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Isis,
Your H is "not around" much, but I bet your kids are. Do you think they don't know something's up? What kind of trauma do you think they would experience if one of them were to discover your nasty little secret?

The damage you're setting yourself, your children, and your husband up for becomes more severe with each and every day that passes in their not knowing who you really are. This was the advice given me here when I confessed on this board about an A I had 8 years prior (with a string of EA's/non-intercourse PA's to accompany it). I HAD ended it. The woman had moved to another state within weeks of us seeing each other for the last time.

But guess what? It was still affecting my M the whole time. Because it was something I knew about and my wife did not. That's not intimacy. That's not honesty. That's not marriage.

I'm glad you came here, and I'm glad you had the courage to post. Now, I hope you have the courage to take some steps toward righting your moral compass - your family needs you Isis, they do.

Opt


Me: 43 y.o. BFWH, D-day 11/11/09 (NC since 9/01)
Divorce from WW final 9/16/10.
Current Status: MB-based Marriage to Nature Girl 12/8/12 (first date on 12/11/10)
Mine: S(16), D(11)
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Another EA Story
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I too do not understand exactly why you started posting? Are you going to end your A? Are you interested in recovering your marriage? Exactly why are you here?

BTW, you said your H has checked out. What makes you so certain that he is not doing the same thing you are and you just don't know about it?

What kind of life do you want for your children? Is honesty important in your family? What is your definition of character? Do you think parents set the example for children? What would you envision for their married life or does this future not concern you?

AM


BW - 70
WH - 65
M - 35 years
D-day - 17 Apr 08
H broke contact 11/1/09
Back in love after the worst thing that every happened to us.
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Originally Posted by Pepperband
Originally Posted by ladyisis
I read Pepperband's thread.

HiYa !

Quote
Why isn't it possible for me to just stop the affair and not tell my BH?

It's "possible". I'm sure it happens all the time.
It's also possible to be a liar the remainder of your life.
Would that be good for your self-respect? Being a life-long liar?
ASK FaithfulFollower (a regular poster) what happened when she stopped her A and did not tell her husband.


Quote
If I can stop it on my own and he never has to know.

If you can stop your adultery on your own .... think
Why haven't you?

Quote
Wouldn't that just cause him more pain than he needs?

And, you'll be his wife who lies to him.
That is NOT recovery.
That is living a lie.
True intimacy will be impossible with such a big secret in your closet.


Quote
I know, he needs to be the one that makes that choice, but why?


Because you love and respect him.
Because you love and respect yourself.
Because you want to restore intimacy in your marriage.

WELCOME TO MARRIAGE BUILDERS

hi and welcome to MB. I see pep told you to ask me what happened when I took the choice away from my BH about whether he wanted to remain with a cheater or not. Here is my thread from when my H found out FROM SOMEONE OTHER THAN ME and I came on MB to confess.

FF's confession thread


Faith

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She is a wayward so therefore

SHE IS SELFISH!!

She wont come back because she is a coward, just like she is a coward not to confess to her husband.

In the end they will divorce.

Last edited by SapphireReturns; 09/07/10 09:10 AM.
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Wow sapphire that is pretty harsh judgement. I never confessed to my BH. It took some serious introspection, being betrayed by my H TWICE and the wonderful folks here on MB to turn me around...not to mention finding a relationship with Christ. People CAN change.


Faith

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I think Sapphire is probably correct. All waywards are selfish (I think it is part of the definition). Most waywards do not change. Most do divorce. It is sad, particularly when there are children.

AM



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WH - 65
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LS:

You reached out. That was the first step.

Keep walking. It will get better.

Going backward is worse.

Way WORSE.

LGG

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Originally Posted by faithful follower
Wow sapphire that is pretty harsh judgement. I never confessed to my BH. It took some serious introspection, being betrayed by my H TWICE and the wonderful folks here on MB to turn me around...not to mention finding a relationship with Christ. People CAN change.

It's not only a harsh judgment, it's inaccurate. Which is worse than harsh.

Of course people can change.
If waywards could never change, NONE of us betrayed would even try to recover our marriages.

People can quit smoking too.
Adults who quit smoking usually have several failed attempts before they are successful.
The social pressures to quit smoking contribute to the desire to quit.
The long term benefits of quitting smoking start to outweigh the short term pleasures.
The "cost" of smoking goes up.

Just as the "cost" of adultery goes up.
Every day, every week, every month, year, the cost to one's self esteem, one's integrity .... goes higher and higher. The soul gets deeper in debt.

To say someone can't change their ways (if properly motivated and given the correct tools/support) ... is to condemn us all.


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What a weird post for me to come across after the conversation my H and I just had. I am the BS and I found out about his A on my own. Even after I found out he tried to make it less than what it was, until I found out more and then he would confess.

I actually told him today that I would have felt "better" and I use the word loosely if he at any time had told me something or confessed to something prior to me finding out. Once I had the proof in hand he was more than willing to tell me all about it.

So as a BS, please do the right thing and tell him. He deserves to know, he deserves to hear it from you, because the bottom line is YOU and you alone brought this into your marriage and now it is time to stand up and do the right thing after doing the wrong thing for a very long time.

I know I would have much rather he had stopped the A then told me.

HU


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Originally Posted by HalfUnit
I know I would have much rather he had stopped the A then told me.

You are exactly correct!

Because, stopping the A and volunteering a confession demonstrate to the BS that their WS has at least a bud of integrity.

It's impossible to rebuild a decent marriage upon lies, gas-lighting, and obfuscation.

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My words are not harsh but true.

I was a FWW so I know exactly how selfish WE are!

What do you want me to say??

I am so sorry, you must be in pain! I know how scary it is to confess to your husband that you slept with another man, poor you, I am soo sorry. Why don't you come here and give us all of your excuses and we can make it feel ALL better!

Not going to happen, especially since I have been there done that, and knowing how much my husband was in pain because of my actions!

I DON'T THINK SO!

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Originally Posted by SapphireReturns
My words are not harsh but true.

I was a FWW so I know exactly how selfish WE are!

What do you want me to say??

I am so sorry, you must be in pain! I know how scary it is to confess to your husband that you slept with another man, poor you, I am soo sorry. Why don't you come here and give us all of your excuses and we can make it feel ALL better!

Not going to happen, especially since I have been there done that, and knowing how much my husband was in pain because of my actions!

I DON'T THINK SO!

Did you freely confess on your own, or was your adultery discovered?
I can't remember.

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My husband found out, they always DO!!

I was SOO selfish that I didn't care that he knew and flaunted my affairs.

It is not until he exposed when the fog started to lift.

My husband was the perfect husband and still is, and I can't sit here and read when someone tells me they are having an affair and wants to fix this marriage and won't do ANYTHING about it.

I am sorry I can't.

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I'm not really sure why I came out of lurking. I know I wasn't going to be greeted with open arms. I'm scared, I'm selfish, I'm a coward. I don't want to be this way. I want to have the courage to do the right thing. I don't expect sympathy or anything, I know I'm the one that's doing wrong.

The OM isn't married, doesn't even have a girlfriend. He is a huge loser, he's a player that has slept with so many women. I'm not special to him. I'm just another piece of a$$.

My BH could be cheating on me too. He's in the military and he says that everyone has sex with everyone else, they are all perverts. He admitted to talking about sex with another female soldier, and she texts him a lot. He read some texts that I wrote to him, of a sexual nature, to her and she laughed at me.

Doesn't excuse what I'm doing. If I wanted to feel okay about it then I could go to one of the pro-affair websites.

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Originally Posted by SapphireReturns
She is a wayward so therefore

SHE IS SELFISH!!

She wont come back because she is a coward, just like she is a coward not to confess to her husband.

In the end they will divorce.

Originally Posted by SapphireReturns
My husband found out, they always DO!!

I was SOO selfish that I didn't care that he knew and flaunted my affairs.

It is not until he exposed when the fog started to lift.

My husband was the perfect husband and still is, and I can't sit here and read when someone tells me they are having an affair and wants to fix this marriage and won't do ANYTHING about it.

I am sorry I can't.

I think, perhaps, you are too fresh from your own traumatic experience to have a healthy perspective to offer advice about which marriage is doomed.
Because, according to what you wrote to this WW, you marriage is doomed because you did not confess.

No one is asking you to pat her hand and say "Poor dear" ....

She DID take a step out of lurkdome ... I am interested in WHY she did this ... and until I know that ... I could not possibly prognosticate her chances to recover her marriage.



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Originally Posted by ladyisis
I'm not really sure why I came out of lurking. I know I wasn't going to be greeted with open arms. I'm scared, I'm selfish, I'm a coward. I don't want to be this way. I want to have the courage to do the right thing. I don't expect sympathy or anything, I know I'm the one that's doing wrong.

Are you happy? Unhappy?

Quote
The OM isn't married, doesn't even have a girlfriend. He is a huge loser, he's a player that has slept with so many women. I'm not special to him. I'm just another piece of a$$.

Were you molested as a child?

Quote
My BH could be cheating on me too. He's in the military and he says that everyone has sex with everyone else, they are all perverts. He admitted to talking about sex with another female soldier, and she texts him a lot. He read some texts that I wrote to him, of a sexual nature, to her and she laughed at me.

You married a cruel man?
Why?

Quote
Doesn't excuse what I'm doing. If I wanted to feel okay about it then I could go to one of the pro-affair websites.

What do you want from us?

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Ladyisis,
I truly hope that you really think about the advice you are being given.

Believe me, you might think that you are hiding your affair well and that you will be able to just go on with your life without your H finding out. But everyone here can attest, it is HIGHLY likely that that won't happen. I hid my PA/EA from my H for almost a decade (it didn't last that long, but I hid it that long). Do you know that I would have sworn on my life that my H didn't know??? When D Day hit, I found out my H had been keeping a file (about three inches thick) of evidence that he had on me. It will come out! I promise you! You will get careless or he will get careless or someone will see something.

And even if it doesn't you will never know the feeling of weight lifted off your shoulders until it comes out. You might think that you are ok and that it is hidden, but it will come out in almost everything you do. If it wasn't weighing on you then you wouldn't be lurking on this site!

You are trying (using this word loosely of course) to re-build a marriage that is on a cracked foundation right now! That will never work!!

Be smart, do the right thing, it will be painful, but you made that choice by starting an affair instead of fixing your marriage. right now, you are just wasting precious time and making it 10 times harder everyday to make things right.

Best of luck,
-txnatheart


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I'm very unhappy but I'm not really sure if that's important or not. I was molested as a child, my mother was very promiscuous and cheated on my father constantly, she invited creepy nasty men over that thought it was okay to have sex with a 5 year old. I guess that's why I make such bad choices.

I never thought my BH was a cruel man, what makes him seem that way? I married him to get away from my abusive ex. He's not perfect, but I love him, and he accepted me damage and all.

I'm not sure what I want from here. I don't want to keep going the way I am though.

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Originally Posted by ladyisis
I'm very unhappy but I'm not really sure if that's important or not. I was molested as a child, my mother was very promiscuous and cheated on my father constantly, she invited creepy nasty men over that thought it was okay to have sex with a 5 year old. I guess that's why I make such bad choices.

I never thought my BH was a cruel man, what makes him seem that way? I married him to get away from my abusive ex. He's not perfect, but I love him, and he accepted me damage and all.

I'm not sure what I want from here. I don't want to keep going the way I am though.

No - you made a bad choice because you had/have bad boundaries. Not because you were molested as a child. Don't let your childhood experiences, good or bad, distract you from your current situation. That is another issue.

It's okay to not know why you're here. You're here, that's the important thing. Have you read the articles on this site? Do you have any questions for how to proceed? Because you know you need to talk to your H, right? This needs to come out. It sounds like your M has been chronically neglected for awhile. Both of you need to sit down (while the kids are somewhere else) and things need to come out.


D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!

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Originally Posted by ladyisis
I'm very unhappy but I'm not really sure if that's important or not. I was molested as a child, my mother was very promiscuous and cheated on my father constantly, she invited creepy nasty men over that thought it was okay to have sex with a 5 year old. I guess that's why I make such bad choices.

I never thought my BH was a cruel man, what makes him seem that way? I married him to get away from my abusive ex. He's not perfect, but I love him, and he accepted me damage and all.

I'm not sure what I want from here. I don't want to keep going the way I am though.

How old are you?
Do you have any children?

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