I came here for help and got attacked.
Sarabike, you didn't come here for help, you came here for sympathy. We recognize that because you are not the first person who has tried the same the thing under the guise of seeking help.
I asked you why you are here and you responded with:
"I hoped for EMPATHY from other cheaters." Empathy, especially when you are continuing your half-truths with your husband and feeling no regret, is for your husband. If you want empathy, then start doing the right thing. You messed up "Big Time" but you don't want to hear, much less DO, the truth, which IS what you will get here from people who have BEEN through the mess caused by adultery.
ark, I did not have the affair on purpose. There were no "reasons".
Sarabike, you can lie to your husband and lie to yourself, but we DO know better. NO ONE just "accidentally" has an affair. It is a CHOICE you made, on purpose, for whatever reasons you used to rationalize and justify it in your mind so that you could "grant yourself the permission" to commit the ultimate betrayal against your husband.
ForeverHers, I am 33. I don't see what age has to do with anything.
At 33 you "should" know better, but you didn't and you still don't. You are still focused on "me" just as if you were half your age. You don't want your husband to be angry with you, so you withhold the truth. Does THAT sound like 33, or 16 or 17, to you?
If someone said to me what I said in my first post, I would tell them "You feel numb and it will pass." I would also say, OM & H's pain makes her feel cared about, an emotional need for her.
sarabike, this remains "all about you." Nevermind that your husband doesn't feel cared for by you. As for the OM, I hope he DOES feel pain for the harm he has caused you husband, but I suspect he is just feeling his own "self-centered" pain to.
I asked you other relevant questions too, such as your concept of love, but you chose to ignore that too.
If you really want to recover your marriage, there are some fundamental changes you are going to have to make in yourself, but that doesn't seem likely at this point. Your statement,
"H is monitoring the forums that OM & I are both on and I've agreed to sign off if he asks me to" is indicative of this.
You want your husband to be the "bad guy" in this decision. You want it to HIS decision, as if "he can't handle it." YOU either do not understand or you do not accept that the decision is YOURS to establish NO CONTACT of any sort, to avoid places where you "might" come into contact with the OM, for the rest of your life. That is the MINIMUM you owe your husband that shows YOU are serious about recovering your marriage.
But no, you'd rather position it so that your husband is the "bad guy" who can't handle "occasional contact" with the person who tried to destroy his marriage.
At 33 I would think that I wouldn't have to say this, but your ACTIONS indicate that it IS necessary....Sarabike, grow up.
There can be NO 3rd person in a marriage, and when a third person is also a person who was engaging in adultery with your spouse, that FACT eliminates any "friendship" or "possible contact." Quit those sites, read the book (we all have and we all understand it quite well thank you), and begin to make real changes in yourself if you really do want to save your marriage.
The problem you have right now is you have virtually NO concept of what your adultery has done to your husband. You have what appears to be "second chance" with him, but we also know what is going on in his mind and what he has yet to deal with.
If you want to get mad at us for speaking the truth, then do so. But Lies won't work, not lies of commission or of omission.
Just out of curiousity, but something you should really think about, what WERE the words of your wedding VOWS?
It's quite possible that they included something like "forsaking ALL other and KEEPING myself ONLY unto you."
You trashed that one already. If you want to save your marriage, you had better really understand and embrace that vow because that is a fundamental requirement of all healthy marriages.
Are you still in fog? Yes, there is no doubt about it from what you have written. Can it get better? Yes, but not until you really understand what being married means and that your HUSBAND's feelings and needs take priority over your own, and that the OM's don't count at all.
If you don't reach that point before your husband runs out of patience and endurance, your marriage will not survive.
You DO want your marriage to survive, don't you?
Isn't that WHY you really came here?
To learn HOW to save something that has been destroyed by your own hand?
If so, put down your anger and your pride and LISTEN. Listen, evaluate, and implement.
When you begin to "get it," you WILL feel remorse, regret, and guilt. Until then you will "struggle" with self-centeredness and everything will be "about you." The "struggle" ends when you finally CHOOSE to do the right things, not for what you get out of it, but because it's right and it's what you want to give your husband out of love FOR him.
