Hi everyone. Yes, I'm still here.

I have been reading your posts. Thank you very much for all of the feedback.

I can't believe I am in the position that I'm in. I ended a five month affair one week ago. I ask myself 'how did this happen?' When I think back I can track my feelings, thoughts, and decisions. It is clear how this happened. I know that a married person shouldn't invest significant portions of time alone with someone other than the S. It goes from enjoying casual conversation, to personal phone calls and outings to continue the conversations. Then, after many conversations of relating and getting to know one another and having a good time together, the relationship goes to the next step. Sharing the things a person holds close to their heart, giving one another advice, spending more and more time to together. Then going out of the way to make plans together, continuing to share things, and becoming close intellectually and emotionally. Going to this person for advice rather than S or best friend. Then desiring the person physically, wanting to feel even more connected. The PA begins.

I told my BH a few months ago that I was falling out of love with him, unhappy, and that things had to change or we should reconsider spending the rest of our lives together. I felt that way for almost two years before the EA began. After it became a PA, the OM got me to talk about my marriage alot and be honest with myself. He told me I needed to start getting real with H b/c I was being too nice and allowing him to think everything was ok. I am someone who doesn't like to upset others. It's crazy how much I've learned about myself and my marriage through the A.

Anyway, when I told my BH he was shocked, but not as much as I expected. Once he knew I was really unhappy, he started asking me about it, and I told him many things. I told him that I have been keeping things inside, just trying to be positive, and to be the person I wanted him to be.

There are many things that my H does that make me angry, piss me off, or hurt my feelings. I discovered most of them in the first year of marriage. I spent a couple of years trying to correct him, but that continued to lead to fights and ending on the note that I needed to just let things roll of my shoulders and not be so sensitive. I was stubborn, and continued to confront him most of the time things bothered me. Then I just got tired. The confrontation, and complaints on my part just started long discussions, and nothing was ever resolved. So, I decided I needed to switch tactics. I decided to toughen up, and not take the things he said personally. That when I got my feelings hurt, I would assume he didn't mean it or that I misunderstood. So, I built this wall up around me to be strong and take the blows. After a couple of years of this, I began to feel beat down and tired, very tired. I let myself become numb toward my H. I was just coping I guess, just trudging along in life one day at a time, just keeping peace and being distant. This is probably when I began to fall out of love with him.

So, I told him that I had tried telling him when things bothered me and that didn't work, and I had tried to suck it up and not take things personal and that didn't work. So, I was going to start telling him everything that bothers me when it happens (if the time was appropriate) or soon after. He said he would do the same. So, after a couple of weeks of him listening, he got pissed and had an outburst. He opened up to me about many things that had been bothering him (mostly over the two years prior) that he was keeping inside. I was caught by surprise, but it was great to hear these things from him. I had no idea.

Since 'the talk' we've been 'calling eachother out' on things and talking about a solution after, instead of carrying on a long emotional discussion that doesn't go anywhere.

I have seen major change in H since all of this. He has been putting forth tremendous effort, and yes calling me out on a few things too. Like I told you all before, it took me about two months of him being extremely nice to me, until I could get over the anger that had been building up for years, and start tearing down the walls I've built to protect my heart.


We have talked about our compatability, and whether we want to make the marriage work. At first I told him I didn't know, that I definitely didn't want to continue the way we had been. Through the time we've spent together, we've realized that both of us have changed quite a bit over the last 5+ years. We still think of the other one as who they were years back, instead of looking in front of ourselves and listening. So, we're talking about our dreams and our passions and our hopes again. It's like we're getting to know eachother again. I read a book on marriage, and it talked about knowing what goals the couple is working toward together, making our dreams of the future one through talking. Also, I've learned that we need to talk about what we think will make us happy. If we have an idea of what belongs in the equation of happiness, we will be able to recognize it when it's there. I'm not sure if I said that right, but hopefully you get what I'm saying.

Anyway ....

So, I'm falling in love with my husband again and am serious about my M. It's exciting.

Woohoo! I'm so proud of you!

I take it that you still haven't told him about your A.

Believe me, when he finds out, all the "relationship work" that you're doing with him now with these "honest" discussions will seem false and manipulative, and he may never trust ANY thing you say or do again.

Please expose this to enough people to keep you ACCOUTABLE.DUDE

Totally agree and want to add ....
You have no right to decide what is best for him.
That is his right to own, I doubt that he is under 12 yrs. old.

If he had told you that he didn't want to know if he had 3 days to live,
and suddenly you knew for a fact that he had only 3 days to live,
would you not tell him, cuz he had already said he didn't want to know???

It would be his choice as to how he would fill those 3 days, his right to know about his life.
Same goes for this A. It is his right to choose whether or not he wants to
remain M'd to someone like you. His choice, not yours.

Did you tell your H what you have done to him? Nothing else matters until that happens.

And its all based on a lie and a SCAM. This is just a pack of hooey to avoid doing the right thing. A marriage can't recover if its based on a fraud and a lie.

You are just a scammer who is scamming this poor man for your own selfish needs. Its a SCAM.

No matter how many threads you start, you're going to get the same answer. Your M is not in R until you reveal the A to your H. There is no way around that. You are not being remotely honest with him at all. The longer you proceed with this false "R" the harder it's going to be for your H to deal with the A when he finds out. And he will find out. It would be much better if he heard it from you, now.

But, you didn't listen before, so I'm not sure you're going to listen now.

You aren't only fooling your H, you're fooling yourself if you really think you can cover up this A and just move on as though nothing ever happened and live happily-ever-after. It isn't going to happen.

I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm not lashing out at you. I am not a bitter BS. I am a FWW.

If you love your H as much as you say you do, then prove it. Tell him the truth. Give your M at least a fighting chance of truly recovering. Nothing will kill a relationship faster than the poison of lies and deceit.

Just tell your H. You aren't going to get any pats on the back here until you do. Your marriage won't really improve unless you do.

Bingo.

jeez

It's also a crock. Stop right now with playing us. We've been there and we're not stupid. You have NOT told your BH about your A! You can be as serious as you want about saving your M, but you have GOT to tell your BH about your A! Right now!

We got it...you are still lying and treating him like a pet.

This is worth repeating loudly. I hope you hear it in your dreams.


Believe me, when he finds out, all the "relationship work" that you're doing with him now with these "honest" discussions will seem false and manipulative, and he may never trust ANY thing you say or do again.

"No matter how many threads you start, you're going to get the same answer"

Tell your BH.

It seems that she told H about the Affair but he was not as shocked as she expected... and he decided to act on fixing what was wrong in their M that led to Affair... but I might be reading it wrongly.

Anyway, you presented him with "I had an A because I was unhappy for a long time" ?

You need more accountability for having an affair so you can protect yourself and your Marriage from more affairs. You were unhappy but having an A is not the solution. Review your values and morals.

Good luck and good hard work regaining your H's trust back.

I don't know if you've taken the time to read any of the threads that were recommended on your original thread, LC, but if you've read mine, you'll know that this is exactly what happened within my M.

My A ended when the FOM's BW discovered it and demanded NC on the spot. He complied and I was devastated. While I went through withdrawal from FOM, I also opted to withdraw from my H. I figured I was probably going to divorce him after years of disconnectedness anyway and then my A so why invest any more?

But I couldn't just walk away. I had to make one last grand gesture so that if nothing else, I could say that I tried everything to save our M. (Funny how I didn't think cheating on my H would work against saving our M.) I gave my H an ultimatum one night to do MC. He said no and I walked out on him. He then realized I was serious (was I really?) about us needing help and finally agreed.

The MC helped. We were taking baby steps and H was making some small changes. I was too and I was liking the changes. We were having better conversations and I found myself paying more attention to the relationship.

And I was perplexed. Maybe the M was worth investing in again after all.

But where did my A fit into all of it? I read articles and books and they seemed to both agree with and refute one another. I was completely confused and posted here. Over a day or two I was convinced (thankfully!) that confessing to my H was not only the RIGHT thing to do for my H and our M, but the best thing to do for my own health. Because my lie was eating me alive. I was a wreck.

I confessed. And I haven't felt this close to my H in YEARS. He got and continues to get the truth from me -- the pretty and the ugly and it feels good. It's not always easy, but I'm no longer needing to duck, bob, and weave around my lies. No more whiplash.

So what's the purpose of this story?

My H now refuses to go to MC. He says he will never see a therapist because of how I manipulated him into going. He believes the only reason I dragged him there was so that I could get the MC to agree with me about how bad H was and therefore I could justify my A. He seems to have forgotten that I had been asking for MC and help with our broken M for a few years before my A. That doesn't matter now. The MC was all a ruse on my part, according to H, and H will have nothing to do with 3rd-party help ever again.

I hope he will change his position on that because we certainly need help. We're better then we were, but we're still in need of MC if this M, in my opinion, is ever going to heal let alone improve. But because of my lies, that may never happen.

So I love my H and I so badly want our M to work, but because he feels I manipulated him with the MC before -- because of my lies -- he doesn't trust my intentions there one bit. (And for record, omission is also lying.)

You may think that this is irrelevant to you because if you don't tell your H he won't ever find out. But the BS does find out, LC. I know this because my H found out about when I cheated on him 2.5 years before we married. It took him 16 years to learn about it, but he did. And he tells me that my betrayal in the early 90's before we were even married hurts him much more then my A last year when we were married. Why? Because I carried that lie for 16 years. So to him, 16 of our 25 years together were one big lie.

Every day you withhold the truth is one more day you're living a lie.

Please tell your H. You can tell him, LC. And you must.

LC, do you realize how "foggy" you seem?

You started the first thread and got pages and pages worth of responses telling you that you needed to tell your H the truth imediately. Now you start a second thread filled with excuses for your A and then you start romanticizing how wonderful things are now even when you are hiding such a horrible secret?

How can you be excited with such a dark cloud hanging over your head?

lostwillow, I don't read it that way at all. She starts off saying "I told my BH a few months ago that I was falling out of love with him, unhappy..." She didn't say she exposed the affair to him, but her feelings of unhappiness. And then commences to go on and on about herself.

I don't believe she told him about the affair.

I believe willow is missing the context of BOTH threads. She's wondering how we jumped to such conclusions on this thread solely based upon the initial post above.

Mr. W