I recently was went out-of-town and cheated on my husband of 8 years. I am not proud of what I've done, but I can't say that I completely regret the connection I had with the other person. Regardless, I will not be keeping in touch with the other person ( as he is in a relationship as well) and there likely no chance that we will ever run into each other again.
I admit that I am really scared to tell my husband. One part of me feels that I should tell him, but a larger part of me feels that telling him would be more hurtful than helpful to our relationship. I read all these articles and blogs about how marriages are never the same and many times worse-off after one partner admits to cheating, so what is the benefit of telling if I never plan on doing it again?
I am feeling guilty, but wouldn't it be better to be the only person that feels bad than to drag him down with me? I realize the longer I wait to tell, the worse it will be when/if I do.
My husband and I have not talked since I told him I cheated.
My husband travels pretty frequently for work. I travel for work and pleasure pretty frequently. The longest we've been separated for recently is about 2-3 weeks max. We try to travel together when we can. He was actually supposed to go with me on the trip but decided not to.
This will make it ever more difficult for the husband. He probably will be beating himself up saying to himself if only I had gone on the trip this never would have happened. I really feel sorry for him.
Is it possible down deep you were angry with your husband for not going on this trip and this cheating was a form of payback?
He showed you a little attention when you were lonely on your birthday and you relented so easily..Was there any resentment from your side that your husband could not make it to the trip?
I don't think so. There have been bigger trips I have taken where his presence would have meant more (weddings, family events). I like to think I wouldn't do this purely out of vengeance, but I'm not sure.
Sorry,I think I need to take a break of this forum. I feel like I am going through so many emotions on this and I'd rather experience these with my husband. I just really hope he will give me another chance.
Now we're getting somewhere. Resentment tends to build slowly. All the past times hubby was not with you probably hurt you more than you are willing to admit. This last time, your birthday, was the straw that broke the camels back. Posted via Mobile Device
A make out kiss is an extremely powerful inducement towards sex. Furthermore, the consumption of alcohol helps lower inhibitions and facilitates doing things that normally a person would not do while sober.
Wednesday he invites me over for dinner. I go over... then we were kissing again.
Fourth and final encounter, your resistance to his sexual advances are completely gone. If your job required you to continue staying more time in that country, it would have been a safe bet that you would have fallen in love with the OM.
You are a perfect case book example of how crossing marital boundaries can seduce a happily married woman to have sex with a man who is not her husband. An attractive man (sexual chemistry) and alcohol abuse are always a dangerous combination for a married woman so far from home and husband.
Leslie, if you want a chance to save your marriage, you will have to either quit your job or be assigned to a different department where no out of town travel is required. Why? Because your husband will be under excruciating agony every time you travel out of town and wondering if the set of circumstances that set the stage for you to break marital boundaries, will present themselves once more.
Of course there are more things that you'll need to improve your chances that your husband will give you a second chance but I'll let you think about what I said and for other members to give their input as well.
And for what its worth, there is nothing normal about a husband and wife going off on frequent long trips without ne another, and to foreign countries? Give me a break! You were an affair waiting to happen! If you can't see how you subconsciously (or conscously) set this whole situation up for yourself, you are seriously delusional. Posted via Mobile Device
Leslie, you are a naive fool who got played by this guy. He just kept isolating you, talking you up, and escalating the physical contact, and you kept going back for more.
From your tone of writing, I believe you think of yourself as smart and clever, but you arent at all. I wonder how many other stupid women he's pulled this on, you don't sound like his first. The stay at my place was particularly clever of him, and stupid of you. There was no way he was going away once he knew he was going to have you there again sleep with. it was just too easy for him. He likely didn't break up with the GF at all, he just told her he couldn't go that weekend,since he was planning on nailing you again.
Seriously get checked for STDs and in a few months HIV because this guy does this regularly. Just another american chick who thought she coud play with fire. Your husband has lost trust in you,I also think he will loose any respect for your judgement as well. At least you know why you cheated- because you were stupid enough to keep going backlot his guy as he reeled you in.
I don't think your husband will ever trust you to travel away again. I know I wouldn't. So that's a loss you will suffer as a consequence if your husband gives you a second chance. Posted via Mobile Device
Wow was the other man a snake or what. He knew exactly what he was doing and made you fall for it completely. And you actually believed the BS that he didn't cheat on his girlfriend before?
What struck me however was that you had sex with him twice in a sober state. After the first time you had time to reflect on you've done but once again you slept with him. If I was your husband, I couldn't understand how this guy that you've known for what? a couple of days? could wipe out everything he'd done for you, all the years, everything you went through together and this wasn't a drunken romp, this was a concious decision to twice sleep with a man you barely know even though you're happily married to a man who by your own admission is everything you could ever want.
I'm not saying all of this to guilt trip you, I just sense that you have a very lax attitude towards fidelity. You blew off the first kiss as a drunken "mistake" where typically you should've been distraught that anything physical happened with another man, secondly you remained buddies with him even though the very sight of him should've reviled you. Then you repeatedly placed yourself in situations where things of an intimate nature could've happened. I'm not trying to question your morals but sex is a pretty significant thing. To give it to another man you barely know so easily while you're married signals that you do indeed have serious boundary issues. Your husband is made to feel completely worthless by all of this.
I was also struck by the sex, twice, in a sober state. I was tempted while on long business trips. One thing conspicuously missing from the story - when did you talk with your husband? Was there no daily check-in call ? Talking while distant could help you stay connected and set boundaries. Not communicating can be the death of feelings.
I think the kissing and petting in the days leading up to the sex are just as bad as the sex itself. Leslie was engaging in an affair right from the very first kiss. She was attracted to this man and was giving affection as well as recieving.
This was no one-way seduction.
She knew where this would lead, and I believe she enjoyed being caught up in the excitement of it all. I also have a hard time believing she felt no romantic feelings for the other man while engaging in all this.
This whole story is right out of a Harlequin romance novel.
I applaud Leslie for admitting her responsibility in all this, but she needs to lay out the full truth of her motivations and intentions. I think what we have here is a woman who loves her husband deeply, but who desires passion and romance. I don't believe she was getting enough of that from her marriage, and on the week of her birthday, alone in another country, that is when she was needing these things the most.
It was her kryptonite. The right circumstances for this to happen and she went along with no real resistance. Her biggest issue is that she really did not regret it. That is an honest thing. I am not judging. She felt entitled to this. I do not think this is an rare feeling.
The birthday underscored that she would be 30. For some women this is a big deal. It turned out to be more of a right of passage into being a mature woman he felt she could handle things because it felt so right. She indulged herself. She knew what she was doing.
While this does read like a romance novel it is something some women would like to be able to do. Have a loving husband and a lover on the the side like this. It is just like the movie ... The Other Man.
Please understand that we are not trying to dump on you. Think of us more as part of your inner dialogue, and we are trying to get you to simply be honest with yourself. This is an important step for you, so that you cn then be honest with hom.
You don't want to admit you got played because I think your afraid of looking even worse than you do. The guy however did play you and played you so well that at each step he sort of got you to willingly choose it. And that's no doubt part of the conflict you feel inside because you are either so angry you let yourself be manipulated like that, or you are in denial that it happened.
The reality is that you were presented by him with choices all along the way, and each time he set up a choice it further isolated you from your life and safety net, a further led you into cheating.
This doesn't mean that cheating wasn't you fault or choice, it was. But it does show you how it happened and he you used you agsinst you. Posted via Mobile Device
I can relate to this. I only had an EA. Nothing like this, but it was a betrayal of its own scope. My boundaries were not sufficent.
But I can sympathize with you on this. My situation is long in the past now. Recounting any specific feelings during that time is not something I ever do. It would be reliving the betrayal. I have done enough reflection on all of that and it just opens the wound needlessly. You are in the early stages and it is painful but layer upon layer you do need to look at the series of choices you made.
You had me at you were attracted to this guy and started to meet with him. This was the real betrayal. The real bad chocie. It set in motion all the rest. While in theory you could have made any number of decisions to limit the destruction the way you first engaged this affair / fling was the problem. The rest is just playing out the level of the betrayal. Folks who think having initmate meetings with the opposite sex and kissing is harmless and no bug deal amaze me.
It is hard to beleive that this would have remained a secret. Maybe it would have. But you would eventually contact this giuy even though you think you would not. Plus you involved your colleagues.
On the subject of male friends. Well this was very diiferent in many ways/. The romantic isoaltion for one. You had the feeling of being in a bubble of romance. You would not see this guy again. When we interact with others in the real world we have a tad moe accountability as our choices will be longer lasting. It is much easier to have a fling with a handsome stranger and feel you can compartmentalize it.
****6am on Saturday we finally realize that we've stayed up all night talking. His friend leaves. OM and I talk. I realize here that his GF had broken up with him earlier that day.****
Do you really believe that he has a gf? I don't. Or else the term is used rather loosely here.
Leslie, it's good you told your husband because this seems like the kind of guy who will find a way to let your husband know. Men can be indiscreet and since it doesn't sound like he has too serious of a partner of his own, he has nothing to lose.
As I have mentioned before, when my bf reconnected with someone he had dated earlier, she was all over his FB wall. If I had been watching it in real time, I would have been able to see a problem developing.
I've always thought that romance novels were rubbish, so it's painful to think that my cheating was a classic story line for one. I thought I was too evolved for things like that, apparently not. Sigh.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that when most of you pick up a lady, getting into her pants is never a goal. I really can't get mad or feel used by this situation or person. So while I appreciate everyone giving me the benefit of the doubt, that I was duped into sleeping with him, just don't. It's not convincing.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize that when most of you pick up a lady, getting into her pants is never a goal. I really can't get mad or feel used by this situation or person. So while I appreciate everyone giving me the benefit of the doubt, that I was duped into sleeping with him, just don't. It's not convincing.
So what is the motivation for married woman isolated from her husband to get picked up? To put herself in intimate situations in a foreign land with a man you did not know but were very attracted to. You helped him out by continually getting drunk. You went to his place multiple times. You were in his bed.
Considering what you did, this is the best for both of you whatever the outcome might be. Op is more at fault since she was the one that was married. There are a lot of men that look for easy pu$$y, married or not.
And did you not feel one bit of guilt when he talked about going and meeting his gf after having sex with you? You still f*cked him after that, didn't you?
OMG. It just hit me. If hubby stays with her he can look forward to buying a present each year around her Bday that says " Happy anniversary of the day you cheated on me and f*cked OM."
Co-counseling session set up for Monday. Haven't talked since I told him, texts and emails only.
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