whiteknight,
i thought i would give you a condensed version of my story.
i started an affair in july of 2001. i was convinced marriage was over and unhealthy for me. i wanted to symbolize this decision, talk about dumb. the guy was someone from chat room. i talked to him on a wed, met him on friday over lunch, lunch again on mon and tues and then on wed i went to his apt.
afterwards i told H i wanted divorce, although i had talked about it weakly before, this time i was strong on the decision. that got my H's attention. he started to push for counsoling and to go to Retrouvaille, something he would not do before then. i wanted nothing to do with any of it. went thru holidays, A was full blown and i was wanting divorce more and more, after holidays i started pushing for formal seperation. H just kept pushing back, he did not want to seperate, believed we belonged together. but i kept insisting. in april 2003, we sat kids down and told them we were seperating. i don't know what i expected but their reactions broke my heart. i decided to try, broke off with OM, went to retrouvaille, learned good communication skill there but i could not get my heart back into marriage. A continued off and on. the desire level of the OM was so addictive. H kept on growing and really putting his most into fixing marriage, i would peek out and consider trying to join his efforts but i would immediately go back into hiding. i felt there was just no turning back. it was too late, A had occured, nothing would ever make that better.
But H would not give up, and i was finally taking notice. but still felt so hopeless. all the while i kept seeing OM off and on. cuz, what was the difference at that point...
i hated myself for what i was doing, i hated H for only changing after it was too late. I got so tired of hating. i started praying for God to just take away my anger. In Nov, 2003 God answered that prayer and all of a sudden i could forgive my H for all the hurts occured throughtout our relationship. I saw OM one time in Nov and i just new it was over (withdrawal was still kinda hard, but considering i was trying to break free from addition of seeing him for the majority of the time i knew him, it was finally doable).
so now i try to move forward, put it all behind me, but i just cannot do it. i found this site in december and kept reading and posting. slowly i came to accept that the only way for H and I to have a chance at a real relationship was if i confessed. because without honesty, you have nothing.
on a sunday March 21, after church (which was on story of prodigal son) i confessed. no good way to do it, we were laying on the bed, H was unhappy because he knew i was still so unhappy most of the time. the day before, he had told me he figures i am unhappy because i just don't want to be married to him anymore. i could let him go on thinking that. so i confessed.
but in doing so, i told him my reason for confessing. that his love had been so strong and so overwhelming and that i wanted to really be his wife again and that the only way i could do that was to confess to him. so he could choose if he still wanted me as his wife.
that is the short version...
