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I just cant seem to get through the night with a good nights sleep. I am constantly thinking of emails I want to send to AP about how things ended or how he frustrated me with his emotional unavailability. I know it's no good to really send him these things but my mind keeps racing about how I would say this or that.

In the past I've actually written it down to get it off my mind but it still persists. And now I also worry that I will send it. Which I have done in the past when I've gotten frustrated with a situation.

My husband does not know about my affair so maybe that is why my focus still seems to be on the AP. Not sure but it is constantly racing, during the day too, about what I want/need to say to the AP.

Anyone else having the same trouble getting their brains to rest?

Wondering if some of my "scared to fly anxiety meds" might help me get a good nights sleep.

BS Perspective:

I feel bad for your husband. Every night he lies down next to a woman who is silently obsessing over another man's "emotional unavailability."

Have you considered that the AP is also legally and morally unavailable to you because you're married to your husband?

Perhaps your focus should be on your emotional unavailability to the man you pledged the rest of your life to. The father of your 3 children.

IMO confession - though it will no doubt cause some sleepless nights in the beginning - will put you on the road to a good nights sleep. Although it will probably take a lot of hard work to get to that state.

Best wishes.

I second Sal.

Without judging, you don't seem at all concerned for what your husband feels; less concerned with what happens to your marriage than how things already "ended" with your AP.

Semi-rhetorical question - if you don't have remorse over your actions and are more concerned with the other man, do you want to even be with him?

Not trying to be too harsh, god knows I have no right to judge, but your priorities are in the wrong place if you are interested in ever ending the A or saving marriage.

Best of luck.

Sal, I feel bad for my husband too. and I imagine that when and if I decide to confess to my husband then all my writing in my head will be to him because that will become the main focus.

From what I can tell from everything I've read most people are snapped back into reality when their spouse finds out. Since that didnt happen I'm still partially living in fantasy land. I tell myself daily, or actually every 5 minutes, that OM is not the person for me that I just loved the attention and escape from my life. It's hard to let go of for me. That is why I keep writing these letters in my head.

I am trying to make my focus be my husband. My therapist doesnt think I should tell my husband so I'm between worlds right now. I'm just hoping that the more time away from AP I can get back to reality and focus on my family again.

if you don't have remorse over your actions and are more concerned with the other man, do you want to even be with him?

I'm not there yet and I think it's because I have not been caught and I'm not mentally there on my own. I have guilt but not quite to the remorse just yet, I wish I was as I think I could start to see things more clearly then. I feel horrible thinking about how it would make my husband feel but I'm not remorseful yet and until he knows the truth I'm not sure when that will happen for me. I've been trying to ask myself if I still want to be with my husband....I want to say YES but my head is still in fog land and I wish I could rewire it to want him more than anything in the world. For me I often have to lose something to realize how much I wanted it. Sucks to be me and my shitting thinking.

Your therapist doesn't know jack, Confused. And you are still Confused because you choose to be. Seriously...you ponder your AP's emotional unavailability? Look in the mirror. Roll over and look at your betrayed, clueless husband. Only person more clueless than him, poor guy, is YOU.

YOU are the problem. And when you decide to be authentic you will become the solution.

I feel sorry for you. You sound sad, selfish, lonely, delusional and cruel. The perfect unremorseful wayward. I know. I was you.

Tell your BS. Have the decency. For him, and you.

JD

Sucks to be me

To be your husband sucks even more. Please confess and give him the right to choose what he wants. It'll help you too, in time.

For me I often have to lose something to realize how much I wanted it.

I suggest you confess then. If you do indeed "come to your senses" with regards to your BH you do not want that to happen with him discovering the A versus you confessing.

Also, keeping this secret is toxic. This a huge burden and it is only making things worse. You cannot hope to get healthy emotionally and mentally and work through these issues while trying to maintain a double-life. You will hit a breaking point eventually.

I sometimes feel the pressure put on people to confess can be overwhelming for a fresh wayward. I'm by no means saying confused shouldn't confess, but for now, she is seeking support in stabilising herself and gaining some control of her life.

IMO, confused, right now your priority is in staying NC with your AP. I agree, telling your BH might enforce your volition to maintain NC, but the way it seems now, you're in no hurry to do that. So, what I would advise right now is to write those emails physically.. get the feelings out but don't send them. Write them on here so you're purging and getting your thoughts out there.

What you're dealing with right now is hard. I know your aim is to work on your M and the way you can do this right now is by focussing on the here and now. Taking it one day at a time. Staying in the moment and distracting yourself so your thoughts don't race.

I never took any pills but was a wreck following the end of the A and wish I would have, just to help me function and sleep better.

You can do this. You can stop having these thoughts and when the time is right for you, you will tell your BH what's happened.

I went through something very similar to you and ended up confessing over a raging fight. I couldn't contain it anymore. The emotions had built up so acutely that I ended up telling my H in an uncontained and aggressive way. For me, telling him calmly and maturely was way too scary but I knew it had to come out. It was an awful way for him to find out and in hindsight, I wish I would have written him a letter or something.

Anyway.. one day at a time. You must maintain NC, only then can you make yourself stronger and more stable enough to talk to your BH without spilling and being a mess.

I know all these things are true about me deep down but the shit just hasn't hit the fan yet. Like many of you have said, you were me, so I know you get it. I know I'll get there too with time and seeing it all crumble quickly away from me.

The fact is most of you did not confess, you were caught. So it is easy to tell me what to do but it is a different situation. How many of you just decided one day to stop seeing the other person because it was the right thing to do? Probably not many of you, someone was caught and then all hell broke loose.

I am not defending my poor choices to enter into an affair, but I am trying to figure out the best way to not have as much suffering for everyone. Part of me wishes I was caught so that I could have to deal with it RIGHT NOW, but then I'm also glad that I have the time to work on me so that I'm a better person when I do decide to tell my spouse.

THe rotten truth is that I'd still be seeing the AP if he wasnt the one that decided that he didnt want to be involved with a married woman. I had broke it off a month prior but missed him too much. I tried to do the right thing and failed. His wife found out and he is now in his own place going through a divorce. He wants a clean start to the mess he's made of his life. I respect that and he's always said he doesnt want to be the reason my family splits up.

So I'm not putting him on a pedestal, I just cant seem to get AP out of my mind. I am trying, really I am. I'm not trying to avoid anything that reminds me of him though because that is not real to me. I have to live in this world and drive by places we went to together. The sooner I can do it without thinking of him the better off I'll be, but if I avoid all triggers then I'll be stuck at home forever.

If I could get some good sleep I'm hoping that I will start to mellow out a bit and not have so much anxiety about the situation. I just feel like I'm a walking time bomb sometimes.

[This message edited by confused43 at 3:10 PM, January 9th (Thursday)]

I sometimes feel the pressure put on people to confess can be overwhelming for a fresh wayward. I'm by no means saying confused shouldn't confess, but for now, she is seeking support in stabilising herself and gaining some control of her life.

Thank you Trying. It's true. It's hard to come here and be honest because you do get the attack right off the bat. I'm not saying I don't deserve it but sometimes I think the messages end up driving the new waywards away which isn't helpful in the long run. Yes we are still missing our AP often, in the fog etc it's all mostly true. You can tell me it will get better, please do, but telling me how pathetic and selfish I am constantly and I should go tell my husband what a rotten wife I am makes for a good story for all of you but totally screws up my husbands life in that moment.

I am one that generally makes very good decisions because I think first. Yes I see the irony. I need to make sure I am doing this the best way I can for everyone involved. I know that I probably will confess because it will eat away at me but just not sure when that time will be. Right now my husband and I are trying to re-energize our marriage and have fun together. I need to be sure that I still want to be in this marriage. If I confess and show doubt to where I want to be that will seal the deal to a divorce.

Confused,

I was not discovered. I confessed freely to many things, some of which happened long before I even met my wife, because I could no longer stand lies.

Even small, tiny little things I did or said to impress her when we first met that weren't true came out.

It's hard. It is, by far, the most painful thing to have to go through (okay - I'm a man so maybe childbirth counts too), but it's worth it to get the secrets out - especially if they're causing you guilt.

I am still working through my own demons, including tremendous guilt for what I've done. But having gone through it now, I can say the best part of my confessing was that the pain I caused in my wife FORCED me to look at myself differently and find a way to change.

Never in my life have I wanted something to go away more, but never in my life has jt been such a driver for me to be a better person, husband, father, etc., all around.

I think maybe some folks (not saying you) think they're prepared for the pain it's going to cause I thought I was too - I was wrong.

My point in saying this is not to convince you, but put my perspective in on how confessing and facing the pain can force you to get to a better place.

Ultimately, you will do what you believe to be best - you know your situation and life, and we do not, aside from what you have posted here on SI.

In any case, I hope the decision you make is the right one for you, and that things turn out the way you hope for.

I'm a big movie guy, so I use quotes a lot.

"Just remember, the sweet ain't as sweet without the sour"

Wishing good things for you.

In the positive side, does this mean you are in NC with your AP? It's tempting to just want to talk to him, but you can't give him any opportunity to use open communication to reel you back in. It can happen, so that's why it's good to remain in NC.

I think I'd turn this around and say that because they got caught, these people want you to confess. Confessing doesn't gauruntee a successful R, but from what I've seen, As ending with the WS confessing go a lot better than getting caught. They just don't want you to repeat their mistake.

Confessing doesn't gauruntee a successful R, but from what I've seen, As ending with the WS confessing go a lot better than getting caught. They just don't want you to repeat their mistake.

Exactly.

This...

I know that I probably will confess because it will eat away at me but just not sure when that time will be.

...was also my point. Confessing...which I agree you may not be in a position to do immediately...is as much for you as it is for your BH.

I wont tell you to confess now. Your fundamental problem here is you aren’t into your marriage, read what you wrote. The OM ended it. He got caught. You had no real intentions of ending the affair. The OM gave your some wonderful lines about wanting a fresh start and doesn’t want to break up your family and you listened and believed every word of it. Till you start to look at the whole affair more objectively and start to realize just what it was and who he is. You got played and you have put him on a pedestal.

Your only now trying to re-engergize your marriage because it is the backup plan. You want to be sure you are still in the marriage, well you are not. Its simple. You wont show any remorse yet because you didn’t want the affair to end, you got dumped. The fact that you keep thinking about writing letters etc to the OM is you still want him, not your husband. The affair is still going on to you, just by living the memories and thoughts.

You only hope telling your husband will some how force you out of the fog but that wont work. Telling your husband about the affair will be devastating, explaining how the other man dumped you and that’s why you are trying to now make the marriage work will only tell him he was second choice and humiliate him. Maybe you hold onto the secret and “reenergize” your marriage only to blow it up later with your affair confession.

Or do you subconsciously want the affair exposed, your husband asks you to move out and now you are free hoping the other man will see you as available hoping to win him back somehow?

First be honest with yourself about the entire situation, till that happens it doesn’t sound like your marriage has any chance anyway because you just aren’t invested

It's hard to come here and be honest because you do get the attack right off the bat.

I responded to you right off the bat and am sorry if my post came off as an attack. The truth often seems that way, but that wasn't the intent of the post.

My intent was to show you the absurdity of your mindset and the cruelty of your actions. First, you are still in the affair. Just the physical part has stopped for now. You are obsessing over someone other than your husband in the presence of your husband, and everywhere else for that matter, I'm sure.

You lament the emotional unavailability of a man who isn't yours while appearing to have no concern over your emotional unavailability to the man you are supposed to love, honor and cherish for life. That's the absurd part.

And here's the cruel part. Your husband knows that something is badly wrong with his marriage, or his life, but just can't put his finger on it right now. Subconsciously he might suspect that you are cheating, but consciously he can't bear to face that. Denial is powerful for BS's as well as WS's.

During my wife's affair I once had a vivid daydream, for no apparent reason, that a private investigator lead me to a home where we observed my wife getting it on with another man through a window. I snapped myself out of it and actually chastised myself for having a weird swinger fantasy (even though I wasn't the least bit aroused and that's not how I roll...hmmm). In hindsight, I see that a part of me was screaming "she's cheating on you!" but the conscious part of me was in such denial that I blamed the messenger (myself) rather than listen to what the daydream was trying to tell me.

Your husband is suffering right now. He has to be. There's no way he can live day-to-day with a wife who's obsessing over another man and not have some kind of internal alarm bells ringing. If he's like me and probably 95% of BS who are in denial about the true state of their marriages, he can't (or won't) pinpoint the exact problem, but deep down he knows something is seriously wrong.

You can bet your kids feel it, as well. Our teenage girls never seemed as unhappy as they did during that period. Turns out they uncovered the affair long before I did by snooping, but something made them snoop. I'm embarrassed to say that they were more in tune with their mother than I was, but it's the truth. Their radars were pinging long before mine did, but the point is you are almost certainly giving off vibes that are unsettling to your loved ones.

My wife didn't confess, I caught her sneaking a cell phone call to the OM. Just stumbled on her, and she was so distracted by the argument they were having to even notice me standing right in front of her. By the time she did notice me, it was too late - I could clearly hear his voice coming through the cell, and it was an obvious lover's quarrel. That's a hell of a way to find out, and I've had to live with the reality that my wife's affair would have lasted longer and may still be ongoing if I didn't catch her. Who knows, maybe one of our daughters would have told me first - another horrible way to find out. We are R in spite of the way I found out, but it doesn't make it easier.

Doesn't your husband deserve the truth, and to hear it from you as opposed to seeing the evidence on an email, or text, or from an OBS, concerned friend, etc.? You have an opportunity to make things right sooner rather than later. To let healing begin now, rather than next month, next year, or 10 years from now. Even if it ends the marriage, is that not a forseeable consequence of your choices? Your husband has a right to decide if he wants to D or R a wife who has emotionally and sexually betrayed him. And you'd be surprised how many BS's choose R even after some of the most horrific betrayals - multiple AP's, long term affairs that last years, even decades, discovering that your child isn't yours biologically, etc. You name it, and someone on SI has overcome it.

Don't assume that coming clean will have a bad ending. Despite all the pain, in many ways my wife and I have never had a better marriage. Intense pain can break down a lot of walls and purge a lot of toxins. We have a ways to go, but the future looks bright.

Even though the last 11 months has been difficult in many ways, we've grown closer as a family. The truth will set you and your loved ones free, one way or the other. Give up the illusion of control over what happens from here on, because you gave up control when you chose the dark path of infidelity.

BS here. No stop sign I guess I can post.

You think you are in your marriage BUT the truth is you are not. You are physically there but you are spending a lot of time with the AP in your mind. That's a lot of time you should be spending on getting yourself fixed, and focused on your marriage. I feel for you husband.

Snap out of your fantasyland and get into the real world, which is you marriage. I don't believe that not confessing to your poor husband is the right way to go. You are depriving this poor man of the right to make informed decisions for his life and for his children.

Do what is right by your husband and your children. Sins have a way of coming out on their own - one day the truth will come out. It could be years down the road, and in all that time, your husband is living a marriage that was a lie.

Get your acts together and start treating your husband right.

[This message edited by Betrayed67 at 4:51 PM, January 9th (Thursday)]

It's hard to come here and be honest because you do get the attack right off the bat.

I don't see any attacks. I see people giving you their opinions so if I've missed something please PM me and we'll get it straightened out.

Betrayed67...

We cross posted.

You are not to swing 2x4's in this forum. This is not your WS so please post respectfully in here.

Your only now trying to re-engergize your marriage because it is the backup plan. You want to be sure you are still in the marriage, well you are not. Its simple. You wont show any remorse yet because you didn’t want the affair to end, you got dumped. The fact that you keep thinking about writing letters etc to the OM is you still want him, not your husband. The affair is still going on to you, just by living the memories and thoughts.

Yes, totally true. That is why I'm not ready to tell my husband. Until I can be over the OM and tell my husband with certainty that I want him I don't want to confess anything.

When I first broke up with AP I left feeling really good about it, knew I was doing the right thing for me and my family. He never tried to reel me back in, I contacted him eventually because I missed him. I knew that by coming back I was giving up the power card so to speak but decided it was worth the risk and knew full on that he would probably be the one to end it eventually. I would still be with AP if he didnt dump me though, that is true. I wasn't ready to let go, although I also couldn't go on the way things were. I confronted him, which he hates and puts bigger walls up, because I didnt like the way I was feeling by his actions. I knew with 99% certainty that he would say we need to cool things off. and he did. I was a mess when I first walked in the door, I'm emotional.I couldn't get control back and just wept at how much of a mess things were. I knew in my heart this couldn't go on but didnt have the strength to end it and also realized that he will never change. I may change my tone later but for the most part if I was going to have an affair, I am happy with the person I picked. Professional, educated, no std's, overall a good guy but just in a mess like me. However our big issue was communication and his lack of it. It would drive me crazy to be with him long term that way. I am eager to see how I feel 6 months from now and if I still say generally good stuff about him. Everyone says I'm just in the fog and all OM are big bad liars but I will say that everyone is different and their reasons are different. I know that I'm a good person deep down and I just happened to make a bad decision without thinking about anyone but myself.

I also picked a great husband. who is all those things and more. I just need to get through the crap so I can see more clearly again. I really liked the attention, and while my husband is trying to give it to me it just isn't what I am seeking from him. I need to dig deep and figure out how to fix me, not have him try to fix me. I know what some of my issues are just not sure how to fix it.

Or do you subconsciously want the affair exposed, your husband asks you to move out and now you are free hoping the other man will see you as available hoping to win him back somehow?

I have often thought if I were to move out it would give me the space to see how my life would look. I would miss my family and do anything to come back I would hope. I don't want a life with OM. At one time I thought I might but seeing the way he is does not work well with my personality. It would be a disaster long term. That doesnt mean I might not beat the relationship til it died but I would hope that I would not pursue him if I was free. Although my problem is often to replace one guy with another. Just easier for me to get over someone that way. One of my many issues. That's how I met my husband, trying to get over someone I just broke up with. Yes messed up thinking but I tend to choose wisely I think and have always been treated well by boyfriends.I treat them well and expect the same. So I do have respect for myself it's just sometimes I get so lost in the fog and want that feeling back that I do stupid stuff. I just dont want to be so stupid to lose my husband. I just need to keep reminding myself of that because I need to really "want" to keep him as mine. I know I have a lot of work to do and that I'm still in the fog.