i just told my husband yesterday that i kissed another guy. he wants a divorce. i told him because i didn't trust myself. i was able to resist it going any further that time but what about next time. i also told him because i couldn't continue to tell him i loved him knowing i did something that was not loving towards him. he's my bestfriend and i hurt him in the worst way.
i'm afraid he'll never stop being disappointed in me and feeling hurt when he looks at me. i'm afraid i've ruined both of our lives and done unrepairable damage. i read these posts and it sounds like the ones who do try to stick it out never can forgive and it sounds like the ones who don't feel jaded yet more peaceful. and it sounds like both carry a huge wound with them that makes them view humanity with less hope, less innocence. it hurts to know i did this to someone i love so much just because i hate myself.
someone please help. there must be a word of hope out there...?
I don't know how much help this will be to you, but coming from a man who has been betrayed by my wife of 18 years, I can tell you that I would have given anything in the world for her to have realized that she - and our relationship - needed help BEFORE she crossed the line into having a year long, sexual relationship, which threw her into a horrible fog of thinking she was in love with someone else. If she'd have stopped at the kissing point before they had sex, felt guilty and shame, and then told me about it...well, things would be a LOT different than they are now.
You had the strength to stop yourself before it got worse. Even though you had a small moment of weakness, you have shown the dignity and strength to understand that you still respect your vows, and you respect your husband enough to stay strong for him, and you respect yourself. Congratulations to you for being strong and remaining faithful. Yes, what has happened is certainly a betrayal of sorts, but I believe there are levels of betrayal, and you've only reached the first or second level....that by NOT losing respect and dignity and have reached out for help, you won't go over the edge and fall into the fog.
Stay strong, please. Stay strong for your husband and your marriage, but also for yourself. Show your husband that you are remorseful. Tell him you realize what you did was wrong. Prove to him that you will never do it again. You can do it, and you can make him believe you with your actions.
Congratulations for having the courage to post here. That took more strength than you could know.
Like Bob said, it took alot of courage to write here. That is a good indicator of intent upon fixing this situation. This is not unrepairable. IF both parties are willing to work on it. My H was my best friend too. It's a struggle every day. You have to prove that H can trust you again. Can he? You state that you cannot trust yourself. You have to work at that underlying problem. Why? Until you work on that, nothing is going to improve.
Your H is hurt really, really, bad and deep right now. M intent here is not to get on your case at all, but you need to have some sort of idea of how he feels now. I told my MC that is was like my whole world was pulled out from under me, I'm freefalling and then I was stabbed through the heart, then it was pulled out and stepped on by my best friend. It is a physical shock to the system. And yes, IMO things are never going to be the same again. I will always have that little element of doubt floating around. I cannot speak for your H, but I see a propensity of that in the threads here. But you both can survive this. If you can get down to the problems that are present, dedicate yourselves to remedy those problems, you can build on your prior foundations and be stronger for it. I warn you though, it is going to take a long, long time. Good luck to you....
I agree that took alot of strength to post here. I'm glad you found us.
Let's see where to start:
<<< i read these posts and it sounds like the ones who do try to stick it out never can forgive and it sounds like the ones who don't feel jaded yet more peaceful>>>
Ok for starters most of our members are under 2 yrs past dday, alot under a yr and still others who found out in the last month or two. If you look you can see "hope" that as bad as they have been hurt they are still trying to salvage their marriages or relationships.
As for us old-timers, some of us are divorced, divorcing or put our marriage back together. Whatever the case may be we are "peacefully realistic" I think. We know we are no longer lost wherever our paths might lead us in. The future is no longer bleek. Its a journey I for one look forward to travelling. How's that for hope?
<<<. i told him because i didn't trust myself. i was able to resist it going any further that time but what about next time. >>>
Now tell us what about the next time. Why do you think you might not be able to resist? if its with the same man then you need to maintain having no contact with him until you decide whether you want to try and save your marriage. The same applies if you are talking about men in general. You will need to look deep and see if you want to stay married.
If you DO decide you want to save it(and from you posting here I assume it means you do) then you are going to have to fight and give your H a reason to want to stay too.
Let me also add that one thing you can do for yourself - and will go a LONG way in getting your husband to trust that you mean business - would be to find a counselor who can help you. You mentioned that you don't trust yourself...an individual counselor could help you figure out why, so you can get back on track.
If you look at most of the posts on this site, you will see that almost all of us are or were in some sort of counseling to help us through this. If you took that initiative on your own without your husband having to ask you to do it, I guarantee that would build his confidence that you want to fix this and not have that inclination anymore. You could tell him that you want to seek couseling, and ask him if he would like to go with you in a typical marriage couseling situation, or seek one out for yourself and go from there.
Counseling isn't the perfect solution, but it definitely helps to have someone who deals with this sort of thing guide you in the right direction and give you strength. Again, I contend that it was a fantastic show of strength that you realized what you were doing before it went too far and you admitted it to your husband.
If you want to check out some other suggestions of BS's on this site as to how to help build your husband's trust again, have a look at my wife's post on the second page of this forum. The title is "How do I stop hurting him?" Granted, our situation is extreme, so some of the responses go very deep...but it's all great advice that applies here. I'm sure there will be much more to come on this post as well.
Keep posting here...ask questions...let your feelings out. There are some great, compassionate people here who can help. They've sure helped me a lot, for which I am eternally grateful.
First off, welcome to our site. I hope we can help you work your way through this. You said you'd kissed another guy and don't know what would happen next time. If you feel comfortable doing so maybe you could give us a little bit more of your story and what happened leading up to that kiss. Most boundaries aren't crossed on a whim, it happens over a period of time.
My affair didn't stop with that first kiss. I wish now I'd never even let it progress to that point. I took it to the next level and it lasted 6 months. All you have to do is read on this site a few minutes to see what kind of damage that caused to my marriage and my husband. So I commend you for realizing you'd made a wrong choice with that kiss and stopping it before it progressed any further.
You say your husband wants a divorce, but you don't mention where you are with this other person. Is he out of the picture? And do you want to stay in your marriage and try to repair the damage?
As Tex mentioned above most of the folks on this site are pretty close to the date of discovery. There are those of us whose marriages have survived an affair. My husband and I are almost 7 years out from when my affair ended and we are happy. And we have a very close relationship today. So there is hope.
We'll try to help you if we can. One other thing. Counseling helped me tremendously when it came to determining why I felt the need to go outside my marriage for attention. I'd recommend that highly. Again, welcome to our site.
GT
This message has been edited by gettingthere on Jan 4, 2006 8:22 PM
Well, I'm not the first to say this but I also realized that if you've read the past bunch of recent posts, you've mostly read posts from newly betrayed people and the replies. We have couples here who have made it and done very well. My sister and her hubby went through this 9 years ago and they are still together and happy as well.
From being here a few years, I have noticed that the biggest thing that gets a couple through the betrayal is not only both people wanting it, but both doing everything they can to help each other, ie counseling and figuring out why you wanted to go outside your marriage, total honestly, talking about it in depth when your spouse wants to and alleviating the "get over it" phrase from your vocabulary FOREVER. Apologizing profusely in the beginning is highly needed by a betrayed spouse. Hearing that your sorry every single day does wonders for a betrayed spouse. It probably isn't very fun for the former betrayer but the more you do these things, the faster he will start feeling better and the less questions will be asked. As Bob said, offering to go to counseling to figure out the cause of what you did will also do wonders for him.
I am very happy to hear that you were smart enough to stop after a kiss, but imagine that right now your H (husband) is likely thinking that he trusted you completely and why should he believe it stopped after just the kiss? While I believe you when you say it stopped there, it's initially going to be very difficult for him to believe it after he had been betrayed by his best friend/wife.
I also wanted to mention that some of the couples here may not have made it (I was one) because the betrayer (my ex) had additional problems other than just their A (affair), he also had a sexual/porn addiction and some people's spouses had other addictions. Partly because of his addiction, my ex continued to lie after D-day even when I thought we were making it work for a good year + afterwards. What I'm getting at is that it wasn't the A that broke us up, it was his insistance that he didn't have an addiction and his continued lying to me. I honestly don't know one person here (maybe there are some?) that didn't try to make it work after their spouses A - some tried for many/several years. Divorce seems to often be the result of continued lying and hiding not just a single A or kiss.
I'm not saying your H will try to reconcile but if you are truly sorry for what you did and try to get help to figure out why it happened, you may have a fighting chance. It does sound to me like you want to save this marriage. I know your H is hurting right now and if he is anything like many of the folks here, he may say some hurtful things that he will regret saying later and he may not have really meant them. I know I did that initially when I caught my ex in his A. It is hard to describe the type of hurt or anger you feel when something like this happens. Try to grin and bear it so it doesn't make things worse. I know that is difficult.
Checking out the post that Bob mentioned above and following the same advice is a great idea. GT is a fantastic source as well.
I do hope you and your H can reconcile and glad you've found this very supportive group. Good luck.
i'm sorry it took me so long to respond. thank you, all of you, for your words.
i am going to try to answer your questions. i am a little confused right now so i am sorry if it is hard to understand what i write.
your words in general... thank you for giving me a little ledge to hold on to.
Bob thank you for referring me to your wife's post. i wrote down the suggestions and i am also going to download the book "after the affair".
i am going to share with you where i am. i am not trying to excuse what i did. what i did was wrong but i am trying to lay down a background for you.. and for myself. i am also trying to understand what i did.
a couple of years before i met my now husband i was raped. hardly a day goes by that i don't wish i had died that night. i feel like my life stopped. sometimes i'm convinced that either i did die that day and i just haven't figured it out yet or my soul died and i'm just an empty carcass and there's no chance of me going to heaven because my soul's already gone.
i don't want to get too much into that because this is about the affair but i thought it would help to make sense of other things i am about to say. also, i've decided to go to rape counseling at a rape crisis center. i'm going to call them tomorrow. i haven't been able to do that until now and actually i still really don't want to but other people are starting to get hurt because of my self-destructiveness. people i never wanted to hurt. plus i am tired of feeling dead.
i have always needed alot of physical affection. i don't know why. and i have low self esteem and i also tend to have boyfriends who eventually lose interest in sleeping with me or don't want to. it seems like the only guys that are interested in me are the ones i'm not with. i don't know why although i've asked many times.
i've cheated on almost everyone i've been with except for, ironically, the one man that i had an open relationship with. again, i don't know why. maybe to get attention. maybe to ruin my relationship. maybe because i hate myself or maybe because i'm just really screwed up in the head.
last time i cheated i learned how painful it can be to cheat on someone you love (a former boyfriend) and i promised i would not hurt someone like that again.
i started thinking about cheating when i started feeling unattractive to my husband. he's not very physically affectionate. when he talks about past girlfriends it sounds like he used to be. so i always thought, what's wrong with me. when we got engaged we had this wonderful period where he was more physically affectionate. he would hold me, or kiss me or we would have sex. but it slowly went away.
a year ago a guy tried to kiss me and i said no. i told him my husband was too important to me. even though i was incredibly lonely at the time.
then at the beginning of this year i noticed him looking at other women and we were not having sex hardly at all. i was really hurt and we talked about it in counseling and he said he was sorry and stopped. but we still don't have sex.
i mentioned to him and then again several times in counseling that i was scared i was going to have an affair. i said it was critical. i don't know... i don't think they understood or believed me.
then i started hanging out with single friends and going out and drinking and i saw everyone having fun and flirting and kissing and i felt soooo sad and so lonely. at that point i no longer wanted attention from my husband. i wanted attention from someone else. anyone else. this coincided with the rape issue swelling back up. on a couple of occasions i got very drunk. on two occassions a guy kissed me. two different guys and i let them for a second, kind of confused and kind of thinking in my slurry drunk mind how nice it felt to feel attractive and wanted and then i pulled away. i wanted to give in but i didn't want to hurt my husband. i felt really bad. so i stopped going out and drinking except for one drink only with friends i could trust.
i asked to take a vacation by myself this christmas to a surf camp in mexico where my husband and i had been this summer. i felt safe there and i wanted to be by myself and try to work through the rape. i was questioning whether i wanted to stay with my husband because i needed affection so bad and i didn't think i would get it from him and i didn't want to end up cheating on him. i was also questioning my career path. basically i was questioning my world as i knew it. i was unhappy and in pain and i was trying to find a way to be happy again, whatever that might be.
i decided not to drink and a female friend went with me. we intended to be alone and to have lots of quiet time to write in journals and think. but we got put in a palapa with three guys from australia (my friend and i were in our own tent). i met one australian the first night we were there and didn't think much of it. i didn't even notice him even though he, as i realised later, made several attempts to get my attention. i believe he knew from the beginning that i was married.
one night while we were all out (my friend and i not drinking) he asked if he could give me a professional massage the next day. i was glad to accept a massage. i thought it would be healing and i was planning on getting one anyway. now i would be able to have one and save my money. but he looked at me in a way that kind of made me notice him more that night and i started to become attracted to him. not because of him but because i think i could sense he was attracted to me.
i wasn't drinking but i was grasping for anything to make the pain i was starting to feel go away and to help me deal with the low self-esteem i was feeling. he gave me a massage, back only. it was professional and we were not alone. everyone else was there. afterwards he left the room so i could lie there and recover from the massage. when everyone left i cried. he had released some of the pain from the rape. i had felt that the pain was in a bottle that would explode if i opened it. i thought i would explode. i cried, and then i cried in the shower and then i drank alot of water and eventually i walked outside to join everyone with a smile on my face, feeling lighter and grateful.
i was grateful. but i was also afraid of what i was starting to feel, attraction and gratitude. i knew this was a dangerous combination for me. i stayed physically distant from him that day and told him across the pool "thank you".
time gets a little blurry at this point but that night or the next he brought some lotion to me and asked if i could put it on his back. i said yes and i want to repay your favor. he had told me his back was hurting and i wanted to repay him and massage his back and shoulders. i've done the same for my friends very innocently but i was a little afraid because i was feeling attracted towards him. i enjoyed the massage more than i should have. i caressed him nicer than i should have and i held his hand longer than i should have. i would say that is when i crossed the line. then it was like a drug. i started obsessing about my attraction. i wanted to be closer. i wanted to feel good.
that night we had a big dinner, all of the people in the camp. and i had a panic attack being around so many people and being so raw from dealing with the rape so i told my friend i had to go spend some time by myself in the palapa. i went back, layed in the hammock, listened to the music that was playing when i was raped and cried. my friend and the guy came in to check on me. my friend was holding my hand and the guy was rocking the hammock gently. they were both soothing but i didn't want to be left alone with the guy because of what i felt. i realize now that at that point i should have said something to my friend.
later that night one of the guys got hurt. he got smashed on the head while we were playing pinata. i was concerned he had a concussion and needed to go to the hospital to get stitches but no one would listen so i just stopped talking. the hurt guy went to bed and so did my friend and i. while we were in our tent i explained that i was worried about the hurt guy and when we called his name he didn't answer. she recently had a friend die from a concussion. so we went to check on him. he woke up but we were still worried so we snuggled up next to him (platonically) and slept everyone in their own sleeping bag. we stayed there until we were convinced he was going to be okay. then the third guy came in and said i wish someone would snuggle with me. my friend and i laughed and once he fell asleep we did go into his tent and snuggle near him. both guys were very respectful and didn't try anything. they knew we were just being innocent and silly.
later i noticed that the guy i had been attracted to was still not back and i was starting to worry. i waited several hours and he still didn't come back. i went to look for him. he was drinking and smoking pot with another friend. they talked for a couple of minutes and then we walked back to the palapa together. one tent was filled with the hurt guy. one tent was filled with the third guy and my friend (this is where the guy i was attracted to should have slept but there was no room). i should have woken my friend up and her and i should have gone back to our tent. but i didn't. the guy and i went in a tent together and he kissed me and i kissed him back and i felt euphoric and loved and didn't think about robert because i knew if i did i would be sad and i just wanted to be happy. but when he tried more i stopped him and i said no, it would be disrespectful. i said could he please stop and just go to sleep. i told him i wished he weren't drunk and i wish he weren't stoned so he would understand (the pain i had inside).
i pretended. i pretended that what i was doing was not wrong. i came up with all sorts of excuses in my head as to why it was okay. i was being very selfish and that is probably the hardest thing of all to forgive myself for... the fact that i was happy and i wanted to be happy... even at the expense of betraying my best friend who didn't deserve what i was doing to him and worse yet, didn't even know he was being betrayed, was probably thinking good thoughts about me not knowing what a horrible thing i was doing.
this is where i have the most trouble. i needed it. i wished it had come from my husband but i didn't think it would and now i KNOW it never will, not innocently, not without him thinking of my betrayal. i made it impossible for me to get the one thing i was trying so hard to get... physical affection from my husband.
i tried not to tell him. i discovered good things about myself in mexico and i had hope for the first time in a long time that my life was going to be okay. i was going to go towards a career i'm excited about and spend more time in mexico teaching yoga and enjoying a slower life. i was starting to heal from the rape. i was thinking maybe now that my career is closer my husband and i could think about having a child. i was picturing how beautiful our child would be and how much we would love her or him. and then i realised that i was getting closer and closer to having sex with another man. i knew i had to tell my husband what happened. maybe i even had to leave him in order to keep from hurting him.
i mean, a year ago i wouldn't kiss a guy. now i kissed a guy willingly, no alcohol, no remorse (at the time). i still tell myself it wasn't cheating because we didn't have sex, but i know i'm just trying to make myself feel better. i know what i did was wrong and hurtful and it doesn't matter how i see it but how my husband sees it.
i want to get better. i want to trust myself and not do anything like that again. i want to grow old with my husband.
i'm afraid... that he will never see me as precious again, only as ugly. i'm afraid that now that he really won't want to touch me that i won't have the strength to be without touch, especially since my esteem is now lower than ever. i'm afraid that i will punish myself to try to somehow make it up to him and that this will make the rape situation even worse. i'm afraid he won't love me anymore. i'm afraid i will just give up the will to live and let my life collapse around me. i would never commit suicide but i've already been putting myself in dangerous situations just hoping that something will happen. if someone tried to kill me right now i would calmly sit back and let it happen, i would feel it were a blessing.
i am trying NOT to fall into all of these things. so i am planning on the following... continuing couple's counseling with my husband, continuing to listen to him and trying to be honest and compassionate, continuing individual counseling and starting rape counseling, giving up drinking and anything that i use as a "drug" and going to alcoholic's anonymous, talking to my pastor, changing the friends that i hang around with, erasing any remnants of this guy from my and my husband's world so that he can know i choose him first, reading the book about "after the affair" so that i can be there for my husband during this process, if he will have me.
i do want to stay in this marriage. i hope i have the strength because he is worth it and i have to keep reminding myself of that everytime i feel like i don't have the strength. the other guy is inconsequential. it is the attention he gave me that i was wrapped in. i wish it had come from my husband but it didn't and i would have taken it from anyone. the guy didn't matter. i'm sorry if that hurts to hear. he really didn't. the only guy that matters to me, or ever has, is my husband. everyone else is replaceable. HE IS THE ONLY ONE THAT IS NOT REPLACEABLE. and now he will never believe that because i hurt him.
that hurts so much to realise, that i made him feel less important to me than he is. and then i think what the F, if he is so important to me then how could i do it? how could i have kissed the guy twice one two seperate days? i can't answer that. i need to go to counseling. because it is the fact that i can't answer that that makes me not trust myself. if i don't know why or how i could do it how will i ever stop myself from doing it again?
I think that if you could look in every betrayer's background you will see that there was a traumatic event such as rape or abuse of some sort childhood trauma. Things that people never got help with that over time made a void in that person, a void that they thought needed filled outside of their commited relationship. It's common, too damn common.
As I was reading your post I kept thinking....okay, that was me, that was me. I relate to so much of what you say. I was raped by a male babysitter when I was a pre-teen. That rape was never dealt with and it festered inside of me until I was way into my adulthood. It ate away at my soul and it seemed I was constantly searching for something to make that go away.
When I read your post it seems that you are crossing boundaries all over the place in an attempt to help you heal yourself. Most likely you are like I was, you don't feel you are worthy of love, yet you spend your life searching for someone who will give it to you. The problem is, in our unhealthy emotional state we look in all the wrong places and hook up with some wrong people.
In my case (which may be your's as well) the person who could/would truly love me was right there all along. Somewhere deep inside me I knew my husband was that man, yet I was still willing to risk that love because I craved so much attention.
You wrote>>>i can't answer that. i need to go to counseling. because it is the fact that i can't answer that that makes me not trust myself. if i don't know why or how i could do it how will i ever stop myself from doing it again>>
I believe you are right about that. If you don't know why you are crossing the boundaries then history says you'll keep crossing them. Only at some point you might not be able to stop at the kiss. I'm glad to hear you are considering counseling. I'm not sure where I'd be today (or my marriage) had it not been for the help of a very good counselor. She helped me work through my past, put it where it belongs, and work on healing myself.
I had some high walls surrounding my emotions. It sounds like you do as well. And you're scared to let them down. I understand that. When I finally faced the things I needed to face and let those walls down it was like a flood pouring over me. It hurt like hell just as I knew it would. But it was also cleansing. And that's when the real healing began.
Hurting, I just want you to know that you're not alone. I've been where you are and know how you feel. It sounds like you are taking some steps to heal yourself. Stick to that plan. As cliche as this may sound, the love you are really looking for has to come from within you. You have to learn to love yourself first. I remember folks telling me that and I had no clue what it meant. I had never loved myself. And I sure didn't after I had an affair. But it's possible to dig deep and find the answers you need. And it's possible to find healing once you do.
A couple more books that helped me were, "Facing Love Addiction" by Pia Mellody. And "The Dance of the Wounded Souls" by Robert Burney. The first helped me see that I was viewing love the wrong way.
I'm glad you came back to talk to us. And thanks for sharing more of your story with us.
GT
This message has been edited by gettingthere on Jan 5, 2006 8:49 AM
i realise, as some of you guys may have also, that there is alot of flawed thinking in what i wrote above. i'm working on it. i hope i can come back to my post someday soon and see a huge difference in how i think. that is my hope for myself.
>>there is alot of flawed thinking in what i wrote above<<
I was thinking that there was quite alot of unflawed thinking in what you wrote above. It seemed to me that you are beginning to answer some of your own questions about how you can trust yourself not to put your hands back on the stove that has burned them several times now. >>giving up drinking and anything that i use as a "drug" and going to alcoholic's anonymous<< could hold the key that unlocks the door.
> if you could look in every betrayer's background you will see that there
> was a traumatic event such as rape or abuse of some sort childhood trauma.
My wife was abused as a child, both physically and sexually. "Do nothing, tell no one, pretend it never happened" became a part of who she is today. So six years ago, when she foolishly agreed to discuss computer work with another man in his motel room, that same instinct kicked in. He pursued sex, she froze. She didn't say no, she didn't resist, she didn't say or do anything. She wouldn't even cry in front of him, fearing it would make her look weak. She tried to leave as soon as possible, but was afraid to walk past him to get to the door. Then she went to her car and cried before coming home to me.
The point being, things could have been a lot different if she hadn't been "trained" as a kid how to behave. Maybe she would have just said NO. Maybe she would have just left. But, she froze and let it happen. It's the only thing she knew how to do...
To make matters worse, she still has a hard time calling it rape. A few months after that night, she told me she had sex with another man. It was only after weeks and months of trying to get details that I realized she had been raped. Unfortunately, because it was introduced to me as an affair and she doesn't call it rape herself, I still view it as an affair, even though all the facts indicate otherwise.
If she had come home that night, or even months later, and confessed "I was raped", we would have processed this so differently. But from childhood conditioning, that just wasn't in her makeup.
Oddly enough, it is somehow easier for her to accept that she was unfaithful than admitting she was raped. Even though she strongly feels NO attraction to him, feels intense anger towards him, and insists she never wanted it to happen.
