This is impossible, really. By asking for advice, you’re asking us to judge the situation. What you really want is for no one, in your opinion, to judge you harshly. While that’s not impossible, I think it’s pretty unrealistic, given the subject matter.
<mini rant>Judgment has been unfairly vilified in my opinion. What causes me to drive more slowly on a snow-covered street, thereby not wrecking? Judgment. What causes me to refrain from telling my mother everything I think and giving her ammunition to rip me to shreds? Judgment. Yes, I know – many people rush to unfair judgment. But judgment itself is a Good Thing.</mr>
I’m sure you’d like to guarantee that. You can’t. Our neighbors are a sad example. The wife began an affair very secretly, and she was so much happier and felt so much better about herself. For awhile. Then she got sloppy, and pretty soon everybody but her husband knew about the affair. Then her husband knew. Then her kids knew. She has now lost custody of her four children, and on visitations, they tell her they don’t want to see her, and want to know why she cheated on their dad. They’re miserable. They don’t know whether to love her or hate her. Their dad is being more decent than anybody thinks he should, and doesn’t talk her down, so no one can blame their feelings on that.
No matter how careful you are, you cannot guarantee that this will not happen to your family. Can. Not.
If you can’t bring yourself to fight for your husband, who you say you love, fight for your kids. You won’t be as happy? Suck it up. You’re a parent. It means you don’t get to be selfish anymore. Not if you want to be a good one.
Despite the fact that you just broke a board rule, I think you’re being a bit harsh and judgemental.
Yes, we’d all like to live in a world where happiness ever after and hot monkey sex and warm cozy feelings are abundant. But the reality is that love is a messy, sad, and bloody business. I can’t blame anyone for feeling a bit lost and disillusioned.
If you’ve found your true love and white picket fence, then more power to you. You’re doing better than most of us poor saps.
It has nothing to do with being female. It has to do with being an oath breaker. Have you told your husband he should find someone who makes him as happy as your soulmate is making you? Or is he getting the same level of gratification from you tolerating him getting his nut off?
When one enters into a marriage contract, promises are made, oaths are sworn, both parties commit to certain kind of relationship. If you decide to change the rules to the relationship and CONCEAL it from your partner, you are a liar and an oath breaker.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. It does not surprise me at all that you have no one to fully trust to talk about this, as you are unworthy of the trust you seek.
It’s a shame that someone who is so child-like in their thinking has children of their own to tend to.
Unfortunate because it would save you the trouble of reaping what you have sewn face-to-face if he could just stumble upon this in his own time? Such cowardice is sadly expected from what you have shown here.
Another note on children; they learn by imitation. Since you don’t have girls, I won’t address that, but do you think if your sons found out, that’d they would continue to be as confident as possible in their future marriages? They’d never wonder if their wives would be faithful due to what they’ve experienced?
Finally, I do agree with some that being happy is important, if for no other reason than the “trickle down” effect. However, being honest is the only way to approach this. Find out if your husband is as miserable as you are. Consider your lover’s character that this would even be an option in the first place. And, not necessarily most importantly, but think about the future beyond sticking it out for the duration of your affair. Who says it’s worth the risk of you losing everything if he chooses someone other than you? Because, obviously, that sort of thing happens.
Sometimes the thrill of the secret romance covers over details that won’t be noticed until you’re living with someone on a daily basis. Maybe she’ll find that out before she throws away her marriage (such as you may think it is).
I brought it up because what is ‘Good for the Goose, apparently isn’t good for the Gander’. For no other reason let alone to talk about polygamy. I thought she was getting judged very harshly for something that a number of people do and it could be because she is a woman and potentially subject to a double standard.
I wanted to come back in here and add something, and it seems you’ve done it for me.
The extra-marital relationship is not necessarily the problem. In a marriage like the one WhyNot has, it wouldn’t be a deal-breaker. Because they have an agreement. By all accounts, they deal honorably with one another. If you don’t have that agreement, and you have an extra-marital relationship, you’re untrustworthy and dishonorable. (Which WhyNot has already pointed out, I believe.)
For the record, I feel that way whether you’re male or female.
FaithFool and StuffLikeThatThere nailed this one, IMHO, and the OP should very carefully consider these posts. Since the request was “Please help me” here is my $.02:
Learn about raging narcissism, sprinkled with a sense of elitism. You call your husband a mental luddite, but act in a manner that can only be characterized by “mental drool”. What he lacks in quick-wit and compu-skillz might be made up for in an intuitive sense of interpersonal relations. Perhaps he is watching this train wreck but just the nicest guy in the world and trying not to let a bad thing fall apart (read up on co-dependence).
My advise or help is to:
Fess up on being unhappy and see where that leads the conversation. This will filfil your desire to be mildly forthcoming
End the affair or the marriage, you pick one
Recognize that no matter your intentions, your kids will be hurt in the long run, and this is your fault and no one else’s
I get that you feel happier this way, and I think you deserve to be happy, but in the way that everybody deserves to be happy, and with that said: you owe it to your husband and children to tell them the truth.
Finding out from a third person about the affair is much, much more painful than hearing it straight from your partner (trust me on this). Zoloft has been mentioned, which implies a psychiatrist, so I think you should talk to him/her about counselling–for your sex life or for marriage, or even for a divorce if that’s the way things go, but someone licensed instead of here on a message board.
There’s also SOMEONE here who knows who you actually are. Don’t doubt it for a second. The internet is the least anonymous place on earth.
You’re doing a crappy thing, and you can try to justify it until you’re blue in the face, but it’s unjustifiable. You know, people say life and love are complicated, but they’re not, really. There’s the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do, and it’s not hard to figure out which is which. The thing you wouldn’t want done to you is the wrong thing to do.
Do the wrong thing if you must, but own it. Tell your husband what’s going on. Don’t deny him the right to make a choice about what’s best for him, just so that you don’t have to deal with the consequences of your actions. You’re already a liar and a cheater. At least don’t be a coward.
I think the reason she’s getting judged so very harshly is that emotions are ratcheted up a level on message boards. Here people can “scream” and say the things they wouldn’t say if, for example, their best friend came to confide in them that they were having an affair. We’re a little more (perhaps too?) polite IRL as opposed to a message board.
I think people absolutely feel this way about adultery (it’s not that long ago our great-great-grandparents were killing people for it! That’s gotta trickle down unconsciously.) but they usually won’t be quite so vehement about it.
I’d suggest that if she wants to end her current marriage that she does it by stating she isn’t happy, etc. There is no reason she has to admit to having an affair with someone else. What is to be gained. I know I said other people are responsible for their own reactions, but why go about to deliberately hurt them if you can avoid it (and yeah, I know that could be said to apply to her affair, too)?
So if the OP is so happy and fulfilled and confident she is doing the best thing for everyone’s happiness, why did she post “please help me” and ask for advice?
True words of wisdom. And better to create a little hurt than a lot of hurt.
At this point the wisest decision may not be to fess up to the affair, but it’s in everyone’s best interest if you focus on your marriage right now. Commit to fixing it or getting out. Your first responsibility is to your marriage. The second is to your children. Third is to yourself, but the third is very important.
But I calls 'em likes I see 'em and in this case a edited is crowing about being a edited. The same would go for a man and the same should go in society.
At its core, what is a marriage? A bonding of deep trust between two people. RSSchen intends to profoundly break this trust on an ongoing basis.
She could leave the marriage, or she could discuss a poly arrangement, but instead she chooses to be permanently and egregiously deceitful toward her husband. What more needs to be said?