As far as being C&S keep it up and good for you, I really mean that. You cannot blame shift A's she needs to either take the blame and fix it or get out.
She cannot straddle that fence and many WS want too, blame shift and or take the A deeper
Wtf...? If anything like you describe, you talk with your husbond and change together!
According to her, she'd been talking for years. He simply refused to listen and/or didn't want to change. True, like my situation in a minor sense, she took the low road having an affair. You can see she's more than likely in love with the other man. I'll stand by my belief that he won't change and if they reconcile, it'll be business as usual in short order. ( except now he'll have her affair to deal with which will make him even more chilly)
I had two brief affairs at the end of my marriage of 17 years. My wife never found out about either of them, but among other things, they forced me to realize that our marriage was broken beyond repair, even prior to the affairs. So I initiated the separation, even though the affairs were over.
If you're going to commit to trying to rebuild your marriage, I'd advise you to commit 100%, and not hold back anything from your husband that he feels he needs to deal with your affair. I do suspect you're holding back not just because you don't want to hurt him, but because you don't want to continue to be reminded about what you've done. So you're as concerned about protecting yourself and your image as you are about protecting him. If you want him to heal, you can't do that.
I wish you and your husband good luck in rebuilding.
Empty, after your being in an 16 month affair, do you really think
your husband will ever be able to trust you?
Not only what you say, but where you have spent your time when not around him?
Stopping the affair merely because you got caught says more about what you think of your husband than anything else.
You will ALWAYS like knowing that he is a good provider, but the ache will still remain for whatever you were getting from your AP.
Let your husband move on.
According to her, she'd been talking for years. He simply refused to listen and/or didn't want to change.
Speak up in clear terms, if it doesn't work, get out. Affair isn't justified.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fvstringpicker
You can see she's more than likely in love with the other man.
Yes, so she must sort out her feelings and decide whether she want's to love or be in-love, and if she can restore love with her husbond. If she chooses in-love with her lover, then leave. Affair isn't justified.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fvstringpicker
I'll stand by my belief that he won't change and if they reconcile, it'll be business as usual in short order. ( except now he'll have her affair to deal with which will make him even more chilly)
Agree. So she must commit to work on marriage with her husbond or decide to leave. Resuming affair isn't justified.
OP must soulsearch and decide if the marriage is worth the tremendous effort that she will have to put into it with her husbond, and not be with him out of pitty. Everybody want to feel loved including her husbond, that's not for WS only.
Empty, after your being in an 16 month affair, do you really think
your husband will ever be able to trust you?
Not only what you say, but where you have spent your time when not around him?
Stopping the affair merely because you got caught says more about what you think of your husband than anything else.
You will ALWAYS like knowing that he is a good provider, but the ache will still remain for whatever you were getting from your AP.
Let your husband move on.
I always try to imagine the logistics of an affair. How do you arrange time to see each other? What do you tell your spouse? Do you get the feeling after awhile that they know but don't want to deal with it?
From the sounds of your posts, you aren't sure if you want to be with your AP or your H. You have to figure that out soon. It is not fair to your H to keep him hanging on if you are really in love with your AP.
Once you figure that out is when you move into the details. If you are going to leave your H, telling him details will just pour salt in the wounds. If you want to stay with your H, you need to answer whatever he asks. Believe me, he is imagining porn star sex multiple times a day, and the truth is (I'm assuming here) not as bad as that. Be respectful with your answers but tell him the truth. You completely betrayed him, and he deserves the answers to what he wants to know.
Empty Inside, I'd never trust my feelings at this point. 16 mo affiar, the most fullfilling sex ever, being dumped by your AP (you can name it in other way if you can).. You are now in a huge withdrawal (a cople of weeks with NC is nothing) with can only subside with time of NC and refusing to relive a minute at minute the ''romance'' in your head. It all boils down to a internal decision nad commit it it. Get rid of every trigger, mementoes, cards, songs, etc. Once your brain chemistry readjust itself you'd think more clearly, with some perspective, without putting all those filters.
It seems you are trading your loving H (who is clearly not the perfect spouse but who among us is?) of many years with all your shared history and memories for good sex.
As for being in love with your AP, classic fog speak. Since when is love based on dishonesty? And what is so special about an affair born of ugliness and built on a foundation of lies and deceit. Wonderful people don't get involved with married people regardless of the tale of woe you spun for your AP. In the same way, emotionally mature people do not get involved with felons or drug addicts. Your morals should stay consistent regardless of circumstances. Emotionally mature people also know that before you start dating, you seek a divorce. There is no good or rational excuse for stabbing the father of your children in the back.
And cheaters often re-write the history of their marriages to justify the cheating or at the very least they magnify the problems and portray themselves as the victims. You stole your H's choices for 16 months. You let him live a lie. You are not the victim, he is. He is the ONLY victim in this situation. You acted poorly, selfishly and with gross entitlement.
I suggest you start Googling affairs and see what the chances of your so-called relationship with the kind of man that would date a married woman has of becoming a real relationship. What you had with your AP was all sunshine and lollypops and was probably made more exciting by the stench of betrayal and getting away with something naughty.
Be honest with your H. Own your poor choices and remember the chances of you regretting giving up all the good things you share with your husband for those very fleeting "in love" feelings that only last 1-2 years are great.
Love is not a feeling. Many, many people possessing a feeling of love and even acting in response to that feeling act in all manner of unloving and destructive ways. It is not only possible but necessary for a loving person to avoid acting on feelings of love. I may meet a woman who strongly attracts me, whom I feel like loving, but because it would be destructive to my marriage to have an affair, I will say vocally or in the silence of my heart, "I feel like loving you, but I am not going to". My feelings of love may be unbounded, but my capacity to be loving is limited. I therefore must choose the person on whom to focus my capacity to love, toward whom to direct my will to love.
True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision. Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. When we are concerned for someone's spiritual growth, we know that a lack of commitment is likely to be harmful and that commitment to that person is probably necessary for us to manifest our concern effectively.
Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present. If it is, so much the better; but if it isn't, the commitment to love, the will to love, still stands and is still exercised.
The common tendency to confuse love with feelings of love allows people all manner of self-deception. It is clear that there may be a self-serving quality in this tendency to confuse love with the feeling of love; it is easy and not at all unpleasant to find evidence of love in one's feelings. It may be difficult and painful to search for evidence of love in one's actions. But because true love is an act of will that often transcends ephemeral feelings of love, it is correct to say, "Love is as love does".
I have been reading every single comment and will respond to a lot of what has been addressed later this evening when I have more time. I knew when I posted this thread that I would not be on the receiving end of your sympathy or approval. That is not what I came here looking for. I am genuinely trying to do my part of sorting out this painful situation. There is so much more to my story than I could share in just a few short posts. The one thing that I want to make clear is that I have been being honest with my husband.... about everything, including my feelings for the OM. I am not holding back facts or feelings, but I was concerned with just how graphic the details needed to be. I am not trying to make myself the victim. I was sharing my story and telling you all how I came to be in a situation that I never thought that I would be in. I was a faithful wife for 27 years. I did talk to my husband.... again and again. He wasn't listening. It is very easy to say that the finances aren't important, the kids aren't important, our handicapped son isn't important; that I should have just gotten a divorce. But, you know, the finances are important, the children are important and our special needs son is important. I know that the natural response to that is that I should have thought about that before I had an affair. I did and I do think about that. Again, there is more, but our situation made a divorce nearly impossible. Someone suggested that, perhaps, my spouse knew of my affair and was simply looking the other way. My therapist insisted that he must know. I said I didn't think so. I know, now, that he wasn't just looking the other way.... he wasn't looking at me at all. That has been a part of our problem for many years. Someone here said that I should have put all of the energy that I put into my affair into my marriage. I did.... for 27 years. I WAS watering my husband's garden, but by his own admission, he had built a water-proof dam and he wouldn't let me in. I don't think that it is realistic to believe that someone can be virtually "alone" in a marriage. This has never been just about sex. My husband was emotionally distant. When I tried to get closer physically (which should be a normal healthy part of marriage) he became even more distant. My parents are, now, deceased, the kids are grown (but a couple are still at home attending school) and I had no partner, no lover, no friend.... nothing. The loneliness was so consuming. He didn't talk to me, look at me, spend time with me. We had no common interests.... he went from being a bit of an introvert, with a sense of humor, to being completely withdrawn, distant, silent, cold and when pushed for more of a relationship he became passive-aggressive and began to try to make me feel ashamed for expressing my needs. Actually, he tried to make me feel ashamed for having needs. I have mentioned that he is a good provider and some of you have suggested that that is why I stay with him. Well, he is a good provider, but due to the size of our family, a large mortgage, medical bills, insurance, etc.... we are very, very tight financially.... more than I am comfortable admitting. I say this because I want it to be clear that I am not staying because I would lose financially if we divorced. Our family, as a whole, would suffer a greater financial hardship if we did, so that has left me conflicted.
I am a very emotional person. I was so lonely and isolated that it is difficult to find the words to describe my pain. I craved being touched, held, looked at (not through.) One day in March last year, I begged my husband to make love to me, I was crying.... hoping that he would hold me and make me feel like a woman who was cherished, desired and loved. He said, "Why would I want to have sex with you.... look at you, you're crying," but there was always some excuse. I said, "forget it, I'll never ask again," then he dropped his clothes, sat on the side of the bed and said "C'mon." I no longer wanted him to touch me, but he insisted. I said "no," but still he insisted. I didn't want him to feel the same sting of rejection that I knew all too well. We had sex, it was not good, I have told him this. After that, I was finished. I told him that as well. I told him that when I could get a job, when our youngest graduated, when I could get our financial house in order that I was leaving. But, I said that, under the circumstances, it would take a couple of years. I told him that I would not pass up an opportunity for love if it came my way. NOTHING CHANGED.... he just became more distant. I decided to water my own garden and I did.
In an interesting twist this morning, my husband Googled "How to deal with my wife's affair." He went to a link about "details." He ended up on THIS thread. He read it, knew it was us and I found him in tears. We talked..... we're still talking, we may even be reconnecting. I truly hope so. Yes, only I chose to have an affair, but he played a very large part in the breakdown of our marriage. For some reason, his dam has broken and every emotion that he ever suppressed in flooding in now. He said that he began to "feel" a few weeks before he discovered my affair. I think that is why he began "noticing" me and that things weren't as they should be.
Thanks for all of your feedback.... whether it is what I want to hear or not. I really want to get through this and I want the best possible outcome for everyone. I want the hurting to stop and the healing to begin for all of us. <3
Fog talk. Justifications. Affairs are wrong and are not a solution to M problems. Ever.
Here's the solution to marriage problems or feeling lonely in your M or whatever you say that YOUR issues were:
1. Fix the problem
2. Live with the problem
3. Divorce the problem
BUT DON'T justify your H's shortcomings and claim it was a reason for your affair. You had an affair because you handled a problem within your M poorly with little regard for anyone but yourself. If it was truly unworkable and you were that unhappy you should have filed for divorce. End of story.
You only made the problem worse now by adding on the extra layer of betrayal.
Your H owns his part in the M problems but he does NOT own your decision for the A. That's all on you.
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Re: How Much Detail? 
