Hello Everyone - I've been reading here for over a year now. I posted last year and long story short - it took me this long to realize I have been wrong - so wrong.

I ended my inappropriate friendship (IF) with OM today - we have tried about 4 times before, but have always come back to each other and broken NC.

I'm not in an unhappy marriage - have great kids - good job - life is good. I'm ready to not let this situation poison all that is good in my life anymore.

I have felt like I've been living in a fantasy world for 1 1/2 years now and I'm ready to walk strongly out of the fog and get back to my wonderful reality.

The problem is - I always start this way and end up caving a few weeks later. I want to be able to do this on my own and forget all that has happened and move on with my life.

I am very lucky that noone has gotten hurt by this friendship (my H or OMW). I am ready to cut my losses and never look back, but I know withdrawal is intense - I've been through it each time we decided to not speak anymore.

Any support anyone could offer would be greatly appreciated. I can't believe I have allowed myself to get this emotionally dependant upon someone else. How do you let go and move on and never ever look back - for good!

Welcome to MB and no joy on why you are here. There is lots of help that follows various paths; pick what does you the most good.

Please understand that you are afflicted by brain chemicals that are similar to meth, hence the withdrawal. Ask me and I will tell you the names if you want to know.

And now the help starts. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Larry

IMO you are going to have to "expose yourself" to your H before you have a chance at the NC working.

What is stopping you from making contact with this OM now (and all the previous times where NC failed)? If it is only your own willpower, with no one else holding you accountable or anything else, I would be extremely shocked if it ever works. You will never be out of the fog, out of the fantasy of it all as long as it is totally secret between you and the OM.

I had an EA that lasted for 5-6 months or so also, shorter than yours, but still a decent amount of time. I am only 3 weeks out of it too. I decided to end it on my own, much like you are, but I also told my wife and friends and others. If I hadn't, I would have gone back by now. You admit yourself that you feel you aren't hurting anyone right now with the A, except for yourself. Well, the withdrawal is going to hurt even worse, and there will be pretty much nothing stopping you from going back to the OM.

I would also suggest that things in your M aren't as peachy as you are telling yourself they are. Very few people are so totally devoid of honor or values or whatever to just go and have an A for the heck of it. Something is wrong at home, so you are going to have to fix that anyway.

Not telling your H is NOT what is going to make anything better. Keeping secrets of that magnitude just isn't healthy for intimate relationships, at least IMO.

"I am very lucky that noone has gotten hurt by this friendship (my H or OMW)."

Since neither OM's wife or your husband has been hurt by this almost 2 year affair, I suggest you tell them both about it. That will help you and the OM maintain no contact.

Hi FT,

Welcome to MB and I'm glad you have come to realize that you need to end your IF and look at your marriage.

Personally I would call it an EA, but that's me. I think you are just fooling yourself by calling it an IF as if it was just that you wouldn't have too much difficulty ending it.

I would tell your H everything as he has a right to know and I would encourage him to read everything on this website. I thing you know you have a good marriage but something is missing which is allowing you to keep contact with this OM and the same goes for him.

I would encourage you and your H to complete the EN questionnaire so you can both establish what your EN are. You can then very quickly move to fulfilling those needs and put all your efforts into your marriage.

Regards
HAF

Thank you for your replies. The difference today vs. every other time is that I'm finally worn out and tired of allowing the OM to control my life.

If he called, I had a good day - If he didn't call for 2 weeks, I felt rejected. Who gives a flip - why the heck am I allowing his actions to determine my self-concept.

I don't necessarily need to "hate" him, I just simply want to be done with all of this. It was very much an EA clearly leading to a PA. How the heck did I get here.

I want to take back control of my emotions, my life and stand on my own again. Yes, my M could be better, but all-in-all it's very good.

I believe this sort of thing can happen to people in good marriages - I never thought I would have been vulnerable to something like this. Eye opener!

Today I feel like I'm free, but I'm scared to death that I will fall again. I do not want to hurt my H - I have to be able to walk away from this and never look back - how do you do that when there is noone to talk to about it - except the OM who is feeling the same way.

He completely agreed that we needed to end our friendship and will fully support NC I believe this time. I guess I just mainly want to know how I mentally stop thinking about him every day. Will that go away with time? Will I ever escape this or will this relationship always just be apart of me and my past?

Is it something I just have to accept or can I decide today - once in for all- that I am done with this struggle and will not allow myself to be controlled by it (the fantasy) for another second. (I'm really determined this time if you can't tell).

Thanks for you opinions, experiences and advise. I welcome it all - even 2x4's.

Hello again firsttimer. I posted to you last year in July, as did many others on this forum. Our advise remains the same basically as it was last year. Have you looked at the posts we gave you recently?

Tell your H about this. You can explain that you just feel you have gotten too involved with this other man emotionally and that you have been talking to him more than you feel is healthy. OM's wife should also be told. That way, these two blameless spouses can keep track of both of you and ensure no contact.

Give your H a chance to build a stronger marriage by giving him the truth. He can help you figure out how you let down your boundaries to let OM become so important to you. You and your H can develop increased intimacy that has been affected by the secrets you have been keeping from your H.

Re-read those old posts. They still hold true. I wish you well and want you to maintain no contact.

A big part of why attemptying no contact has failed in the past is because you are keeping the EA a secret. Your husband and the OM's BW deserve to be told the truth so that they can:

1) decide whether or not they want to fight for their marriage

2) have a fighting chance of saving their marriage

You will have to stop all contact with the OM. If you work with him one of you will have to change jobs. You may have to move away even. How did you two meet and what activities caused your paths to cross?

You say that you ended up caving a few weeks into withdrawal. I've heard that the worst of the withdrawal lasts about 3 weeks. Do you realize you've been putting yourself through withdrawal over and over again, almost making it through the worst part, then having to start all over again because you failed to maintain no contact? Why not do withdrawal only once and get it over with for good?

What rationalizations do you tell yourself when you break no contact?

Firsttimer,
I re-read all of your last threads from last year. You actually told your H about the EA and established no contact. You said your H was ok when you first told him, but then after thinking about it, he got pretty upset and asked that you enter counseling.

So, you must have been keeping quite a few secrets from your H this past year, right?

This time, tell your H and together you tell OM's wife. Send your H to this web site so he can get support from us about how to help you through withdrawal. There are some great guys on this site as well as gals that are very sharp with advise to betrayed spouses.

Do it right this time and get out of this he11 you have created for yourself.

firsttimer, the first thing that must happen is that you tell your husband and send the OM a no contact letter. Otherwise, this is just more TALK like the last 4 times. Talk is cheap.

When will you will be telling your H?

Without some action, this is just talk. In Texas, we have a saying for situations like this: money talks and [censored] walks.

Please read the info at the link below.
Note what the author says about the likelihood of the adultery ending if the adultery is not discovered/revealed:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4360335-103425,00.html

Whoa, you don't get the "F" in FWW until you've accepted the consequences for your actions. That's like asking God's forgiveness for a murder you committed without confessing to the police and serving your time. Don't think that you haven't hurt your husband or the OMW. They may suspect that your relationship is inappropriate, but they are living in denial (which trust me, still hurts alot). Let's take a look at your track record. You've said to yourself you are going to end it with OM, but you wind up talking to him again. FOUR TIMES!!! In statistics class we call that a TREND. You aren't going to be able to maintain NC UNTIL YOU TELL YOUR HUSBAND!

Firsttimer,
Tell your H and send him here to talk to Jim. I know you said you told your H last year about this time. But apparently you resumed contact with OM.

Does you H know you resumed contact? You said last year that he was pretty upset once it all sunk in. What happened? JMWC is one of the guys on this site that could clue your H in to how to keep you on the straight and narrow. If you really want no contact with OM, just introduce your H to jmwc <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Also, jmwc has an important point about the TREND. You need expert help here to get NC in place.

Send your H to us. Jim will take good care of him <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Firsttimer,

I understand your reasoning that your H and OM's W have not yet been hurt. I understand it, but you are wrong in that assumption.

During the time you were putting energy into maintaining this relationship with OM, you were expending energy that should have gone into your marriage. Your emotional attachment to OM also short-circuited your emotional attachment to your husband. This is because there is only so much of YOU to go around and by spreading what there is between two men, you have deprived your H of what is his by virtue of being married to you and what he has a right to expect in the same regard.

Likewise, the OM has cheated his wife of the honesty and emotional attachment that is rightfully hers. So to say that no one has been hurt by it yet is a fantasy.

In addition, it will now fall to your husband to spend time and energy helping you to go through withdrawal, if he is willing to do so, and must spend additional resources, both monetary and emotional, on recovery if there is to be any hope for your marriage to become what he may have thought it to be all along.

Openness and honesty has also been diverted from the primary relationship to hide the illicit one that you have been having. Rest assured that you will have to take great care from this day forward to show your trustworthiness to your husband and to earn back the trust he once gave willingly and without much forethought.

If you or OM and his wife have children, they too have been hurt by your actions already. Even if they don't know what has caused Mom to be secretive and aloof, they know that something is wrong and little minds tend to blame themselves for what they perceive as rejection by a parent.

In addition to your families, the extended family and friends have also been hurt by this affair. They have likely seen you withdrawing from them and have thought that perhaps they had done something to cause it to happen. Especially those who have held you up as a model of what a wife, mother and example of a faithful marriage will be devastated by the pending news that you were in fact hiding a side of you that they never dreamed existed.

If you know this man from or through your job, in order to recover you will now have to change jobs or OM will have to do so. This will place your employer in a position of having lost a valuable employee in whom they have invested much time, training and cost of benefits, pension and other perks of the job. They will now have to replace someone who already knew the job with a person that will require that same training and time. If you deal with clients, some of them will likely leave since they have only remained because of loyalty to you and not really your employer. Though your employer may be able to salvage these clients, the client will ever be aware that the service they get is dependent on the whims of a person who could leave at any time because of what can only be described as an uncaring, unconcerned selfish individual.

Your husband will be destroyed by the fact that while he thought that you were no longer in contact and what he had considered a "bump" in the road is in fact a mountain of lies and deceit that he must now tear down and hall away if he is to remain with you for the future.

He has already likely questioned his own judgement and now will be reeling from another blow to his ability to judge the character of others justly and rightly. Since he had judged you to be honest because of your previous confession, this will cause him to question everything he ever believed to be true, not only about you, but nearly everything in his life.

If you need more examples of who has and has not been hurt by this, just ask. I'm sure we could come up with a few more. This is just what I thought of off the top of my head in a couple of minutes as I typed it out.

The time to worry about hurting others is long past. Now is the time to worry about helping others heal from the wounds inflicted by your selfish choice to have an affair.

The only thing I can think of right know that could make the damage worse would be if you had a PA and contracted an STD that you had passed along to your husband and children. This too is a too often felt consequence to failure to protect our own weakness and vulnerability.

Don't be put off by the brusqueness of my reply. I care very much for marriage in general and think marriage is something worth fighting for. But I felt I had to point out that it is too late to consider not hurting anyone. That option was gone quite some time ago.

And FWIW, it might still be possible to have a great marriage with your husband. You must be willing to do some hard work, but this is the place to get the help that you need.

Mark

Wow - thank you for all the great replies. Yes, I did tell my H about a year ago about the inappropriate friendship - we dealt with it and moved on.

When NC was broken, I did not tell my H. I thought I could handle this on my own and fix it myself - and I am still trying to do this.

I am simply addicted to how the OM makes me feel - that's it. I'm not trying to hurt anyone or ruin marriages or anything - he simply made me feel great. This sounds like it should be such a simple thing to "get over".

I met OM through work, but we don't work together anymore. All the "relationship" is - is just a phone call here and there and a very rare occassional meeting (months apart).

So in my mind, there really isn't anything to get over - it just needs to stop. I don't want to get the whole world involved in this - I just want to mentally move on and forget the EA ever happened.

I stand by the fact that my marriage is good - I would even say it's as good as it's been in years. I think I was just maybe bored with work, kids, life in general. This OM threw a spark into my world that ignited something in me.

It has just become that I crave that "spark" of conversation with him every once in awhile. I would never ever want to really ever "be" with him. This was just "fun" when it all started and now I feel addicted to it. That's the part I need to just "get over".

I think because so much time has passed (almost 2 years now in total), it will be easier this time. The track record isn't good, I know, but I have finally come to the conclusion that there is no point in continuing this. What is the payoff? There is none.

I know this has been completely selfish and I haven't been giving my "whole" self to my family during this time. I want to change all of that, but I want to do it without turning it into a huge mess.

I'm sorry for even being here - I know many of you are on the BS side. Truly, it never had anything to do with my BS - it was just something that made me feel special - my H made me feel special, but it's just different when it comes from someone new, but I realize that was wrong and I just want to stay strong, learn from my mistakes and never let something like this ever happen again.

I can honestly say this has been one of the biggest struggles I have ever had to deal with in my life. I got myself into this mess, now I need to get myself out - without damaging my innocent family.

Firsttimer:

I posted to you repeatedly last year. I see no progress in you, just that a year has past and you are still in contact with OM while lying to your husband.

My advice to you has also not changed, but my style is now more blunt: TELL YOUR HUSBAND.

~Saturn

by all means don't be sorry for being here!!!

stick around

Firsttimer,

Please stick around and work through this. The advice you get will continue to be along the same lines as what you have already received.

I see that you are in fact reading the replies and this is good. I know you are reading them because you have addressed specific issues in your response. The only problem that I see is that in each case you have given a reason why you will not follow the specific advice that was given to you.

You have given a list of reasons why the advice does not apply in your case. First and foremost is that you are basing all of your responses to what has been said to you on the idea that you and this man are friends and not lovers.

Please read this>>> Friends or EA?

Mark

tell your H. You know that needs to be done..yet you drag your feet. There is NOTHING anyone here can do for you if you refuse to come 100% clean with your H. NOTHING.

I understand you all feel strongly about me telling my H. That is not an option for me. I won't post anymore so as to not waste anyone's time.

What I needed was support in that I'm doing the right thing by ending it with OM, understanding that this is hard and encouragement that it can be done (not just by exposure).

I guess I came to the wrong place - I will look inside myself and prayer for the support that I need. Thank you for your advise and help anyway. Take care.