SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm assuming in general towards waywards. Just like the definition of sex. It's a waywards process to minimize.

When I said words matter, it was directed at pink, because she said we all nitpick every word. Well, words matter. But it's a good reminder to all of us.

An invaluable member has pointed something out to me. When I say "fooling around" that's giving what I did a cutesy nickname. I do NOT want to do that nor meant to. I apologize for my lack of understanding the intention behind my words. I will no longer be calling it that. Several of you have also pointed out that any type of sexual touching should be considered as sex. I agree with your words. I see how my words/thoughts minimized my awful actions. Everyone's words are valuable to me. It may take a little bit for it to sink or for me to truly understand it, but I listening to it all.

As far as sharing family pics, info with the AP, it is inappropriate.

I remember the movie Fatal Attraction. Remember there is a scene where Glenn Close covertly kidnaps the child to take them to an amusement park. In this case the AP was not even invited into the family unit, but barged in anyway.

APs are enemies to the family unit that the WS purportedly hopes to sustain. Inviting them into the family unit by sharing pix, info is just as much of a betrayal as sex or ILYs.

I'm a BH, a male. I think if a WH was sharing pix, etc. with an AP it would be much easier seen as a betrayal and serious. That may throw the issue into clearer relief.

I post this all because WS interested in becoming safe partners need to confess to all of the ways they have betrayed the BS and family.

Everyone's words are valuable to me. It may take a little bit for it to sink or for me to truly understand it,

Since I am not always great at taking advice, If I were you I may have bailed about 10 pages ago.

It is good that you are actually listening to all sides, and accepting other POV.

I give you credit for hanging in here.

Mickey, I'm usually not good at taking advice or hearing criticism. I actually hate it, but I can't be my normal self. I HAVE to listen and change. It's not easy hearing some of these words, but it's because it's the truth that I don't want to admit in myself.

Hi LD,

For transparency, I am a BH, just thought I should preface my comments with that first.

One of the things that stings the most is that our spouses entered a relationship with someone else while married to us. They gave their attention, their effort, their heart, and sometimes their bodies to someone other than who they made the promise to. That hurts! Honestly, it's something that I think about a lot. How do we compete against a fancy? How do we that has been betrayed ever feel any kind of Justice about that? Let's be realistic, in a marriage, after a few years, a lot of that romance doesn't exist anymore. What does exist is mortgages, car payments, other bills, sometimes children, work stress, who's going to make dinner? With your affair partner, that was never a concern. you were able to detach yourself from your marriage and responsibilities and pursue this fantasy relationship. A person only has so much energy to give, and you are giving it to the wrong person. If that energy was put into the marriage and possibly repairing whatever damage is done in that marriage rather than displacing that for another relationship kills us. We were never aware that our marriage is in Jeopardy initially. We were in a fight and didn't even know it. Then, we find out. We see how unfair things are. You gave up the security of a marriage for the fantasy.

Some people can forgive. Not all, but some can look at the relationship as a whole and realize that this was really bad time in an otherwise wonderful relationship. It takes a long time to be able to think without much clarity. Trust me, I know! Others cannot handle it. There's no shame in that. Even the Bible accepts infidelity as grounds for ending a marriage.

I think you really want to save this marriage. I don't think that that's ultimately your choice to make, the only advice I can give you is you need to pursue him with all of the energy you have in you. You have to be better than the wife but he thought you were. Please, do not ask him about reconciliation. He really doesn't know right now, and he's leaning towards divorce, just like I'm sure all of us were. You need to open your heart to him as many times as you humanely can. Tell him you're sorry anytime you see him in pain, and address that pain. If he knows he could be vulnerable around you, that's at least the first step. Be as understanding as you can if and when you guys ever become intimate again and understand that things might not go as well for you as you hope. Support him as best as you can. There is no guarantee said it will save your marriage, but at least you've done everything you could to try and make amends in these early stages.

I would also really recommend you work on yourself as much as possible. Read whatever books you can find on the subject. some will be helpful, some will not be, just like on this forum. The thing is, knowledge is power. I didn't read through the whole thread, so I don't know if you're in IC, but do your best in that too. Try to do as much with your husband as you can. ask him to go to the gym, go for walks every night, just be there with him. Be there for him.

This sucks for everyone. Yeah, you made some horrible choices, and I'm sure your intentions weren't to hurt your husband. Sadly, you are both in tremendous pain now from those choices. I hope that you can both find peace, weather together or not.

Boy oh boy, LD I sure understand that :) . My dad was an engineer and my XWW was not only an engineer but a AP physics teacher.

Dad was ok as he wanted to show me how he was right, but the XWW also wanted to show me that I was wrong, if you get my drift. She even took that attitude into MC, once again trying to be the smartest person in the room...

It takes some guts to open your thread to WS and BS and take all that's given to you. It shows you have the strength that you will need for the next couple years.

[This message edited by MickeyBill2016 at 10:32 PM, September 6th (Friday)]

Words do matter.

The most traumatic and hurtful words that you told your husband were that you were in love with your affair partner during your affair. It really does not matter that now you claim to understand that you were not really in love with him.

You also told your husband that you loved them both at the same time. He thinks you don't know what love is so how can he believe that you now are in love with him?

I never said that words don't matter. I know what I said has pained him. I know he has every right to doubt and question my feelings. I caused that, and now I will do everything possible to hopefully show him that he can believe me.

Hi LD,

I think you need to be honest with yourself about whether or not remaining with your husband is the right thing to do, for both of you.

This is not an attack, nor is it a request for answers. Given the fact that your husband might read this thread at some point, you obviously have to be careful about what you say here. So please do not worry about responding.

I urge you to think about whether or not you really, truly want to be with your husband for the rest of your life. Not out of prurient curiosity, but because your affair indicates that he may not be everything that you want in life.

There is nothing to gain by revisiting the affair to examine whether it should have happened. Nobody, including you, would say it was a good thing to do. And yet...It happened. didn't it?

During the affair, your husband came to you and opened up, to say that he sensed something was wrong, and that he wanted to fix it.

At that point, you had no interest in engaging with him. You brushed him off, pushed him away, lied to him, and subsequently slept with your affair partner.

This is not said to make you feel bad, but to make you consider why - at that point - you were so detached from your husband, and so committed to your affair partner.

My thinking, which may be faulty, is that if your husband really is 100% the man you should spend the rest of your life with, why did you prioritize your affair partner over him? Again, I am not suggesting you answer that here; it is posed as a question that you should answer to yourself.

You see, this is not just about trying to prevent the destruction of a marriage and family in the aftermath of infidelity, but about whether it is right - and wise - for you to remain with your husband for the rest of your life.

Sure, you can go into damage limitation mode and try to keep the family and the marriage going, because - being horribly cynical - you do not want to go from having two men in your life to having no men in your life. And then there are the pressures of trying to preserve the family that your daughter is growing up in.

What I want to suggest to you is that although there can be all sorts of pressures and circumstantial reasons for trying to 'save' a marriage, there was a reason - or several reasons - why you loved your affair partner and gave him greater priority in your life than your husband.

Think about those.

Okay, it turned out that your affair partner was a serial cheat, and that you were no more than the latest in a series of trophies he bagged, but that is irrelevant to your life. Whatever he did, whatever he said, it struck a chord with you, to the point where you reached the point of having what looks like an exit affair with him.

You became comfortable in his home while his wife was not there. You were comfortable driving him and his children around. You took your daughter to his house, to be with his children, and were happy to be a guardian to his children. You had sex with him after hearing the pleas from your husband to address the problems that were occurring in your relationship.

As much as you might wish you could press 'rewind' and not do those things, the truth is that you did them. And you did them for a reason.

And now you find yourself struggling to try and save a marriage that for six months was clearly less desirable to you than your relationship with your affair partner.

If that man could become the focus of your life and your desires, above your husband, and above your daughter, I think you should really question whether you really, truly want to remain with your husband for the rest of your life.

Essentially, during your affair, you found a man that you wanted more than your husband for six months. Ask yourself why. This is not about punishing you, or being cruel, but because it is essential for you to not try to rebuild your relationship with your husband unless you are sure that he is a person you can spend the erst of your life with and be happy.

Because if you have issues with your husband that made the man you had an affair with look like a better match for you, those issues are not going to go away just because your husband beat the crap out of your AP and sent him on his way.

During the affair you told your AP you loved him, and you appeared to be trying to blend the children together. I ask you to think about what would would have happened if your husband had not busted the affair, and if your AP suggested that he would leave his wife for you and set up home with you.

What response would you have given to him?

From what I know of the affair, I would think you would have dumped your husband with an "I love you, but I'm not in love with you" speech, and moved in with your affair partner.

The reality is that he never had an interest in a real relationship with you, it was no more than getting kicks for free, but would you really have refused him if he had offered you the chance of a life with him?

There is no need to post an answer here; your husband may read it, so obviously you will write, "No, he was a turd, I loved my husband and want to be with him forever". What I am suggesting is that you consider these issues from your own perspective, because there is no point to reconcile with your husband if he is not right for you.

If you do recommit to your marriage, you need to consider that your husband is going to be utterly destroyed if he tries to trust you again and you cheat.

And if he is not the man for you, you are better off parting now and seeking a man more like your affair partner.

I dont know if staying with him is the right thing for the both of us. I know it is the right thing for me. I know that I truly want to be with him for the rest of my life. He is everything that I want. I know that I took him and what he gave me for granted. I know that I had a great life with him. I was a selfish c**t who wanted more and more and more. I was in that fucked up fog and thought he would never find out, he would never be hurt by it. I was committed to my own feelings.

It's not about having no man in my life. It's about not having my husband in my life. It will suck financially. It will suck being lonely. I don't deny that, but those are things that I can manage through. Being without HIM, i think that's something that I can't manage. He is the person that I want to grow old with. I know "how can that be if you fucked another guy?" And no, i dont want to rip my daughter's life apart. She will now have to live in two different apartments. She will only get to see one parent on certain days. She will see at least one parent being extremely sad most of the time. She might grow up wondering if it was ger fault even though will assure her it wasn't. All my doing, I know that.

Yes, I did say that I thought I loved my AP, but if that were true then wouldn't I be missing him? Wouldn't I be thinking about him? Wouldn't I have good thoughts about him? Because I don't to any of those. I dont want to be with him. I hate having to think about him. When I do have to think about him, it is nothing but negative feelings and thoughts about the both of us. I never saw it as an exit affair. I never wanted to leave my husband. I was a selfish cake eater. I had two men that wanted me. I was in it for myself. I was only thinking about myself. If ap had said let's run away together, I would have told him he's fucking crazy, that I would never leave my husband for him, and i would have walked away. I NEVER wanted to leave my husband.

My husband is the right man for me, but I'm not the right woman for him. I know I need to let him go. I just can't. I can't let go of that hope that he can be happy with me again. I know i don't have a choice. He wants a divorce. He wants to see if there is someone better, someone who actually deserved him. As much as it fucking sucks and hurts, I know I can't keep begging him to choose me. He does deserve to be happy. He does deserve to be with someone who deserves him. I hoped that could be me, but I don't think that will happen.

It good that you finally realize this.

Why don’t you propose that you get the process started, but promise him that it will be very amicable, AND tell him that once the divorce is finalized you plan and doing everything to convince him that you are a safe partner for him and you hope to earn him back.

This will be a huge relief to him and help him see that your remorse is real, that you are not the selfish person you showed yourself to be, and that his happiness is more important to you than your own.

Good luck

[This message edited by Newlifeisgreat at 1:59 PM, September 8th (Sunday)]

This hurts so much more than when my mom died. I never thought there would be anything worse, apart from losing my child, but this is worse than my mother's death. This is pain on so many more levels. I watched her die for two weeks, and seeing what I have done to him is worse than that feeling. Losing him, losing our family is the worst thing, and it is all my fault. I fucking did this. I destroyed our worlds.

I'm jealous of all the couples who have rebuilt their relationship and are working on reconciling or who have already done it. Your BH or BW gave you that amazing gift and it worked out or you're in the process of making it work out. For the WW or WH, you better cherish that gift and be fucking grateful every god damn day that you still get to be with your partner.

LD,

I am really sorry that he thinks this is the way forward. It is possible that he will not go through with it.

If he does, and the marriage ends, it does not mean that everything is over between the two of you. He may think that it is what he wants, but if he gets it, he may see it in a different light.

I think that what he is doing is being driven by his pain and his anger, maybe even some resentment, not because he has worked out a coherent plan for his future.

If he insists on breaking up, then let him be the sole force driving that. He has asked you to stand by him as a partner and end things, but that does not mean that you cannot state your case about wanting to be together.

His suggestion that the grass is going to be greener if he breaks up with you is a kind of fantasy, and it is possible that he will have second thoughts at some point in the process.

Whatever happens, you are not going to be alone, and there are going to be plenty of times where you will both be together with your daughter.

Even if there is a break - perhaps an ending of the marriage on paper - it does not mean that there is no potential for the relationship to rebuild itself, bit by bit, day by day.

For now, take things day by day, and do not neglect yourself.

You cannot control your husband, but that does not mean that you cannot shape the way things go. And by remaining close, and open to him, you are keeping the door open to a possible reconciliation.

Reconciliation does not always begin immediately. There are couples in these forums who have separated for several months and then got back together.

Nobody can predict the future, but you can give reconciliation the best chance by remaining open to it, and by asking your husband what he needs.

He may think this is what he needs to do now, but that does not mean that he will always feel that way. Change can happen.

This hurts so much more than when my mom died.

It does. I lost my mom in August and the XWW and I separated in October. It was my Annus horribilis .

My dad and I talked a lot during that time as we both lost the women in our lives. He was sad about mom's death but they had a long time together. He was very sad for me as well, he said I lost my wife because of her decision to cheat and leave the marriage. My mom had no choice.

So yes I agree that divorce can be worse than death.

Hang in there.

I'm so sorry, LD. I have challenged you pretty brusquely at times, and I haven't cut your H much slack for his choices either, but I've also believed that you guys were better than average candidates for R. So much of how you describe yourself was me, too -- cake eater, selfish, high on the attention of two men, refusing to look at who I was hurting in the process. We aren't the first people here to have played with stakes we couldn't afford, and sadly, we'll be far from the last. And yet, here we both are, trying to prove we have the capacity to change.

I am indeed fucking grateful every goddamn day that I'm still with my BH, and that's not a sarcastic repetition of your words, it's fervent agreement. I have been lucky to get an opportunity to rebuild, far luckier than I deserve.

I have read a lot of stories about BS who demand D at this stage and end up in eventual R. It sounds like you do have to prepare for the worst, but I am pulling for you as you continue to work for the best.

She will see at least one parent being extremely sad most of the time. She might grow up wondering if it was ger fault even though will assure her it wasn't. All my doing, I know that.

LD, she already sees at least one parent being extremely sad most of the time - your BH. He may not be outwardly showing it a lot but kids aren't dumb. They can pick up on nonverbal nuances too.

Through S/D, both of you WILL move on to be happy again. The sadness is temporary. Yes, she will need reassurance. She would in R too because she knows on some level mom and dad seem stressed/strained right now. If R isn't the right choice for your BH, his sadness isn't going to go away so she would witness the slow breakdown of her dad. In a way, what's better for him is better for her too even if it doesn't seem like an ideal situation on paper.

And who knows. Maybe this will pass and you will both find your way back to each other after some time. You are strong and you will become a healthier, happier person in the future. Part of that will be learning to derive that joy from inside yourself instead of relying on others. For instance, it isn't your BH's job to make you happy and you will learn how not to rely on him for happiness so that you won't be sad for the rest of your life if he moves on and finds a new partner. It feels impossible now but it will get easier especially if you work at it in IC and as you heal.

This will be a change for her but it is not a catastrophe or a life sentence to miserable parents. It's going to be an adjustment period and she will get through this too.

No soliciting

[This message edited by SI Staff at 11:01 AM, September 9th (Monday)]