Life After Betrayal

I've been married 24 years.  5 months ago I found out my husband was having an affair for 3 1/2 years.  he is a very loving, wonderful husband.  she tried to call him several times after i found out and he told her we were working on our marriage.  i went thru phone records and saw the phonecalls and asked him if there was any contact and he swore on me that there wasn't any.  i showed him the evidence and felt crushed once again because he was continuing to lie to me.  he said he was deathly afraid of losing me and that i'd think the contact was because of an initiated get-together with her but it wasn't.  he continued to maintain that there was never any sex.  for 5 months, he looked me in the eye and swore that it was an emotional affair and nothing physical.  i knew of a 4-day trip they took together and he swore that they stayed in separate rooms.  i was starting to really believe him (idiot me) and then i figured out how to trap him.  i told him i wanted him to take a polygraph test and if i found out he was lying again that i didn't know what i'd do.  the next day, he admitted that it was a physical affair and i felt so broken i could hardly breathe.  even though i suspected the physical part all along, i never let my mind completely go there.  i cried for 5 straight days. 

he came into my bed and we started making love and it was so beautiful and loving and wonderful, i have never had sex with anyone like that before.  he said he would rather die than lose me. told me how much he loved me and he was afraid to tell me the truth because he thought i'd leave him for sure.  we have not stopped having sex since that day and we are completely crazy sexually now.  we are having sex 5 times a day and it is the wildest sex ever. 

my problem?  4 days after i found out about his affair, i found an old boyfriend on facebook and we met.  i felt such a sence of retaliation and vengeance and i wanted someone to want and desire me like my husband desired someone else.  we met again less than a week later and it was wonderful.  we kissed a lot both times.  then i started falling for him and the affair lasted 4 months.  i fell for him because he was an old boyfriend and the feelings resurfaced but he is not a very nice man and not liked by anyone.  he hurt me terribly in the end.  we had sex once.  it was very sexual other times but it was not intercourse.  now i am feeling a sense of guilt over not telling my husband.  i don't feel guilty about the affair.  i just feel guilty that i am not telling him since now he is feeling a sense of 'purging' and is telling me anything and everything about the affair that i ask him.  even all the intimate details.  i want to tell him and i don't know if i should.  things are terrific between us now but we need to go for couples therapy so i can move past the images of him with another woman going at it as passionately as we have been over the last week.  i feel like he needs to know the depths of hurt that i went through but don't know if this will hurt my marriage or if the honesty will be good.  what to do?  should i tell him?

What are your real motivations behind such a telling?  You say you had an affair out of some sense of revenge, I mean.  Is that why you want to speak the truth?  Because that sort of motivation makes a huge difference.  It doesn't allow for respect for the person you've hurt.  It's all about satisfying some mean, ugly part of yourself, rather.  If you're looking to hurt your husband back, you've already accomplished it, the hurting is done and can't be undone.

You have to consider how much meaner a revenge affair really is.  You know what it is to hurt like that, yet you've chosen to cause it.  He at least could claim ignorance of the pain, that he couldn't imagine how badly he'd hurt you until it was too late.  You can't make a similar claim.  You knew going into your affair how cruel it really was, how terrible the pain would really be, yet you allowed it anyway.  There's a particular offense attached to that sort of choice that wasn't neccessarily included in your husband's affair.

Consider your motivations, Crushed.  Revenge is mean, nasty, in ways his own original offense wasn't.  He didn't cheat on you to punish you, to bring you to your knees.  If you're going to tell him, understand the particular offense attached to your own cheating, I mean.  You're not better for having cheated only after he did; that's actually uglier, imo.  So if you approach the telling like that, with a smug sense of self-satisfaction or justification, then you're not helping anything.  You're only making matters worse.

That doesn't mean, either, I think you should keep such an ugly secret.  Cheating and betrayal isn't mitigated by the lies that hide it out of sight.  Lies actually compound the offense, make it all the uglier, even.  Lying just prevents you from reaching a mutual respect and understanding enough you can move forward together.  It's just I hope that when you do make the huge step towards real honesty with your husband, that you do so with an appreciation your cheating is ugly and obscene all on its own, irregardless of anything he did, that it's not all justified, and that you're really, truly and deeply sorry for having hurt him like that.

"I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." -- John Wayne, "The Shootist", 1976

hey, sorry to hear you are in a very bad place!

i would also suggest not to tell your husband as it will really not amount to much. i suspect he would be less surprised you had something like that after his affair. i believe he would hurt but nowhere near as you did .. even if your telling him serves your revenge feelings - they will not be enough for you to feel better (which i believe is why you did it).

its best to concentrate to make YOU feel better. If that is to have an affair - please - go ahead - why not (if it makes YOU feel better) - he opened that avenue in your relationship - i don't see a reason for you not to take it now :)? but by telling it to him you don't accomplish much - appart from yet another empty argument. just accept that your marriage has changed forever. nothing you will do will bring back the man you loved (even having the affair).

i think at this point its best for you to do what you want without telling him ( I am sorry but at this point i don't think he deserves honesty). but to do it just out of spite it is childish ;). maybe one day (after another 24 years ;)) you will feel he deserves honesty - but then it will be another story :). just live to make YOU happy.

it's changed life, but you know - every end is a new beginning ;) (by this i don't necessarily mean end to you marriage as such - just the end of the marriage you used to know). and change is not bad - you might discover things you never knew you liked. Just dont drift to the comfortable place you used to be - that one is destroyed... or never existed. but you might be surprised that you like that new world out there ;).

warm wishes
M

In all honesty he has a right to know. Just as you had a right to know about his affair he has a right to know about yours.

I would discount the advice about having another affair. If you want to do that then just get a D and move on with your life.

There is no justification for what either of you did. There are health issue that also need to be taken into consideration. Have you both been tested for STD's?

If you truly want to rebuild your marriage then he needs to have all of the information that you have. If he finds out another way, old boyfriend calls, he runs into him etc, and then finds out it will be even worse for your H.

I thought about getting even but it was not worth my time. I have moved on with my life.

Jack...