SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I was hoping there would be more support for this type of situation and wondered how other women got through the mental anguish part while trying to save something they love. All of you have every right to feel the way you do. This is just how I feel the best way is for us. At least I will never be able to say I didn’t give it my best shot.

The "best shot" might not be what you think it is though. That's the point. IME, the worst thing you can do is to tolerate the cheating. Time after time, we've seen betrayed women come in here, too paralyzed to act, only to get left behind anyway. Your current path might feel safe because your WH is dictating it, but that doesn't mean he's not eventually going to leave you anyway. I firmly believe that if I hadn't come out swinging for the fence on divorce, my fWH and I wouldn't be together right now. Because that's what he needed to break through his fantasy. He started doing the math, thinking about how he was going to face his family and his friends, and the bubble he was living in went 'pop!'.

In terms of support, I think there's a difference between being supportive of you and being supportive of your plan. Think about it, if I wrote that post and you answered it, would you advise me to stay in a clearly abusive situation? Of course not. What your WH is doing IS ABUSIVE. It's causing emotional and psychological damage... and he has no intention of stopping.

I get it though, you've selected the path you believe is safest and that's what you're going to do. All I'm saying is DO MORE while you're at it. Start making an active plan for how you're going to take care of yourself and your kids so that you are able to break your dependence on your WH. Build your network. Hone your skills. Be ready to take charge of your life and your family. Don't put all your eggs in this bad basket. The guy is actively HURTING you. You can't trust him with your future.

OP noone is angry with you. Many of the posters here have been on this board for some time and seen it all. We are just sharing how to navigate this mess through collected wisdom and experience.

We are not angry with you. We are hurting for you and are trying to give you best advice on how to best protect youeself and your children based on the the path you have chosen, even if most of us don't agree with it.

I have a hard time seeing betrayed wifes and husbands become paralyzed with fear and do very little to change their situation. I believe it is said when confronted with danger we activate the flight or fight mode. I also think a third mode that we instincivly can activate is 'play dead' or become passive. I see many posters here get stuck in the passive mode and in infidelity it is litterally the last place you want to be stuck in.

I’m hoping that MC will help make that happen.

Very doubtful that MC will solve the problem. He has a problem, and he needs to solve his problem: get his Ego in check, stop abusing you, start building respect for you, figure out why there is a lack of something/someone, etc. If he is serious and aware of HIS issues, he must find the ways to change. You can't make this happen for him. It is on him. IC may help.

Excellent advice, CT.

I was hoping there would be more support for this type of situation and wondered how other women got through the mental anguish part while trying to save something they love.

This comment stuck out to me. Can you turn it around and ask yourself how you can help your now WH with his mental anguish?

First of all, you didn't mention how many men you slept with during your affair season. I really do think that this is part of your puzzle that you aren't sharing here with all of us on SI. In fact, I've noticed that you keep avoiding this question. And also this I'm pretty sure of, that your response can give us more insight into why your now WH is so emotionally distraught and so heartbroken. 💔 I honestly believe your now WH is completely heartbroken and lost because of your infidelities. Not blaming, just stating a fact.

I am really surprised that OP here on SI have said, well your affairs were five years ago, so therefore... so therefore what? He never healed and neither have you - from whatever caused you to think it was okay to make these decisions to seek outside validation in the first place.

Everyone knows (or should know) that healing doesn't have a timeline. I am a ways out from my DWH abusive lifestyle and death (WH passed away one year and 8 months ago) and I completely expect my emotional and heart pain to last a very long time, probably on some level for the rest of my life. Your now WH is grieving too, you know. And acceptance is part of his grieving process too. I think he is avoiding his grief by using the other women to buffer the emotional pain that you caused him. IMO, this is key right here, he has not grieved the death of his marriage caused by your infidelities. And is instead using the other woman to dull his emotional pain and broken heart.

Neither of you obviously have done the work and healed from this. And sometimes the BS never heals and your WH may desperately be trying to numb the pain he is feeling by sleeping with the OW because he may not know how to get away from the pain you caused to him (and your two kid's). And he also can't leave you for the same reasons that you don't want to leave him.

I think he is very stuck and wants out of the marriage. When he is telling you how much he loves you and then spends time with the OW, his actions are very telling. IMO, he is telling you that he loves you so much but the pain is so unbearable and deep that he can't be with you in the same way anymore. And he is only tolerating you now as much as he can possibly handle.

I think it's too late for a future with your WH now that so much damage has been done. Again, be honest, how many men did you sleep with? In my situation, I believe that my deceased WH slept with at least 10 OW but I am pretty sure that there were more. His sleeping with other women and also having longterm affairs has broken me.

I can now look back and know in my heart that my DWH destroyed our marriage. He destroyed it. Period. I don't care why he felt he had to do what he did. Doesn't matter to me anymore. Nothing will justify why my DWH did it. Actually I do know why he chose his path but really doesn't matter here concerning your thread. Maybe this is how your WH feels too.

I think he wants out desperately and not because he doesn't love you but because you represent the person who destroyed his love for you, his trust in you, friendship,

the foundation of what a marriage is supposed to represent, and anything else you may want to add. And this right here I believe to be the truth.

He is on the fence because something deep down inside of him still keeps him coming back to you or the home but maybe he just hasn't figured it out yet how to move on from you yet. Maybe the kids are what keeps him coming back? And maybe the others are right, he can't just jump for same reasons that you have described but is slowly working himself away from you. And personally I don't blame him. And I also know that you don't blame him either.

I also desperately tried to keep my DWH around dispite who he really was. And in his mind he also thought I was cheating on him. But I never cheated on him. Wasn't who I ever was. From the moment I laid eyes on my DWH, I was done with other men. I was in lust with my WH. Lol Even today I struggle with the thought of meeting someone new because I was so faithful to him.

So with that said, my DWH justified his cheating just as yours is doing. Remember, you gave up the MC once she said that you both had a fighting chance to recover and R but in essence you and you WH swept everything under the rug and went on with your daily lives as usual and as if nothing had ever happened. I know you said that you worked on yourself but also feel you didn't help him to heal from the excruciating pain that you caused to him.

I have ptsd for life. My brain is damaged because I stuck it out with my DWH. My heart is still broken from his infidelities and his eventual death. I have pretty bad days and I still reach out for help on SI when I am having bad moments and need that little boost. I tried to "save" him from himself and for my kids sake too because I wanted them to have the father that they deserved. At that point, it wasn't so much about me anymore.

I lost complete trust in my husband. I wanted to believe it would come back but never did. When I look back at my situation, I can now say that I quit enjoying being around him because I lost 100% trust in him, as I am sure that the both of you are now dealing with. IMO, the two of you are holding on by a thread until the string snaps. That is all that is left in your marriage and your bond with him is very weak.

Knowing what I know now, once someone cheats, the marriage is forever not the same and sometimes we hang onto what isn't meant to be anymore because we are fearful. I know that I was very afraid to go it alone for the exact same reasons that you are experiencing.

We don't want to give up the comforts of familiarity. We don't want to break the family up or to change the environment we've become so accustomed to. Our shame and embarrassment controls us. We don't want others to know the truth of who we really are, not that perfect family with the yellow house and nice white picket fence afterall.

I totally get what you are experiencing but also remember that you are living a complete lie and you also are encouraging your kids to live that lie whether you think they know or not. You said that your kid's are 16 and 19 years old? Oh that's right, you mentioned that they have mental problems. Are their problems related to you and your husband's issues?

My two cents. You don't have to get up and leave your home and your WH but can't you work on establishing some kind of independence from him? I mean unless you actually believe that you can live this way and accept your WH terms unconditionally, can't you at least work to have some autonomy? Like maybe go to the gym by yourself, go spend time with your girlfriends? Maybe change things up a bit and established some independence from him? Maybe not cook dinner for the night or when he is planning to come home to spend time with you, tell him all good but you have plans and you will be spending the evening out with so and so. Go take a trip without him?

Sounds like you are already playing it cool, why not try something else while you are stuck in limbo?

I just don't think that what is currently going on can last forever. I think someone within the family unit is going to snap. My son snapped and moved out asap. Although he didn't verbally express his reasoning, he moved out as quickly as he could because of the drama and chaos my DWH caused.

One last thing, what is your value system? To me it sounds like you are okay with having an open marriage, so I say what's the problem then? I don't believe in that lifestyle because I also believe it eventually leads to a dead-end but that is my opinion.

I know that you are a good person, I can feel it. Maybe take some advice from me and others and really begin to work on yourself. Try using some of my suggestions stated above, like getting a little bit of your own life going. Work towards your independence and at a slow pace is fine. Begin to value yourself a little more than you have been doing. Stay honest and true as long as the two of you are together. Work to develop confidence in yourself. These are the things if there is any chance at all to put your marriage back on a better path for you, your WH and your kid's, that are going to be the secret to your new success in yourself and your family unit.

I hope that you will accept some of my advice and from others too.

[This message edited by Hurtmyheart at 2:56 AM, Tuesday, November 9th]

@hurtmyheart first let me say I’m so sorry for what you have gone through.

To answer some of your questions…I slept with 5 men. 1 of them was more than once and the other told me he loved me but I didn’t buy it. H called him that day he found out and the guy said he never felt that way about me and he was just using me. H constantly tells me I had a look on my face that told him I was hurt by that. I wasn’t. I just wanted to save us. Take back everything I did in that moment and make it right but it was too late. Reasons don’t really matter cause I shouldn’t have done it period. But the reason I did was my husband was not a nice person at the time. Kids and I walked on eggshells when he was home as his job totally changed who he was. He treated us like prisoners in our own home. I didn’t feel safe enough to talk to him.

I just wish my husband would have told me that he was having those feelings of anger and resentment so we could have worked on it. He kept telling me I was forgiven and we are moving on. So I had no idea

My kids mental health issues don’t stem from what’s going on with us. They were born with them. Poor kids have the worst anxiety and sometimes depression accompanies that. My oldest is so bad right now she can’t work or go to school. Trying to get the right meds in place and continue therapy for her. My youngest is in a special school program for kids with mental health issues.

I do hear what everyone is saying and something happened last night that flipped a switch in my head. We had a talk about the state of things and we had previously agreed he would only see her tonight. Well he asked if he could go see her for a couple hours. He left the house so fast it made my head spin. He couldn’t wait to get to her. Went and gave the kids some excuse and kissed them goodbye, out the door he went. I cried for two hours, called my sister who I’m not that close to but I really needed someone. She has said the same things you did. That I need to start to live my life and forgive myself for what I’ve done. I have felt like the biggest piece of crap since my betrayal and rightly so.

He came home late and was so happy. I don’t feel like he ever acted that way with me but I know I’m looking at all our 25 years together wondering if he ever loved me. How he can look me in the eye every day and see the pain I’m in but continue with his happy existence. I didn’t feel happy again until probably last year when he left the previous job finally and he was so happy himself. Got his confidence back and I think all of it lead to this.

You are right about why he’s doing this. When he’s with her the hurt and the anger is gone for him. He told me the only difference between us is that I didn’t hurt him. I think OW is after him for a reason and I have no room to judge but trust me when I say she is not a good person and has a lot of issues. She’s not even taking care of her own kids.

I am going to take a step back and create a little space for myself. It’s hard but I can’t keep holding on to him every second hoping he’s going to change his mind. It’s killing me. I think you’re right and his mind won’t be changed. I’m waiting for the the MC appt on Friday to decide what to do next. I know I did a ton of damage that no words can express. I’m now damaging myself again by putting myself through this. I thought maybe I could live with the open marriage idea but with the way I’m feeling I don’t know if I can. I’m unable to be myself right now. Work is difficult, managing the kids and their issues is difficult. Shit…just staying alive right now for me is difficult.

For much of our marriage I have been the one to take care of the major stuff, especially the kids with their MH issues. I felt alone quite a bit but when he gave me attention, it was like walking on the moon. The most amazing thing to behold. But now, he looks at me differently and he’s feeling no guilt or regret. He just wants her. Every time I bring up the kids he says I’m being manipulative. I don’t think that’s fair cause I am considering them in all this. It’s part of the reason I’m putting myself through this living hell every day.

Please know when I talk about my pain I do think about what he went through and all he endured. I know I deserve this. If I knew this was going to be over in a month or two I would swallow that pain and keep going foe him. But I’m not sure if this is fixable. Def not as much as I was hoping for a week ago.

I hope all this answers your questions and thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[This message restored by Webmaster at 4:10 PM, Monday, December 6th]

[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:17 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

@hurtmyheart there was one more question you asked that I forgot to address. Have I tried to help him work through his pain and anguish. Since I didn’t know it existed until last weekend no I haven’t. I do continue to tell him I know this isn’t easy and I’m trying to put compassion at the front but sometimes my pain gets in the way of that. I feel for what he is going through. I’ve tried to encourage him to go to IC but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t think he would be honest enough with himself or them. He thinks with MC I would challenge him to tell the truth and put it all out there. He obviously still values me in some way. It doesn’t feel like it but sometimes he does or says something to show he still really cares about me. What he’s doing with her speaks way louder though.

[This message restored by Webmaster at 4:10 PM, Monday, December 6th]

[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:17 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

But the reason I did was my husband was not a nice person at the time. Kids and I walked on eggshells when he was home as his job totally changed who he was. He treated us like prisoners in our own home. I didn’t feel safe enough to talk to him.

I get this BUT it's completely wrong. My husband (not WS) had an accident with head trauma last year and lost his ability to regulate his temper. This was him. His job was also difficult and reaching a boiling point so he came home angry too and ready to fight over nothing. But I didn't solve it by sleeping with 5 OM. I set boundaries and stood up for myself when things had calmed down and I was able to. When things got very bad, I reached out to a trusted friend. Some times that meant him sleeping somewhere else for the night because he could not calm down and leave me alone. I demanded that he get IC and now, almost a year into IC, he's not just who he was before. He's BETTER. You may justify your infidelity with what he did but bottom line - you had choices. You could have even left and D'd him. That still would have been better and healthier for the both of you even if it was an outcome that neither of you wanted. Instead you did one of the least helpful and most destructive things you could. I don't think you've fully owned that even if you understand that it was wrong to do if you keep bringing up what he was doing at the time.

I'm not pointing this out to you to bring you down because I do think you regret it and wished you hadn't have done it. It's likely a key factor in why this is happening today even though I don't believe you deserve any of what your husband is doing right now. I'm bringing it up because I think it's keeping you stuck in this dysfunctional dance. He's doing what you did - taking a bad situation and choosing the worst possible option for himself and his family instead of the right but hard options. If he can't get past what you did, the right but hard option would be D. Not to put you through this. What I see you doing is exactly what you did back when you chose to cheat. You're accepting the bad treatment and talking yourself out of making hard but healthy choices. Maybe you won't cheat again but are you doing other self destructive things or could you if you decided to keep holding on and hurting over this for months or years? Sounds like it. If you're not ready to stand up for yourself, at least get in to IC and get yourself to a place where you can detach and do right by yourself.

Kel, I'm so glad that you reached out to your sister. I reached out to my family and told them the truth about my DWH too but after he died because I couldn't hold the pain any longer. They were shocked and disappointed to know this side of who he was but also supportive of me.

Reasons don’t really matter cause I shouldn’t have done it period

Well, reasons do really matter why you chose to cheat instead of choosing healthy alternatives to sort through your problems and drama. Just want to get that out there. This is what you need to work on is why you justified your cheating as an answer.

What I also find interesting is that you said your WH worked in the jails and now the post office. My DWH also worked in the jails and my Dad for the post office, when he was alive. Similarities. Both difficult and very stressful jobs, in my opinion. Lots of bad things go on in both of these professions.

I am sorry if I sounded a little harsh im my last post but wanted to get through to you. First of all, you are not a bad person. You made bad choices and did bad things in response to how your WH was acting. Now if you continued on with that behavior then I would probably say that you are a bad person. My DWH was going on and on. I would now classify him as a bad person because he didn't want to stop doing what he was doing, chasing the high eventhough he was hurting me! Although he had a good side to him, his dark side ruled him, he loved his double life dispite how damaging it was to me and the family.

My thoughts are that during those difficult times you were under so much pressure because of dealing with the MH conditions of your kids and also your WH moodiness drove you to make poor decisions. And you felt trapped.

I think the answer that you need to figure out is why you thought it was okay to sleep with 5 other men as an answer to your problems? What was your goal in all of this? To relieve the constant stress that you were under? Were your choices based around your dealing with your parents infidelity? I'm only assuming that this is how at least one of your parents handled their marital problems too.

Kel, I'm really going to stress that you are not a bad person. This is the first thing you are going to have to accept. And if you don't accept this fact then you will keep beating yourself up and continue to allow your WH fucking abuse. Pisses me off. Sorry about my language but he has no right to do what he is doing. Now get that through your head right now. Please accept that you are not a bad person and have some grace for yourself. Accept that you made bad choices. Understand that every human being that walks this earth has made bad decisions in life. That is part of being human. Your bad choices lasted for only a season and you also recognized that what you were doing was wrong.

Life is going to throw you curve balls, it always does. And you have options on how to deal with it. You can either be like a fish out of water and allow your emotions to flop all over the place and to continue to accept his abuse. Or you can continue to be hurt by his actions, feel the pain and then take a stand for yourself and take those small steps towards making yourself feel stronger.

As I've said before, at least two times already, you gotta accept that yes you made some awful choices due to the severe stress you were under due to your WH emotional abuse and taking it out on you and the family and your kid's mental health issues. And I'm sure there were other things that also caused you to snap but you are not a bad person. Guilt and shame are now your downfalls and will bring you to your knees if you allow it to.

Where are your parents? Are they still alive? I know that you said that you didn't have family except your sister but don't remember if you said that your parents are alive or not.

Kel, we here on SI really care about you and your future, otherwise we wouldn't be trying to help you. I know that when I reach out to try and help, it also makes me feel better when I help someone else to make a difference in their lives. And if we didn't like you or feel like there wasn't any hope for you we would not be here.

Something else just came to my mind. I think that you are trying to force the outcome of your marriage, you know, trying to force your WH to drop the OW and come back to you and become "that" family unit again. I didn't say happy family unit because I really don't think you all were very happy and this is why you now are in this situation. Sounds like you are striving to keep the unhealthy family dynamics for your own personal reasons.

I don't know whether or not you believe in God or a higher power but maybe get some prayers going for yourself and your situation? One thing that I learned on my journey is that sometimes we want to make our own decisions on what we think is the right answers to our problems. But maybe the right decision is to hand your problems over God? Let him decide whether or not your marriage is worthy to continue. I have a gut feeling that God (higher power) wants you to let the outcome go and focus on your healing.

I am also going to stick to my original suggestions and ask you to slowly begin to do little things for "you" and not so much for him. Some things I did that helped me out was when I was feeling especially down because of something he was doing to hurt me, like flirt with OW, I refused to make his coffee and his lunch for work. I also wouldn't do his laundry at different times. And he noticed this and it hurt him deeply. But my reasons were more to distance myself from him not to hurt him. I just wanted to get away from him and like you now are feeling, I also felt trapped too.

When our marriage was at its lowest point and he was divorcing me, 🙄😂 (stupid) because his excuse was that I was cheating on him, I hit the gym, I reached out to Alanon (and observed in AA meetings), started going to church, therapy, etc.

I slowly started to take my life back. But then we came back together for reasons that aren't important here right now. And eventhough DWH quit drinking for three years and doing therapy and CR work, he was still white knuckling his addictions because at the time, he really didn't want to face who he was and change his poor coping mechanisms.

Anyway, I believe what helped me the most is when my daughter and I would go places and my DWH would keep calling and emailing me, she would say, get off the phone Mom and be with me... and this actually helped me to begin to separate myself from him emotionally. I also worked to distance myself in other ways too.

So think about it, what little things can you do today to work towards change, just for today? You are good and we are here for you. Please take advantage of it.

[This message edited by Hurtmyheart at 5:24 PM, Tuesday, November 9th]

My situation was a bit like yours. I was the WS. My H had a cuckold fantasy and sometimes talked about how sexy it would be for me to be with other men. I connected with an old friend and when we started to get flirty, I asked what H thought about me meeting the OM. My H was over the moon excited about this and gave permission. While I was out with OM, my H had put a logger on my computer and he started reading emails and was horrified by the emotional connection between myself and OM. When I got home everything exploded and he accused me of cheating because I had never revealed there was an emotional connection (I did not agree at the time because I had permission after all, but now I definitely see it as cheating). Our marriage was totally on the rocks and each of us went to counselling. H’s Counsellor said something that made me absolutely furious when he came home and told me. She told him, "just because you gave permission, it doesn’t mean you can’t withdraw that permission when you are uncomfortable or hurting." She gave him the strength to set the boundary. Even though I was angry, I knew the Counsellor was right. At that point I knew it was either OM or my marriage and I cut off contact with the OM. It is 11 years later right about now, and sometimes I think about that Counsellor and her simple words of wisdom that saved my marriage. If the affair had continued longer, it’s possible the shiny lustre would have worn off naturally, but it is also extremely possible that my marriage would have gone past the point of no return. I guess that’s my question for you - if your H continues this for 6 months or a year or 3 years before he gets sick of it, what will it be like for you to settle back into your marriage? Will you trust him? Will you feel like he has your back? Will you be to be vulnerable or feel supported by him? You DO have the right to set the boundary back in place.

I can see that tolerating this intolerable situation is going to do more harm than good.

It's very detrimental to your emotional and physical health.

It feeds his entitlement and could encourage him to adopt this as a permanent lifestyle.

Look, *she* is not the problem. *HE* is the problem. His entitlement and long-simmering resentment has finally reached a place where he can let it out. Not only does he get the opportunity to further debase you and hurt you, he's having fun!

Is she married? Is there any reason why you can't contact her family and let them know what is going on?

You see, affairs are like a three-legged stool. You can balance fairly easily on a three-legged stool. Take away one of the legs (you) and it becomes a whole different kettle of fish. Right now, he has it made! He has TWO women fighting for his attention. What a lucky guy--and why would he want to change that? He's comfortable there on that three-legged stool. So comfortable that he's not going to make a change unless he is forced to do so.

I would:

--see an attorney to see what divorce looks like for your situation. It doesn't mean you have to hire one or file, but knowledge is power. You need to start, at the very least, taking back your power.

--expose the affair to everyone. You don't have to protect him any longer. Let him deal with the consequences. I take it she is a co-worker? Is there a superior/subordinate relationship at stake here? Is there a formal policy on co-workers dating? If there is, he is flirting with disaster because SOMEONE will spill the beans. Trust me, they're not as clever and discreet as they believe they are. Everyone at their workplace probably knows.

--if you truly don't want to live this way, get out of infidelity. File for divorce, file for emergency orders and see how well he likes that nice two-legged stool you've given him. Oh, and he doesn't get to play Disney Dad--he should have regular parenting time that takes place away from your home, and that includes overnights.

I fear if you continue this, he will take more and more advantage of you because he can. Someone who can do this is not a safe partner.

Cat

You're showing him how little he needs to do to stay in the relationship. Is that the message you want to communicate? Or do you want to tell him that you aren't going to be a part of this any longer, and that if he wants to continue to live in this arrangement, he does so without being married to you.

you gotta accept that yes you made some awful choices due to the severe stress you were under due to your WH emotional abuse and taking it out on you and the family and your kid's mental health issues

Well there you have it. OP was fully justified in committing adultery with 5 men because of her husband. Got it.

"Awful choices" = justifying? In what world?

What we are saying is that if he was an ass, she should have divorced him instead of cheating. Period. As my IC told me, "Cheating is not the way to overcome marital resentments. Difficult conversations and painful choices is the way."

And as a p.s.

Pursuing or allowing sex with five different men sounds to my amateur analytical mind like a lot more than just acting out in anger, although the anger and hurt were there. It sounds like a massive need for external validation. If a spouse is no longer valuing us, we need to learn to value ourselves with self care and proper boundaries like the 180 or divorce. We don't "need"external validation. In fact, the belief that you need others to validate you often leads to an abundance of poor choices like falling for love bombing narcissists or false promises, getting used and taken advantage of, and getting hurt by those who thrive on manipulation. When we don't "need" their approval, we make healthy choices and attract healthy people.

I certainly hope you have spent these five years doing this kind of work on yourself, keljpvs.

[This message edited by OwningItNow at 4:27 AM, Wednesday, November 10th]

gr8ful-

you gotta accept that yes you made some awful choices due to the severe stress you were under due to your WH emotional abuse and taking it out on you and the family and your kid's mental health issues

Well there you have it. OP was fully justified in committing adultery with 5 men because of her husband. Got it.

Apparently you didn't read my post. I would never support sleeping around on your spouse for any reason. I am pro monogamy under ALL circumstances.

@Hurtmyheart I do appreciate everything you are saying. I’m trying to take a step back and not act so needy and be there for every moment. Since he works at the post office with her they see each other every day. He leaves early fir work every morning so they can meet up and he has gone to her house twice already this week. I’m still crying every day but I am slowly getting more and more mad. I started working out again. Since I’m losing weight rapidly anyway I figured I should take advantage and it helps manage some of the anxiety.

Everybody wants me to leave him but I have to get there on my own. I don’t want any doubts in my mind that if this ends, I’ve done everything I could. I have taken to heart the advice to start doing stuff for me and I’m starting with exercise. For the past 5 years my only goal was to be there for him and take care of him as much as possible to show him I’m in.this. I’m having to rebuild a couple of those friendships I neglected due to my guilt of what I did to him. I did start IC as well. I wish he would but he doesn’t seem to feel the need.

I think it’s weird he’s seen her twice this week and he told me they haven’t had sex. He has no reason to lie to me anymore so I believe him. I just wonder why. I can’t look at the text messages of theirs anymore cause it hurts me so badly and usually sends me into a panic attack so I don’t have any insight to their relationship. He said she’s not on her period or anything so who knows.

My dad passed and my mom is in a nursing home. I did tell her what’s going cause I need the support. She’s in her 80’s and can’t do anything for me but she can do that.

This whole situation is sad. And yes my kids MH issues and his mental abuse drove me to what I did. Not an excuse and not right. I was scared to talk to him about how I was feeling. He can be scary when he’s mad. I felt so alone and wanted so badly for someone to care about me. Due to past sexual trauma I was looking for that the wrong way. I know that now.

I’m just not ready to give up. Not yet. I do get closer to fed up and completely broken every day.

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[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:18 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

@OwningItNow yes you are right. I was looking for validation in the absolute wrong way. It’s something I want to work on in IC. I was abused physically and sexually in my teen years which has lead to this need for validation all the time. I know it’s not healthy.

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[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:19 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

@nikomanida I’ve only told him once the reason why I cheated because I don’t want to hurt him anymore. It was wrong no matter what. I do own what I did. I’m horribly disappointed in myself and the guilt is still awful. Especially since this wouldnt be happening if it wasn’t for that.

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[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:19 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

@Catwoman yes it’s a coworker and she is a supervisor. I have no idea if it’s allowed or not. He tells me they are very careful at work but I do know that two people know for sure. One of those people are upset about what is going on and checks on me. Unfortunately she tried to help busy telling OW some lies taken from nuggets of truth I told her and OW went crying to my WH. He was mad but he believed me when I was shocked at what was told to OW. I have since asked mutual friend just to be there for me and stay out of it. I can’t handle anymore drama.

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[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:20 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

@hallelujah I’m so glad to hear your marriage survived. If this goes on for months and months, I don’t know how I would feel but I can tell you I would probably fully embrace him if he just stopped at any point. MC starts Friday and I’m hoping beyond hope that it will work. If he did stop I’m sure we could get through it together and get to a healthy place. I adore the man.

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[This message edited by keljpvs at 7:20 PM, Friday, December 3rd]

HMH,

gr8ful-

you gotta accept that yes you made some awful choices due to the severe stress you were under due to your WH emotional abuse and taking it out on you and the family and your kid's mental health issues

Well there you have it. OP was fully justified in committing adultery with 5 men because of her husband. Got it.

Apparently you didn't read my post. I would never support sleeping around on your spouse for any reason. I am pro monogamy under ALL circumstances.

And it seems you didn’t read mine. Let me emphasize what YOU wrote, since you seem to not even see it:

you gotta accept that yes you made some awful choices DUE TO THE SEVERE STRESS YOU WERE under **DUE TO YOUR WH** EMOTIONAL ABUSE AND TAKING IT OUT ON YOU and the family

You say you are not justifying her behavior, yet right there you 100% did. Her "awful choices" were the DIRECT RESULT and therefore caused by her "WH emotional abuse".

I am in no way exonerating anything her H did or is doing now. Perhaps inadvertently, you are encouraging her to blameshift fault onto him and that’s simply wrong. Did her H’s actions contribute to her messed up state? Certainly. Her choice at that point to pursue FIVE OM is ENTIRELY on her. Those hundreds/thousands of horrific choices she then make were NOT **caused** by her H, as your words clearly imply.