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I think your tag line describes you spot on. Onebrokenman. Sadly, all of the wayward here were broken people in some regard with our lives, our relationships and life. Otherwise, we would have never found ourselves as wayward.

If you want to continue to be Onebrokenman, all you have to do is continue on the road your following now. You will contine to be broken, dishonest, guilty of deceit, dis-respectful etc.

If you would like to change yourself, if you don't want to be Onebrokenman anymore, you know what to do. Confess.

Its your choice. You argue that its not the right time or right place to confess and stop your affair but in truth, there is never a right time to rip your wife heart apart. Never a right time to destroy the image of the "good man" that you wish you were. Never a right time to confess that you are Onebrokenman. Its hard to destroy your world. We get it. We've been in your shoes too.

But the Wayward Side is for those that are remorseful and committed to healing. And IMHO, you can't be remorseful until you confess. Until you feel the pain of your betrayal and its impact on your wife, family and friends. Yes, its scary contemplating what the consequences will be. But until you confess, you will continue to be confused, fearful or desperately trying to justify your actions.

When you decide that you want to stop being Onebrokenman and want to become a wayward man, then you can ask the members here for assistance. Until then, you will always be Onebrokenman.

HUFI-PUFI
speak the truth even when your voice shakes

Thank y’all. I really appreciate your time. I’ll keep you posted. I promise

Hey friend. I keep looking back to this thread hoping you are going to tell us the good news that you have taken the beautiful first step to freedom and breaking it off fully with your AP. Break those chains of your own making and turn your face to the light. Come on, friend. It will be painful, no lies about that, but it’s the path to good life. Praying for you.

Onebrokenman ,
I am a BS .
If only my WH ended the affair before I found out , it would have been so much easier to forgive and heal . I found out accidentally and it was the most painful thing I experienced in my life . I keep on thinking about the what if .. What if I didn’t find out ? Would the affair still go on even now ?

You have a good chance to end yours and go NC, find a new job and tell your wife !! Please . This is the only good chance for you to thoroughly reconcile.
I am still reconciling , but I feel as of our marriage will be limping for a long time ! I am not sure if I still love him that much .

Do it , gather your courage ! You will be thankful you did it !!
Good luck and please let us know your progress .
We are all here to support you ..

Onebrokenman, I happened to have a little extra time today and wander onto the wayward side to find your post here. I know I'm not really any more likely to get through to you than anyone else here. I'm a BS myself, so obviously that comes with it's own set of biases. I'm going to sort of comb through some of your words and try to illuminate and crystalize some of the contradictory thoughts running through your mind. I congratulate you on at least having it in your "good" compartmentalized side to come to a forum like this and self flagellate. It would be even better if you did come clean, but I don't have a lot of hope for that. Most likely your wife will eventually find out and you'll be forced to deal with the consequences of the "bad" compartmentalized side. Your fantasy will not survive exposure to reality.

Married to the best woman in the world (period) for a quarter of century. We have 2 kids, 1 in college and 1 in high school.
Currently in A with a coworker (divorced) with a grown adult kid for a few years and turn PA almost 1 year.

Most affairs start out as a normal friendship. You get along really well with this new person. Shared interests, you just get along really well, and there is the undercurrent or spark of attraction underneath. You tell yourself that you are special and you'll keep your shit together. The attraction is just too much. At some point you start hiding how much you are interacting with this person from your spouse. Being with AP feels electric, and at some point one of you admits attraction or it's just the first time you touch in a way that would be undeniable if captured on video. The A is now fully in effect. You now have to buy the central lie of this sort of compartmentalized A. "No one gets hurt if no one finds out". That's a lie. You already have hurt your wife, and you continue to hurt your wife. And your kids.

If you haven't already read "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass, it's basically required reading. You'll find your story isn't so special.

Is it possible to remain friend with AP? Or transfer, quit my current job and absolutely no contact is the only way to go? Is it possible to bring it to the grave without telling my BS? How to be "in love" with her again?
I know I’m bad, really bad

Because you started as friends, you don't want to lose this person as a friend. If you and AP hadn't given in to your base desires, you could have been good friends, but that ship has sailed. You can't be friends with AP. You can't maintain contact with AP. You need to get a new job.

If you could take it to the grave practically, you still shouldn't ethically. The ongoing lie removes your BW's agency. You protect your lies, the AP, and yourself at the ongoing cost to your BW. You are not protecting her at all. You are continuing to build up a false history that she believes. Every day compounds the wrong further.

Now, in this moment where you say "I'm really bad" you still don't quite get how bad you are. It's a sort of penance your good compartment has to pay to continue to exist. "Well I know it's wrong and I'm trying to stop, so that's enough at least". But then you go back to your bad compartment and say "Well it's just one more time, and I already did it before anyway, is one more time really going to matter at this point. Besides I enjoy AP's company...."

As for "being in love" that mostly just "new relationship energy" dopamine fooling your brain into going after the rush, meanwhile the epinephrine basically suppresses the ability of serotonin (the long term happiness chemical) to have a chance to compete. It's actually impossible for you to enjoy your long term relationship when you are in an A. Your marriage doesn't provide the right brain chemistry to provide reward. Some people call it "the fog".

As the time being, I just can’t confess. I don’t want to turn her life upside down. Can’t destroy our "perfect" family we have, as seen by our circle of friends and family members.

You need to stop this sort of compartmentalized thinking. You are thinking that her life hasn't already been destroyed, but it has. She just hasn't observed the destruction yet. If you steal $1000 from someone and they just haven't check their bank statement and noticed, it doesn't make you not a thief and it doesn't make them not a victim. You have already stolen and spent the money. It's gone and there is no returning it. Whether or not she figures it out, you have done the damage and you are a thief.

I’m sure there’re countless number of Wayward Spouse out there similar to mine that need help but afraid to post.
It’s hard, very hard to live double life. It’s hard to look at your spouse in the eyes

I don't doubt that to be true. You are opening at least a sliver of fantasy up to reality, and we are here to try to rip it wide open, which is going to be very painful for you. No doubt about it. In the short term, it's going to be more painful. Which is probably just going to be another excuse to drag the whole thing out.

Thank you guys.
It’s been over a month since our last time together. I’ll be gone for a week vac with my family now.
I really want to have "the talk" with her one on one but but I guess that’s a bad idea. I think it’s not nice to just completely quit, cold turkey.

Not nice to your co-conspirator in hurting your wife and family? I mean, that ought to be so far down your list of what's not nice...

How could I Do that to a person who devoted her life for me and our family? She's always put me and the kids first.
She was a very beautiful young girl never been kissed. Turned down many friends, a general manager of a big company, an older doctor....to be with me who basically got nothing!

Because it felt good. Pretty simple. You let the immediate good feeling overwhelm your ethics.

Of course I know I'm a pos already. Maybe it's in my DNA. If she's miserable, unhappy. I'd not want to wait and tell her. But she's happy, very happy. Her life will turn upside down for sure if I tell her now.

She isn't happy right now. That's an illusion. She is deceived right now. She is upside down and you are telling her she is right side up.

Guess what? Infidelity is 100% deal breaker for me. No question about it

Well, we all say that until we experience it ourselves.... I'm R'd with my wife and thought infidelity was a dealbreaker. Now that you are a WS, if it just so happened you found out your wife was having an A, totally parallel to yours, would you actually go straight for divorce? Maybe, maybe not. We wouldn't know until you found out.

Thank y’all. I really appreciate your time. I’ll keep you posted. I promise

So I don't know if I've offered any different advice than anyone else here. But basically, you are currently compartmentalizing your life, and these compartments are the only things that allow you to continue to function at all. It's time to integrate your life. Let the good become aware of the bad, and let the chips fall where they may. Each day you delay is a win for the bad compartment.

I’m going to quote a long-ish section of the book "The Great Divorce" by CS Lewis with some hope that his writing is better than ours and it might help you see your situation more clearly and that there is hope on the other side of making the right decision. Still really hoping and praying for you.

I saw coming towards us a Ghost who carried something on his shoulder. Like all the Ghosts, he was unsubstantial, but they differed from one another as smokes differ. Some had been whitish; this one was dark and oily. What sat on his shoulder was a little red lizard, and it was twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear. As we caught sight of him he turned his head to the reptile with a snarl of impatience. "Shut up, I tell you!" he said. It wagged its tail and continued to whisper to him. He ceased snarling, and presently began to smile. Then he turned and started to limp westward, away from the mountains.

"Off so soon?" said a voice.

The speaker was more or less human in shape but larger than a man, and so bright that I could hardly look at him. His presence smote on my eyes and on my body too (for there was heat coming from him as well as light) like the morning sun at the beginning of a tyrannous summer day.

"Yes. I'm off," said the Ghost. "Thanks for all your hospitality. But it's no good, you see.

I told this little chap," (here he indicated the lizard), "that he'd have to be quiet if he came -which he insisted on doing. Of course his stuff won't do here: I realise that. But he won't stop. I shall just have to go home."

"Would you like me to make him quiet?" said the flaming Spirit-an angel, as I now understood.

"Of course I would," said the Ghost.

"Then I will kill him," said the Angel, taking a step forward.

"Oh-ah-look out! You're burning me. Keep away," said the Ghost, retreating.

"Don't you want him killed?"

"You didn't say anything about killing him at first. I hardlv meant to bother you with anything so drastic as that."

"It's the onlv way," said the Angel, whose burning hands were now very close to the lizard. "Shall I kill it?"

"Well, that's a further question. I'm quite open to consider it, but it's a new point, isn't it? I mean, for the moment I was only thinking about silencing it because up here-well, it's so damned embarrassing."

"May I kill it?"

"Well, there's time to discuss that later."

"There is no time. May I kill it?"

"Please, I never meant to be such a nuisance. Please-really-don't bother. Look! It's gone to sleep of its own accord. I'm sure it'll be all right now. Thanks ever so much."

"May I kill it?"

"Honestly, I don't think there's the slightest necessity for that. I'm sure I shall be able to keep it in order now. I think the gradual process would be far better than killing it."

"The gradual process is of no use at all."

"Don't you think so? Well, I'll think over what you've said very carefully. I honestly will. In fact I'd let you kill it now, but as a matter of fact I'm not feeling frightfully well to-day. It would be silly to do it now. I'd need to be in good health for the operation. Some other day, perhaps."

"There is no other day. All days are present now."

"Get back! You're burning me. How can I tell you to kill it? You'd kill me if you did."

"It is not so."

"Why, you're hurting me now."

"I never said it wouldn't hurt you. I said it wouldn't kill you."

"Oh, I know. You think I'm a coward. But it isn't that. Really it isn't. I say! Let me run back by tonight's bus and get an opinion from my own doctor. I'll come again the first moment I can."

"This moment contains all moments."

"Why are you torturing me? You are jeering at me. How can I let you tear me to pieces? If you wanted to help me, why didn't you kill the damned thing without asking me-before I knew? It would be all over by now if you had."

"I cannot kill it against your will. It is impossible. Have I your permission?"

The Angel's hands were almost closed on the Lizard, but not quite. Then the Lizard began chattering to the Ghost so loud that even I could hear what it was saying.

"Be careful," it said. "He can do what he says. He can kill me. One fatal word from you and he will! Then you'll be without me for ever and ever. It's not natural. How could you live? You'd be only a sort of ghost, not a real man as you are now. He doesn't understand. He's only a cold, bloodless abstract thing. It may be natural for him, but it isn't for us. Yes, yes. I know there are no real pleasures now, only dreams. But aren't they better than nothing? And I'll be so good. I admit I've sometimes gone too far in the past, but I promise I won't do it again. I'll give you nothing but really nice dreams-all sweet and fresh and almost innocent. You might say, quite innocent____"

"Have I your permission?" said the Angel to the Ghost.

"I know it will kill me."

"It won't. But supposing it did?"

"You're right. It would be better to be dead than to live with this creature."

"Then I may?"

"Damn and blast you! Go on can't you? Get it over. Do what you like," bellowed the Ghost: but ended, whimpering, "God help me. God help me."

Next moment the Ghost gave a scream of agony such as I never heard on Earth. The Burning One closed his crimson grip on the reptile: twisted it, while it bit and writhed, and then flung it, broken backed, on the turf.

" Ow! That's done for me," gasped the Ghost, reeling backwards.

For a moment I could make out nothing distinctly. Then I saw, between me and the nearest bush, unmistakably solid but growing every moment solider, the upper arm and the shoulder of a man. Then, brighter still and stronger, the legs and hands. The neck and golden head materialised while I watched, and if my attention had not wavered I should have seen the actual completing of a man-an immense man, naked, not much smaller than the Angel. What distracted me was the fact that at the same moment something seemed to be happening to the Lizard. At first I thought the operation had failed. So far from dying, the creature was still struggling and even growing bigger as it struggled. And as it grew it changed. Its hinder parts grew rounder. The tail, still flickering, became a tail of hair that flickered between huge and glossy buttocks. Suddenly I started back, rubbing my eyes. What stood before me was the greatest stallion I have ever seen, silvery white but with mane and tail of gold. It was smooth and shining, rippled with swells of flesh and muscle, whinneying and stamping with its hoofs. At each stamp the land shook and the trees dindled .

hiya - ive read the first and the last page of your posts and it looks like you have been in indecision about this for a long time.

i love the CS Lewis quote - very thought provoking.

so i guess the scenarios are:
1. continue abusing your wife and family by continuing affair - and never discovered
2. continue abusing your wife and family by continuing affair until AP decides she wants more and tells your wife and family either directly or indirectly
3. exit the affair and hope to keep it hidden forever - and AP is ok for it to end - retain wife and family
4. exit the affair and hope to keep it hidden forever - and AP is ok for it to end - but wife ends marriage
5. exit the affair and hope to keep it hidden forever - but AP makes discovery happen
6. exit the affair - enter counselling - do full confession - lose wife and family
7. exit the affair - enter counselling - do full confession - retain wife and family
8. Wife and Family discover affair - find these posts online - lose wife and family
9. wife and family discover affair - dont find posts - lose wife and family
10. wife and famly discover affair - retain wife and family

So looks like you want option 3 but you havent considered that option 4 might be an outcome given the abuse that wife experiences (in her bones) about that may cause her to walk away.

Also looks like you think you are living Option 1 right now BUT every day that the affair continues will push you into Option 2 and you may never know that. I was an US and my reality was Discovery by Wife and I am wanting Option 10 not Option 9 but the fight hasn't finished yet. And I now realise that towards the end of the affair I was in Option 2 but was not aware of it.

But you are in Option 1 and my view is that unless you do all the work to get Option 7 its only a matter of time that find yourself in Option 2 and Option 8.

unfortunately i see no other logical way forward.

Go get some courage.

Still hoping….

Onebrokenman,

Any update ? Please gather your courage, end your Affair, try to get another job, stay NC and tell your wonderful wife about what happened in your life lately …and focus on your family !

I would appreciate my WH much more and heal much quicker if only my husband told me about the affair, instead of me finding out ! Healing and reconciliation are much harder when we , the betrayed find out about the affair, while the WS are still in the middle of the infatuation and addiction .

I have faith in you!!

I’m so scared, so afraid to confess.
I’m thinking why I have to turn her life upside down when she’s happy, everything’s good. Just love her and love her some more and never look back.
But in the future, I might think about it differently and spill the bean, tell her everything. I don’t know.
If the role was reverse, of course I know for sure I rather she tells me the truth, 100%. And rather hear it from her.
I fukked up, I’ll deal with it one way or another

I know its totally unacceptable the way I want to deal with it (from SI standard)

Thanks for the update.

Friend, it’s not just SI standards, it’s really pretty basic. One, you clearly have a conscience by the way you write, so this is going to be eating you up for as long as you hide it. You might think you are being brave by "bearing that cross" and protecting your wife. This is completely wrong. You will actually be gaslighting your wife, giving her inathentic intimacy and leaving a nagging question in her mind for as long as you hold the secret. She has probably already noticed something is off but she doesn’t know what. Your wife deserves an authentic relationship.

Two, you are at risk of being outed at any time. The longer it goes before your wife finds out, the worst it is. Some of the saddest stories around here are the people who find out decades later and question the validity of their entire adult life. That is not an overstatement.

What you have done to your wife is really bad. Stop making it worse. Cut off the affair definitively, in a way that you can show your wife after you’ve confessed and give her something to believe in. I know it will be really hard. You can do it.

I guess I’m questioning why you’re really here. Your self deprecation is insulting as I don’t think you really mean the things you say. If you felt bad about the A at all, you would stop it. This nonsense of "oh it’s really hard" and "I am a coward" are just veiled attempts at getting the sympathy vote. You either want to do something or you don’t. If you want to end the A, really and truly sever all ties. There’s no middle of the road here.

I know a lot of the "appealing to what's right" hasn't taken a grip on you, but this might be more effective.

My WS had an affair with a divorced coworker too. Much shorter than yours and he was not in love with her - but what was similar is that he struggled to end it (he was enjoying what he got from it) and he also struggled to tell me the truth (because courage wasn't his best suit either).

So guess what happened?

He did end it, and the day he did, the AP - who was hoping he would "pick" her - decided to go nuclear.

So the way I found out was her calling me, and later harassing me to a point of police involvement. If you think that sounds unusual - this forum is absolutely full of APs who were oh so kind and loving during the A turning into a hellfire demon when they realise the WS is not going to end the M for them. When they suddenly realise they aren't special.

So every minute is a ticking time bomb before this woman throws a petrol bomb on your life.

So if your conscience can't guide you because you're in the fog of it all, and your courage can't guide you because you're scared of going from a great life (where you have a doting side piece and a wonderful wife who both think you're wonderful) to a probably very difficult like (where you have only a very angry wife), then covering your own backside might.

This is honestly not meant as an attack.

The idea your AP will just float off into the distance is very unlikely.

End it with the AP.

Tell your wife everything. Don't let her find out the wrong way. And even if you're one of the lucky ones who's AP keeps quiet, your marriage would always be built on gaslighting.

Follow all the advice on this forum.

You really do need to do this because you can't undo your mistakes so far, so stopping making them is your only option.

MintChocChip is dead on.

So is this:

Some of the saddest stories around here are the people who find out decades later and question the validity of their entire adult life. That is not an overstatement.

Is the affair even over?

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:31 PM, Saturday, September 23rd]

UNREALITY: I know its totally unacceptable the way I want to deal with it (from SI standard)

REALITY: I know its totally unacceptable the way I want to deal with it (from human decency standard)

I’m really not trying to be mean. Its just reality. You made a mistake. Some people hate that interpretation. They say forgetting the milk is a mistake and infidelity is a series of choice. So maybe you made a bunch of really big mistakes. Either way, it happens. People do really messed up unfortunate things - even to people they love. Its not what you did in the past its what you do from here onward.

To MintCC’s point…it is unlikely you will have the rare unicorn AP who decides to stay silent.

BUT, even if she dose stay silent it doesn’t go so well. My husband’s AP stayed silent but that ended up being even worse. My husband spent 8 years worrying every day that he might do something to piss the AP off and then she would come reveal everything to me. Make no mistake…this AP has you over a barrel. She has the power and she’s going to keep using it. Even if you dump her she will keep creeping in on the periphery.

Just get it out and free yourself from this pre-blackmail state. It is 100% going to end in catastrophe. You need to take control of the situation. The vast majority of marriages faced with infidelity stay together so you may be more scared than you should be.

I’m so scared, so afraid to confess.
I’m thinking why I have to turn her life upside down when she’s happy, everything’s good. Just love her and love her some more and never look back.
But in the future, I might think about it differently and spill the bean, tell her everything. I don’t know.
If the role was reverse, of course I know for sure I rather she tells me the truth, 100%. And rather hear it from her.
I fukked up, I’ll deal with it one way or another

Trust me, we get that you are scared and the thought of confessing may seem paralyzing. That is certainly one thing that you are thinking about, but let me remind you what you aren't thinking about in all this.

Your strategy of love her and love her some more would be absolutely encouraged if you were capable of loving your wife. See, love is a verb and I just cannot get on board with the idea that a man in an active affair is in any way shape or form loving your wife. That is not to discredit your affinity for your wife, but just to point out that right now while you are still continuing on with your AP, cowering over the mere thought of a confession, you are not loving your wife. Your AP is still taking your time and energy away from your BW and you are consciously allowing that to continue. You aren't loving your wife, you are actively hurting her, robbing her of her agency and destroying her future, she just doesn't know it.

Let's say you end your affair this instant, decide that you are going to take your affair to the grave and in the process you become husband/father of the year type material. First off, that hypothetical is quite generous to you, because a man who is incapable of ending his affair is constitutionally incapable of that kind of turnaround, but let's roll with it for a second as a thought experiment. At some point down the road, BW and you are going to have tender moments together and how are you going to look her in the eye, knowing that everything in front of you is all an illusion held up by thousands of lies and misdeeds you have done. Whether you like it or not, so long as your affair is not known by your wife, will always make you incapable of having a real and meaningful relationship with your wife. There will be a permanent distance/bubble/barrier to you achieving genuine and authentic intimacy with her, because there is a deep, dark secret part of you that cannot come out. Also, you are going to live in constant fear for the rest of your life that AP exposes you or even worse that the next time you are sedated for a medical procedure that you just blurt it out to her when she sees you in the recovery room. I had a little experience with this when I recently had a colonoscopy, I had two phone calls with my wife and a number of text messages that I had absolutely zero recollection about. Sure, anesthesia impacts everyone a little differently, but are you really willing to risk that chance? and for what?

What I'm really trying to drive home to you is that your "strategy" of taking your affair to your grave is wrought with tons of pitfalls that are going to leave you miserable and honestly prone to having future affairs. People forget that as human beings, we are still just very social mammals and eventually, your lack of connection to your wife, which was directly caused by your first affair and the subsequent cover up, will lead you seeking out that connection somewhere else and pretty soon you've become a serial cheater who will fuck anything that gives you attention. Don't believe me, head over to the JFO forum and ready Sigyn's thread about discovering her husband's serial cheating over decades. If you think the devastation after learning of one affair is bad, try his dozens upon dozens of affairs, keeping in mind that the more APs you collect, the more chances that one of them clues your wife in. I'm telling you this brother, you seriously need help and this board is more than willing to help you, but you have to be willing to help your self a little bit. The first step to any recovery is admitting you have a problem, which you have done by coming here, but you have taken no action towards addressing the problem.

I told my husband — the cheating partner in our case — about your post. He didn’t understand how someone actively cheating would choose to go on this forum. He is right in a way, it isn’t normal…

You aren’t just a callous cheater with no regard for the deep harm he is doing to another person. There is something good inside you that is screaming to be let out. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have this goodness inside you. You are almost there…you just need to follow through on the last step. You need to lance the boil and let the pus seep out. Then you can become healthy. No amount of antibiotics can clear an active festering walled off infection.

Regardless of what you do you should keep talking.

These are the stages of Change:

1. Precontemplation (Not yet acknowledging that there is a problem behavior that needs to be changed)
2. Contemplation (Acknowledging that there is a problem but not yet ready, sure of wanting, or lacks confidence to make a change)
3. Preparation/Determination (Getting ready to change)
4. Action/Willpower (Changing behavior)
5. Maintenance (Maintaining the behavior change)

You are in the Contemplation Stage. All you need to do is take that next step to the Preparation Stage. Start thinking about how you might do this, what you might say to your spouse and the OW. Try to have some hope that it will all work out. Yes your wife will go through pain but you will restore her dignity and your own. I wish you the very best.

What is it exactly that you are afraid of? Let us help you break it down. Let us help you separate yourself from the AP.

I’m afraid of what will happen to my wife when she finds out. Everything will change forever.
I’m trying to detach/distance myself and the AP. Still working together at the moment, waiting for an opportunity to change work place.
Will she try to make the last move by going nuclear before I decide (if I do)to tell my wife? I don’t know