Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Infidelity/Extramarital Affairs/Jealousy I was unfaithful

Hi Phoenix

Hmmmmm I lied about the extent of the affair. It had developed into a PA which I did not admit until March/April this year. H always felt he did not have the truth and he dug and dug and dug until he came up with ( funnily enough ) with what he thought was proof on;y he was way off the mark. He was right but proof was wrong.

This is why there was a lot of back and forth in the house. I came clean because it dawned on me that my reason for telling him ( did not want to hurt him ) were stupid. The lies were hurting. I told him because

1. By not telling I was harbouring a dirty little secret with OM. So a tie still to him.
2. I did not want him feeling a fool if it ever came out from OM. I wanted H to be armed with all the right information.
3.I needed to feel better and i did.

I am sure there is no one else as there is not time as he has joined all these new activities - gym , sailing, looking after himself, badminton etc etc

Personally I think I propelled him into a MLC !

SirPrizeMe, I too had my A with Hs friend ! Then i lied about it not being a PA. It is the deception and honesty issue I think i am dealing with. H wanted every detail down to action by action so that he could understand it. Of course while I was lying it did not make sense hence the revolving door at home.

I eventually told the truth because:

1. I thought by not being honest I still kind of had a tie with OM. A dirty little secret.

2. I did not want H to feel stupid or less of a man if at any time the truth was to come out from the other party ( OM ). I wanted my H to be fully armed.

3. Lying takes it toll and I needed to come clean for my own sanity.



You know what SirPrizeMe I would put money on the fact your wife is still in contact with OM or feels that there is a good chance of a future with him and if not him then someone.

The only time I felt as distant from H as your W is with you was during the A and afterwards when I was deciding which way i wanted to go. Did I want OM or did I want H who at the time was doing everything in his power to keep the M together. I was in a place of power and control. I cannot think why your W would choose a life of possible lonliness and definite hardship ( unless she felt she was being abused ) It does not make sense.

).

The extent of affair, the physical side of it.etc etc

Yes while lying I believed I was also being sorry and remorseful and open. Now i know that is impossible. If I was sorry and all that then i would of stopped lying. Anyone reading this thread or are in my position - you must come clean. Impossible to rebuild on lies.



I agree. I did blame H but as he pointed out - my choice of wake up call could of been less destructive. I choose that path. I take full responsibility. i should of kicked H out and told him not to come back until he was willing to get real with our M. I did not need to find solace in someone else's arms.




Hell no i think that these are great conditions. Wish my H would be so generous . Date night, couples weekends, creating our space in the bedroom ( fabulous ) - sounds like heaven.

Books are good reading. I am stronger every day now and I believe it was this site that has got the journey going. The books should be a great help to.

I really hope you get what you want. One day it may not be your wife and I hope she is prepared for that because that is what happened to me. 180 turn . I have been through hell .

I'm sorry Max.

Ah, ok, I understand quite a bit more now.

Remorse and apologizing don't really work, if later I find out she was not honest the entire time. The physical part - that would be a pretty big blow to a man, especially when all along his wife was denying that part. The deception. Yeah, I agree with you.

Maxy, this is going to take longer than you would like.

You should prepare yourself to be very patient. Move on with your life. I don't mean forget him, move on and plan to never be with him again. I just mean, prepare to live independently for a while now. Find stuff to do that makes you happy. Let him rest. Let yourself rest.

Are you taking, or have you considered, individual counseling? It seems like a pretty big thing to me, to be believing that you fighting for your marriage, and yet still willing to be not honest. What would make you... make that choice? Have you examined that part of yourself? You wrote that "it dawned on me..." but it feels like it is worth looking at more deeply. Like why did it take so long to dawn on you that honesty is a basic foundation for a lifetime relationship? Sine qua non.

I hate the way this sounds... preachy. sorry. don't mean it that way. I guess it's a little personal with me.


I don't agree with you here. You can be sorry and still not capable of doing the right thing. You can feel terrible, but yet still not see the right path. It may not necessarily mean you are not sorry. It may mean you are not strong enough.

I can want to run a marathon but if I am not trained, I won't make it. I can want deeply to speak French, but if I don't study and practice, then I won't be able to do it. It's not a matter of want. Sometimes we don't know how to do stuff we want to do. You've got to accept responsibility, yes, but you need to be more gentle with yourself. A good counselor can help you with this.

Anyway if he saw you in counseling, maybe that would be one small bit of evidence that you are working on yourself, accepting responsibility, looking at your part, improving where you need to improve.

As for all your hubby's new activities - sailing, badminton and all. That does not sound like MLC to me. Sounds like he is just trying to find peace, contentment. He is hurting too, and is trying to fill his life with stuff that doesn't hurt. It will take some time.

Yes. She now says she was abused, hence the protection order preventing me from contacting her. She saw an abused woman's counselor who advised her on all this. I have to say, I didn't see... no one saw... any of this coming. No one. Not her family, not mine, not the kids, no one. She never brought it up on counseling. She ran up the abuse flag after I was out of the house, well after she had given up. It feels like a retroactive justification to me.

It's funny, but she accused me of controlling her, while she was EXACTLY in the position you described - absolute power and control in the relationship. She had her finger on the big red button that could explode everything.


Thank you. Thanks for being here. I have dreams... but you know, I won't live just for the dreams any more. Instead of "One day I will get what makes me happy" now I am trying to live for today. What will make me happy today? Instead of "4 kids in college", I am looking to much smaller things. Did I exercise today? Did I put in a good effort at work? Did I go see a friend today? it's the practice - that act of making myself happy in small ways every day - that will bring me to my dreams.

anyway that is my philosophy for now.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I find it hard to live for today when I am so frustrated with my situation. I am not where I thought I would be .

I feel knotted inside and confused .

In order to stop the pain of loving someone who does not seem to love in return , I have to start shutting the feelings down. This makes me look back at what I have given up. Did I do the right thing ? How do I know ?

When I felt like your W, I would of believed anything anyone said to me that justified what I did. Anything that made me feel less responsible and anything thAT made me feel I had no other choice but to find some love somewhere else .Hence your wifes abuse claim and holding on to anything anyone tells her that makes her feel better. You may SirPrizeMe have many working against you.

I still have things my (our ) MC said to me in the early days clearly in my mind and ALTHOUGH I know that I was responsible for the A and I know it was wrong I cannot shake those inital comments that made me feel I had the green light. Poor me with a H that worked long hours etc etc

It is only when H admitted that he needed a wake up call, do those beliefs ( Ok to have the affair ) weaken. Trouble for me is that in the past 3 years he has retracted those statements. He is no longer responsible one little bit for our bad M. I was just selfish and horrible. Does me no good.

What i am trying to say is Have you made it clear to W (when you are allowed to speak ) that

1. You understand what made her have an A
2. Your sorry she felt that she had to make that choice.
3. Believe that it was state of M that enabled her to respond to Om advances.
4.You understand that the A was not about you , but just a sympton of how she was feeling. You do not take it as personal attack.
5. That the M is worth fighting for. Love can be rekindled.
6. That you will never speak of A or Om again .

Your W has to feel safe and she has to really believe above and although you have conditions yourself , above are some conditions that make her feel ok.

just some thoughts. I know i would need all of above. I could take full responsibility for M breakdown but i think it would eventually choke me.

Hey Maxy, this dialog is helpful, so thanks.
What you say makes sense.

I'm sorry it got to be so black-and-white with your husband. Blame and shame are killers of good feelings.

You know, I did say the things you suggested, in the beginning. And not just "say them", I lived them, believed them. I believed that I had a role to play, and I had a responsibility to do things to rebuild. I apologized so many times for my faults, my errors, my failings. I went to individual counseling to work on my own stuff. I talked to her specifically about what she wanted of me. I told her that our marriage was worth working on, was recoverable. And I lived true to that belief.

I had great mercy for her, because she had grown up with an alcoholic mother and her father basically abandoned her. I learned only now, that a childhood like that is like a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off. Not having a father around to praise her, or worse, having a father that actively ignored her... that is a recipe for a deep lack of self-esteem. You know if you don't get enough calcium when you are young, your bones will be brittle for a long long time. And if you don't get enough love when you are young, you can be fragile for a long, long time. So I never thought of it as "my wife is evil" but rather "my wife is under severe pain."

But even after airing everything out, after counseling... she never stopped with the other guy. I asked her to stop, and then I did not question her about it again. But then she'd tell me, or the OM's wife would tell me, about another contact. A date, an email, a phone call. She never stopped. She never gave him up. She knew the stakes. She knew it meant the end of our marriage. She just didn't want to be married any more. Couldn't stay.

I don't take that as a personal attack. It's just her way of communicating on a difficult topic. Her way of saying "I want out. Now!"


How horrible for you! And, yes, I think this is exactly what is going on with my wife. This is it, precisely. She is overwhelmed by guilt. I didn't figure out a way to light a path for her back towards forgiveness. I asked for her to accept responsibility, and she never did. Never could. Not once. It was, I am guessing, scary as hell to her.

Even now I feel very sorry that she feels she has to demonize me to justify herself. We're not just divorcing, see. She's destroying all the memories. Criminalizing me. Just such a shame. I am so full of regret that we've broken up the family, that the kids will never have a mom and dad to welcome them home from college, or to pick them up from the police station when they get arrested, or to walk them down the aisle of the wedding chapel. I regret all of that. A crying shame. Literally.

Yes, I miss them TODAY and every day, but what is really sad is the effects of this breakup through time on young innocents. So sad.

My kids don't hate me, don't fear me, but yet I am not permitted to phone them. It's a horrible situation. I worry that my daughters will turn out like my wife - suffering from lack of father attention when they are young, leading to shaky relationships later.

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But let's talk about YOU!

I know just what you mean. Exactly. It's like you are channeling me, from 8 months ago.

I don't know how to tell you to get off that spot, but you must get off that spot. Go away from that place.

You need to find something that makes you happy, ideally lots of things that make you happy. Embrace those things, nurture yourself, take care of yourself.


Implicit in that statement is that it hurts to love, if someone doesn't love you back. But is that true? Must it be true?

Look, I know it's lonely, and I know what it feels like to be... I don't know... abandoned I guess. That hurts. No two ways about it. But you can love without expecting anything in return. It is a higher love, but it is possible, and it is even fulfilling. Love endlessly, expecting nothing back. Unconditional love.

I don't mean, darn his socks and make him dinner every night. The acts of service are obviously not possible if you are separated. But you can continue to feel love, express love in subtle quiet ways. And you don't have to be eaten up inside when nothing comes back.

But to love someone else, you must love yourself first. You must get to a place where you know you will be ok without him. Not just ok, but you will THRIVE. Despite the loss, which is real, you will thrive.

You can start by focusing on stuff you are good at, stuff that makes you feel good. Cooking? Dancing? Playing the guitar? Volunteer work? Teaching? Gardening? Something to express yourself and nourish your soul. You need to recharge, to rebuild you. Especially now.

Do stuff you love, so you can love you. And then ... others.

At night sometimes I purposefully fantasize about success and happy things. Me doing good things, me succeeding at something I want to do, me spending time with my kids in my own house. Visualization can be very powerful. It's like self-hypnosis almost. But if you can visualize it, imagine it, then you can pursue it. Let's say you love playing guitar and always wanted to play a live show. Visualizing yourself playing guitar on a stage in front of a live audience, is the first step toward realizing the dream.

I still wear my wedding rings.

Does your wife wear hers?

If she wears them , she is i believe more receptive to you. Might be a guage for you to check.

When I am angry or feeling strong I take them off.

Symbolic as they were through marriage, they remain symbolic still.

Today I am fuming, i am so angry, I could scream. Reason:

Last night H had the oppotunity to stay at home and spend preciuos time with our baby ( 16 Daughter ). He does not spend much time with kids as they are either living away from home or out with friends, except our D. He choose instead to play Poker at a house belonging to some new friends he has made.

He has enrolled in so many acivites and fills up his day that there is not a lot of time left over. I believe she is missing him and I am seeing that in school results. choice of friends etc etc.

I have alerted him to the problem and he agrees he needs to be more active with her. BUT when something else like poker comes up she does not enter his head.

This brings me to my problem. If i go out and do new stuff , she is alone at home. I just cant do this.

H lives with his mother at the moment as we clear some debt which will enable him to find his own place ( which I hate the thought of ). I think he thinks that once he gets his own place he will be able to have her then.

Today he has asked in a round about way if I would go to a rugby game with his family. I am not sure if he is asking because he feels he has to ( his family think this is all my fault, so he looks good making effort) and all his family will be with him. Then we are going to a friends party. Our D will be with us up to the party.

I could scream but I wont. i also struggling with the book. I cant find relevance to trying to get your marriage back when he does not live with me.

I want him to wake up one morning and realise his huge mistake !!!!!!!!!

Maxy, your situation sounds very challenging!

I know what you mean. Is there a third way? Could you do new things WITH her? Could you find family help to be with her while you are out doing your own thing? How much is she home alone, really? (Sixteen year old people are ok being home alone, as long as there is quality time with you at smoe other time of course).

I totally know what you mean about him checking out of the kids' lives. I had my kids yesterday. I played with them all day. I ask them what they do at the other house, what they do with their mom. She doesn't do anything with them. We built rockets, potato guns (for the boys), played school, rode scooters (girls), played foursquare and played a silly add-on game (everybody). We did a ton of stuff together. It seems obvious to me that they all need more attention. The poor kids.


Yes of course you do. And it is a mistake. But you cannot make him realize it any faster by sitting at home hoping, or by letting yourself suffer while waiting. You know that, right?

It is absolutely relevant to you. Yes, harder for you, but still relevant. "Get a life" applies to everyone. Do stuff that makes you happy and inspired is good advice for everyone. You will be a better spouse, when the time comes, if you are strong as an individual. That means you have work to do now. Get yourself in shape!. Not physically (although you might want to do that TOO), I mean spiritually, emotionally.


This is going to sound hokey, but... I want you to put these words and phrases out of your life. "I can't do this" is terribly self-defeating. Remove that phrase from your lexicon. Don't say it, and if you think it, banish the thought. Yes, it is hard. Yes, even unfair. But you CAN succeed, if you look. Regarding your daughter, there ARE ways to go forward. She is 16; you could have a talk with her about things she likes to do. New things you could do together during this time. During that talk you could explain to her that you too, need to do stuff on your own. She will honor this need of yours, but also, she will learn what it is to be a strong, independently driven person. This is a great lesson for her. you can do this and you SHOULD do this.


Here's another bit of relevance from the book. Don't resist this urge of his, to get his own place. He will receive it as controlling, or as weakness on your part. You are neither controlling nor weak. Therefore you won't resist his desire to get his own place. You don't like it. But you recognize that it is not your decision. You will embrace the change in him, and allow it to happen, not resist it. This is straight out of the book!


Not sure if the rugby game is over yet or not. These times are opportunities. Don't second guess them, don't assume he is motivated by base desires. Envision what you WANT to happen, ACT AS IF, (right out of the book). Great chance to look good, be cheery, smile, provide a look into the great person you are.

---

I read a book not long ago called "Love What Is". It is a sort of self-coaching book that helps you to embrace things that ARE, even if you don't like them. Look at them, have an opinion, even a strong one. But don't fight them. Just accept them.


Heavens, no! She took em off a long time ago. Made excuses - told me her fingers were swollen. Could never tell me straight up. Of course, I don't know for sure if she is wearing her rings because I haven't seen her hands in 9 months. But I am willing to bet LARGE that she does not wear them. she is still seeking FREEDOM!!!!

I don't wear my ring either. Took 'em off after she asked me to. She felt it was controlling of me. It was well after she had filed for divorce that I was still wearing my ring, and I think she felt I was continuing to resist her. I didn't want to antagonize her, so I took it off. It was upsetting. But that's the way it goes.

SPM - Do actions really speak louder than words .....

Your actions would would make a mockery of that saying. You say your acting all cool and happy when in fact you are really wanting your W back.

(

Thats kind of funny. Wait till you have 16 year olds. Too cool to hang out with mum, but young enough to need to know your about.

Family all bar brother live overseas ( for now ). Your right , that is changing soon and I could lean on them a bit more when they are back.

Meanwhile , I do go to the gym, I do look after myself in appearance. I work , i laugh and I have lots of friends but mainly married. Small country here , so oppotunities to expand are limited but not bad. Events and stuff are just spread out and not large numbers , so little harder to ease into new activities if shy and on your own,

Hmmmmmm why do I want H back ? Do I love him ? Is it just the lack of control I miss ? Why would I want to spend the rest of my life with someone who has treated me so bad ? Is it because I remember what it used to be like ? Can it ever be like that again? Why did i have an A, really. Not something I would of ever done I thought. Even now I shake my head at the wonder of it all.


Wish i had a crystal ball.



Not sure how this works. How do you embrace something that is tearing you apart. It makes me withdraw further. I see it as another step away. Can marriages ever come back from this kind of separation ?

So many questions tonight.

Rugby was ok. Party afterwards fantastic except that H never came within spitting distance if me. In fact it was horrible ( that bit ) So I took myself home. He turned up later to spend the night. I let him ! Should I of said NO ?



I am going to defend your wife here. Sometimes doing for the kids 24/7 leaves you not much time for play. It is hard work. As woman we feel and do differently for the kids than men. Not better and not worse , just different. It leaves us tired both physically an d emotionally.

Would she consider perhaps a family outing once a month or shared birthday, holiday dinners ? i know that is when you most miss the partner . Sharing happy occasions can only be good for all.

Maybe you should ask her. ( If you can )

Shame about the rings. Do you think she will ever come round ? What are you waiting for?