Hello. I am new here and seriously wanting guidance. Please forgive me as I learn the abbreviations that are used here on these forums. I have been looking around and reading for some time but am still learning...

I have been married to my husband for 10 years. We have been together for 16, since I was a teenager. two years ago, we sort of drifted apart. we had opposite work schedules, opposite sleep schedules. We didn't share the same days off and really didn't spend much alone time together. He started going out after work from midnight until 2, 3, sometimes 4 am, coming home drunk. At first it was one night a week and I was ok with it but then it went to 2, 3 4, nights a week. He would sleep until 3 in the afternoon, leaving me alone with the kids, hardly seeing them, or me. In his defense, after a while I stopped asking him to make time for us. I just accepted what was happening.
In return, I started playing an online video game, and got completely addicted to it. i would play for hours on end, and where I was playing with other people from around the world, I developed friendships pretty quickly.
Let's make the story shorter..I met someone, began a "relationship" online and then it continued offline. A month later, my husband found out, but I really didn't hide it all that well, maybe on purpose.

After the affair, I cold-turkey dropped all contact with the..Om (is that the right abbrev?) my hubby and I started counseling and for 8 months or so, we were doing really well...or so it seemed.

I still thought about my OM every day. I missed him, craved him. I would search for him online like on facebook or myspace, but he cold-turkey'd me as well and made himself unfindable.

A year went by and on the anniversary of the date my husband caught me, all hell broke loose. In a fit of anger, he broke our tv, my laptop and snapped my cell phone in half. The anniversary was a huge trigger and I felt what we had rebuilt crumble around us. He refused to go back to counseling..we had only got for 6 months. He refused to go to therapy on his own, He was convinced everything was my doing and therefore everything he said or did to me, I deserved. I believed it for a while longer. I took the "punishments" the harsh words, the nasty names he called me in front of our children, words beginning with "C" and called me a no good whore...

We have had a lot of problems for years, this affair didn't happen by itself. I do not blame him for it happening, I take most of the responsibility. I may have been unhappy..but the way I chose to react to my unhappiness is my own doing. I could have left him, I could have tried talking to him, but I didn't.

I didn't think about what I was doing in terms of me doing it to him. I was making myself happy, therefore I was being selfish. I never saw it as something I did "to him".

I said I craved the OM, and I did. The entire year...I never stopped thinking about him. It was torture..we had no closure..we were ripped from each other and I missed him.

6 months ago, I left my husband. I moved out. We were not healing and his anger was increasing. I stopped feeling like I deserved what he was giving to me. I may have hurt him..and I dont blame him for feeling that way at ALL. I told him if he cant get over it, then he cant get over it...but we cant be together if he is going to punish me over and over, day in and day out. So I left.

A few weeks after I left, the OM contacted me. it was...odd. I was elated. Within a few weeks, we had started everything back up again and then we saw each other...but soon after our last meeting, the OM said he thought he loved me, and he cared for me, but maybe it was the lack of closure that made him feel that way and now...he was "over" me. I was devastated for a few days but then I sort of felt the same way. I felt like I got my closure.

I told my husband about the whole thing even though we were separated. i sat down with him and told him everything.
I wasn't trying to get back with him, but I felt he should know. He was obviously distraught at first but the next day he said he still wanted us to get back together. For a month, we spent some time together, would talk for hours on the phone, and finally, I moved back in.

The first week was great, I thought we were making lots of progress...but he is started to go back to the suspicious ways, questioning every little thing I do, say. I am taking it because I know I need to and I am happy to answer questions and account for my whereabouts and what I do online. but his anger is starting to creep back again. I will take what I feel I need to for healing, but I cant stay if he starts breaking things again, for my safety and the safety of my children. He is seeking solo therapy, and we start couples counseling again next week.

I want to stay married. I do love him...but even after I said I felt closure with the OM..there is still a lingering...crave for him, even though I know I don't want to be with him instead of my husband..I want to be with my husband..I want my family..I want my life back..but I feel like OM is a drug..I want to kick it, I don't want to cave and search him out again. I dont want to. And some days I am fine..it is the night time when I feel down and lonely that I start feeling that itch..like I need to talk to him..I am crying as I write this because I am so tormented. Before, I used to want to be with him, like a relationship, I know now I dont want that, but I cant seem to kick him out of my mind entirely and he is very easily accessible if I wanted. I am scared, and lonely. I try to keep myself occupied, busy with life and my kids and my husband and work, but some nights are lonely.

I need guidance. Not judgement please.

Get a divorce.

Why do you advise her to do this, Bubbles, when she has said she wants to stay married?

Why do you post to people in affair crises if you cannot help with marriage building?

Welcome to MB, Madaly.

It's very late where I am in England, so I won't have time to post to you now, but I can see that there are posters online right now who understand MB, and they will help you. Please don't be discouraged by non-MB advice.

Have you exposed the affair? That might be the ONE thing that is keeping you in this fog.

I am on the other side of the spectrum here but i can relate to what you are going through!! My H had an affair in may of this year and it is hard for me to shake!! We are trying to work things out also. I get mad and upset at him some times also but it has never gotten to where i throw things so I do not know what to tell you do on that issue but I do know coming from someone who has been betrayed you need ot give your H some time to heal because for me this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me even losing my grandparents whom i was very close to. It was like my H was dead but he was still there i could still talk, touch, and see him if i wanted to. You should not blame yourself for you have admited to the affair and you and your H just need to go to the next step and that is trying to move on from this A. I hope this helped in some way and you sshould not listen to the ones who tell you to get a divorce because that is what i thought i wanted to do but we are working on and i am glad that we are adn there are some days i question as well as my H if we are doing trhe right thing but in the end whatever the outcome at least we tried to make it work. i will be praying for you!! good luck and hold your head up!!

Madaly,

You have some things you need to do.

Your husband does not feel safe with you. Start with Extraordinary Precautions.

1. Write a letter of No Contact. Have your husband check it and have your husband mail it to the OM.

2. Expose this affair to your family, your husband's family, and to the OM's Wife, if he is married. That closes the door on OM permanently.

3. Give your husband all of your passwords to everything you have that has a password. Then, open up your cellphone information so that he can check it at any time to see who you have been texting or calling. This reduces his suspicions, and it shows you are open to whatever kind of information he needs to have to feel safe. YOU are not entitled to any kind of secrecy. Lose your idea that you have the right to have secrets from your BH, because you have no such rights. And your BH also must not have secrets from you.

4. If you have not yet disclosed all of the details of the affair that your husband wants to know, do that now.

5. Begin understanding your BH's Emotional Needs, and start meeting the top 3 every day to the best of your ability. Be aware of his top 5, and work on those regularly. Look at this website for information.

6. YOU need to move past the idea that your BH has to "move past the affair". The fact is that the two of you did not recover from your affair in any way nearly the right way - and that issue is still on the table. So he cannot "move on". Your marriage will not "move on" until this affair is dealt with properly, and the two of you have the tools in your toolbox to make the marriage a place of love and mutual respect. You are nowhere near that.

7. Order three books: "Surviving an Affair", "Lovebusters", and "His Needs/Her Needs". Read them - both of you - and get on track.

8. If your husband hasn't stopped the many hours of being a barfly, that should be a first priority. Otherwise, you will get nowhere.


That's all for starters. Read this website for what you will need - Basic Concepts.

You are still in the fog. You are partially on the mend, but have so much to learn.

SB

thank you everyone. I am already feeling on the way to feeling better by letting it all out here.

1) My affair has been exposed..both times. I told my family, his family and all my friends. Both my family and his are supportive of me and my husband and I treasure them all for they are able to see that my affair was a symptom of much bigger problems within myself and our marriage. My friends were not so supportive and I am virtually friendless now...they really are disgusted with me.

2) Husband knows all my email passwords, facebook passwords and I switched my phone into his plan so he has access to all my activities. I agreed to all this because I have nothing to hide.

OM is single..and 10 years younger than me. He also lives 3000 miles away, so physical contact wont happen again. I just crave his attention..and its not so much him..its just attention I wasnt getting at home...I want to kick the crave..the drug. I have no contact. havent spoken to him in a while..but I crave it..and I dont want to.

Are you spending 15 or more hours a week with your husband, having fun together? Are you trying to meet his ENs?