I have messed up my life and need advice

[Usedup]

I have led a perfect life you could say. I married my high school sweat heart. We had two beautiful children. We have only "been with" each other and have been so in love, like in a movie. We dated for 10 years before we got married 5 years out of high school. We both had good jobs and waited three years to have children. We did it all right. We have never even dated anyone else. After my second child and I do stay home, things got sour. He started working more overtime and I had the kids full time, school, shopping, balancing the house, etc. I was totally overwhelmed for three years and thought my life was normal. He also started pushing me away in bed (that is so personal, but what the heck). Sometimes we would be intimate but nothing I did or do ever is right or feels good to him. He says he loves me and that I make him feel good. I have to just let him take the lead in that department. I cannot express much there. One day, I remembered an old friend (male) that I had worked with years ago and gone to school with. I was not attracted to him at all. I thought I would contact him as I had done girl friends from my past, totally innocent, although it sounds from my post that I had been led to contact another man. Not so. I just wonder about my friends sometimes and I wrote to him. I even told my husband I did it. He did not mind. This friend starting writing me and telling me about his wife and how he needed marriage advice and I would talk to him. I finally felt needed and liked. He gradually fished information about my marriage and I shared some but not all. We both had kids and talked about how draining that was. This went on for months close to a year. I got used to his flirting but was really busy here and at work (I work at home) and really did not give it a second thought. He was just my friend. One day, he wanted to meet me to talk. He dared me to meet him and I did. Things went from there and I really thought I was in love with him after it was all said and done. I was so messed up. I cried every day. I had not slept with him but the feelings were there. He said he had never done this sort of thing but he said it did not feel wrong with me. He said he was falling in love with me. The day after I consented to sleep with him, which was so aweful and so like I was not even there during the process, he called me and told me he had been caught with another woman by his wife and got kicked out. He said he had to get to his preacher before she did and hung up. I was mortified and I never heard from him again. I immediately told my husband after I collapsed in the floor a month later not able to hold it in any longer. I felt like free sex and I still have not gotten any closure. I feel like I need t call and ask for money. I feel so cheap and cheated, but I did it to myself. My husband left but came back an hour later and said that he had fallen down on his job at home and had left me emotionally handicaped. He stayed with me and talked to me but now he has cut me off from mentioning this again and I am dying inside. I feel so worthless and I want to call this person who used to be my friend and ask him why, but he has ignored all my emails and has cut me off. He is back with his wife and she defends him to the death and says he told her that I basically jumped him in the car. I am so messed up now. I have never done anything like this and feel so alone. Please give me some advice. I have prayed and prayed and that does work to a point but I feel so used and gross. Has this happened to someone else? What happened to me? I don't do things like that? I can barely remember the incident at all. It was so traumatizing.

[annie24]

Hey hon - I'm sorry to hear this. Well, you and your hubby have been together for a while. It seems to happen to a lot of married couples who have been together for a while - someone new catches their interest. But, you have to remember why you married your husband in the first place.

 

Perhaps you two can get some marital counseling. Also, do you two have a "date night" where it's just the two of you, no kids - just dinner and music and conversation? Perhaps it's something that you need to keep the romance alive. As for the intimacy, perhaps it's time you tried doing some new things together in bed.

 

Talk to your husband. Try to work things out. It sounds like he still really loves you. It would be a shame to have everything fall apart.

[Cecelius]

1) Sounds like you're still into the other guy. Your marriage will get no where if this continues.

 

2) You need to tell your husband you cheated on him. People have a right to know who they are sleeping with/paying for.

 

3) Tell your husband you'd like to go to counseling if he is interested. It sounds as if nothing basically happened that would explain the cheating other than the sex. This board eats alive men who cheat b/c their sexual needs are neglected at home.

 

Lastly, while annie's comments are valuable to maintaining a good relationship, please bear in mind that to most men (I'm not most women so I dunno what they think), physical cheating (especially under sleazy circumstances) is the worst thing a wife/g/f can do. Please do not think there is a band-aid for this: he's going to be facing down his worst fear, and the worst thing that anyone can possibly do to him.

[loner]

well, i think i know how you feel, and i just pray that you can make out of it without more damage. As you said it sounds like a movie, u have everything, things don't seem perfect anymore, drift apart and bam u give into ur temptations and an affair blossoms. Well, given what you described I guess it was only natural to fall in the trap(if i may call it that) i mean we all need someone and when we don't seem to get it at home, at some subconscious level we are on a lookout for someone who is willing to go that extra mile for us. The only problem in your case besides the fact that you probably did not communicate ur need for ur husband to be there for u more than what he was (i am guessing here and i apologise if i have it wrong), was that you fell for someone who took advantage of your emotional vulnerability. Judging by what you wrote this was quiet a smooth talker and knew what he was doing and if i may he 'tricked you'into all this. the important thing for you to remember is that it is alright, i mean we are not psychics, you had no way of knowing his intensions and you genuinely thought there was something between the two of you. So what you did was right and there is nothing to be asahmed of, well almost(except that you kinda deceived your husband) but only to realise that there was nothing concrete between you and this new guy (from when you say "like I was not even there during the process" ) so what i am saying is that its just a mistake that you made like all of us and what you can do now is to learn from it and never to repeat it. Looks like your husband still loves you and is willing to let it go and doesn't even wanna talk abt it. Now since i am a guy i think i know why he wouldn't wanna talk about it, i mean i wouldn't either if i was him but the good part is that he is willing to stand beside you in this moment of crisis which is not what many of us would do, so keep that in mind and move on think of your kids there is nothing more painful in this world then to grow up without both your parents being there, don't make ur kids go through that.

As for your closure, well leave it upto the nature for take its path. I am not very religious but do believe in a couple of things:

1 - whatever happens, happens for a reason.

2 - Karma - what goes around, comes around.

Forget about that and he will get what he deserves. You don't have to confront him, let it be, some things are better left alone.

 

P.S. - get back to having some alone/romantic time with ur hubby. If he has time go and join a dance class or something, anything that could bring u guys closer and hopefully back to the way things were back when u first started going around.Remember the time you guys couldn't keep ur hands off each other and so on.....

 

Hope this helps and I am sorry if i was rude or offensive.

[Usedup]

I want you to quit your job to take care of your children for six years. I want you to get maybe 4 hours of sleep per night for those six years, while the other time you should be asleep, you are hanging over a toilet with someone throwing up, cleaning up diapers, and calming someone's fears of monsters. I want you to spend all your time cleaning a house, paying bills, cooking three meals a day, and holding down a part time at home job to boot. I want you to raise your children with values and not just tend to them all day. Make sure you remember medications, school days, school work, and who needs what as far as food and clothing. I want you to balance a checkbook that never adds up to be enough but you need groceries for the kids and medicine..again...for all the colds and allergies your little ones get. I want you to be so tired and emotionally drained that the last time you watched your favorite TV show was two years ago. I want you to try to be sexy for your mate during all of this keeping up with exercising and let's not forget "taking care of yourself". i want you to keep a smile on when you feel overwhelmed and you are dying inside. I want you to feel the pain of being pushed away by the love of your life when you so need to feel him/her love you. I want you to feel rejection and feel unkept due to the lack of time you have to spend on yourself. After six or more years of this, I want you to meet someone who thinks you are special. They say you are lovely and they wish you were theirs. They want what you have to offer and think you are grand. They don't see the mother, the cook, the bill payer, the carpool queen. They see you like you so need to be seen. I want you to say "no..I don't need that..I have all I need" THEN YOU CAN GET ON HERE AND TELL ME AND OTHERS LIKE ME WE NEED TO FEEL THIS PAIN WE CAUSED SOMEONE ELSE. WE DO FEEL IT AND A WHOLE LOT MORE. This is life and yes we make mistakes, and we just all pray that when people like you make them and you will, that when you reach out for some comfort that they are nicer to you than you have been to us.

[Cecelius]

I'm not sure who this was addressed to, but its clear you have some serious dissatisfaction with the life you lead. Perhaps you could have addressed these stresses with your husband (perhaps he has them too; my dim recolection is that sometimes having a job is not the perfect life either) and explained that you needed help at home or that it would be better to work outside the home.

 

In the end, though, the remedy for being unhappy if discussion doesn't work is to leave someone.

 

Otherwise, I think what one is saying is that one's spouse somehow deserved to be cheated on.

[loner]

Hey Usedup - I am not sure what that is meant to be. Are you lashing out on us for some reason or what....

We know you have problems and are having a hard time at home and with ur life in general but hey thats life.... we all go through our shares of problems and what you are going through in terms of ur life at home is what happens with a lot of women out there so its not like u r one of kind or anything.

We were just helping out.....no need to start acting up like that...

Relax.........

[Usedup]

Loner, that was not at you hon, you have it going on. Keep up the good advice and the compassion.

[desparatehousewife]

Thank you for describing the day to day life of many women. I'll add that for many of us the situation is compounded by the lack of adult interaction on a daily basis. Before kids, a working couple are more equal in their lives. The daily comments from the cowokers of "great job!" or "nice outfit", etc help keep our self esteem in check. Then one day your life changes. After a while of being mother and housewife, it's easy to start feeling resentment towards the spouse who's day to day life hasn't been altered, who has lunch in a restaurant with adults daily, who is still getting the "atta boys". And in turn is probably feeling resentment towards you because you spend so much time taking care of the house and kids that you have nothing left for him. Resentment is the root of all affairs.

 

I have read the replies from some men on this forum to you and other folks. When women cheat the term "SLEAZY" is used alot. One fellow was looking for advice after he found out his wife had cheated. When he admitted he was intimate with her soon after, the writer responded with "GROSS". The fellow soon after asked for only women to respond!

 

So, thanks for sharing the circumstances of millions.

 

And yes, we all know that proper communication with our spouse could have prevented the affair (for either party.) Hindsight is 20/20.

[lovelynns]

Usedup:

 

See. A. Counselor. NOW.

 

As was previously posted, you've got some resentment happening. It happens to all of us at some point, but you see that rant you went on up there? That's years and years of anger and frusteration building up and turning into resentment.

 

You need to be taught how to communicate with your husband. Right now, focus on you. Yes, this is about both you and your husband, and you have to be sensitive to that, but you fixing yourself with the help of a professional will do nothing but help your relationship.

 

After some therapy, you two can go together. I'm sure there are hundreds of examples and things that were said and dirty looks and slammed doors that you could never completely tell us about even if you tried, that's why you gotta go see the doctor.

 

Talking to us is a step in the right direction. Keep going that way!