And that absolves you of all responsibility in the matter, does it? Do you blame "the situation" or "the way things happened" too?

The OM is very likely to tell his wife. Then she will call your husband. Even so, it is immoral to even think you can manipulate your husband into staying married to you. That is manipulative and cruel. You are dangerous to him and your children.

No, it's not. Unless you want to be a self-centered, entitled wife who is too concerned about how SHE feels about being honest. Are you that woman?

Pep recommended sleep. I second the motion.

This whole thing will still be there in the morning. It's not going anywhere.

I didn't either, Goldi. I was the last guy you'd ever have thought would go that way. For cryin' out loud, she was nobody special, just someone who asked me one day to sing a duet with her on the church music team. All it was at first was practicing songs together...

Doesn't matter what your initial intentions were. You can't go back & change it now. You can't go back & right the wrong. Ever.

What you can control is what you do, the choices you make, starting now. You can start doing what's right for your marriage.

Or you can pile wrong on top of wrong and see where that might get ya.

Something for you to think about, alright...

LISTEN to GloveOil.

He is one of the lucky ones.

His wife found out and because he was WILLING to do the work and tell her everything, and so forth...

He HAS DONE THIS BEFORE. If done right you can have a better marriage. But YOU will have to do most of the heavy lifting, starting with confessing!

Goldilocks, did you really read that whole section by Dr. Harley before you continued posting?

Of course everyone understands why you wouldn't want to.

But the fact that we understand that doesn't help you at all, does it?

Please get busy reading the expert's advice. We are just a bunch of strangers on the internet. Persuading a bunch of strangers on the internet of something may make you feel like you won an argument, but it will not help you PUT. OUT. THE. FIRE.

When you are posting without first briefing yourself on what Dr. Harley (an actual marriage counselor and psychologist) has to say, you are simply wasting time, Goldilocks.

You don't have to persuade us that the consequences of your affair are hard. You don't have to persuade us that you are on a hard and painful path. I already said that many posts back up, remember?

Everybody here knows this is hard.

We can help you through it into the region where it's not hard, or we can watch you stand in the hard place and whine how hard it is and never move, while we shake our heads.

One thing's for sure: you will not get out of this without serious expert professional help.

Please read Dr. Harley's entire surviving infidelity section:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5525_qa.html
(There are 29 pages there, you won't be back quickly.)

Then please email Dr. Harley and his wife Joyce and ask if you can get some help on his radio show:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4200_radio.html
They will send you the book Surviving an Affair. You need this book. You are in a hard place and need to know how to get out.

While you are waiting, start listening to the show, and see if you can hear any situations that are similar to yours and get some ideas what to do.

Please, listen more and talk less. And start by listening to the expert who has dealt with situations like yours for forty years.

You came asking for help.

You've been given suggestions.

I seriously encourage you to follow all suggestions. Don't let us suggest things for you to do and then you leave them undone.

Get to reading this stuff. Take steps to better your situation.

How do you know this?

What is your plan?

I'm being very serious. Please describe [in detail] your plan to prevent yourself from committing more adultery in the future.

I look forward to reading your answer tomorrow. G'night.

Mrs. W

Hi Goldi-

I know you want to keep this from your BH, but the truth has a way of being found out. You have no control over that.

A family we know were destroyed by the "secret" of an A.

The WH in this M had an A when his kids were young. His BW always had her suspicions and when she confronted her WH, he denied it because he thought that it would "end his M" if he told her the truth.

Fast forward to the youngest child getting married. And then, the truth of his A came out. His BW couldn't recover from the fact that the M she thought she had was all a lie.

Not telling her the truth is what ended his M, not the A.

Okay, okay... And I'm reading Markos... I'm exhausted, completely exhausted.

I know, Goldilocks. Nobody said this is going to be easy or without pain.

Pepperband and Neak are right. Get some rest. Come back tomorrow, finish reading, ask questions about what you read. Send Dr. Harley and Joyce an email about the radio show.

And it hurts...And I know...I'm selfish and I was aware of being selfish while we were making plans to get together. I spent the majority of my life being a wife and mother. Being Unselfish, taking care of my family (our oldest has a doctorate)...on down...good kids, because I gave my life to raising them. One is still at home and I have been totally selfish. My moment of weakness. I know it's an excuse, but I'm tired of being a taken for granted wife.

Good night for now...

And we can help you fix that, but you gotta read the map!

And right now you probably need to get some rest.

So how do you fix that? By telling the truth about who you really are. Why? Because what you are wearing in front of your husband right now is a mask. You are not the person he believes you to be.

Want to heal? Come clean.

For when you wake up:

Here is some reasoning as to why you cannot keep this a secret from my own experience.

My wife had her 1st affair in 2001. It was a workplace affair and the fellow she had the affair with ran in completely different circles from us. in fact, I still live in the same town as him, and even though I keep an eye out, I simply never run into him. My wife confessed her A to a coworker, who encouraged her to end it, but never told me about it. This lady has since passed away. between 2001 and 2007, my wife kept this secret.

She ended her affair after only 3 months with this man. She broke it off, and never went back to him. But here's the thing... She swore it would never happen again but she couldn't escape the guilt. It ate away at her.

Life went on for me and I thought things were mostly fine. Even great at times. But guess what? She knew what she was and could never escape it. Then in 07, another man came along and pursued her. He chased hard too. And guess what? Her guilt returned in force... Her reasoning at the time? "well, I'm already trash, I might as well act like it."

What happened was she ended up in another affair, much worse and much longer than the previous one. 10 months.

I caught them. It was an out of town work affair. Caught them on a fluke actually. Her train was on time and I decided to meet her at the station on a whim. Called her to tell her where I was and she told me the train was late, don't wait. Guess what? I was standing in front of her train looking at it. She was with the OM.

He ditched her and I caught them. Told his wife too. That's when I found out about the other affair. Thing is, you just don't know who saw you. Who knows what will happen. Maybe someone will catch him in another affair and he'll get caught and the truth will come out. Maybe someone saw you and will move to your town and you will get recognized.

Secret affairs are never secret. My brother's affair was with a woman from another state and thanks to google, he got busted.

Expose this to your H before someone else does. It will go much better for you.

CV

Goldilocks, You have to tell your husband. You say you are not going to tell him because you don't want to burden with your guilt. In reality you are taking away his self determination and his right to choose. Its like slavery. Your husband is staying under false assumptions. You think that taking away your husbands freedom is sparing him some kind of burden. Typical, a cheater will always make choices for their spouses (but like this situation, it is done for completely selfish reasons).