I am a 34 y/o woman and right now I am feeling very confused and conflicted. I have been married for a little over six months and my husband and I are seperated. We dated for five years before we got married and somewhere along the way I became unhappy. I don't know if my unhappiness is because my husband can't seem to keep a job or if it is because if something else. We were engaged about five years ago but I called off the engagment after six months because he kept losing his job. Now in the last five years he has pretty much always worked but he has a habit of going from one job to another. My husband also has a habit of spending money that we don't really have on things he does not really need like electronic devices.

Last year I reconnected with an old boyfriend via the internet. At the time he was still married but has been seperated for over a year and has filed for divorce. He lives in Florida and I live in North Carolina so we are not really exactly close to each other. Not that it made a difference because I went down to Florida to see him last year in December before I got married. Things didn't go the way that I hoped they would go and basically he told me I needed to come back and work things out with my fiance. I was humiliated and hurt. I didn't talk to him for about a month and then he called me to ask my advice about something that had happened to one of his children. We started talking despite the fact that I told my husband that I was no longer speaking to him. He never asked me not to get married and secertly I had hoped that he would show up at my wedding and whisk me away. I know it sounds stupid. I got married and ended up going down to Florida to see him 3 1/2 months later. To make a long story short we started an affair that has not ended. He says that he loves me and that he wants to marry me and I don't know what to do. He married someone else and didn't want me at that time. After he was married for two years I had an affair with him and he told me at that time that he wanted a divorce but he didn't get one. After that we didn't talk for six years until I contacted him again last summer.

I don't know what I am supposed to do. It doesn't make it any easier that both my husband and the man I am having an affair with love me or say they do. I love both of them if that is even possible. There are days when I miss my husband but the thought of giving up the other guy is to much to bear. I know that I have no right to even feel this way since I am the one who had the affair. I find myself feeling depressed and crying all the time. I feel like I don't deserve either of them.

I am sure that a lot of you on this side will probably be angry with me because you have been the spouse who has been cheated on. I just need some advice on what I am supposed to do because I don't know what to do. I feel so numb inside.

1) End your affair. Trust me, the OM is a sleazebag. All OM are. He left his wife and cheated with a married woman, and he will do it again. You aren't "special" and won't be an exception. Cut off all contact with OM for life.

2) Spend about two years after ending contact with OM working on your marriage to see if it can and should be worked out.

3) You need counseling. You sound like one of those women who can't be alone and gravitate toward crappy guys. The problem you have is with yourself, and you need to fix yourself before you will ever find happiness.

4) See #1 again. OM is a tool. Get that through your thick head. How would you react if another man stole your mom away from your dad? You would probably think that OM was a scumbag for hurting your father and causing your mother to become a tramp. You are only rationalizing it because it involves you. OM is a POS.

Let's see.

OM used you once, and threw you away.

Then, you find a nice guy who loves you and you decide to marry him. But, that doesn't satisfy you, and you keep going back to see if you can be used again. You go to see OM right before you get married, and he throws you away again.....

So you get married to the good guy.

And then you find yourself looking back over your shoulder for the user. And sure enough, you threw enough chum in the water that the shark shows up again, and uses you........only this time, he thinks maybe you might be good enough to keep for a little longer this time. Maybe he can get something more out of you. After all, he's done with his wife, he ruined his marriage and now he doesn't have anybody hanging around to meet his needs. He sees you throwing yourself out there in front of him, and he thinks, "Gee, here she is, maybe this is somebody I could use for awhile. That last one didn't work out. Maybe this one would be good enough for a spin. What the heck."


And you are willing to throw away your husband for that?


He is not invested in you. You don't live near him. He is a fantasy - you have had little contact and he has little invested in you.

Your marriage is having trouble BECAUSE YOU ARE IN CONTACT WITH THIS GUY - and for no other reason. As soon as you stop all contact with him, and turn back toward your husband for love and for having your emotional needs to be met, you will see yourself falling back into love with your HUSBAND.

Stop all contact with this man.



And, tell your husband what is going on - tell your husband about this affair right now.

Watch how much this "love" really exists for OM. It will vaporize instantly when you face your husband and confess what is going on. It will diminish because you will realize exactly what is at stake - and that fantasy bubble will start to burst.


Go right now and tell him. And write a no-contact letter to the OM.

And listen to jmc, too. That post was dead-on.

Of course he told you that and you wanted to believe it to justify your actions.


OM does not love you and you don't love him. If your relationship defines love you have a very perverted view of what love is.


You don't deserve your H...not too sure you don't deserve POSOM though.


Yes you do, you just don't WANT to do it.

I think that posting here indicates that she KNOWS her perceptions, judgments and reality are skewed.

jmwhite,

You are getting very sound advice.

VERY sound. Keep posting.

Yes you do.
You know what you are supposed to do.
You just don't want to do the right thing.
Lies we tell ourselves are the worst lies of all!

My husband already knows about the affair, I told him after it happened. He knows about everytime I saw the other man, all three times. I was the one who asked him to leave even after he said that he would stay to work things out. I was the one who needed the space.

This just translates into you needed to be free to pursue your adultery to see if it might work out, leaving your DH hanging.

If you insist on playing with fire, the kind thing to do would to be to divorce your husband. He doesn't deserve to be in limbo while you figure out if this thing with OM is going to work out. It won't by the way.

The right thing to do is to stop all contact with OM and go back to your husband and do everything in your power to make this up to him.

If you're here to get support for your adultery, it won't happen. If you're here to get support for restoring your marriage, you've come to the right place.

Lemme guess .... space to find yourself?

"Advice is what we ask for when we know the answer but don't like it."

I heard that somewhere. For the most part, I think it's pretty true.

Seems like you feel pretty guilty for having the affair. You should. Personally, I think you need to pull up your big girl panties, get some counseling, and commit to your marriage. Send the POSOM a No Contact letter. Don't ever pursue another man outside your marriage.

That's what you do if you want to be a Marriage Builder.

I am not here to get support for my adultery. All of this is very new to me, I never thought that I would ever have an affair. I have turned everyone's lives upside down and hurt everyone and I don't know how to live with that. I know that right thing to do is to end the affair but why is it that when we know the right thing to do it is so hard to do.

There's a big difference between "knowing" and "wanting". Until you "want" to heal your marriage, until you "want" to be a moral person, until you "want" to do the right thing. You won't. You'll stay in your adultery and whimper and whine about how hard it is.

Good luck.