SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello… it’s been years since I’ve been on here and last I was, I was a BW trying to reconcile with my WH after his multiple affairs.

Fast forward 5 years and I have now been the unfaithful one. I was never able to truly get past his cheating. It made sex a chore and some sort of resentment had been buried deep. I think I could have gotten past it but he has other issues with addiction and lying and each time I would catch him in a lie about drinking, it would trigger me in terms of his prior unfaithfulness.

Last year he relapsed while we were on a family trip and it just so happened that same week an ex of mine reached out on social media. He lives across the country but we’ve been talking ever since. We have not physically reconnected but almost nightly conversations.. he’s bought me many things (including sex toys) and we plan to see each other first of the year.

I feel like I have spiraled. I asked my husband to move out in November so he could work on his sobriety and I could work on finding myself again. I genuinely thought I just had no interest in sex anymore but reconnecting with this ex has proven that to be clearly wrong and I’ve almost become hyper sexual? Constantly sending him nude pictures videos and loving his attention but I still feel just off. I feel erratic and reckless.

Last month my husband and I had a particularly crazy blow out and I ended up hooking up with a girlfriend and her boyfriend. All oral, no intercourse.. and honestly I didn’t feel badly in regards to my husband at all- but feel like I’ve betrayed my affair partner.

How insane is this? What is wrong with me? I’ve fallen into this crazy pit of needing to be validated and have been talking with several men from my past just to get the attention I guess? And now part of me feels like I just need to fess up as my husband constantly accuses me of cheating, but part of me feels like telling is just my selfishness of wanting my conscience free. I know it will absolutely devastate our family.

I was discreet when I found out about his affairs, our 4 kids have no Idea to this day. He would not handle it this way. He has even verbalized just his suspicion in front of our kids. It would be so ugly.

I’m not sure what I’m trying to accomplish here… I just felt like I needed to get it out. Thanks if you’ve made it this far….

Hello

As far as confessing to you H, I cannot say one way or the other as I have not confessed.

What I will say is you absolutely, positively and without question, put the brakes on this behavior. IMO you never sufficiently dealt with the trauma of your H A and are not massively overcompensating. You are never going to achieve any level of satisfaction or happiness in this behavior. Why? Because it’s really all meaningless and doesn’t fill that hole in your soul.

I really think you would be best served cutting all contact with your AP’s and get into IC or some other type of therapy. You need to deal with your own trauma and find out why you felt it was OK to cheat. Perhaps your H A and continued bad behavior was a deal breaker. Perhaps your A’s were essentially exit A’s? Whatever the case, you need to deal with that first.

[This message edited by ff4152 at 12:25 PM, Monday, December 12th]

I think you should re-evaluate your thoughts on your marriage. You just asked him to move out to have space and carried on your affair which had been going on for a year, plus the 3some after he moved out. I would either call it quits with your H and move on, or if you decide to commit to your H, you should be transparent and tell him.

You said you are together for 12 yeArs and your oldest is 16. Is he from a previuos relationship?

I would look long and hard at D'ing him. Your head hasn't been in the M since his A, and it looks like he's still working on his alcoholism and you guys are S right now.

Also, I second what everyone says about IC. The hypersexualization may be a reaction to the devastation your husband wreaked with his affair. It's demoralizing as a woman and frankly, when the emotional connection isn't there, sex is a chore. Right now, it sounds like you're acting out from your trauma from his A.

As for telling him, I'm on the fence, really. You guys are separated, honestly I think it's a D in your future (still struggling with alcoholism and you're obviously still deeply hurt and unhappy). It may be best to pull the plug. He's still wayward if he's lying about his alcoholism. He replaced his AP addiction with alcohol.

You've been out of this M since his A, you're already moving on to an ex and had a 3some. You're acting out and need to work on yourself. You're not M material right now, so, to be fair to your H, you need to let him go so he can recover and you can regain your sense of self and SELF RESPECT.

I agree with others- drop the AP, NC the 3some people and get into IC. Make the S permanent as you move to D. You're very unstable right now and in no shape to deal with his lies and alcoholism, let alone raise kids in this environment. Your kids deserve better, you deserve better and your H deserves better too. Do everyone a favor and put the M out of its misery now and get yourself the help you need to stop self destructing.

Thinking about it, I would tell him after you at least write up D papers and file. I would get into IC in the meantime too. Telling him is necessary- he needs to know the basic facts so he can cope with that truth and make his own decisions.

Your life is already a mess, might as well confront it (and create further trouble too for yourself- actions have consequences). BUT if you confront it head on, at least the chaos has a chance of resolving into some kind of healing and a healthier future for your whole fam.

It's good that you came here and started to open up about what's going on inside of you, and with the relationship. Nothing gets resolved until we face it, talk about it, and do something about it. So let's discuss that.

Regarding "telling", my hard rule is that the truth always matters and always comes first. Sure, he has a right to know, same as anyone else would. But in this case, I'm much less worried about him and more about you. YOU have the personal responsibility to be honest, simply because it is what will allow you to respect yourself at the end of the day. Infidelity, at its core, is about deception, betrayal, and manipulation. All of those things need to stop in order for healing and progress to take place. We can't keep secrets and lies and still heal at the same time. That's like trying to heal with the thorn still in place.

Look, he's cheating, you're cheating, everyone is unhappy and unhealthy, you are abusing yourselves and each other, and at the core of it all is an unwillingness to just "face the ugly" and stop this cycle of pain, abuse and nonsense. That's why, when new people join SI, our first advice is to:

1) Tell your spouse everything
2) Go NC
3) Get some therapy

Married, separated, divorced... it doesn't matter what label you want to put on your relationship right now, the reality is that you have no trust, no respect, no honesty, no empathy, and no self-respect. In other words, the only "relationship" that exists today is abusive and hurtful, to each other and yourselves. It HAS to stop. Unless you're really enjoying the misery and pain.

Alcoholism (addiction really) and infidelity have a LOT in common. They are both responses to trauma. They are both attempts to escape. They are both self-destructive and destructive to others. They both rely on lies, hiding, tricking, using, gas-lighting and lack of self-respect to even exist. They both end badly in all cases. And they are both 100% treatable. You can recover from this trauma, but in order to do so, you must stop participating in it. An alcoholic can go to AA 7 days a week, but if they keep drinking, then what's the point? Same here. This shit-show has to end. You can't control your husband, but you can control yourself. So end it. Go heal. And if you still want your AP or your husband at the end of that, then at least you will be making that decision with a healthy outlook and with your self-respect and integrity intact.

My advice? Put the relationship (the marriage, but the AP too) "on hold" for now. Neither of you are in a good state of mind to make those kinds of decisions (R, D, S) at the moment. In the same way that you need to put on your own "air mask" before helping another to do the same, you both need to heal individually right now before you are even capable of healing as a couple.

I know it will absolutely devastate our family.

Are you under the impression that your family isn't already devastated, or that remaining in the messed up marriage you have now won't do the same thing? You don't worry about the paint job AFTER the car crash, right? The best way to make sure your family is completely demolished is to keep going the way you are now. The damage is already done, the goal now is to prevent further destruction.

As a WS myself, I can tell you that, as scary as it is to think about just unboxing all those secrets, lies, and airing out "who we are and what we've done", it is SO MUCH BETTER to get it all out. For me, it was as if 1000 pounds of weight was lifted, and suddenly, all the fear, all the uncertainty, all the shame and blame and hurt... was all gone. Putting it all out there stopped the bullshit and pain in its tracks, and in its place, was a sense of calm, of surety, and the ability to stop worrying about what MIGHT happen and instead control what DOES happen.

This is not an easy thing to do or face. But the hardest part of it all is getting over the fear of what may happen. Once told, that fear is replaced with reality, and reality feels damn good after all the deception and betrayal.