# My Infidelity



## SilverSable79 (Oct 23, 2017)

So, this is my first time posting in here...I'll apologize now if there is anything I mess up on. I'll be putting something similar in the general discussion, but I figured I'd talk to the ladies first. A little background first... 

My husband and I have been together since 2008. It was initially a long distance thing, but he ended up moving out with me in 2009. We had a bit of an issue with him having an online affair with a female he was interested in years before, which ended up going on and off until he finally realized that she was still married and only talking to him to boost her self esteem. Him and I got married and bought a house in 2014. in 2015 I was diagnosed with Epilepsy, and found out that I had been having seizures as far back as I can remember, but now they were getting more severe. I was out of work for about four months while they adjusted large doses of medications trying to find a mix that helped to keep them under control. Meanwhile, I was feeling some serious side effects. I had no energy to do anything. I was constantly lethargic, and starting to suffer some serious signs of depression.

Due to a mistake on my part with my short term disability insurance, there was no coverage for the time I was out of work. My husband was stuck with the weight of all that financial stress on his shoulders, as well as caring for me and our three children. I wanted so bad to get up and make everything right again, but my body just wanted to crawl into a ball on the couch and close off to the world. I had never felt so useless, but no matter how hard I tried I could not get the physical drive to get up and get moving. All this time my husband was researching ways to deal with my disability, and being as supportive as he could be. 

I returned to work, had the occasional seizure, medicines changed and moods changed.. 

Last year around Mid-April, I attended the wake of a friend and coworker who had taken his own life. That evening I was contacted by another coworker I hadn't talked to in a few years, and we started talking about the grief we were both feeling. He shared things with me right then that I should have seen as an immediate reason to back away, but I think the fact that someone else was more damaged than I felt was what pulled me in. We talked of suicide, depression, our jobs, and our home lives. Looking back, I should have stepped up then and told my husband. I wasn't trying to hide anything at that point, but it is obvious from the outside that it was going downhill.

One day things changed and turned sexual. He was watching something that sounded sketchy and when I asked he admitted it was porn. He said he watches it and masturbates in the morning to clear his head. He asked if I would like to do it with him... I should have just said no and hung up the phone. Instead, I said yes. We continued after that to have the same phone conversations as before, where he would confide in me about his horrible thoughts... and it was nice to have someone on the same negative wavelength. There was no physical attraction... we had never met in person. I did not have feelings for him... but there was this feeling of satisfaction I was getting. A lot of it was the attention he gave me. Never before had there been an issue with my self esteem, but I was still feeling like I had nothing to offer my household because I was always a zombie. The relationship went on for about 2 and a half months. We had phone sex 4 or 5 times, but mostly it was just random talks and we would flirt like crazy. He asked me a few times when we were going to meet in person and I stood my ground it wasn't ever going to happen, and he started acting strange which is when things snapped in my head and I cut things off with him. I told him I had already done too much damage to my marriage and I couldn't go any further. My biggest mistake was hiding this all from my husband.... who months later found out. 

Here we are a year and a half later and my husband is having serious ED issues because I beat down his ego and is constantly arguing with me to the point I feel sometimes I'm being attacked by his words. I know he is scared. I know he doesn't want to let his guard down, because he is afraid I will do it again. I understand all that... but I have become so transparent in everything I do. I have had no contact at all with this guy in over a year, and do not intend to unless it is absolutely necessary for work related incidents, and all contact with other men and women at work is highly professional. I have been open with him about everything.


I'm just so lost... I was finally building myself back up, filling in the cracks.. healing what was broken. I don't want to lose my marriage, and will spend the rest of my life fighting for it. 

Has anyone gone through anything like this? And sorry it was so long


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## SunnyT (Jun 22, 2011)

Have you gone to marriage counseling? Y'all need to talk to each other, about this....about the past, about the future. I'm thinking it's all on you at this point. Being transparent is the LEAST you should be doing, so no bonus points for that. He may never trust you, and may never trust himself again. Especially without counseling. 

He supported you in every way. And you crapped on him. I know you know this, but geez, what is he supposed to do with that? How is he supposed to reconcile that? I don't know. Counseling at the very least. 

I hope that you've been showing him, not just telling him....how much appreciation you have for him taking care of you and the family for all that time. 

And I hope that you know, he may not ever get over it. Some people don't. And you really can't blame them. The circumstances don't even matter, there is no way to justify crapping on the one person who has your back, the one you promised to love and cherish. The betrayal may just be too much. 

So set up counseling, and go yourself if he doesn't want to go. You get the ball rolling, to show that you are trying to make things right. And maybe, you might have to face that divorce is the best way to go. 

None of it will be easy, but it's all necessary. Good luck.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

What are your ages? Do you and your husband have a physical relationship now? Part of this I'm sure is because of the boundaries that were already not established by him, but it doesn't make what you did any less wrong. Just that the rules were already set. 

First off you should quit your job and get another one.

Read the book how to help your spouse heal from your affair.

Just honestly if this guy wasn't your husband and was say your brother, why would you say he should stay in this marriage? I say this not to be mean but because there doesn't see to be much evidence for it so from the outside looking in are you really sure you both are capable of being married? It sounds like it has been nothing but problems. Have you been to Marriage Counseling?


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## FrazzledSadHusband (Jul 3, 2014)

How was your sex life at time of affair?

If you didn't have one, your husband is feeling like you gave your BEST to some schmuck, and with held what he wanted most from him.

Viagra may help with his ED to get his confidence back, but even that doesn't work if the mind isn't into it.

Do you know what sex means to him?


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Offer to take a lie detector test to prove that it did not turn physical.....in person.

This was a tragic mistake you made. Your illness, the amount of extra attention your spouse needed to maintain the marriage, and you take a really bad situation and make it much worse.

By taking your health and your usefulness deficiency into one 'now' involving infidelity.

You piled a lot of needless, careless pain onto your husbands plate.

But, you know this.
And that is good.

My answer? Keep on, keeping on.
His ED is him having mind movies of you and your online lover. The thoughts, words and actions deflated his 'ego', punctured his 'penis'.
I suggest that you generously stroke 'both'.
For as long as it takes.


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## TJW (Mar 20, 2012)

I've been on your husband's side.

The lie detector test is a very good idea. The "mind movies" will become limited to truth and not running wild with imaginary
things which never happened.

This will be helpful for your husband. This was not an option for my wife at the time. Her affairs were physical and she reported the anatomy and the abilities of one POSOM
as being better than mine. 

Our marriage was not ruined by the fact of her affairs. It was, however, by her "reports" which were really a way of blaming me for her affairs. Once this had been done, it was
"toothpaste out of the tube".... I overcame the ED with the help of the doctor but I didn't really want to have sex with her anymore. I stopped and things never "returned".
It was just too emotionally painful for me to know that I didn't measure up.

I wasn't "scared" that she would do it again. It was very much like being on the precipice of a high butte. I'm not jumping. It isn't because of "fear", it is because I can accurately
predict the consequences of jumping. My "guard" was on, not out of fear, but because allowing myself to be vulnerable with her was painful. My motive was pain avoidance.

I couldn't recover. I don't know if your husband can, but I hope he can for both of your sakes.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

It takes years -- sometimes a lot of them -- to recover from infidelity. Even with all the effort in the world, some people just can't recover. They may stay in the marriage but they aren't really there. Trust that's lost is very slow to return and even if it does it's never the 100% blind trust that was there before infidelity. 

R is a very tough road. It works for some but not for all who try it. Time will tell if your husband is one who can get beyond infidelity. Do your part in helping him to heal but know that it's totally up to him to decide how he wants his life to be. It may include you and it may not. Hopefully, you will come out of this a better person regardless.


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## Thor (Oct 31, 2011)

Sable, my reaction to what you wrote is that you may not be discussing this in the right way with your husband. You describe for us a timeline and your mindset leading up to and then during the affair. While I read that as a factual description, it could come across to your H as an excuse. There is a big difference between why something happened vs a justification for it happening. I can understand how you ended up in this affair, but it was never an ok thing for you to do. While I think you are not saying your affair was justified, I wonder if your H feels you have been justifying what happened.

I like the book "After the Affair" by J. Spring. It explains how both sides feel, and what both sides need to heal. I think your H may benefit from reading it. The book also gives some structure to the recovery process, which he may need.

A marriage therapist can be a big help, but some are terrible. There are 2 or 3 things which need to be addressed in getting your marriage strong again. First, the infidelity has to be processed. He has to deal with his emotions, and some things need to be put in place. You already have transparency. Changing jobs or doing whatever gets you away from that coworker and perhaps others who were in your circle. You need to have good communications and good boundaries for the marriage. You need to apologize and ask for his forgiveness. You need to assure him that it was your failings, and that an affair is never ok no matter what. Whatever marriage or personal issues were going on are separate issues to be dealt with, and you are not blaming him or anything else for the affair other than your own bad choices.

Secondly, you need to deal with your own issues. The seizure meds may be a contributor to moods or mental processes. So you need to get the meds managed in a way that works for you. There may be psychological factors involved which you need to examine, probably in therapy.

Thirdly, there will be marital imperfections which both of you should look at. Every marriage has issues. This is, unfortunately, where many therapists start, and they skip over the first issues completely. You two need to discuss how you can each be a better partner in the marriage. You need to work on communications. The key point is to make sure he does not feel you are blaming him for the affair, and that you are not saying the imperfect marriage justified your affair. Many therapists at least imply that the problems in the marriage were the cause of the affair, which then leads the betrayed person to feel they are being blamed in some way for the affair. "If only he had been a better husband, you wouldn't have had the affair!" This is what you need to avoid. Your affair is completely your fault. But problems in the marriage still need to be worked on in order to move forward into a good future marriage.

Good luck!


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