You want to know how to get through it? You just do. At first, it's a b@#!h. It hurts. Withdrawal is no fun. But there's no way around it. You just do it, and every day that passes without contact with the OM, it gets a little easier.

You will never know if your H is capable of meeting your needs unless you give him a chance. And you can't give him that chance if you are still in contact with the OM.

TELL YOUR HUSBAND ABOUT THE BROKEN NC.

If you married the wrong person, then you get a divorce. You don't have an affair.

Listen carefully here. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS WITH YOUR MARRIAGE, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OM WILL NOT WORK!!! Affairages never work. You would forever have hanging over your heads 10 years of lies, betrayals, and deceit. Your marriage would have to overcome the fact that 2 entire families were destroyed because of your selfish and immature actions. With so much stacked against it, how do you think you could ever build a decent, respectful marriage between two people who obviously have no respect for the institution of marriage in the first place?

You're right, your H can't be the OM. He can't be someone who disrespects you and your children so much that he's willing to sleep with you and break up his own family and your family just to satisfy his own selfish desires. Would you really want to be married to this kind of man? Because that's the kind of man your OM is. He is a lier and a cheater and a home-wrecker.

Athena -- you are making a HUGE mistake. Actually lots of them.

Get away from OM and let your head clear. Of course you have no interest in your marriage -- your head and heart are filled with thoughts of another man. Let those feeling subside. Give it 2 months. Honestly.

There is no honor in destroying another womans family. Is that who you want to be? A homewrecker? Not to mention 100% responsible for the destruction of your own children's family.

Trust me -- you will come to hate yourself for it.

Athena99,

Welcome to Marriage Builders...

Trust me you are not alone. You are not the first one, nor the last one that married for the wrong reasons. Ok, Now, if you hadn't had kids, I would suggest to just get a divorce (spare your BH the pain of a recovery) an remarried a guy that you actually believe that you love. Problem with that is, that as soon as you felt out of love with your new husband, you might not be able to use the "married for the wrong reasons excuse", but I assured you that you'll find a new one.

That being said, since you do have kids with your current BH, what you need to do is forget about your current feelings for your BH right now, and choose to stay married because is the right thing to do for ALL of YOU!. With time, as you learn how to fall in love with your BH (for the first time), you won't regret the decision(base on MB stories of success). It will be hard, I'm still trying to work on my marriage, but if anything I have grown up a lot with these people help.

You need to understand that since YOU made the decision to have an affair, you are going to have to work very hard to restore your M. It is very hard when we don't even feel like saving the M. But you have to keep focused on the big picture, and do not lose hope that you can be very happy with your BH. A man who is giving a WW the option to restore the M, is a GREAT man. The OM is a coward, he doesn't deserve your attention nor your time. The first opportunity he had, he decided to dump YOU (NC), instead your BH is STILL standing by your side.

First cut all contact with OM, and send him a NC letter. It will be hard and painful at first but you'll be able to make it, you don't need that man in your life.


No, Athena99, OM doesn't feels guilty. He just want to have you two at the same time.

quote=athena99]
BH knows about the PA, but not about the broken NC and continuing EA. He wants to fix the marriage - getting divorced is not an option to him. He acknowledges and wants to work on things he did wrong in our marriage. I just don't care. God that sounds awful!!! He is a nice guy. But he does not get my motor going. Not just in a sexual way. But in life - he just doesn't excite me - never has (could be the rewritten history, I know).
[/quote]

He will get your motor going, as soon as you get out of the fog, and you start working towards having a great M. It will take time, but you will get there.

OOPs, my FBH got home, got to go.... Hope I helped, even if it was a little bit...

Then you divorce him. Say you no longer want to be married, and that you'll leave him and the kids alone, pay him child support and leave.

After all, if you are really feeling this way, then no need to keep torturing him. The children are a product of the marriage, ditto for any marital property. If you married the wrong person, then leave the marriage. Which means leaving the kids in the hands of your self-described good guy husband. Leave him the house, etc. Pack a bag, and leave with your clothes.

But don't try to take anything more than what you need, support your children and pay off your 1/2 of any unsecured marital debt.

I have no problem with someone leaving. What I have a problem with is folks saying they married the wrong person, but wanting to take all the good stuff with them, forcing out that person.

If you really feel you made a mistake, then shouldn't you be the one who pays the highest cost? Why would you take his kids if you are the one feeling you made a mistake? Why would you want to take the house if you feel you made a mistake?

If you really feel it simply was a mistake, pack a bag and leave. Go to your lawyer tell him you want to leave, your husband gets primary custody of the children, you'll pay the state standard child support, you want no marital assets, only some personal items and you'll be responsible for 1/2 of the non-secured debt.

If you really want to leave, if you really think YOU made a mistake, then you can leave in an honorable fashion.

Any other way of getting out is only you being selfish.

Athena,

You wrote We have had an EA for over 10 years and it has been PA for 2.

You have never even given your marriage a chance in that case. The fact that OM was meeting your needs for that long, means that he was displacing your H for 10 YEARS, and you had less of a marriage than you could of had.

And would a man that LOVES you keep you on the side for that long as an escape plan?

Imagine if you will your daughter describing a relationship she had with someone identical to the one you have with OM, what would you say to her?

God Bless
Gamma

One more thing, before you can find the right person, you have to be the right person.

I don't think it matters who you married. You are not being the right person. Until you do that, until you are the right person, you are in no position to decide if your husband or the OM is the right person.

I can also tell you any person involved in an affair is not the right person, ever.

Since both you and the OM are both involved in affairs, neither of you are the right person.

Work on being the right person, and when you've accomplished that, tell us how you view your husband.

Being the right person means:

1. No Contact with the OM, for the rest of your life. If you make contact, you are no longer being the right person.

2. Meet your husbands emotional needs.

3. Eliminate Love busting from your behaviors.

4. Provide exceptional protections for your marriage.

5. Spend more than 15 hours/week giving your husband undivided attention.

Do that for the 10 years you've been in the EA and then come back and tell us if marrying your husband was a mistake or not. You've given the OM 10 years of an EA, so it's time to give your husband 10 years of being the right one.

Before you can find the right one, you have to be the right one.

Oh, honey - this is so sad. He knew very well what he wanted - he wanted the same thing every adulterer wants. He wanted both his spouse *and* his affair partner.

And he did exactly what he needed to do to keep both, and he keeps both to this day.

It is very sad that you remain blind to this.

I do have one question: If you and OM are so very right for each other, and your marriage partners are so wrong for you, then why have neither of you left your marriage partners?

With you, especially: If you have no love at all for your husband, why do you stay with him?

Would you have to lie to friends and family about loving your husband? Would you have to keep it a secret?

One of the hallmarks of addiction is lying and secrecy by the addict, in order to protect their drug.

Again: If your husband is so wrong for you, why did you not end the marriage long ago? Why do you stay in it now?

And to expand on Mulan's question, if you have known all along that your H wasn't right for you, then why did you have 3 children with him? Your affair has been going on for 10 years, so all of your children were born while you were supposedly in love with the OM and not your H. Why would you stay with someone you weren't in love with for 10 years and have 3 children with him?

Naw, that is just what he told you so you would keep shagging him. He won't leave his wife for a cheap piece of fun on the side. If he were going to do that, he would have done that. They never do. And if he did leave her he knows there would be no future with you. What he basically wants is his intact marriage and family and some cheap action on the side. I am sorry to tell you this, but he is just using you. When you become more trouble than you are worth, he will toss you aside like used toilet paper.

Just think about the inherent problems in your affair.. He could never take you around his parents or his children. You would be eternally hated by them because of your part in breaking up that family. A source of shame. His mother wouldn't let you darken her doorstep.

But it will never get that far. 95% affairs never make it to marriage. The very traits that make them possible: lies, deceit, thoughtlessness tear them apart. You can never trust each other. There is no future.... Only shame and degradation.


That is not reality. In reality it is filthy, degrading adultery. It is about as romantic as 2 pigs rutting in the pig pen. Adultery is shameful and degrading, not wonderful. What will your children and family members think when they find out what you have been doing with a married man? How ashamed they will be.


Of course your needs weren't met in the marriage. You were getting them met with some other woman's husband.


You should be grateful he cannot be a scumbag. The OM is a scumbag who has used you horribly. You just don't seem to realize it.

On the other hand you can have a loving, intimate relationship with your H that has a future. He is a faithful man, not an unfaithful rat like the OM.

Naw, you are screwing the wrong person. The married man is the "wrong person." He is married to another woman and would never leave her. If he wanted you for a wife he would have left her years ago.

Athena, my mother was an OW. She spent 14 years waiting for my father to leave his wife and 3 kids. She even had me in an attempt to entice him away. My father spent all of those 14 years telling my mother they would be together someday, that his wife didn't understand him like she did, that my mother was the love of his life.

Well, that was a very long time ago. I'm 39 now. My father is still married to his wife. My mother is still alone. She never married. She spent most of her life pining after an unavailable man, believing his lies. She is now a very angry, bitter, and generally unpleasant woman of 64.

Your counselor said this because he is unqualified and doesn't have the slightest idea how to restore romantic love to your marriage. He has admitted this so you know you are wasting your time and money with him. You can get there with a qualfied counselor, though. This program, Marriage Builders, can create a romantic, passionate marriage.

My suggestion would be to sign up for the MB course. Many of us have used it and have great marriages. [when we went we had to fly to another city and start the program in a weekend seminar - now they do this part online over a weekend] It costs about $900 and is worth every penny.

Similarly, my father had a mistress for 35 years. He was married to 6 other women during that time. When he died all she got was his computer that I gave her just to be nice. She waited for 35 years and only got him in the last 3 years of his life when he was terminally ill.

When we were cleaning out his drawers after the funeral, we found a drawer full of unopened cards from "Judy" that were never opened. They were going back to 1980. He cared so little that he just tossed them in a drawer unopened. What a life to be the #2 woman who only gets the crumbs from the table of life from some other woman.

Wow. I cannot believe how many responses to my original post. Thank you all so very much for your candid observations and advice.

I knew by posting on this forum I would get to see the other side of the issue. I was disappointed in my counsellor's "diagnosis" and wanted some help moving forward. I have booked an appt next week with a new counsellor and I will let him know first off that my goal is to fix things, but I need to know how to start.

I do hear you when you say these (nasty but true?) things about OM. I truly believe he loves me and doesn't want to hurt me. But I guess there is something to be said for having not left our marriages already. We talked about it a lot, but felt our spouses, children, and our consciences deserved us being 100% sure before we left. We never did get that certain and are still stuck on the fence. If he is such a bad person and can't be trusted, what does that say about me?

I know I owe it to BH to work on things honestly - and that means NC. But I already suffer from depression (on medication for it) and the thought of losing the one person who has kept me sane is frankly quite scary. I know I have to do it, I just don't know how. One time when my guilt got the better of me and I told OM I needed to focus at home, he got quite down on himself and tried to fight for me. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it is so hard to go through that.

Yet as I type this I know it is the right and best thing to do.

I am not a stupid person - I need to suck it up and show my BH and myself that I am not a quitter either. I just don't know how strong I am. When I read the book "Surviving an Affair" and about POJA and other basics, it makes my stomach turn. I would love to practice and employ these things with OM, but with BH it seems awkward and forced. Yeah, there's the fog again. i guess without NC, any other discussion is just pointless.

Arrrrgh! How do I get through NC? I work with the guy and really can't consider switching jobs. And if he tries contact, I know I am not strong enough to resist.

I'll talk to my new counsellor, but I am starting to feel like this may be my best place for support of this plan. Every other counsellor I've had has pretty much said I should leave my M and it was always exciting, yet disappointing to hear. I really did want someone to kick me in the [censored] and tell me how to work on it.

I know I always thought I had something special with OM, but I guess my A probably falls into a very familiar and common category for you all. It may take a while for that reality to fully sink in.

"Arrrrgh! How do I get through NC? I work with the guy and really can't consider switching jobs. And if he tries contact, I know I am not strong enough to resist."

I surprised that you haven't been told NC means you get the OM to quit or you have to quit.

There is nothing to consider. This has to be done.