I've been in a major mid-life crisis. Married 31 yrs, 5 kids over age 20. Recently had my first (and LAST) affair which lasted a few months. Started out as friends .... ended with having sex once. My H is devastated. He still loves me and wants to make it work and we had been moving forward.... until I resumed contact via internet with the OM. Believe me, I know that was the wrong thing to do, but what's done is done now. My H found out and is in severe depression and paranoia now. He's obsessed with wanting to know what I'm thinking all the time, wondering if I'm going to leave him, etc.. I feel horrible for what I have done to him and really want to make things better but I know it will take a long time. In the mean time I'm just wondering if I've ruined my poor H for good. I feel lower than dirt knowing that I did this to him. I don't know how to even talk to him anymore. He has tons of anxiety, has lost almost 50 lbs. This is getting to be more than I can bear and I just don't know if its even fixable anymore. How do people get through this kind of thing??
I've been in a major mid-life crisis. Married 31 yrs, 5 kids over age 20. Recently had my first (and LAST) affair which lasted a few months. Started out as friends .... ended with having sex once. My H is devastated. He still loves me and wants to make it work and we had been moving forward.... until I resumed contact via internet with the OM. Believe me, I know that was the wrong thing to do, but what's done is done now. My H found out and is in severe depression and paranoia now. He's obsessed with wanting to know what I'm thinking all the time, wondering if I'm going to leave him, etc.. I feel horrible for what I have done to him and really want to make things better but I know it will take a long time. In the mean time I'm just wondering if I've ruined my poor H for good. Everyone around us can see how terrible he looks. Its embarrassing and makes me feel lower than dirt knowing that I did this to him. I don't know how to even talk to him anymore. He has tons of anxiety, has lost almost 50 lbs. I really think he's loved me too much and I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living. This is getting to be more than I can bear and I just don't know if its even fixable anymore. How do people get through this kind of thing?? I sometimes think that I should leave so that he can move on with his life and quit being so obsessed with me. What do I do???
It's all part of what happens to the LS. I've been there. I started IC a few months post d-day, and it kept me going. I also had to go on anti depressant med's for a time. Leaving is his decision, if he wants you, stay with him. You can have a major roll in helping him heal from this. Tell him whatever he wants to know, reassure him often and sincerely. Be honest in all things, and talk openly about what you think happened and why. Don't ever blame him for you choices. Your relationship can recover, but it will be different and can be stronger and closer than before, good luck to you both.
You have to be patient, he is still in shock and needs time to cope with the betrayal of trust. You do not owe it to him to leave, it would not do him any favors at this point... trust me, from my own experience, if you leave right now his pain will double and then some, not only will he be living with the knowledge that you gave yourself to another man despite him having devoted the past three decades to you, its bad enough that you shattered his trust and now has to live with the visuals of you getting your sexual satisfaction outside of your relationship, but that you also now want to leave him.
The question you need to ask is what do YOU want? And realize it will take some time, possibly a long time, for you to be ready to really answer this question because if you got any satisfaction from your affair (and you must have since you recontacted the OM) then you are still highly under the influence of that affair. If you want to actually save your marriage and make it better, then you show him you are willing to do whatever it takes. It is also completely HIS choice whether he wants to give you the gift of reconciliation or to end the marriage, but from what you said he is still in the process of grieving right now and can't make that decision until he is back in a rational state of mind. Leaving him does not help.
From my experience, when my W cheated I wish she could have just put everything on hold for a bit instead of making all kinds of rash decisions and doing irrepairable damage, she likes to burn bridges and it has made my decision clear to me, but definitely didn't help me cope with the pain at all, just made it excrutiatingly intense. Putting things on hold means, no contact with OM, complete transparency and honesty with your H, let him ask any questions he needs to ask, put your sexual needs on the shelf until things heal over. then you both can start working on your marriage again together and with help.
Do you really want your H---to go at this point in your life---do you wanna go into your golden years as a single
Are you really involving yourself in an exit A.
How really bad could your mge., have been???? What were you really looking for, with your A., and then continued contact---you knew the continued contact would stab a fatal wound thru your H's, heart---what is it that you want?????
"I really think he's loved me too much and I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living. This is getting to be more than I can bear and I just don't know if its even fixable anymore."- This sounds pretty insensitive to me right here. So, your telling us that your husbands only fault was "loving you too much." I give up- Freud once said "What do women want?" Yeah... really. If its not enough love; its too much love. I think you've checked-out of this marriage already by the sound of your tone.
"I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living."- WOW... just WOW.
River I hope you take this in the spirit in which is meant. I just want you to reframe your thinking and if you are sincere, repentant and love your husband, I am certain you will not take this in the wrong way.
First step is to put yourself in his shoes, and suffer along with him. That will half his burden of pain. The fact that you want to abandon him when he needs you the most is exceptionally careless. You do not want to witness the devastation you have caused, who then? Why do you think he should bear this alone.
It seems to me that a person who is truly sorry would want to stay and mitigate the damage. I think staying and experiencing his pain with him takes a deep sense of love and compassion and remorse. I may be wrong but, you appear to care about yourself and what you are going through.
You were married to this man for thirty years. I am going to assume during that time, he provided for you and loved you. You returned his love by betraying, humiliating and sending him into depression and self doubt. I wonder that you can think of yourself at this point. Do you think your heart is cold and hard?
He loves you too much you say? You are highly unlikely to ever be loved that way again, i think. Anyway, when he gets over this initial painful period he is llikey not to see yoi and love you the same way he did before your betrayal. So the too much love may take care of itself. Do you return any of his love?
If he were posting I would ask him is his if he loves the person his wife truly what his loving nature wants her to be. I would ask him to really look at this person as she is - lacking the character, control and thoughtfulness to be loyal to a man who has given her love for 30 years. Moreover, a woman who seem to take his too much love for granted. Is she really the type of person he would love.
I think when be recovers himself he may see the person you truly are and find you unworthy of his love. It happens - after an initial attempt at recomsiliation the LS begins to think realistically and decide to leave maybe it takes a year or two.
If you are sincere read about recovery from infidelity and I suggest a book that can help you and your husband entitled "how can I forgive" by Janet? Abraham it is available for download from Amazon. .
I know this sounds rather mean but you need mean to make you take stock. Try to take the focus off of you and put it where it belongs. You have done an very bad thing to this man and you seem cavalier and self- centered. Maybe that's why you betrayed him in the first place. I hope you will take what I said not as a criticism but a call to your better self which appears to me to be anemic and weak. . Posted via Mobile Device
"I really think he's loved me too much and I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living. This is getting to be more than I can bear and I just don't know if its even fixable anymore."- This sounds pretty insensitive to me right here. So, your telling us that your husbands only fault was "loving you too much." I give up- Freud once said "What do women want?" Yeah... really. If its not enough love; its too much love. I think you've checked-out of this marriage already by the sound of your tone.
"I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living."- WOW... just WOW.
Makes sense. Then she could have her space and he would not be c0ckblocking.
"I really think he's loved me too much and I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living. This is getting to be more than I can bear and I just don't know if its even fixable anymore."- This sounds pretty insensitive to me right here. So, your telling us that your husbands only fault was "loving you too much." I give up- Freud once said "What do women want?" Yeah... really. If its not enough love; its too much love. I think you've checked-out of this marriage already by the sound of your tone.
"I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living."- WOW... just WOW.
I think this is normal for a woman to say. she clearly doesnt love her husband at all. and a woman out of love is as cold as if she never met you... story has been told a thousand times.
So your only consequence for the maggaige is now you have a zombie for a husband?
Maybe it would be easier for you if you gave your self back to him and called him 5 or six times a day. Try being accountable for your time by giving him your reciepts. Does he have full access to your cell phone and computor?
Have you kneeled at his feet and asked for his punishment? what have you told him about the affair? Are you willing to answer all his ughly and painful question about the OM.
I know this sh8t is hard to do especially the details but my wife told me what I needed to know, she has recieved her spanking and has fully submitted to my needs for healing. She account for her time and makes no excuse to not turn in a reciept, her time card, pay stub,cell, and the words of remores and graditude for taking her back.
She has laid down everything at my feet and has only asked one thing...my love.
She has to trust me that I won't go back to the old "the guy" she has to trust that I will continue my 180 and stick with my healthier behaviors. As she continues her efforts I find it very healing in continueing mine.
Its easy to forgive when your cheating spouse does the heavy lifting to get the LS out of there funk.
The greatest thing you can do right now is call him all the time...I.m talken when you get to work, at break, at lunch, when you leave. something about just checking in to say were your at and asking if theres any thing you can do or just saying I love you will mean alot.
Or forget everything I just said and take him to a strip club ,by him a hooker and drop him off at the bar, maybe he'll meet some "friends".
You had a glimpse of a 2nd chance when you said "first and last affair", you should have been thankful at that point and not made contact. The contact could be the nail in the coffin for your marriage.
What to do? Tell him "I am sorry" a thousand times, then keep on telling him. It will never be enough... so tell him everyday.
After all that, it will still be up to him whether he wants to leave.
I know this because I have lived this scenario in your H's shoes. I gave my W a 2nd chance and she violated the NC. That was the final straw for me.
Yeah its what happens to a guy when he is in love with his wife. Some men pour their lives into their wives and marriages. I'm that way. But by the way you speak of him, you have lost any and all respect for him.
When people remark about your husbands appearance, and you are so embarrassed. Do you tell them why he looks that way? Like "Oh yeah he looks that way because I ripped the heart out of his chest and stomped on it by having affair with another man and then not breaking it off clean". I hope he is in therapy. Men in this state are more then capable of taking their own lives.
"I wish he could just get some hobby and some other friends so that I'm not his sole reason for living." That has got to be about the cruelest thing I have heard come out of a wayward wife. What that is called is CONTEMPT. It shows how little respect you have for him and actually shows that you don't love him. A marriage can survive the death of parent, a sibling and even a child. It can survive affairs. But contempt is one thing a marriage can't survive. Because it shows a completely dehumanizing disrespect for another. And its peppered throughout your post. Get some help for him or ask someone who actually cares about him, a family member maybe.
You might find after 30 yrs of being a couple----that being a single, isn't quite what you want
The reality of it is, you will do EVERYTHING for yourself, and you will PAY all your own bills, and they KEEP coming month after month, after month---WHETHER YOU HAVE MONEY OR NOT
You might just find you desperately NEED this innocent man who has been your loving partner for over 30 yrs----the man who you have trampled upon---let us only hope he can raise himself from the depths, and move on with or w/out you
Dealing with consequences of affair 
