I must say that you seem extremely contrite and are definitely owning your [censored]. There should be no more 2x4s hitting you upside the head.

Goldilocks, do you have a copy of Surviving an Affair? Will he read it?

I don't have the book yet, but I will order it. I'm not positive he will read it, but at least I can read it and have it available.

To start, my extraordinary precautions to make sure this never happens again is that I will never go on the site where I met OM. In fact, I deleted my information there months ago.
I won't 'chat' with other men period. I deleted everything from my phone before I got home. I deleted my IM and emails before I posted here. I didn't think about making any of it available for my husband to see. I know, I was getting rid of it...
I won't take my laptop or cell phone to bed with me ever again.
I had actually been sleeping in another bedroom for awhile because of my husbands snoring and then the sleep apnea machine took so much space. I moved back into our bedroom my first night back home. We had really been drifting apart, and it was mainly me. He'd been trying to get me back in our room. Things hadn't been too good for quite awhile actually. IB is something we have just done for so long, because of his job and the long hours. If I want to go somewhere or do something I pretty much did it alone or with whichever kids were home. He doesn't care to take vacations or time off work. It's been 20 years he's drove a truck. A long time for IB for me. What made me vulnerable now?? Maybe that I haven't been happy for years, that I wanted to leave my husband after kid #2 was off to college, but by then we had #3 and I felt STUCK. Then out of boredom I started chatting with OM who was almost always instantly available . Telling me things that I didn't even know I wanted to hear at first. Making me laugh, giving me ATTENTION and compliments. Getting involved deeper and deeper as the days went on. I couldn't tell him no. I didn't want to tell him no and then after we met, what happened hit me like a ton of bricks.
I want to make what I did up to my husband and be the best wife in the world to him. There is a lot of room for improvement and I am ready to show him that I will be. I have to move forward now. I'm ready to put the effort into our marriage, and know I have a lot to prove to my husband- but I will, as he's ready to let me.
This is just the beginning, I'm still reading, there is so much information here. As hard as you guys have been on me, I know it's what I need, and I'm thankful I did stumble across this site because I believe we both need the help. We were both from broken homes and at 19 and 22 years old, we weren't ready for marriage, but it's what we did. A lot of trial and error, but we wanted to keep it together for our kids and now this... it feels like I'm in the middle of a nightmare. I'm still reading. I'm going to print off the questions for us to answer. What else? I'm realizing one of my excuses was thinking H was emotionally unavailable, but I was also not available. I didn't realize how far we had drifted apart. There is more to my EP's, I'll be back after I get home from work tomorrow.

Goldi,

You next EP should involve this;

Your husband needs a new job.

Your marriage will NOT survive his current job, it's already limping and broken, and if this issue is not addressed, your marriage will NOT recover.

It needs to be addressed.

Though, I can't really come up with any suggestions off the cuff myself, as all I can see is how you have weakened your negotiating position with your infidelity.

Hopefully a good, hard-nosed poster will have a suggestion for you.

I don't remember how old kid #3 is, but my husband and I spent a number of years on the road, together. Nothing quite so bonding as 24/7 with each other and seeing the countryside.

Goldilocks, have you confessed to POSOM's wife and initiated a No Contact letter?

Just like your husband has a right to know what's going on in his life and marriage, Man-ho's wife has a right to know what you and he have done to hers.

You've made a big mess here. You have to clean it all up. ALL of it . . .

Read this thread: Extraordinary Precautions

What is the purpose of Extraordinary Precautions, Goldilocks?

Definitely he needs a new job.

Neak, he doesn't drive OTR anymore. He did that the first two years. He works locally now, he is gone around 14 hours a day and gets home usually by 8pm. We are hoping he gets a job that will be coming up in May or June. He also usually works 6 days a week.

Our little one is almost 7, in the 1st. grade.

As far as OMW, I have no way to contact her. Since he isn't someone I knew from real life and he was very careful not to give out too much personal information, which I was just as happy to also not do. Embarrassingly enough, besides telling me his profession and the city he lives in, we exchanged only our cell phone numbers and first names. We weren't even facebook 'friends'. I'm sure he knew he didn't want his comfy life disrupted down the road. There is no more contact, we said our goodbyes a few days after our meeting and I have already deleted everything I had.

Prisca, the purpose of EP would be to restore our relationship and prevent another affair from happening. Proving to my husband that I am serious about (if it's possible) regaining his trust, being an open book, accountable and completely honest and transparent. Exactly what I USED to be!

Wrong. You have enough information here to be able to track down his family. You're still trying to walk away from this keeping yourself intact with no regard for the hit-and-run victim you left bleeding in the ditch. You're just going to take your car to the body-shop and go whistling past the graveyard, averting your eyes, hoping to avoid having to see the headstone YOU placed there.

That's not repentance. That's self-preservation. You're still exhibiting the same cowardice, selfishness and sense of entitlement that led you to lift your skirt for a back-dooring weasel in the first place.

You owe it to OMW to let her know what you and your AP have done. This is information about HER life that you have no right to keep from her. You KNOW you could find her if you were so inclined.

Others here might be willing to support you under the circumstances, but I'm not. Just remember: life's a wheel. There's a good chance this is going to come back and bite you. And you'll find that it always seems to happen at the worst possible time.

Good luck with trying to recover your marriage while continuing to show more regard for your partner-in-crime than you show for the victims. Good luck trying to recover your marriage while actively living a lie.

I honestly do not know how I would track someone down when I don't have their last name.

I DO NOT KNOW HOW I COULD!

If I was that conniving I probably wouldn't be here in the first place, and I probably wouldn't even care about what I have done to anyone.

You win. I give up trying to get help from anyone here.

It's easy. All I had were cell phone nos for OW1 and OW2 and was able to get their full names. Have you gone to intelius.com and paid for a report on the cell phone no?

You passed through many, possibly hundreds, of tiny decision points in the process of going heels-up for your adultery partner. At each and every one of those decision points, you knew the choices and you knew the consequences of each choice. At each and every one of those decision points, you made a conscious decision to continue down the path to adultery and betrayal of your husband and POSOM's wife.

If you had come here then, asking for help in turning you away from consciously pursuing the entitled, selfish path to self-fulfillment, things would be different.

You made the choice to be a destroyer. Over and over you made that choice. You are not the victim here. Your victims are the ones who need help. That includes helping OMW by telling her what you've done.

You really expect the posters here to believe you have no possible way to find out who she is and get in touch with her. Nothing but typical denial of accountability by an active wayward. You can find your victim when you really become serious about repentance and restitution.

Until then, by all means, go find a forum that will make you feel better. After all, that's what it's all about, right Goldilocks?

That's what it's always been about: making YOU feel better.

I'm not looking for "another forum that will make you feel better". And to say "That's what it's always been about: making YOU feel better" is YOU being ignorant to a stranger on the internet.

YOU KNOW PRECIOUS LITTLE ABOUT ME.

My best friends don't even know everything about me. Hubby doesn't know everything about me.
I'm going to take this opportunity to vent since this is anonymous and people are still obviously reading this...Here is the condensed version:

At the age of 10 my childhood was OVER. I gained a step father who BEAT me, TOUCHED me, mentally abused me daily. My mom worked swing shift...guess who cooked dinner, did the laundry and cleaned the house? My mom gave me my first glass of wine at 10 years old. That was my first time to get 'tipsy' and I took every opportunity after that to drink. When I was 12, they had a baby...guess who took care of that baby as much as my mom did? As a teenager, I would go to bed at night and PRAY to DIE. I didn't want to live anymore. I had sex at 15 with the boy who became my step-brother (from my dad) because he pressured me and I wasn't strong enough to stand up for myself. I'm lucky I didn't get pregnant. At 16 I started using drugs. I was also put in school at 16 for the first time since the couple of months I went to school when I was 13. YES, they kept me and my older brother out of school for years. I worked like a damn dog for them on their 20 acres, pursuing their dream of 'living off the land' in an extremely remote area. I was taken out of school as a junior, again, and sent to live with my aunt so I could work at a McDonalds where I was allowed to keep 10.00 out of each of my pay checks, they got the rest. I was 18 at that time, yes...but as an ABUSED 18 year old who wasn't allowed to drive, graduate from high school, or make a decision on my own I did what I was told.

At 19, and still at 'home' I met my husband. We were married in less than 6 months. DO YOU THINK I WAS PREPARED TO BE A WIFE? HELL NO! So, I went right into being a wife. After all, I already knew how to cook, clean and have sex. I realized fairly quickly that I shouldn't have gotten married, but didn't think I had an option. At least I was smart enough to give up the drugs, smoking and drinking when I was trying to get pregnant, and I was soon pregnant with our first baby, which ended in a miscarriage.

I tried to make the best of my marriage because that was what I was taught from my mother about how to deal with men, you make the best of it. Our first baby was born, hubby didn't want to even hold him...I'm not going to go into all that, but suffice it to say I had little help. I put 100% into raising my kids...We have three kids. The oldest is almost 28, was valedictorian of his class, has a doctorate, an excellent job, is married and became a new daddy last year. Second was also valedictorian and is a junior in college. And little one is a first grader. So to say I am proud of my kids is an understatement, especially since my example was learning what NOT to do.

My family has been my life. Hubby has never gone without a cooked meal, clean clothes a clean house and sex. His requirements. And I have been required to earn my own money for mine and the kids clothes, shoes, gas, my own car... any extras etc. We have lived in a little tiny town (less than 200 people) where HE'S wanted to live (where his family is from) for the last 18 years. It's been difficult for me to earn money here, but I always managed. Now for the last two years I actually have a good job, (I filled in for the last ten years before that)one of the rare jobs in this town.

I realize now that I was getting my emotional needs met from my kids instead of my husband. Little one takes after his dad and has always been closer to him. Now I see I am struggling to raise a little miniature hubby. The 14 hour days he works are way too long for me to have him on my own, compared to when my oldest two were at home. That time was a blessing. Hubby can be sarcastic, rude, disrespectful and is passive aggressive. And yes, I have asked him for a divorce (he refuses), numerous times, because I really don't think I can raise this one with him. And to be realistic, I'm going to be what, around 60 years old by the time he's out of high school. My life will be OVER. And I feel like I have never truly even lived MY LIFE.

So, when last October rolled around and my college kid was back at school... I joined a site for married people. Stupid? Yes. I only intended to chat. That was all. Just something to do for a little while in the afternoons. That's when I met him and everything snowballed into THIS. There is no excuse for what we did. He had his reasons for joining the site and I had mine. I don't believe if someone is a part of a happy marriage, any of the partners would cheat. Such as they are, my morals kept me from cheating for many years. I did learn a valuable lesson however, and I do love my husband and think we can get through this and come out much better than things have been.

We are getting professional help from someone who is knowledgeable and helpful to our situation, and that's what will help us get through this. I know in the long run our marriage will be better than ever, because it's been pretty crappy as far as I'm concerned and we have needed help for years, unfortunately this is what it took to wake us or at least me up- hubby has always said he's been happy with me. I don't get how I could be SO unhappy and unfulfilled and he's been happy?? Hmmm. It was the absolute wrong thing for me to do. I learned a lesson. Today I am different because of it.

SO... You know about a period of time in my life that I came here and shared. From Oct. 8, 2011 until Jan. 3, 2012. When I made this post, I WAS looking for someone to tell me what I did was okay, I quickly learned that wasn't the case and it wasn't okay. I felt like I was in shock, maybe it was just the fog...
YOU can say how much my life has always been about me until the cows come home... I know differently. I'm not perfect. I screwed up big time. We all know that, and me saying I'm sorry won't take anything away or make my hubby forgive me. I wish I could take it back, but I can't and I HAVE TO MOVE FORWARD.

I have said repeatedly that I deleted the information I had for him weeks ago. I know his FIRST name. I know the city he lives in. I know his profession. THAT IS NOT ENOUGH TO GO ON, I HAVE TRIED! I am not a detective. And you are not the one I have to make my indiscretion up to.

This really wasn't for you OldWarHorse. It's for someone who may need to understand that, yes, affairs are wrong and there is absolutely no excuse, however there are reasons. Like it or not, this one's mine.

And while I'm at it, there is something else I'd like to say...

While I truly believe most of you are here for genuine reasons and want to help people who are hurting, I have noticed a few who seem to feed on the drama.

People who can prance off with their tails held high...really, think about it... Some of you have been here FOR YEARS!!!! Thousands of posts made. Bumping all your relevant posts for others to see... The Betrayed Spouse. YEARS you have been here??? Sad...
Is that how you are vindicated? By putting all the "Waywards" in their place?

Goldi,

I know his FIRST name. I know the city he lives in. I know his profession.

You can do a web then a photo search in google, use his name and profession and city, you would be surprised how often a connection can be made with few clues. There may only be 50 persons in his profession in that city. Also professional associations and www.linkedin.com he may be on it. If he belongs to a union call the union hall.

Also he might still be on that adult website, look him up with your H at your side. Lure him to a motel you can get his license plate number.

You also know his hair/eye color, his build, possibly what he wears.

God Bless
Gamma

And I'll say it for you...

Buh bye...

Like I said earlier:




Your affair happened because of weak boundaries and dishonesty. Not your childhood. There are MANY people who have lousy childhoods filled with abuse who don't cheat, some are posters (BSs) on this very forum.