SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I need help… I destroyed my whole life, I’m confused and I dont know what to do. I used to post here a lot as the betrayed spouse, back story is my husband was cheating on me from 2009 to 2013, unknown to me…in 2016 he admitted to everything and it destroyed me. We ended up putting in a lot of work in couples therapy and reading books, working on us and things seemed to be coming together and working out… I felt like I finally could trust him again. It had been about 4 years of work…. But then the work stopped and we stopped trying cus life got so busy. A lot of life stuff happened and stress and he became depressed and mean. He can’t deal with our kids and yells all the time, gets too physical with them and is just mean to everyone. I tried to talk to him about it again and again and say we need to work on Things but nothing changes… I don’t have the energy to spear head another whole
Relationship overhaul again and we just get more and more distant. He was miserable and so was I. I messed up bad here. I was friends with a male coworker and ended up getting close to him. It was emotional only and I ended up really caring about him and loving him. The feeling are mutual. My marriage keeps getting worse and worse and my husband doesn’t want to go to counseling. I don’t know what to do because I feel Like at this point I love him and not my husband. I fantasize about divorce and running away with my friend. I don’t know what to do. I know about limerence and rewriting the past etc etc. I’m just so confused, feel Like I destroyed everything cus I can’t bear to be in this marriage at this point. I guess I’m just looking for advice or a 2x4

I don’t know Im heart broken because I put in so much work and I wanted to always have that love and I feel Like it’s gone

Hi there Cassycee,

Sorry you find yourself here on the wayward side. There's a lot to unpack here. A few questions for you: How long has the emotional affair been going on? Is your AP in a marriage or committed relationship? Did you and/or husband do individual counselling? (You for processing the infidelity and him for figuring out how and why he was able to cheat in the first place?)

I know how torn you feel right now. I had a very long emotional/cyber affair that then turned physical when AP moved to our area. All in all it was 7 years and even after disclosure to my BS it took me months to realize that the AP was never going to be a healthy option for me, no matter how I felt. Notice that there was a long gap between my D-day and when we sent the NC letter to AP. I didn't contact AP during that time but I was still "on the fence" as they say and it was excruciating for BS. It dealt additional damage to him that we later had to work through and heal. I wasn't able to start healing until I had committed to myself that the affair relationship was permanently ended, and that I would never contact AP again, whether BS and I reconciled or not.

I think right now you are doing some blame shifting and minimizing. It's very common. The agony you are feeling is cognitive dissonance. You don't want to think of yourself as a person who would cheat, but yet you are cheating and so you have to use pretzel logic to find a way to justify it. I was an expert in mental gymnastics. Everything you listed about your husband speaks to the reasons you felt tempted to cheat, but it's not the same as the reasons you are actually able to follow through on that temptation. Right now you're referring to your AP as your "friend", that's part of the mental gymnastics. He's not your friend. He doesn't love you, and you don't love him. You are using him and he is using you to deal with the crummy feelings that are arising because your life situation isn't great. I hated hearing this when I was just starting on the path to healing, but I came to realize that it was completely true.

You are absolutely within your integrity to tell your husband that the current state of your relationship isn't working for you and that you want a divorce, or ask for what you need to try to continue reconciliation. But leaving him to be with your AP will not help you heal. It will just help you paper over crummy feelings, for a time.

I think the best thing you can do is to either work on your relationship with BS or leave and commit to being single. Either way, your BS should have the truth. I think IC could help you to sort through it and get to why and how you have been able to allow an interloper into your marriage. Figuring out those thought processes and taking active steps to change them will help you so much in all your relationships, especially your relationship with yourself.

Keep reading and posting, and other people will be along to help you too. I assume you've read these but even if you have, reread them: Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass and How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald. There are some other great recommendations for reading too, but I would start with those.

Proceed with conviction and valor.

Thank you for answering evolvingsoul.

So the ea has been going on for 2 years, but we were friends for many years before that. We are both married with kids. I truly know that I’m the bad guy in the situation. Explaining mine and my husbands past was more to question whether I alway wore rose colored glasses and the marriage was always bad orrrr if I was rewriting history, I feel like I do t even know anymore. My husband and I both went to individual therapy and couples counseling.

The thing is I know better, I have read every article and every book. But I just can’t get myself out and part of the reason is because I don’t know if I want to stay in this marriage or not. I think we are both just so miserable at this point

Cassy
If you want this limerance to end, then you need to bring this "friendship" out in the light. That might mean telling your spouse.
You are probably conflicted because you know you should end whatever it is you have with your male friend but you can’t or don’t want to because it feels good. You feel understood and cared for. And it’s something you are not getting from your husband. You are wanting both-the marriage and this friendship, yes? But sadly you know you cannot do that. And the reality is your friend is off limits. He’s married. He has a wife. He cannot get involved with you. You know that already. But i know your heart still wants what it wants. I feel for you. I really do…

If you told your husband about your friend, i think it will help you end this limerance. You will have no place to hide. Unfortunately this means your marriage may end. But that’s a risk you need to be willing to take. Your marriage is not in a good place to begin with. You know it can’t continue this way. Both of you will be miserable. Maybe by telling your husband, it will wake him up to what you’ve been needing in the marriage. Sometimes we need to get close to losing something in order to appreciate it.

Cedarwoods thank you so much for responding … a lot of what you said is dead on. The only thing is that I do not want to have the marriage and the "friendship". I don’t want both i WANT to be loyal to one person, I hate this. I dont want the marriage, I can’t feel any love from him or me, but I want to want it. Does that make sense? I want to love my husband and want to want to fight for my marriage but I just don’t. I’m tired of fighting for it. I hate that

I just want to cry and cry because I hate the position I got myself into. And I know I’m a terrible person

Cassy
You are not a terrible person because you developed an attraction for another man.
Your husband betrayed you and hurt you A LOT. You suffered a devastation and trauma that you didn’t deserve. And it sounds like your marriage didn’t rebuild the way you wanted and left you wanting more. As a betrayed spouse, I can understand the grief you endured through the years. You probably wanted and needed your spouse to love you with all his heart. I am not using any of this to justify what happened with your friend. I am just pointing out the weak links in your life and marriage that opened the doors for your emotional involvement with another man. If you can start to see yourself from a place of compassion, you might gain more clarity.
You say you want to want your marriage. You want to love your husband. Why is that? Why do you want the marriage? Why do you want to love your husband?

Hi again Cassycee,

Just to make sure I am understanding things, He cheated for 6 years, hid it from you for another 3 years. Did you find out or did he confess? You guys did 4 years of work trying to reconcile, then in 2020 the wheels started coming off. (It did for a lot of people, that was when the COVID thing started). About a year into COVID you started the EA with someone you had known for a long time through work. I hesitate to say friend, because a real friend would not let you betray your values. And now here you are in 2023 and you are in the bad place, and you've come to the point that you know you have to do something to get out of the bad place, and running away with AP seems like the least painful option. Am I understanding the basic timeline and situation here correctly?

If you read Not Just Friends then you understand the concept of walls around and windows into the marriage. For the last two years there hasn't been a wall around your marriage, but there has been a wall between you and your husband. Pouring your emotional energy into AP and hiding the truth from your husband has built that wall high and hard. It's very possible that your husband senses the wall but doesn't know the source of it. It is really unfair that he doesn't have all the information. When I finally disclosed everything to my BS, in the first moments he actually felt relieved because his gut had been screaming that something was terribly wrong but I kept telling him it was fine.

It's okay not to want to fight for your marriage, but if you want to truly recover from all this you will need to fight hard for your own integrity. I know that right now it feels like it's just a big ball of awful that can never be untangled, but it can. It really can. Not quickly, and not easily. It takes a shit ton of courage to unflinchingly own the parts of your story where you are the villain, but standing inside your story, your whole story, is really the only way to be whole. Because if you don't own your story, it owns you. The choices you make now will be the start of the next chapter. If you want them to read different than the chapter you are ending now, it will take courage and perseverance whether you try reconciliation again or divorce. The good news is that courage is cultivated by doing courageous things.

I would like to further recommend that you explore the work of Brené Brown on shame and vulnerability. It was a game changer for me. She has a number of publications. I started with "I Thought It Was Just Me (But It's Not)" and it was like getting hit in the head with a truth hammer. It gave me a new lens through which to view not just the affair but everything that had come before and why I felt so desperate to numb the crummy feelings with validation of all kinds. "The Gifts of Imperfection" and "Rising Strong" would be great follow-ups.

One more thing. You will need to develop some tools for dealing with crummy feelings in ways that are wholesome instead of destructive. May I suggest you explore a mindfulness practice with daily meditation as a cornerstone. If you are interested to know more I can recommend some of the sources that have helped me immensely and continue to do so to this day.

I know you feel like your life is destroyed, but it isn't. It's hella screwed up right now, yes, but when you begin to rebuild your integrity by standing in your truth, whatever it is, however it makes you look, you will be on the path to healing. The post-infidelity landscape has some very difficult terrain but a good IC and the people here can help you navigate it. Your marriage may or may not be salvageable but you definitely are.

Strength and healing to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.

Cedarwoods: I want my marriage to work and be great solely for my children.. I dont want to ruin their lives In any way possible…my relationship has always been odd and we have had a lot of ups and downs

I also want it to work because I hate giving up on people .. once I give my word I feel
Like I owe my life no matter how unhappy I am

And thirdly.. I’m trying to avoid potential violence

Evolving soul : yes that is pretty accurate time line.. our relationship was pretty bad for about 2 years before there was any outside interference and then I just shut down… there is no more love at this point or attraction. I want to love him because he is the father of my children but there have been issues from the start really… idk I’m confused

You know the drill. You need to go no contact with your affair partner. Whether or not your marriage survives it’s current problems plus your EA you have no right to insert yourself into someone else’s marriage.

Start looking for another job. Write a timeline and confess to your husband. You both need to figure out if if the marriage is salvageable and if you each have what it takes to do the work. Your NC message to your AP should urge him to tell his BW before your husband does.

I don’t want to go no contact with him tho, he’s the only person that has cared about me in my life.. as a friend for 10 years and now this… I don’t know if my marriage is what I want to walk away with.. there is no love left there… he cheated for years and stayed because I stayed .. he feels indebted to me because I stayed

Also I don’t know if I care to make things salvageable… that’s part of the problem.. I was so destroyed prior to this I don’t care about that.. I don’t care to make it work.. I have no love left… my issue is that I hate that.. I wish I did still
Love him or have fight left but I don’t…. I love ap .. but I hate myself for that

Whether or not your marriage survives it’s current problems plus your EA you have no right to insert yourself into someone else’s marriage.

You conveniently ignored this part. Have you convinced yourself that OBS is as horrible a person as you believe your husband is? Do you think she deserves betrayal as much as he apparently does?

If your marriage is as terrible as you describe you have every reason to divorce. You have no excuse for participating in the destruction of someone else’s marriage.

I don’t think my husband is a horrible person at all or worthy of betrayal. That’s why I feel absolutely terrible. I stated facts, and what has happened leading up to this ..none of which make what I did ok, or that he is deserving of betrayal. I don’t know where you would get that from.

I don’t think obs deserves betrayal or is horrible. I don’t know their situation. I don’t want to ruin her life or marriage. Your right that I have no right to participate in the destruction of their home, and just because I was told it was over doesn’t mean it actually was. I see that now, it was hard to see in the moment.

IMO, madhatters have to heal both as WSes and as BSes. The htasks of healing are different for both roles (again, IMO).

If you just posted as a BS, I think some of us would think you're a victim of abuse, as are your kids. You talk of MC, but your M didn't fail. Your H did, when ho built his double life. What did he do to change from cheater to good partner? I ask that because you do not describe him as a good partner now, and you seem to ignore that.

How can you R with someone who isn't willing to become a good partner? How does it help your kids to stay with someone who is mean to them?

You are not a terrible person. I say that partly because it's true and partly because you can't heal if you keep seeing yourself as a terrible person.

Again, your M didn't fail. In this case you did, and your eap did. You need to change yourself from cheater to good partner. NC is the first step, but you're not willing to do that. What will it take for you to start your healing as a WS?

Is IC possible for you? A good IC can help, if you want to change.

Sisoon- I remember you from way back when I was the bs… thank you for weighing in

It’s hard for me to know what is real right now because I’m honestly right in the middle of all this.

Hmm let me think: I think my husband is a good partner because we did alot of work to fix our marriage, he made a lot of sacrifices like cutting out ppl, talking about why’s and feelings alot, open phone policy, he stopped going out etc etc, we phased out of marriage counseling and we’re communicating really good just us. He seemed very remorseful (I do have to admit that most of this was very strongly pushed by me) he read marriage books etc He helps with stuff around the house and was very good with the kids. He became depressed though a few years after dday and became very short tempered and mean. He has very little patience with the kids and is annoyed by everything in life. I was exhausted with work and kids and didn’t have the energy to push so much to fix things like I did the first time and figured it was a lull and would straighten out. It never did… it was two years of depression and mean behavior.. I was telling him we were in trouble and I don’t have the energy to fix it on my own, he never stepped up, I guessing due to depression and that’s when I finally gave up. ( I could have pushed like the first time and spearheaded it but I was emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted- so clearly I am to blame as well) Enter friendship

I want to go to individual counseling, I feel like I need it

I am so confused and feel like I’m drowning. My husband is a good guy but it has always been an odd fit that left me feeling like I was on my own