is to own your conscious decision -- or, rather, the hundreds or thousands of decisions (at least one or two for each message, plus dozens each physical encounter -- that you made when you chose to betray your BH. Own it. Be 100% transparently honest, even with the darkest thoughts you had. You have nothing to lose. Your marriage is already dead. You can't kill it more. But you may be able to build a new marriage if you (a) figure out how to make yourself safe, and (b) convince your BH that your love and your newfound sexual desire for him is true.

The second part will be a Sisyphean task. I am certain your BH feels like your sexual Plan B. No man who feels this way will ever R with his WW. There have been a few threads here on SI where a WW was able to overcome this barrier, even after a long-term highly sexual A. It is an ephemeral matter of the heart, and it only works if it's true. That is, you need to look inside of yourself to figure out whether your BH really is the sexual man of your dreams. Does your heart and your body truly prefer your BH sexually over the highest sexual highs of your A. If not, do your BH a favor and confirm that he is your sexual Plan B and let him make his decisions. It only works if it is true.

If it is true, you need to show him this with every fiber of your being, in every waking moment you are with him.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 7:50 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

That is, you need to look inside of yourself to figure out whether your BH really is the sexual man of your dreams. Does your heart and your body truly prefer your BH sexually over the highest sexual highs of your A. If not, do your BH a favor and confirm that he is your sexual Plan B and let him make his decisions. It only works if it is true.

If it is true, you need to show him this with every fiber of your being, in every waking moment you are with him.

This a million times! As a WW, my BH would have been out the door in less than a second if I hadn't shown him (and had it be 100% genuine) that he was my #1 priority in all things. Sexual, romantic, friendship, family, etc. Tell him, show him, reinforce it in everything you do. Keep answering his questions, don't get defensive, and as others have said, stop minimizing with limerance. You felt something and you acted on it. Figure out why, what was broken inside of you and keep your BH in the loop on your progress. Then fix it, not for him or your M, but for you. Seeing you work to fix yourself will show him that you want to be safe.

No stop sign so...BS here. I 100% agree with firenze here. Given what you sexted your AP, I can't imagine any man ever getting over that. God bless your sweet husband. I hope somehow he can heal from your betrayal.

And honestly, I hope you can find out why you allowed yourself to do this to him.

...you specficially demeaned your husband, his attractiveness, and his sexual prowess to your affair partner many times over and took what would've already been a massive blow to his ego and self-worth and made it something he may never recover from whether he stays with you or not. It was cruelty on an unimaginable level. I can guarantee you he's only staying for the children because there is literally no reason at all to stay with someone who has the capacity within them to do that to an innocent person.

BS here. If your husband was the one who had the affair and in the text messages you saw the things he’s seen, how would he have to convince you? If in those text messages he said he had the all-time best orgasm and orgasms of his life with her, how could he convince you it’s not really true? I’m guessing he feels you're saying/doing what you need to say/do because you view him as plan B. Especially once you realized the AP was only in it for the sex. Even though you appear to be the truthful, it’s going to be a challenge for you and him to overcome/resolve.

[This message edited by Tseratievig at 9:06 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

I did snap out of my fog within a few weeks and have been doing everything I can to show my husband that he is my number one priority since then. This is frequently very difficult because he will go days or even weeks without looking at me or talking to me. He even tells me to get away from him if I try to approach him. He has not shown a second of hope for our marriage since Dday.

I have no idea how to get through his wall of pain, anger and hatred.

I have even begged him on my knees to talk to me and just walked away.

If the roles were reversed I would be devastated. My husband is devastated and has every right to be devastated.

If roles were reversed I dont know if the damage done to me could ever be reversed even if I forgave him.

I hope he at least gives R an opportunity and allows me the chance to create a marriage that would make him happier than if he divorced me.

[This message edited by 1970 at 9:17 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

You keep using terms like fog, but that's not a description of anything meaningful. What was it within you that made you capable of engaging in acts of such extreme cruelty toward your husband? What was it that made you capable of straying in the first place? You have to look inside yourself and face the ugly truth of who and what you are so that you can work to become a person worth being.

Others have said, and I'll echo, that trying to minimize your texts to your AP by saying that they were embellishments designed to get you the ego kibbles you wanted is of very little consequence. What is of consequence, however, is that you were so willing and eager to stroke another man's ego that absolutely annihilating your husband's was no big deal. That's what's killing him. The fact that you deemed him absolutely worthless as a husband and as a man.

[This message edited by firenze at 9:42 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

I never deemed my husband absolutely worthless as a husband and as a man but it does kill him that I was willing and eager to stroke another man's ego and I did annihilate my husband's in the process.

He is so damaged that he can hardly function. I have never seen anyone in so much pain and I put him there.

If only he would talk to me I could at least ease his pain by telling him that I always loved him more than my AP and always enjoyed sex more with him than my AP. I think that is what he needs and wants to hear but he wont listen or talk to me.

BS here,

I'm 7 months after D-day and just starting to have sex with my WW again. I originally stayed in because I didn't have the money for a divorce but mainly because of my children.My WW affair made me question everything about myself. And when I thought I could move on and at least just have sex with my WW it was a no go. I went to IC and went to my regular doctor to get checked out. It was all in my head. When I started to feel my WW was 100% committed it started to come back.

He obviously needs more time but you need to keep showing him you are willing to do whatever it takes to stay by his side. Him staying for the kids sake may just save your marriage if you can build that that trust back with him in the meantime

I never deemed my husband absolutely worthless as a husband and as a man

Yes you did. You were more than willing to cast him aside, belittle him, and humiliate him to get what you wanted from your AP. You couldn't have possibly made it more clear that he was worthless to you. Denying it is lying to yourself and him.

Understand that the trauma you've inflicted upon him has completely broken his spirit. This is something that he will carry for the rest of his life and that he may never come back from. He's a broken man and you broke him because he meant so little to you that you were willing to take a chainsaw to his heart for an ego boost in the form of empty words from a scumbag.

If only he would talk to me I could at least ease his pain by telling him that I always loved him more than my AP and always enjoyed sex more with him than my AP. I think that is what he needs and wants to hear but he wont listen or talk to me.

Of what use are your words to him? Your words are what you used to destroy him. What are you actually doing to show him that he's your #1 in all things?

I would love to have sex with my husband but he wont even kiss me.

I cant tell him or show him that I am willing to stick by his side because he rarely talks to me or even stays in the same room as me. If he is watching TV in our family room and I try to enter the room at night he tells me to get out of the room. They only time he will spend time with me in the same room is when the kids are in the same room.

I never deemed my husband worthless nor did I ever stop loving him no matter what any book says. I simply wanted two men at one time. I never thought of leaving him or my family. I was a cake eater.

BS here. I understand what you are saying 1970. Actually, and very unfortunately, your actions and motivations are all too common among those we find here. Basically, you pursued the AP because you desperately wanted to feel desired, sexy and validated by another man. This happened because of something broken inside of you. It had nothing to do with your BH. You said things, extreme things, to keep the AP interested and feeding your need to feel desired. You do understand, I hope, that the “players” out there have manuals which lay out in detail how to get easy sex from broken people like you. The words that need to be said to play you. You failed to recognize your own weakness and brokenness.

The A is done. Now what? You need therapy to find out why you have such an overriding need to be desired which completely obliterates your commitment to your H. Personally, I can not understand being that broken. It is beyond my understanding. There are those here who would contend that we all have our breaking point and presented with enough flattery and temptation we would cheat. I do not believe that.

I only say this because it is unlikely that your BH understands as well.

The best you can do, if it is the truth, is to try explain to your BH that you acted and said these things to desperately try and keep the ego kibbles and being desired. Like an addict desperate for another high who will say anything to get the drug. I doubt that in the short term being honest about your brokenness and need to be desired will have an impact on your BH. Your words are there in black and white, and are so painful and humiliating to read. But let him know any way. Because a long time ahead it can mean something to him along with a massive effort on your part to show him he is cherished and an effort to get help for your brokenness. The others are correct about the effort required. Do your best to try and help your BH.

[This message edited by fareast at 10:26 PM, December 31st (Monday)]

He goes through long periods of time where he will barely look at me much less talk to me.

We havent hugged or kissed or had sex for six months.

Like I said I am pretty sure he is only staying for the children.

Unfortunately this is not that abnormal.

You were married probably awhile with kids and he's been blindsided. Never expected this to happen to him.

Give him space.