I have stumbled across this website in the hope of finding a solution to what I have done. I hope there are people out there, who maybe have been in my shoes, who can give me some words of advice.

I am 24 years old, I have been with my fiance for 5 years. He gives me everything I could ever want, yet he can sometimes be so mean and hurtful in the things he says and the way he says them that they cut my heart in two.

I have recently made a new circle of friends, one of whom I have become very close to and confided in her about how I was feeling in my relationship. She was very understanding and has tried to help me in finding a solution as to whether to stay with my finace, or leave and start again. I made the decision that I needed to leave. Once this decision was made, her brother came on the scene. Older, quite attractive and paid me loads of compliments. One evening my F had been particularly nasty and concidentally, out of the blue I got a text from the brother. I assume he had got my number from my firend, although she had not knowingly given it to him. I responded and we have continued to text from there. Nothing more, but some quite rude. We have met up, but only with other people around, never on our own.

I decided a few nights ago to come clean with F about how I was feeling about our relationship and my doubts. He was hurt and then went about trying to mend his ways to help me feel better. I too, resolved not to text this other man anymore and work as hard as I could in my relationship.

I have always been very careful with the messages that I have received and sent and deleted them for fear of F finding them. This morning it turns out I had not been careful enough, He went through my phone and found some messages.

He has gone ballistic, as well he should and accused me of a full blown affair which hasn't happened. We've only been texting for about a month. I am not going to make excuses for myself as I shouldn't have done it, but seeing him so hurt has broken my heart. I feel awful, and it has taken something ike to realise what I was thinking of giving up.

Please, can anyone help me? How can I fix this?

Hello.

You are experiencing a very common thing. When a spouse (or future spouse in your case) fails to make you feel loved and secure, you will naturally seek to find that elsewhere even if only subconciously.

If I were you I would first cut all communication with this OM. Only from the standpoint that you need to make sound decisions and you can't do that if you are thinking of someone else.

Then after that, I would seriously put your relationship under the microscope. If you are already having issues with your F being rude and hurtfull, you may even want to reconsider marrying this man.

Does he know what he is doing to you? Does he recognize his anger and hurtful ways? Have you spoken with him in regards to this? If your answer is yes, then you seriously need to consider postponing the wedding and he needs to deal with these issues BEFORE you get married.

I would also consider some extensive pre-marital counseling.

Believe me, you do not want to get married thinking to yourself that "he will change once we are married". Doesn't happen. He needs to show you that he recognizes how he is treating you and needs to put forth a huge effort to change those things before you even CONSIDERING marrying this person.

Please don't overlook this. Please don't tell yourself that your love for him is enough to overlook this. Love will get you through a lot of things, but when that love is not reciprocated or if that love is used and abused, it quickly begins to deteriorate and you find yourself in a mess and that love that you held onto as enough for your relationship is quickly gone.

Take a step back, analyze your situation, and make a sound decision that will have a positive impact on your future.

I disagree that it is only natural to seek love and security from elsewhere if your spouse or fiancee does not give it to you.

I also question if your comments about him making rude and hurtful comments to you is just your excuse for doing what you did--possibly a re-writing of your relationship history and part of wayward fog talk.

I do agree that you both need to take a look at the relationship and make some decisions. But you are the one who did the inappropriate activities with another man. That should be the focus--the way he treats you and the way you treat him should be reviewed and is very important in all this. This site has loads of information to help both of you. But you were the wayward one--you need to look at that and how you allowed such weak boundaries, how you felt justified in communicating with another man in secret and planfully hiding this from your f. The problem was not that you did not get rid of all your evidence (texts) thoroughly enough, the problem is that you seem to feel that that was the way to handle the situation.

You both have five years invested in this R, but have no kids, right? If you both decide to continue to persue marriage, get some good marriage counseling now and use this site as a guide for obtaining a counselor.

You need to ask and answer some hard questions though about your wayward behavior. Why should he trust that you will not do something like this again?
Lake

Just to clarify...I didn't say "natural"...I said "common". It is well spelled out even in His Needs Her Needs than when affection isn't given by a spouse, that it often leads to an affair with someone who does give affection.

And whether or not she is or isn't rewriting history is not for anyone to tell. We only have her side of the story for now and any advice can only be given based on the info at hand.

'I also question if your comments about him making rude and hurtful comments to you is just your excuse for doing what you did--possibly a re-writing of your relationship history and part of wayward fog talk.'

As I said in my original post I think, I had already recognised these problems in our relationship. OM coming on the scene shortly afterwards was purely coincidental. I would have spoken to F sooner, but he can be a very volitile person and I fully expected him to tell me that if I wasn't committed then to just go, no questions asked. As it was, ironically, he surprised me in his reaction.

'The problem was not that you did not get rid of all your evidence (texts) thoroughly enough, the problem is that you seem to feel that that was the way to handle the situation.'

I entirely agree with you. I did this because even though to start with they were only friendly, I knew that F would go mad at me for texting another man, friend or otherwise, so I tried to hide it. Admittedly this is no excuse and i'm not trying to make any, just to explain myself further.

F and I have no children. I know that I have some hard questions to answer about why I decided to keep texting OM and about the future of our relationship regardless of OM. What upsets me so much about this is that I never set out to hurt him, and would never actually cheat on him. If we did split up, I never wanted it to be because of someone else, but instead a mutual, discussed parting of ways. As it turns out, I no longer want to part ways, and want him back. Has anyone been through something similar, do you have any advice on where to go from here. Obivously as this all only kicked off this morning, it is all very raw but I feel that I must start out on the right foot in order to have the best chance of fixing this.

Cut off all contact w/ OM for life, be open and honest with your F, so he can verify it, and get you and your F to couples counseling. I would not marry him unless you get some counseling and address your issues.

On the other hand, you need to stop making excuses for your inappropriate relationship with OM. Your F wants to hear nothing of your excuses. Making excuses will just make things worse. It's time to own up, admit your mistake, and ask forgiveness. You said that you decided to leave your F before all of this happenned. Obviously, that is not true. First of all, you never told your H. Secondly, now you want to work things out. So in fact, you were never single or justified to carry on this inappropriate relationship w/ OM. You were cheating emotionally on your H. Don't think otherwise. To do so will only be lying to yourself and your F without addressing important issues. My W said that she would never cheat on me. She said that OM was just a "friend" and she did nothing wrong. Well, it eventually turned into a PA. Women usually tell themselves it is over with their BH, but don't actually end it before they enter into a relationship with the OM. What they really want is a trial relationship with the OM before they are comfortable enough to leave the safety of their M for the OM. The problem is that they have no idea what a relationship with the OM would be without their husband meeting the needs that he was meeting while they were cheating on him, and it is almost always worse than their relationship with their BH.

My advice: Cut the BS, cut the excuses, apologize to your BH for your emotional infidelity, and get to counseling. If he refuses, you shouldn't get married. Chances are if he is risking losing you, he will probably agree to therapy, but only if you come clean and apologize for what you have done.

SG,

You have a real problem but it is not the one you think you have. Pastor Steve has given you some great advice. But, let's consider this last paragraph of yours
You see to me this is you lying to yourself. You knew it would hurt him if you contacted or dated another man, and yet you say you never set out to hurt him. What you really mean is that you did not intend for him to find out, until after you had decided to dump F for the other man. Get honest with yourself. Get real honest because it is very important.


In what model do you see a discussion of you leaving the F that did not involve pain and loss for someone? Get honest here. You leaving him was NOT going to be something out of the movies, but him being very hurt as you would be if he decided to leave you.



Why do you want him back? You have not given any good reasons to stay with him. And please don't give me the "but I love him". You just go done saying he was verbally abusive and that you did not like how he made you feel. Back off of the OM, and then really look at F. I see show stoppers here, what do you see?



Fixing this may not be possible. Events such as these change many things and often everything. Your F has every right to not trust you, can you live with that? He may become more angry and verbally abusive, you should NOT live with that. The point is you need to have a plan and I would really like to suggest that you read Harley's articles here.

Please really consider whether being married to F is really in your or his best interest.

God Bless,

JL