# LONG post...



## hehasmyheart (Mar 11, 2010)

Married 16 yrs, 2 children, long distance EA for 2 years now. I told H about him about 1 1/2 years ago. Initially, he destroyed some of my things & threw fits (typical behavior for him). Then, he decided he would change everything about himself, all those things I said needed to change for years. I asked him to go to MC about 5 years ago, he refused. Sex was very infrequent, he had spending issues. He has us in lots of credit card debt. I'm not a spender, so if it wasn't for me not spending, we'd be bankrupt. Basically, he was a spoiled rotten child who grew to be a spoiled rotten adult. He would even hide food (before he "changed"). He's been extremely selfish with me, I make close to half the income, but I spend basically nothing. He does the bills, and I let him have that control, so I know it's partly my fault too. Other issues are that he's taught the kids a lot of disrespect, cussing in front of them/at them, and they are now 10 & 13, and are disrespectful and cuss like sailors. I did not believe in cussing in front of my kids, or any other kids for that matter, I think it's downright trashy. The bottom line is, I should have divorced him LONG ago, but I've stayed for the kids and the debt (which I did not rack up). Before he found out about OM, he would cuss me out in front of the kids, he's just a sorry excuse for a man. It almost makes me physically sick being around him. I find it very hard to hurt my kids or make major changes in their lives (my son has mild autism/adhd & it would be hard on him). I feel like I've made such a mess of my life. Even worse, I think people at work know about EA, I have letters in my drawer & I wonder if someone stumbled upon them. EA and I have tried to stop talking, we've never met in person. He's in CA, I'm in OH. We've talked about meeting in person & would love to, I just don't think I could do it. I feel extremely guilty just about all the time, I feel like a bad person, a bad mom, a jezebel...lol. He and I only correspond while I'm at work. I work alone most of the time. Then, he calls me when I leave & I talk to him on my way home on my cell phone. He makes me happy, he soothes me, comforts me, makes me feel calm. We are like best friends with an amazing connection. It's not only emotional, there has been lots of sex talk too. I'm tired of feeling guilty, yet I feel like I can't give him up. When he and I first started talking, it was friends, but it was almost like he became my therapist. We would spend hours a day online (before H found out), then it turned to calls at work and letters, and on rare occasion calls to home. 
H is saying "You need to make a decision, I can't do this anymore" more and more these days. He says with all the changes he's made, how can't I love him for who he is today & not hate him for who he was yesterday. I don't want to hate him. I just feel like if he didn't love me then, why now? The mound of debt is still there. He probably pays $1,000 a month on credit card debt for things he bought for himself. He would never be giving enough for me, I think he's still very selfish and his family is too. I'm just so confused, this is driving me crazy, I'm tired of feeling so guilty. I think the only thing I really need is to be out of the marriage. I just don't want him (or anyone else) to think it was for another man. I actually wanted out of the marriage way before the other man.
Please help, I just feel so hopeless and empty.


----------



## omega (Aug 2, 2011)

You are justifying your behavior by vilifying his behavior. However, you are the one who is cheating, not he. He has tried to improve your marriage, it is not "change," it is change, without the quotation marks - it's called trying to save your marriage, he's doing it, you're not. You are destroying your marriage by convincing yourself that your emotional attachment is stronger to a man you've never even met than to your husband of 16 years.

Is your EA married? If he says he isn't, are you certain that he's telling you truth? Does he also vilify his wife? Does he claim his wife is emotionally distant, abusive, and sexually unavailable? You and your EA are not victims in this scenario. You (and your EA if he is married) are cheating.

In your post you mention your H's flaws: he uses foul language. Sheesh. So does mine, so do many men (and women), it's not exactly the biggest deal in the world. You're making it a big deal because you NEED something to justify cheating on him.

You say you feel extremely guilty all the time - this is because you know that what you are doing is wrong. 

In my opinion, you have two options: break off your EA and rededicate yourself to your marriage (would he STILL say no to MC now? After all this? Maybe now he'd be open to it!) --- or --- divorce your husband and wait for your EA to divorce his wife or move to OH or whatever, you should leave and let your H has custody of the children as you are abandoning him, I think that's how it generally works but I could be wrong. 

Do you think you want to be in a relationship with the EA? Or do you just want someone to talk to on the phone? If the latter, do you have female friends you can talk to for that "therapy" type talk? 

I'm not trying to be mean but sometimes it takes someone on the outside showing you what is going on (at least through my eyes). I hope you can read this in the spirit in which I intended it (to help).


----------



## omega (Aug 2, 2011)

I also meant to say in my earlier post but forgot:

when you signed up to be a member of TAM and choose your username, you went with "hehasmyheart." Who is he? Your husband or your EA? If it's your EA, you need to prepare yourself emotionally for the likelihood that he is not nearly as emotionally invested in this thing as you are. This will not become clear until it's too late.


----------



## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

^ The one who has her heart is the man she's been having an affair with for almost two years.

Nowhere in her post does it sound like she loves or even likes her husband. 

My advice to the OP is to leave her husband. File for a divorce. You don't love him. I'm not even sure why you have stayed with him this long? 

The guilt is part of having an affair. Goes hand and hand.



hehasmyheart said:


> I just don't want him (or anyone else) to think it was for another man.


Too late for that now. For the sheer fact you have never broken it off with OM and are still actively in an affair. Anyone looking from the outside in will think ynou left your marriage to be with the OM/to pursue the affair further. That's exactly what it looks like even if you claim it's not. 

Do yourself and your husband a favor and leave the marriage. You do not care about your husband or the marriage.


----------



## hehasmyheart (Mar 11, 2010)

Thank you for your responses. I didn't expect people to be thinking I'm a saint, so I don't think you're being mean Omega, and I appreciate your feedback. The OM is not married, and I believe he is as invested in this as I am. We were both lonely when we started talking. My marriage has been dead for years. I don't place all the blame on him for that, but he was VERY stubborn for years, and didn't care to take the time to improve the marriage.

I do feel guilty, I don't like the person this makes me. The lying, cheating, giving my time to someone else outside of my family. The thought of giving up OM is excrutiating. We both know we can do it. We know it will hurt, so we've been procrastinating it a long time. He's tired of being the "fish on the hook" in his words, and we're both tired of the guilt. He says he feels like a homewrecker, I say it was wrecked long before he came along.

Jellybeans, you're correct, OM has my heart, and ONLY he. I'm terrified of hurting my children, and my husband has us SO far in debt from his spending on himself. He's an extremely selfish man...I'll never see him any differently, even if he has "changed" a little. He's selfish with everything. Everything is his way or no way. 

One thing that stands out in my mind & made me know the real "man" he is was a few years back, probably 5 years: I had gotten tickets from my workplace for free to a baseball game. I had 4, so I said he could ask some of his family to go. He asked 2 of his family members. I had also previously let him use the workplace tickets and ask his family. Well, on the way to the game, he said he was going to tell them I had PAID for these tickets, so they would pay $10 each. I said I wasn't comfortable with that, especially since I had taken other family members & they knew these tickets were free. I begged him not to, he didn't care what I thought. I was so uncomfortable when he was telling them that I had to pay for the tickets and asked them each to give him $10. NOW, since his "change", he says he did this because his family is selfish, and he knew they wouldn't have helped pay for parking.

Btw, his family is selfish, and I've seen it more and more through the years. These are the kind of people that will say "you owe me $1.76. He himself (and all of them I assume) are selfish to the point of being hustlers...I wish I had seen it all WAY back when...


----------



## Dedicated2Her (Nov 13, 2010)

If anyone says "follow your feelings", they have no clue about long tern happiness in life. You are traveling the path to extreme regret. Feelings are tricky. They change over time. The human heart is a deciever. Fact is, you will be right back here a couple of years from now griping about the OM.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

You've already made a choice that got you into this situation: You chose to put your energy and thoughts into building your fantasy relationship with the OM. When you did this, you setup your marriage for failure. 

Until you really ditch the OM and put the energy into your marriage - things can't get better.

Sure you're husband isn't perfect, but what has he done that makes his it Ok for his wife to give up putting any energy into her husband and kids? What has he done that justifies loosing his family to some guy in California?

You are gas lighting your husband and your marriage to justify the choice you made to cheat. Admit that fact to yourself.

Ask yourself when you look back in 10 years, and you see your son's being young men. What do you want them to think about their mother, and what kind of girls do you want them dating and marrying? 

Right now you have the ability to stop it with the OM, grieve through the loss, and actually work at fixing your marriage and your family. 

The OM isn't your soul mate, he isn't even a guy who can connected with someone in his own area. He has to reach out over the Internet in a pathetic grab for someone else's wife and family.

You know what's right, the problem is you want to do what you think you "want". And the two are in conflict right now. You like the attention and rush from the OM, while at home reality is hard work. Two kids and a husband. 

You think finances are tough now? Consider how much you're going to spend on a divorce and splitting the family.

I started by saying you made a choice that got you to where you are. You still have the chance to make a much better choice: Ditch the OM and work on fixing your marriage and family. 

If after you've actually worked on that without the constant toxic effect of the OM and EA, the marriage ends in divorce - then you can date again - but doing it during marriage isn't the right thing to do it's just selfish.


----------



## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

OM feels like a homewrecker because he is a homewrecker. You feel guilty because you have particpated in a massive betrayal so you are both feeling normal for your situation.

Holding onto resentments with your husband 5 years in the past? Why are you still with him? Seriously. Why? I haven't read a kind word you have said about him thus far. 

What measures have you taken to end your marriage since you want out? 

Why are you still with your husband if you haven't loved him for so long? I don't understand.


----------



## Dedicated2Her (Nov 13, 2010)

Jellybeans said:


> OM feels like a homewrecker because he is a homewrecker. You feel guilty because you have particpated in a massive betrayal so you are both feeling normal for your situation.
> 
> Holding onto resentments with your husband 5 years in the past? Why are you still with him? Seriously. Why? I haven't read a kind word you have said about him thus far.
> 
> ...


Jellybeans, what is the alternative? If she leaves and hasn't learned how to let go she will repeat this. She CAN'T love him because she is so inwardly focused. Her feelings and emotions control her. Only until she learns to have a core belief system in which her feeling and emotions can be subservient to, will she find true long term happiness. Happiness comes from within. You can't truly love someone until you love yourself. Her core self needs to be uplifted. There are only a few ways that do that and it does not include changing your circumstances.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

The alternative is working on her marriage and axeing the other man.

I told her to end the marriage because nowhere in her post(s) does it show any intention of doing that. Nowhere is there a kind word about her husbdand. Nowhere is there any intentionto end her affair.

I am all for saving a marriage but not when one person so obviously doesn't care about their spouse. It does not sound like she loves hima nd would be doing them a massive favor. 

If she doesn't weant to be with her husband, that is her choice. She is lying to her husband efery day she stays with him. I can't imagine anything more cruel than being with someone you don't love at all because it's "convenient." That is a massive betrayal.

If the affair doesn't work out and she falls down then that will be her lesson to learn. Telling a grown adult to do something they dont want to seems useless.


----------



## Dedicated2Her (Nov 13, 2010)

I meant what is the alternative to staying in your marriage and fixing the mess that she is 50 pct responsible for because the OM is NOT an good option. It just seems that your advice is telling her to leave if she doesn't "love" her husband.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

That's exactly what I am telling her. I don't see the point in advising someone to stay married to someone if it's clear they don't want to be and they've made no effort or intended to work it out. She does not say anything about wanting to be with him and has been deceiving him for nearly two years now. I can't imagine anything more cold and cruel than feigning interest and love for someone you feel anything but for (her husband). It would be a slap in the face to her husband IMO. Of course leaving her marriage for the OM isn't a good option. But if that's her choice, so be it. No one would be surprised to learn the affair didn't end well.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Dedicated2Her (Nov 13, 2010)

"I can't imagine anything more cold and cruel than feigning interest and love for someone you feel anything but for (her husband). It would be a slap in the face to her husband IMO. "


True. But my wife hid these same things from me too for 3 years. Feelings change as you recover. That's my point.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

I get that. But I don't do "swaying" someone in one way when they are clearly not interested. It's useless.

So since she claims she wants out so bad, I say she should go. What is she waiting for??? It's so sad reading about people staying with someone else out of convenience or whatever reason they have when they have NO desire to be with their spouse and have been lying to them for years. It's cruel.


----------

