i have come to the decision that it is the right thing to do by not contacting the OM, but how do i get past the hurt and rejection i am feeling, even though i have a loving husband at home and four wonderful kids. my mind keeps drifting to the OM even though he has made it clear he doesnt want to see me anymore.(which is best i know) i am still hurting and contemplating telling my husband. my counselor i am seeing says not to say anything to him, everyone here says its best to "come clean" please help me

well i havent been here much in a few weeks. Been busy with school and such. trying to piece thigns together. however...i gather from ur post that u have not told ur husband about the affair?? NOT GOOD. u will NOT be free until u do. Period. It will eat u alive like a bad disease. just like cancer...little by little...ate up. <p>good luck,
mercy

Maybe reading what Dr. Harley says about it will help. Scroll down to the section titled, Should An Affair Be Revealed?<p>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html<p>[ March 04, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>

i know i would probably deserve for my husband to leave me if i told him. but i am so scared if he leaves me, what will i do. i have four children and i DO love my husband despite what i have done. i have not heard from the Om for about 2 weeks and each day gets easier from the yearning to call him. i know i have alot of soul searching to do, thank you for you advice

Way to go confused..hang in there. I haven't contacted my friend since valentines day! Each day does get easier...even though I still think of him far too much. It is for the best. I know it's excruciating...but hang in there.<p>I wouldn't tell your h..at least not yet. Doesn't your OM work for your H? What purpose does it really serve, other than alleviating your guilt.

thanks ashirley, you are the only one on the board who sees my point of view. things are going wonderful with my H. i have been making a point to do the little extras, kissing him at the door, hugging him for no reason, etc, he is loving it and has told me so. No, the OM doesnt work for my H, he just stops by when he is hunting on our ground, or occasionally calls my H to meet him for lunch. My H rarely calls him for anything. I dont know so much if my H really considers him a "friend" since the 17 year age differnce. he "could" be his son for heavens sake. lol. it is getting easier, today i thought about him but that is as far as it went. i fought the urge to call. tomorrow is a new day. i can do it. [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] this is strange, but for some reason, i have this feeling he is going to call me Friday. i dont know why, but pray for me to be strong if he does, because the answer has got to be no.... I am not afraid of him telling my H of the emr, i have known him long enough to know he is not vindictive. He will just let sleeping dogs lie, so the saying goes. thanks again [img]images/icons/tongue.gif" border="0[/img]

I don't agree with the "what purpose will it serve?" angle at all. If you are living a marriage built on lies, you have no marriage at all. Of course it's easier for the one who's lying to keep on covering their tracks out of fear of consequences or whatever. But it is extremely unfair and selfish in my opinion to continue to do so. If you truly love your H, then quit sitting on both sides of the fence.

I'm curious, does your H have any suspicion at all that you are attracted to or had feelings for the OM?<p>Have you and the OM articulated that neither one of you should contact the other? My OM and I have an agreement, but I told him that I might not be able to stick to it and that I might try to connect with him by sending him an email. I told him not to respond and eventually I will let go. <p>I'm sorry that your OM still might call you, I know that it must feel good in some ways, but it's really for the best if he ignores you..at least for now.<p>For so long, everytime my phone rang, my heart would leap; everytime I opened my email I hoped to see his name. I no longer have a response to my phone; though I often find myself holding my breath when I open my email. I am grateful that he's able to do the right thing for both of us.<p>Good luck.

Perhaps her H doesn't really want to know. Each of us is different. They've been married for years; they have four children; surely if her husband really wanted to know...he would have suspected something and would have demanded an answer.

confused,<p>There are two basic theories about telling … to tell, not to tell.<p>The not to tell theory says to never let your spouse know and spend the rest of your life loving them twice as much to make it up to them. It’s a very nice approach in that the BS is spared a lot of pain. This only works when the BS is not going to find out ‘by accident’ some day and when the WS is willing to take full responsibility for putting the marriage back on track. After all, the BS will never know how the depth their marriage sunk to. Another thing with this approach is that there will always be a secret between the spouses. The WS will always be hiding things.. This is not conducive to a good marriage.<p>Dr. Harley suggests that the BS has to know about the affair so that the marriage and be free of the secrets and lying, so that the couple examine their relationship and improve it. <p>There is a lot of wisdom in both arguments. IMHO Dr. Harley’s approach is the better. Why? Because it’s very hard to live a lie. I believe that it will tare your marriage apart. There is a very good possibility that you H will find out about the affair. You will live your life fearing this. <p>In my case, there is a part of me that wishes I’d never found out about my H’s affairs. At the time I found out, he was actively trying to break them off. Of course we don’t know if he ever could have ended all of them. But the other part of me is glad that I know because now I know that there were serious problems that we need to work on. We would have never found MB, never improved our marriage skills. Who knows how long our marriage would have survived. So, I wish I never had to know the pain, but if I had to choose between avoiding the pain and the personal growth we have both experienced, I choose the pain and personal growth.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ashirley:
<strong>surely if her husband really wanted to know...he would have suspected something and would have demanded an answer.</strong><hr></blockquote><p>Some of us suffer in silence, respecting our spouse enough to wait for them to do right by the person they promised to love and cherish for life and come clean.<p>A betrayed spouse is not responsible for the lies of the betrayer. None of us WANTS to know that our spouse is capable of such malevolence, but a betrayed spouse NEEDS to know reality. As Steve Harley says, "The most dangerous person on earth is your spouse."<p>I ache for this man who is being forced to interact with the man who cuckolded him because his wife, the woman he entrusted his life to, has deprived him of reality. Have you no empathy for him? Doesn't ANY spouse deserve at least that much dignity?<p>Dr. Harley: "As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered."<p>Every day that he is making choices based on illusion is another knife in his back, and believe me, they do add up.<p>If my H hadn't told me himself, I would now be just a few days away from my final divorce decree. If I had found out ANY OTHER WAY, there would have been no discussion. He would have come home to find the locks changed and his things stacked outside with my attorney's business card taped on top, and he would have been served a court summons as fast as the ink was dry.<p>He was mere days away from this fate and barely told me in time.<p>IF (and that is a big IF because Dr. Harley says that MOST marriages affected by adultery remain intact) your H leaves you, you will do what the rest of us who became single mothers have done: Survive. And I had more children than you, and I had been a stay-at-home mom for 15 years prior to becoming suddenly single. You do what you need to do.<p>And finally, do you want your H to love YOU or the mask you're wearing?<p>[ March 06, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>

Confused,
I think you've been given good advice, and a lot to consider.<p>I personally think you are in jeopardy because this affair happened "close to home". You cannot control OM, or his mouth. He may tell mutual friends, he may someday decide to tell your H.<p>It would be a different story if this was someone who was a stranger to your H. <p>Better that it come from you than from OM or someone else.

i dont think my H has any suspicions, although he knows the OM (his friend) calls me hon, beautiful etc etc, but he doesnt think anything about it.(he should have). The OM called here last night to talk to my H about a horse we have to sell. i answered and he called me beautiful and how are you? my heart fluttered, and oh the temptation. Then he apologized and said it was best this way. My question is, is it possible that he doenst want to continue the relationship because he is starting to have more than friends feelings for me? He would never admit it. he has told me when we were together that i scared him, because i was more mature and he was afraid i would think more of him than i should. what do you think? [img]images/icons/confused.gif" border="0[/img]

I think that you should muster your courage, and tell your spouse. One of the benefits of the truth is, it helps to prevent anything else from happening. Or after a 'real' affair, from happening again. More than anything, I resent not having all of the 'pieces' to the puzzle and feeling like I was going crazy. It's so much harder to find out later. Good luck!

You asked what I think. I think that you are entering dangerous territory when you try to second-guess why a man does what he does. Always take a man at face value, always. Women get themselves in trouble when they try start to second guess a man’s motives. That’s often when we start forcing a relationship…. Basically chasing him. When that happens we’ve lost… they do what ever they want and play us along.<p>I may be wrong but that’s my take on it. Ask some of the men around here if I’m wrong. Read the books “The Rules” and “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”. <p>As for him saying that you scare him. Don’t second-guess that either. There have been several guys in my life who told me that. I take it as meaning that they are trying to find a way to weasel out of making a commitment. When they start talking like that it’s time to walk.<p>What worries me about the OM is that he has a lot of guts. It’s almost as though he likes playing with you and insulting your H to by having an affair with his wife. He calls your H, calls you beautiful and then says it best this way? What way? That he can still come into your life on his own terms?<p>From all you have said, this guy is a player. If I were you, I’d tell him to quit coming around your H and you. If that means quitting his job, then so be it. And I tell him that if he ever bothers you again you will tell your H. He counts on you not telling your h to pull these games off.<p>JMHO<p>PS.. just asked my husband... he says it's a male cop out thing.<p>[ March 07, 2002: Message edited by: zorweb ]</p>

God, I can't imagine your counselor telling you not to say anything. I mean, I do understand that it puts a situation to be dealt with that your hubby never thought was there. But keeping secrets only come back to bite you in the end. Trust me, I know. Get it out now....deal with it....and you two can move on together. But, you have to be ready to tell him that you will NEVER do anything like that again -- only if you, yourself, are sure about that. He may applaud your honesty more than finding out later and crushing you for a lie that has been between you all this time.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ashirley:
<strong>Perhaps her H doesn't really want to know. Each of us is different. They've been married for years; they have four children; surely if her husband really wanted to know...he would have suspected something and would have demanded an answer.</strong><hr></blockquote><p>But don't you think that should be his decision? He is an adult, not a child that needs to be [conveniently] protected from the truth. I think this is information which he has a right to know that is being wrongfully withheld from him. This is his marriage too and he has a right to know. It's not HONESTY that harms relationships, but infidelity.

What if HE tells your husband? That will make everything much worse, and believe me, it does happen. It was awful hearing it from my H, but hearing the details from HER would have killed me.

It sounds to me like you are still letting this OM stroke your ego. If you are needing someone to stroke your ego and make you feel beautiful again, then you need to discuss this with your H. My H needed attention. It took his A before I realized this. It may take revealing your A for your H to realize what he needs to do for you emotionally. It would probably be easier to reveal the A after you are completely over it, but it sounds like you still have some longing to be involved in it. Tell your H now before it gets worse so that you can begin fixing what is wrong in your marriage!!