Not feel guilty

[boredjulie]

After you have cheated on your spouse. After years of rejection and feeling alone you find yourelf in someone elses arms who you care about.

 

[NippleMuncher]

Just stop feeling guilty. Better yet, end the abusive relationship with your husband and find someone whom deserves you and whom you yourself deserve.

In lieu of that, use care in your extra curricular activities and just stop feeling guilt over it.

 

[Primalex]

After you have cheated on your spouse.

You don't.

 

[SweetErika]

Instead of trying to figure out how you can not feel guilty, I'd suggest embracing the guilt and using it to propel some serious personal growth that will lead you to happiness and not cheating ever again. Then you can tell yourself, 'I did the wrong thing, but I've learned from that and changed myself and my situation for the better.'

Why did you choose cheating over focusing on improving your situation, whether by working on your relationship, being honest with your husband and/or ending the marriage?

 

[Nightierub]

A lot of times cheating is easier than fixing the relationship, and well you look thru rose tinted glasses in an affair. Even if you split up and keep a relationship with a new partner, the same issues will rear up in that one eventually.

 

[nakdsub]

If you're worried about the same issues popping up...

With a new spouse then it sounds like the issues maybe yours. Hearing your reasoning behind why you cheat, I would say you definitely have issues, morality for one. You cheat because it's easier than working on a relationship? Do you also steal because it's easier than working for a living?

I know nothing of you or your husband but it sounds to me that neither of you are very interested in making your relationship work so why not just split and go your separate ways.

 

[seanex]

.......

 

[njlauren]

I think you really have two options and only you can decide what to do, if assuaging guilt is what you want:

1)You can try and patch up your marriage and try and get from it what you need, work towards the future. The fact that you feel guilt may indicate you still have feelings for your husband and feel bad about going outside (it may not, more on that in a bit). If so, then the answer is in rebuilding, it is in opening up to him about why you are unhappy, it is about not fixing the old relationship but building a new one.

I also want to point something out (and please understand, I am not saying this covers you, just needed to point this out), that when people cheat they often create justifications to try and do what you say you want to do, not feel guilty. It isn't conscious, but it becomes self justification, it was because he/she was a nag, didn't care about me, etc, things that would be trivial annoyances became major causes..and yes, I have done that in my own marriage. When you say your husband left you neglected and lonely that could be the truth, but it also could be a construct as well.

I am giving that not as a judgement, been guilty of that myself, just saying if that guilt is because you have feelings for him, then you need to see if the cheating was in response to his lack of feelings or whatever, or if that was justification for the cheating tacked on when it happened....I can't know that, so there is no judgement nor would there be, since I am in no place to judge.

2)You can leave him and find a new life, find what you need. I suspect if you do it won't be with your lover, I have read in some large percentage of cases where women cheat they end up getting a divorce but very few of them end up with the person there were cheating with (among other thing, guys who go after married women often do so because they are married, they do so to have the sex but not worry about having a committment, if they are not married themselves).

One thing to ask yourself is what is the guilt about. is it you love your husband and feel badly for having to go outside (in which case #1 above is an option), or are you feeling guilty because of the moral teaching that you don't cheat on a married spouse? If you are feeling guilty because you have been taught to feel guilty, then I would seriously think about your marriage and if it is only about feeling guilty for guilt's sake, then I think you seriously so start looking to end what is not a successful marriage and find something better.

One thing I am certain about, the current situation is not going to work for you. If scenario #1 is possible, patching things up with your husband, when you cheat it makes things worse, whether you realize it or not. When you cheat, it automatically distances you from the person you cheated on, it causes you to pull back, in part in guilt, in part that you will give something away, plus it also puts you into a space, a 'compartment' where you are in a relationship with your lover, and your husband can't go there, he doesn't exist..and that causes distance. You might think having the primary relationship with your husband and the lover on the side is a way to make it work, but the guilt (if caused by feelings for your husband) and the distancing will doom it. If the guilt is simply moral teaching, about 'you shouldn't do this' and the marriage is all but dead other then a place to have a safe home and the security of being a couple,
then that 'lifeboat' of the lover is an illusion because what is left of the marriage is a shell and will only get worse as you and your husband drift further apart.

 

[JamieJ424]

Think about the next eighteen months of your life. Now think about the next eighteen years. Wouldn't it be worth an excruciating 18 months if the next eighteen years could be whatever you want them to be?

BL

 

[Paul_Chance]

Cut and Run

Comes a time in every relationship when you should cut and run. If your default emotion in a relationship is misery - move on. You will understand it was the right thing that first morning when you wake up - and feel good.

 

[Que]

Think about the next eighteen months of your life. Now think about the next eighteen years. Wouldn't it be worth an excruciating 18 months if the next eighteen years could be whatever you want them to be?

BL

This is sage advice. Sage was also the first dancer i met as I explored my new life.

 

[Somehowyou]

After you have cheated on your spouse. After years of rejection and feeling alone you find yourelf in someone elses arms who you care about.

I do not have enough details. As someone said, there are worse things you can do then have an affair. There are many spouses that have to supplement their sexual gratification outside the marriage. They are discreet and they stay in the marriage for a multitude of various good reasons that exist outside the bedroom.

However, so many marriages are doomed to failure and should have never happened in the first place. If it never felt right than it probably is not. If this is the case start working on an exit plan. If there is something worth salvaging than seek a marriage counselor. This can be your penance...organizing a meeting with the counselor and getting hubby to go. But be honest with yourself. If this is a bad situation then end it.

 

[Wyldfire]

Just my two pesos here, but cheating isn't a good idea.

If it's as bad as all that, talk to your spouse. Try to make things work, try the councilling route. There are no reasons in the world that make betraying his trust okay. Kids? Nope, no reason at all there, they'll know things aren't right, they're not stupid. That was the only reason I could imagine that might make one stay in an unsatisfying relationship.

If you're at the point that cheating sounds like a good idea, just get a divorce.

 

[Noor]

Don't cheat, you broke an agreement, you get guilt.

Leave your relationship first. Bad behavior on someone else's part should not be used to justify bad behavior on yours.

If you want to compound your guilt, tell your spouse about it.

If it were me I would stop cheating, and talk to my spouse and or therapist about why you feel rejected and alone and what you can do within your marriage to change that, and if it can't be changed get out of your marriage.

 

[Wyldfire]

This ^

Is what? Good advice? Nonsense and bullshit making justifications for cheating? Really?

 

[Wyldfire]

There's no bullshit justifications in there at all. Just facts, that there are many marriages that carry on that manner.

Maybe we're reading two different things.

No, I think we're reading the exact same thing....

I do not have enough details. As someone said, there are worse things you can do then have an affair. There are many spouses that have to supplement their sexual gratification outside the marriage. They are discreet and they stay in the marriage for a multitude of various good reasons that exist outside the bedroom.

This is an attempt to assuage the guilt of going outside the marriage agreement to get their rocks off. The second you take action on an urge to break your promise of the marriage vows you've fucked up. Either try to work it out with the spouse or break it off. There are no excuses for betraying your wedding vows. None. And anyone that believes there are valid reasons they're justifying and denying what they've done.

However, so many marriages are doomed to failure and should have never happened in the first place. If it never felt right than it probably is not. If this is the case start working on an exit plan. If there is something worth salvaging than seek a marriage counselor. This can be your penance...organizing a meeting with the counselor and getting hubby to go. But be honest with yourself. If this is a bad situation then end it.

This is what should have been done BEFORE breaking your word. No penance can change that you have become a Liar. And a cheater. You've cheated once and now you WILL do it again. Why not, you got away with it once......

So, yeah I think we read the same thing hun.....

 

[amofiga]

After you have cheated on your spouse. After years of rejection and feeling alone you find yourelf in someone elses arms who you care about.

Been there done that. Yes, it can feel very good while it's going on, especially when it's new and fresh and you make all sorts of justifications and rationalizations about how it's ok and it's good for you and it's keeping you from going crazy or keeping you from leaving your kids, etc, etc. Unfortunately, at some point, a month, a year, ten years from now, it could catch up to you and blow up in your face big time. Been there done that too. Then you have to look at yourself in the mirror and wonder what happened to the idealistic right-thinking person you used to be when you were young.

I hope it continues to work out for you and you don't eventually end up going through hell like I did and putting your spouse through hell as well. My feeling is that if your marriage is bad enough to make you want to cheat, then maybe you should either: 1) try to figure out how to work together to fix it before the explosion or 2) end it as gracefully and calmly as you can. Working on it after the explosion and picking up the pieces is a lot messier. Think digging through rubble after the hurricane rather than moving to a state that doesn't get hurricanes before it happens. With either one, you can continue your life but one way is a lot easier than the other.

Either way, good luck.

 

[SweetErika]

Again, I don't see an attempt at anything at all. All I see is someone saying how it is for some marriages. Fact is, it does happen, and some marriages go on for decades like this. Whether or not you or I like it or agree with it is irrelevant. It happens.

It was the "have to" part of Somehowyou's post that set me on edge. By using those words, it becomes an attempt at justification. No one has to cheat, they choose to cheat instead of communicating with their partner, trying to come up with solutions and/or ending the relationship. For instance, if cheating was a temptation for me because my marriage was going horribly, I'd choose to let my husband know I was at that point so he had the opportunity to work with me on fixing our relationship, give me his blessing to get my needs met elsewhere or opt out of our marriage.

You're totally right, cheating does happen. However, it doesn't have to happen.

 

[Somehowyou]

It was the "have to" part of Somehowyou's post that set me on edge. By using those words, it becomes an attempt at justification. No one has to cheat, they choose to cheat instead of communicating with their partner, trying to come up with solutions and/or ending the relationship. For instance, if cheating was a temptation for me because my marriage was going horribly, I'd choose to let my husband know I was at that point so he had the opportunity to work with me on fixing our relationship, give me his blessing to get my needs met elsewhere or opt out of our marriage.

You're totally right, cheating does happen. However, it doesn't have to happen.

Erica is correct. Please change "have to" to "feel they have to" or "believe they have to" or better yet "choose to."