I've been reading this forum for several months. It's been very helpful but this is a topic that I have yet to find on here. My question is how much information is too much information? My husband and I have been married for 28 years and I had an affair. It went on for 16 months and ended two weeks ago when my husband noticed a number on my cell phone bill that I was calling and texting a lot with.
To make a long story short, my husband wants to save our marriage and is now becoming the husband that I have needed him to be for the last several years. We are talking more than we have in years... maybe ever. He is addressing my needs in ways that he had virtually ignored. My concern is that he, sometimes, asks for very explicit details of the sexual part of my affair. It's difficult for me to give him these graphic details because I am afraid that they will only haunt him and play over and over in his mind. He says that his imagination is what is torturing him. My husband is a good man, a good provider, and a good father, but he gave me very little emotional and physical intimacy throughout most of our marriage and none in the last several years. I went to counseling alone for a few years and he and I had a few sessions together. I got myself in the best physical and emotional shape possible and I tried very hard to make him understand that I was dying inside from the loneliness, isolation and emptiness. I told him that I could no longer live this way and, still, he made no changes. I desperately wanted to save my marriage. The harder I tried the more he withdrew from me. I told him that I couldn't live that way any longer and that I wasn't going to live my life without passion. Still nothing. In my loneliness, I reached out to an old love from my teen years. It sounds so stupid and cliche. My AP was divorced and after talking/texting for a few weeks we started an affair. I fell head over heels in love.... not just lust or infatuation.... love. The physical intimacy has always been lacking in my relationship with my husband. Well, the physical intimacy with my AP was like nothing I have ever experienced. I had no idea that it could really be that way. I know that that is exactly what my husband fears. So, when he asks for details, just how much detail do I share. He wants to know what we said to one another, where we were, what I felt, how many orgasms I had, how many times did we have sex, did he touch me like this or like that, did me massage my back, my feet. The sad part is that my husband is now trying to be all of the things that he has never been. It feels so forced to me and, honestly, I have no desire for him now. That breaks my heart because I truly don't want to see him hurting this way. Before anyone condemns me for doing what I did, please remember that I was faithful for nearly 27 years and I begged him to help me save our marriage. I hurt so much, for so long, that I physically ached inside. I used to tell my husband that I was starving and his response was that he wasn't hungry. Now, he's starving and I can't bear to see him in so much pain, but I am no longer in love with him. Whether I will end up with my AP in the long run is beside the point. My husband should not be my second choice, nor should I settle for my second choice. Even if I end up alone, I feel like my husband should have the opportunity to find a love in his life who can give her whole heart to him. He says that he has found the "love of his life" and it's me. Again, when he asks for graphic details, how do I answer those questions? BTW, I have cut off all contact with my AP until my husband and I can sort this out. But, it is killing me inside and my husband knows that. He is trying to help me through my pain and I know that I should be helping him through his.
Thanks, and I'm sorry this is so long.
There appears to be some honesty in your story. However, cheating is not an answer.
1. Your OM also must be around or above 50. If he doesn't have his own woman, that says a lot about him. You will probably not love him if you knew how he spent his 30 years.Or would you if only sex is that important?
2.You had best of both the worlds. A loving, caring husband and a sex God (OM). You wanted it to continue forever, but the OM has other plans. Was the phone call really a mistake? He KNOWS how sexually starved you are, and how you will go to any length to get that from him. So he is not so nice person as you suggest. He will just wait until you can't take it (the distance from him) more and leave your poor Husband.
3. He was your old love from your teen years - so your husband might be suspecting that the affair might be actually longer than 16 months.
4. You are around 50 - the clock is ticking. Did you ever think that Your husband, however boring he might be, will be with you and support you in your 60's and 70's and thereafter... Whereas the OM will soon look for another available Sex partner?
This entire story is very sad. 30 years of marriage, love and trust - All shattered in a few months. The poor fellow's remaining life will be spent in searching for details of your .... activities with the OM. His imagination or the facts - Either will kill him before his days are over.
I'd prefer being murdered to being cheated on again. Especially in the way that I was. Seriously. Posted via Mobile Device
It sounds like you base too much of your own self worth on the actions of other people. And people are really fickle. Folks cheating and lying often has nothing to do with the people they cheat and lie to. Cheating spouses, abusive spouse, drunks and dope heads can be replaced in short order. Being dead, on this earth, is a little more permanent. Like anything, there are degrees of severity. Is cheating in an affair any worse than cheating with finances, misleading your spouse in other ways, or doing a host of other bad things. Depends on how you look at it.
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".
Joining TAM is more than its worth due to posts like this.
Thanks Zanna.
It sounds like you base too much of your own self worth on the actions of other people. And people are really fickle. Folks cheating and lying often has nothing to do with the people they cheat and lie to. Cheating spouses, abusive spouse, drunks and dope heads can be replaced in short order. Being dead, on this earth, is a little more permanent. Like anything, there are degrees of severity. Is cheating in an affair any worse than cheating with finances, misleading your spouse in other ways, or doing a host of other bad things. Depends on how you look at it.
It sounds like you base too much of your own self worth on the actions of other people. And people are really fickle. Folks cheating and lying often has nothing to do with the people they cheat and lie to. Cheating spouses, abusive spouse, drunks and dope heads can be replaced in short order. Being dead, on this earth, is a little more permanent. Like anything, there are degrees of severity. Is cheating in an affair any worse than cheating with finances, misleading your spouse in other ways, or doing a host of other bad things. Depends on how you look at it.
I am quite a rational person, and never understood suicidal people.
Now that I was cheated on, I do.
It's not about looking this way or that way. You don't analyze when it is done upon you, you simply want to rip your own heart out, just to have the pain stop.
MM we live in a world where people will shoot each other down for little or no reason. I don't know if your a Christian or even believe in Jesus Christ. His own people betrayed him in a manner that would make a cheating spouse look like a kid shooting marbles. Kids kill their own parents to expedite their inheritance. When you really think about it, a cheating spouse, as bad as it is, is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. If my spouse cheated and I knew about it, sure it would hurt and be a gross disappointment. But it wouldn't rise to a level to make me think death is a better alternative. There are other alternatives out there that are far more appealing. Like many are telling these two women that if they didn't like the way they were treated, they should have divorced. The same holds true of their husbands. If they don't like their wives behavior, replace them. Being a man means engaging with the world as it really is. And its often a rough and unfair place. Damned if I would sit around singing the blues as to why it happened. The bitc* would be history and I'd find a replacement.
I was in an unhappy marriage too. My H did not respect me or my opinions. He decided it was the 50's and he should make all the financial decisions because he had the MBA. He was rude and disrespectful. Angry all the time and drank too much.
Despite being in my late 30's, I still got hit on by men in their 20's who told me I was sexy. I recall once I even had a very attractive, very toned 29 year old man tell me that he loved older women and that I could call him anytime. For any reason.
I guess since I was so unhappy, I should have taken these men up on their offers.
But I didn't because even though I didn't care much for my H at the time, he is still the father of my children. And I actually pictured my children's faces and what it would mean to lose their respect if I was ever to get caught. Also, because no matter what he did, I have to have a relationship with the father of my children for the rest of their lives and that was not worth damaging over a sleazy affair.
Well, my H had an affair, instead of dealing with my unhappiness or listening to me when I tried to tell him I was unhappy.
Does that mean I should have a revenge affair now? Because clearly I was so very wronged so I must be justified in chucking my morals and my integrity because I'm so UNHAPPY and angry.
You, my dear lady, brought a tear to my eye. Bravo! I feel the same way.
He comes home, eats dinner, and assumes the position on the couch. I am sure he is very much afraid what it will do to him financially if we divorced, and who would take care of him. He is probably at a stage in his life where he is afraid he will not be able to find anyone else, he has let himself go a bit, over weight, does not excercise, not very out going.
Anyone notice this part of the post. Lots of explanation here. She thinks she is better than him and doing him a favor.
Fvstringpicker, I think we all agree that dying is bad, mmkay? You miss the point. Being cheated on is draining, haunting, humiliating experience that you can't cast away just because you realize it's "not the end of the world".
It's not a kind of problem which benefits from logical reasoning.. you can argue pros and contras, plan your actions, you can fully realize you are a good catch in the eyes of many other women, and yes, it hurt Jesus more (but to be fair he was a God). Well, none of that helps.
Like many are telling these two women that if they didn't like the way they were treated, they should have divorced. The same holds true of their husbands. If they don't like their wives behavior, replace them. Being a man means engaging with the world as it really is. And its often a rough and unfair place. Damned if I would sit around singing the blues as to why it happened. The bitc* would be history and I'd find a replacement.
Really??? Yet you are the one who posted that because your wife was 'frigid' you went out and cheated with over 20 women...Obviously you didn't like you wife's 'behavior' but instead of leaving her you decided to cheat. Then you grew enough balls to leave.
Just amazed at the contradictions here!
Both EI and IIWII have stressed that they don't want to divorce because of the financially devastating impact it would have on their families but what would happen if their husbands died? What then?
..Obviously you didn't like you wife's 'behavior' but instead of leaving her you decided to cheat. Then you grew enough balls to leave.
That's pretty much the long and the short of it. That was a long time ago and like a lot of things you learn a lot. That said, I may be a little presumptive on how I believe a person should just "move on and write it off as experience". Thusfar, to my knowledge, I haven't had a spouse cheat on me. So I'm really saying what I think I'd do and how I'd feel. I admit the reality could be different. However, I'd hope I would take my own advice.
Hmm, a cheater, saying its ok to cheat, if your in a bad relationship. this makes sense now.
I haven't had a spouse cheat on me.
You must have stayed at a holiday inn express then, since you seem to know it all.
As dumb as i find your comments, I still hope you never have to experience your heart being ripped out by the one person you thought would never do it to you.
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Re: How Much Detail? 
