Another failed marriage..please help!

[whybmarried]

Hi,

 

Let me first say thank you to everyone who replies. It's nice to know there are people out there willing to lending an ear.

 

A little background, this is my 2nd marriage. My first one wasn't technically a marriage, it was more of I was young, had a baby, right thing to do, type of marriage. He ended up being physically and emotionally abusive, so I left..not even 6 months after we got married.

 

This marriage is a little different. My husband and I met through work, dated 3 years before getting married. It's now been 2 years into the marriage and I'm not so sure I want to be married any more. It first started about a year after we got married, I started having feelings for this other guy. I told my husband about it, he got all upset (as he should) and I stopped talking to this guy. We eventually got past that...

 

Well, now a former fling from 6 years ago has walked back into my life. Everything was fine at first, just talking, laughing, but then things got a little out of hand, and well, we just did things that shouldn't have been done. I feel completely awful that I cheated on my husband and feel I can't get past the guilt. I started pushing husband away and eventually he started catching on that something was wrong. To make a long story short, we had a talk the other day, we're in a trial separation for the next couple weeks. My probably is I really don't feel like I had time to be me..to be single, do what I want to do, when I want to do it. I've been talking to a counselor who said that if I was happily married I wouldn't let these feelings for other guys manifest like they have, that I would just shut them out. I guess it seems like I'm not happily married, although my husband is the best husband any woman could wish for..he's caring, loving, he'll do anything for me, get me anything I want, just there all the time. The problem is I feel like I've become a different person..I'm a lot more outgoing than he is, I like to go out, he likes to stay home. I'm not sure what to do..I don't want to feel like a failure, but I don't think I can carry this guilt of what I've done, on my shoulders for the rest of my life. Any advise is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

[Locke2121]

Ok, first off, you counselor is full of crap. Even the most happily married people think about cheating. Its when the time comes to act on those feelings that the real problems start.

 

I can understand your problem. You don't seem to have been given the chance to explore and see what the world has to offer. You also seem like a fun-loving girl, but with a stay-at-home husband. That has to change. And he is the one that needs to change. He isn't showing you the attention that he should when it comes to entertainment.

 

Getting you stuff is all well and good, but what does he do for BOTH of you to have fun? Watch C-SPAN? He needs to broaden his horizons a bit and become a bit more fun-loving.

 

That being said, I can't condone your cheating on him. You've made a terrible mistake. He seems to want to work on the marriage, which is great. But don't expect alot of trust for a long time.

[melrich]

It's a tough situation obviously. The bottom line is you can't just ignore your feelings and hope they wil go away. It is good you are seeing a counsellor. It is unfortunate that you had a fling.

 

My advice would be to concentrate on the issue of your marriage before doing anything about it, if that make sense. Make sure that you have in your head resolved your feelings before making any decisions or doing anything further that may jeopardise your current relationship.

 

Is you husband going to counselling with you? Does he know about the situation with the other man?

[whybmarried]

Well, he wants to work on it b/c I never told him about the cheating part..which is the reason why I don't think I can be married any more..b/c I could NEVER tell him about what happened b/c it would KILL him. He would divorce me in an instance and I feel it would ruin his future relationships. He knows there's another guy I'm interested in, but that's it. I'm only 26 years old and I feel that I never had a chance to find out who I was, who I wanted to be, to live on my own. Since I was 19, I've been in relationships. Now that I'm older, a little (stress on little) wiser, and making enough money to finally support myself and daughter, I want to experience life on my own. Am I being selfish? To hurt this wonderful guy?

I guess the other problem (and I know people will find this completely crazy) but we NEVER fight..in the 5 years we've been together, we've maybe gotten into an argument once. ..he's just so laid back, he doesn't care, won't stand up for himself (even at work) and sometimes it's feels good just to argue with someone, get all those emotions out..for me (depending on the issue) gets me in the mood to argue..just more passionate. Know what I mean? We both agreed to separate for a couple weeks, see how it goes. Make or break the relationship.

[melrich]

and making enough money to finally support myself and daughter,

 

I find this interesting. Did you marry him for security? Do you think you coonfused security for love?

[BeStrongBeHappy]

He sounds like a wonderful person, and many people would love to be married to someone like that, but if you are taking him for granted and cheating on him, you really do need to either commit to the marriage, or decide that you don't want to be married, and not just cheat because you haven't made up your mind...

 

but one thing to be cautious about is that you have had a great guy for years, and you may discover that lots of men out there won't treat you as well, and you may regret leaving him, but not until you've been single a while and discover being single is not all it's cracked up to be either... you could just have a case of 'the grass is always greener,' so please be cautious before you end your marriage.

 

you really might want to consider marriage counseling before making that final decision. i don't think a 2 week separation will be long enough to tell you much, if you don't do some hard work on the marriage (or work on understanding you really need to end it)...

[whybmarried]

He knows I have feelings for another guy, but not the whole story. We are actually supposed to go for our first time together this coming Monday. I think we will still go to see if that helps.

 

Does anyone believe things happen for a reason? Or that certain people come in and go out of our lives for a reason? We've been trying to have a baby for over a year (my daughter is from previous) and we succeeded back in July, only it ended in a miscarriage. We continued to try, but no luck. Our sex life went down the tubes (and he agrees) b/c it seemed to be routine. We stopped trying back in Jan. and now I realize I'm not ready for another baby. We're 5 years apart (he's older) and he really wants kids. I just think this guy coming back into my life and me starting to have feelings for him...it's almost my way of telling myself I'm not ready for this marriage/baby/family thing just yet. Am I making sense? I hope so!

[whybmarried]

Melrich- to answer your question, yeah, it seems like I almost did. When I met him, I was living paycheck to paycheck, with 2 other rooms mates, owed money to everyone and their brother, didn't even have enough money to get my tags for my car!! He came, gave me money, fixed all my money issues, and things went from there. So yeah, now that you mention it, that probably started the relationship.

Bestrongbehappy- I completely agree with you when you say "many people would love to be married to someone like that"

 

I did pose the question to him the other night that if we weren't married, would we still be together. He immediately said "NO" and that was because of the first guy I had feelings for..he would have left me. So what's the point of being with someone who you wouldn't be with if there wasn't a piece of paper binding you?

[melrich]

Well it doesn't sound like there was a very good foundation for this marriage to begin with. You don't seem like you want it to work and to be honest, given he wants a family and is that bit older than you, ultimately you have to be fair to him.

 

He seems to have treated you with nothing but kindness and doesn't really deserve to be mucked around like this. It's unfortunate for him I guess that he has found himself in this situation and he will have to go through some pain to extricate himself from it but I am sure he will be able to pick himself up and hopefully find happiness with someone.

[Crazyaboutdogs]

A little background, this is my 2nd marriage. My first one wasn't technically a marriage, it was more of I was young, had a baby, right thing to do, type of marriage. He ended up being physically and emotionally abusive, so I left..not even 6 months after we got married.

 

It first started about a year after we got married, I started having feelings for this other guy. I told my husband about it, he got all upset (as he should) and I stopped talking to this guy. We eventually got past that...

 

Well, now a former fling from 6 years ago has walked back into my life. Everything was fine at first, just talking, laughing, but then things got a little out of hand, and well, we just did things that shouldn't have been done. I feel completely awful that I cheated on my husband and feel I can't get past the guilt. I started pushing husband away and eventually he started catching on that something was wrong.

 

 

My probably is I really don't feel like I had time to be me..to be single, do what I want to do, when I want to do it. I've been talking to a counselor who said that if I was happily married I wouldn't let these feelings for other guys manifest

 

The counsellor missed the boat on this one. It is not the marriage that is the problem, it is your own internal demons. You are not happy within yourself and you are simply looking for happiness from other men. Why do you want to be single...it sounds to me that you want to be single so that you can play the field and date and it really has nothing to do with finding out who you are as an individual. No matter which man you are with, you will always be looking for another thrill (with another man) because you are not happy within yourself. There are a lot of duds out there...you should be happy that your husband dotes on you and treats you with respect. You are not treating him with respect by continually having a wandering eye and even going so far as cheating on him. Your actions are hurting him. If you stay in the marriage and don't tell him you cheated, it will come out eventually and it will likely shatter your marriage. I would suggest you start figuring out what you want in life, your goals and ambitions....and those goals and ambitions should be a lot more meaningful than wanting to party all the time, and have multiple men flocking at your feet. You should have goals and dreams that will do you proud....