SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’ve been isolated and alone since I came clean to my husband about a brief affair I had. It was one person only 5 times. Each one I regret instantly. I put an end to it immediately. I knew in my heart and mind I was never going to leave my husband and I want to make our marriage work. In order to do that I knew I had to be open and honest. I told him the truth not because I was caught forced or guilted into it. Yes I feel guilty remorseful, accountability, responsibility and ashamed. I also take 100% accountable and responsibly for my error in judgement and actions. I understand completely how devastating this is for him. I acknowledge this breech has deeply affected the relationship. We have been together 16 married 11. At first he wanted to work it out then he didn’t. My intuition said that there was something off with this hasty decision. I did look into logs and well he had been speaking to an ex before I came to him with the truth. This person has been a torn in our relationship side. He had an emotional affair with her months leading to our wedding. I did not discover this until 3 months after we married and he only came clean because I found proof undeniable proof. I wanted to end to marriage immediately, but after much pleading and talking on his part he convinced me that he was wrong sorry and it would never happen again. She was gone he cut her off. She married and I thought that was the end of her involvement. Now here I am a decade and half later and she is back. Now my husband is dead set on a divorce. She is divorcing her partner as well conveniently 5 days after my husband left me. This leaves me with a horrible sense that this entire time he had been keeping a door opened in case our relationship went south. Why do I feel that way. By the way he speaks of her now. When I meet him she was a cheater who left him for the man she would eventually marry. Now he wants to rewrite history and claim it was an amicable split. This I believe is to save her face in his family’s eyes. They weren’t particularly fond of her either. The speed of which this went, he was a devoted husband he would do anything and everything he could to make me smile laugh and be happy and feel safety and loved. The family is also puzzled by these events as they too are confused by the immediate change in attitude and behavior towards me. I know that a lot of this is heavily influenced by my confession of the affair, possibly drug use on his part and the other woman in his ear. If this was a random person I could understand that. This is an ex from 21+ years ago! I’m baffled and I have no one to talk to about this incredibly painful and emotional mind boggling situation. The manner in which he speaks or communicates with me is beyond icy. I’ve seen him treat people who don’t deserve it with better skill than with me. He acts as if we never happen. We talk about finances but that’s it. I’ve not spoken to a single male since I end the affair. And other than a therapist I don’t talk to anyone. I’m isolated. Cut off from family I once thought would be my ride or dies. My husband has also explained to me that he has always had feelings for her. That the love he had for me over took those feelings for her. But now he is in love with her. Always was?! I’m just lost in a cloud of was it real was it not real. Is he doing this to hurt me and get back at me. Will he regret how hastily he abandoned our marriage. I’m not perfect I have a lot of work to do on myself to get back to the core of who I am and the values I hold. several events in the last two years led to these errors in my judgment. I abandoned myself. There is no reason or explanation that makes what I did appropriate in any manner. All I can say is when this affair happened, I was suffering from severe low self-esteem, and due to the extenuating circumstances I made a huge mistake. It is not much different than that of a person who turns to alcohol or drugs or gambling or shopping or self harm or to sex. It was merely a distraction from feeling the despair of my families hurt. There was no emotion involved. I never cared for the person I was having the affair with. It was literally as if we were on auto pilot. I do love my husband deeply and want the best for him. My indiscretion no one else is to blame except for me and the man I had the affair with. To put it into perspective, our family have been dealing with one particular, family member and his addiction to drugs. That led my husband to become angry and depressed about his brothers actions, especially because he has a son, and we were unable to conceive children naturally. Naturally, that started pushing us away from each other rather than bringing us together. One night in October due to an excess amount of alcohol, my husband lashed out at me and physically laid hands on me. Since then we had been struggling even more. I do not believe he meant to hurt me, and I believe that he has been repressing all of his feelings and anger towards his brother and has been lashing out on me. Again, nothing excuses what I’ve done, but these are the circumstances that we were in the midst of. I am 1000% committed to going through anything, and everything necessary to bring healing to my marriage and start a new. I accept the fact that the two people who were in this marriage are no longer alive and have been burned to ash, but from the ashes I would like to rise as a phoenix a brand new marriage brand new people, but deeper love. But I’m afraid is it too little too late help

Do you have adopted children?
I’m sorry that you are here. It sounds like you’ve had a very rough go recently and I don’t have sound advice. There are several people here much more knowledgeable than me who I’m sure will post soon.

I’m not an expert and both my husband and I have been the BS and WS. It takes a LOT of work when both people have strayed but it’s not impossible. I can say for me that all these years later we are so much better but we were both willing and committed to R. I don’t think your husband is and is likely treating your A as the trigger to start a different life for himself.

Again I’m not well versed like many others here but you are in a precarious situation being both the WS and BS at the same time. I am sorry you’re hurting but please remember to take care of yourself. Getting into IC may help you work through the issues in yourself that caused you to stray as well as navigate the situation you’re currently in. I just really wanted to let you know that you’re in a great community here and I am sending you lots of good juju. I hear you.

Thank you for your words and sharing your story with me. It’s been tough this last month. I did want to mention that I am in IC. I looked for one as soon as possible. She is wonderful and I am getting to know more about the things that lead to this. Idk what the future holds but I know I’m going to keep healing and not ignore what devastation I have created. I am currently no contact with my BS/WS. I initiated it after a heated text exchange Sunday. I’ve been living with family for about 3 weeks. The home we lived in was his parents. Im taking this time to work on myself truly dig deep.

During a window from 2018 to 2020, my wife and I were actively involved in EAs and I would later learn her's had become physical and I had no hint. Mine was only an EA, because the woman lives in another country and my wife can prove that I haven't been out of the country, but I consider my affair just as egregious as my wife's. At some point you clearly disconnected with each other and if it is like my wife and I, near simultaneous affairs, you miss a lot of signs...which is why I would say that when I learned that I was a BS it really hit me hard, simply because I had no reason to suspect anything.

Also, like your husband, after we got engaged, but before we were planning to marry, I ended up sleeping with a gal that I had been far too flirty with via text. As I look back on that whole thing now, I was engaged in an EA with this gal while engaged to be married, and it turned physical. My wife discovered that affair and were it not for her getting pregnant the next month, we may have gone our separate ways. The trauma from that whole thing certainly stuck with her and was part of the core trauma that lead her down the path towards an affair. I'm not excusing your infidelity, but your marriage got off to a pretty bumpy start with discovering your husband's affair and you were still newlyweds. Not dealing with that trauma and more or less what we call rugsweeping impacted you both. If he more or less got away with it, as what I like to think is a reformed cheater, he got away with it once, he just needs to get better at covering his tracks, so he may not have ever gone NC with this woman.

I only point this stuff out so you kind of begin to understand the last couple years of your life and framing events in their due context. At some point, my wife and I started talking to each other about whether we wanted to keep hurting each other or to go our separate ways. His cheating, your cheating, you've both hurt each other tremendously. You both have to heal and be willing to heal yourselves first before you can really focus at all on the relationship, or what still remains of your relationship.