Ok, I'm the bad guy (girl actually) in my case. A little background....

I married young. I was 23 when my DH and I got married-he was 32. He has custody of three children who i accepted into my heart and love dearly. It is almost as if they are my own children. We have been married for almost 6 years. I have had an affair that was physical, and one that was emotional. While I acknowledged what I did was wrong, I never took ownership of what I did. However, recently, as we have been having problems with the oldest of the three children, I have found that I am at my wits end and do not know how to deal with parenting him. My DH and I have had several arguments about how to parent him and how to deal with this and we have had some pretty nasty arguments. I know that in the heat of the argument everyone says at least once something that was they regret. I accused him of doing nothing to help alleviate the situation. I have recently admitted too that I have issues in dealing with anger and have even looked for things to argue about. Why I do this, I do not know but I am getting help for this. My problem lies with while we were having issues, I lost track of how to talk to my husband. I don't know how to tell him that I need someone to just give me a hug and tell me it sucks I know and then let it be. Instead I got what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do to fix it. I just took all of that and let the anger fester at this and then went looking somehwere else for the comfort that I was looking for and too stupid to ask for. After a recent fight, I was told that I needed to make a decision since I had admitted to not being happy. He had been thinking about separation and leaving me and I can honestly say that I don't blame him. What I do know, after several hard days of soul searching, is that I desparately love my husband. I love him with every fiber of my being and I know that I need to change. I don't like the person that I have become and I want to be a better person, not only for my self but for the three children that I am helping raise. My DH and I have had arguments before that have ended in the I'm leaving, but nothing ever came of it. I do not want to lose my husband abd I want to fight for our relationship. He is my other half and I lvoe him. I do not think that our relationship is doomed, but I have no idea what he is thinking, where he is on making a decision, because he has said that he doesn't know if he is going to stay or not. He did tell me that he does love me and that he will always love me. He did say that he has no fight left for this. He is tired of fighting for everything and has no more fight in him. My reply is to have some faith and lean on my faith. I know that I have hurt him very deeply, and I am trying very hard to give him his space so that he can think about this, as he is one that does not take a decision like this lightly. He also said that he is taking everyones feelings into consideration meaning the kids and mine. I do know that I am very very sorry and have started to go to counseling wto help fix some of my problems and I am working on change. I do not want to lose my family. This is all I have here and I cannot see my life with out him in it. I can only hope that he feels the same way and is going to come around...so How do I start to fix the hurt that I caused?

Welcome tp MB MLWhite. There will be vets by to help you out soon but a question I have is whether you have told your BH about your affairs. You seemed to have skipped over that when you went from your admission of the As to dealing with one of your kids to hurting your DH.

Also, read all you can on this site, get a copy of Surving an Affair and read that ASAP>

Also, break up your original posts into separate paragraphs. Folks have a hard time reading the way its written. Takes too long.

I married young. I was 23 when my DH and I got married-he was 32. He has custody of three children who I accepted into my heart and love dearly. It is almost as if they are my own children. We have been married for almost 6 years. I have had an affair that was physical, and one that was emotional. While I acknowledged what I did was wrong, I never took ownership of what I did.
However, recently, as we have been having problems with the oldest of the three children, I have found that I am at my wits end and do not know how to deal with parenting him. My DH and I have had several arguments about how to parent him and how to deal with this and we have had some pretty nasty arguments. I know that in the heat of the argument everyone says at least once something that was they regret. I accused him of doing nothing to help alleviate the situation. I have recently admitted too that I have issues in dealing with anger and have even looked for things to argue about. Why I do this, I do not know but I am getting help for this. My problem lies with while we were having issues, I lost track of how to talk to my husband.
I don't know how to tell him that I need someone to just give me a hug and tell me it sucks I know and then let it be. Instead I got what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do to fix it. I just took all of that and let the anger fester at this and then went looking somehwere else for the comfort that I was looking for and too stupid to ask for.
After a recent fight, I was told that I needed to make a decision since I had admitted to not being happy. I admitted to the PA before this (about 3 years ago) the EA was more recently. He had been thinking about separation and leaving me and I can honestly say that I don't blame him. What I do know, after several hard days of soul searching, is that I desparately love my husband. I love him with every fiber of my being and I know that I need to change. I don't like the person that I have become and I want to be a better person, not only for myself but for the three children that I am helping raise. My DH and I have had arguments before that have ended in the �I'm leaving�, but nothing ever came of it. I do not want to lose my husband and I want to fight for our relationship. He is my other half and I love him. I do not think that our relationship is doomed, but I have no idea what he is thinking, where he is on making a decision, because he has said that he doesn't know if he is going to stay or not. He did tell me that he does love me and that he will always love me. He did say that he has no fight left for this. He is tired of fighting for everything and has no more fight in him. My reply is to have some faith and lean on my faith. I know that I have hurt him very deeply, and I am trying very hard to give him his space so that he can think about this, as he is one that does not take a decision like this lightly. He also said that he is taking everyones feelings into consideration meaning the kids and mine. I do know that I am very very sorry and have started to go to counseling to help fix some of my problems and I am working on change. I do not want to lose my family. This is all I have here and I cannot see my life without him in it. I can only hope that he feels the same way and is going to come around...so How do I start to fix the hurt that I caused?

Does he know the full truth about your affairs? Have you ended all contact with the OM and changed the environment that led to your affairs?

ML, can you please break that up into paragraphs so people can read it? 3-5 sentences per paragraph. That is too hard to read.

I tried to break up the paragraphs...if I need to futher let me know. Yes he knows about all of it. He knows what led up to the affairs and why I did them. I admitted that it is my fault, and instead of talking to him I went looking for what I needed elsewhere.

Melody-look at my second post...

Are you still in contact with OP? Any kind of contact will no help you and BH.

What did you exactly tell your BH that led to the affairs? All of it? Radical Honesty (RH) is a must at this point.

Does anybody else know of your As? Was it fully exposed by anyone?

Here's what we're talking about MLWhite. Still a little long, but a lot easier on the eyes.

Pay careful attention to this. What your H is telling you is that he needs you to respect his views, not confront and reject them.

At the same time, we men tend to be fixers (which sometimes includes feeling the need to instruct others on how to fix themselves, LOL), and we tend to focus on the problem rather than the emotions. How to address this? Start by telling him exactly what you NEED from him - if its a hug, or just someone to talk to, then tell him so .

I hate to say this, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. H told me on Monday that he wanted to split up. I love him enough to let him go, but really don't like the idea. I am at day 4 of knowing he is leaving, and while we are getting along (and not sleeping in the same bedroom) I still miss him terribly. I know time heals and that life goes on, but darn it why is this so hard!!!???

Does he know of the affairs?

I�ll be honest with you, in his shoes I�d do the same thing. Words mean nothing and action means everything. Have you cutoff all contact with OM?

What have you done to regain his confidence?

Still, in his shoes, as a dad, I�d get the drama out of my kid�s lives. You�re drama and clearly not mature enough to handle the responsibilities of marriage.

Your H may love you, but is likely putting his kids first in the decision.

He knows, and I was totally honest with him. I do not speak to either of the OM.

The sad part about it all, he admits that he did push me away from him.

In regaining his confidence, I've started counseling, letting him know where I was, what I was doing, and when I was going to be where. I called to let him know I was leaving, and when I was home.

I have no doubt that he still cares and loves me, but, seeing that I am no longer 23, I am 29, and have had to do a lot of soul searching. I've grown up quite a bit, thank you.

The sad part is that the kids do not want me out of the picture. The middle child is actually quite angry with his father for making this decision. Many of his friends say that this type of decision is out of character for him.

But do you admit you are 100% responsible for your affairs?


Do the kids know about your affairs? If not, they should be told so they understand his rationale for wanting to end the marriage. While they might not understand today because they are children, they will understand when they grow up why this was in their best interest. Your behavior is extremely destructive and not something I would want my children exposed to if I were in his shoes. His first responsibility is to his children.

I agree. This is not a good situation for his children and that comes first.