What the hell do I do now?

[Guest]

I have fucked up in a big way. Majorly. And now I don't know what comes next.

Here's the deal.
I'm married. Been so for a long time. Not happily, but not that unhappily. Mainly coexisting. I love my husband, but haven't been in love with him since before we got married. He's a great guy, but I don't feel like I can talk to him about my feelings. I'm not really attracted to him anymore either. I've been thinking for a while (years) about leaving, but haven't done so.

Was talking to a "friend" online, and stupidly saved the conversation. *sigh* Yeah, this is someone I've slept with. Then forgot to clear the documents menu. *double sigh* So he found the file, read it, printed it out, and confronted me with it. I denied, of course. I was too shocked to really know what else to say. Shocked, horrified, dismayed, afraid.

I'm a fuck-up. The only thing that keeps running through my head is "I don't know". I don't know what to do, what comes next, what to say.

So come on. Heap your scorn on me. God knows, I deserve it. But maybe someone can come up with some kernel of advice. I could sure use it.

 

[heterotic]

There are many wiser and more experienced than me here. But I would say, first off, to be honest. Not only about the conversation, but about how you feel about your relationship, and what makes you feel that way.

 

[lobito]

I have fucked up in a big way. Majorly. And now I don't know what comes next.

Here's the deal.
I'm married. Been so for a long time. Not happily, but not that unhappily. Mainly coexisting. I love my husband, but haven't been in love with him since before we got married...

So why'd you waste your time and his by getting married, IF you didnt' love him before you married?

 

[Wiggles]

Sounds like it's time for a divorce.

Think about it, you're hurting yourself and him. You're not just coexisting anymore. You're not roommates.

Actually, have a good talk with him. See what he wants. Maybe an open relationship would be best for you.

 

[just pet]

You didn't fuck up... it is an opportunity to tell him how you feel and now try and rekindle your communication with your husband, and once seek the spark that was once there. Truth must come out. And the problems between you two is like the elephant in the living room that noone mentions...

Good luck and be honest and brave

 

[freescorfr]

If you love your friend go straight to him, he's maybe waiting for you.

 

[TWB]

Tell the truth, (he knows anyway) and if you want to salvage the marriage, see if you can get some outside help (therapist/clergy) and work it out.

It is hard to tell the truth

Be brave.

Good luck

 

[Vivacia]

Re: Re: What the hell do I do now?

So why'd you waste your time and his by getting married, IF you didnt' love him before you married?

She didn't say she didn't love him, she said she wasn't "in" love with him...

This is something that is more of something women experience more than men. You can love someone without being "in love" with them...

Being "in love" is like being a bit drunk and having the party of a lifetime, but when it settles down a bit the "magic" wears off a bit though you love them still it isn't the same...

I can't explain it very well, but it is something various books about love and sex cover.

 

[Guest]

If you love your friend go straight to him, he's maybe waiting for you.

No, he's not. And I never expected him to. It simply was never an aspect of our relationship. He is not at fault here, as I see it.

TWB, I know he knows the truth. I'm not sure if I want to salvage the marriage.

To put it simply, I'm afraid. Of the pain to come. Of being on my own. What if I can't make it? Financially? What if I'm throwing away the one man who really loves me? What if there's someone better out there?

God, talk about paralyzed with fear!

 

[Cheyenne]

To put it simply, I'm afraid. Of the pain to come. Of being on my own. What if I can't make it? Financially? What if I'm throwing away the one man who really loves me? What if there's someone better out there?

God, talk about paralyzed with fear!

What about going to counseling by yourself to try to figure out what you want in life and what you should do now? We can listen to you here, but we aren't professionals. Someone who is may be able to help you more.

Counseling as a couple seems to be a good idea, too. It isn't just you making the decision as to whether the marriage is worth saving or not.

 

[KillerMuffin]

This things can be forgiven. Quit moping.

1) Decide if you want the marriage.
2) Find out if he still wants the marriage.


If you both still want the marriage then here is what you do.

1) Get rid of the Internet. Period. You've got to rebuild his trust in you and you won't be able to do that if you get on it and if you've got it you won't be able to stay off it. If you've got 'Net friends you want to keep, get phone numbers.
2) Get counseling. Someone said this, sage advice. It takes two to make it and two to break it. You strayed, but he has to take part of the blame because he failed to do what was needed to stay in tune with you enough to keep you from straying.
3) Learn to communicate with each other. That means discussions about painful things without degenerating into accusatory fights. The counselor will teach you this.
4) Do not behave as if you owe him something because you cheated. This will make you resentful and make you not want to stay around and more likely to cheat.
5) Don't beat yourself up over it. Nothing can be done now but to fix it. If wreck your car, you take it to a shop and get it fixed, you don't stand on the side of the road and kick yourself in the butt cause you should have known better. Forgive yourself.
6) Set mutual goals within the marriage that you can work together for. A vacation, five years he starts college, we all move to a yellow submarine. Make sure you're together in you decisions.
7) Set aside daily time when it's just you and him and all you do is enjoy each other. It doesn't have to be sexual.

You married him for a reason, despite lobitos full of shit and utterly mean-spirited hateful commentary, and you did love him at one time. There was something there. It can be found again. You just have to want to do it and so does he.

Now, if you want it, shut off the computer. When you love someone you don't give the best parts of yourself to strangers over the 'Net-- like it's so easy to do-- you give it to the man you love. Shut it off and keep it off. Or move out.

 

[Starfish]

No scorn here, just truth.

I realize that you have pain that is causing this but this line really burns me up.....
"What if I'm throwing away the one man who really loves me? What if there's someone better out there?"

Your discontent in life is your own problem, and I am pretty sure you have caused it, not your husband. You married him in the state of mind you have on the matter, and you are acting like you are the one who is deserving of something better.

I don't know your husband, he could be cold and lifeless. It just seems that if you doubt this enough to say it, that you have been and are using him for convienience factors. You said it yourself, you married him and were not in love with him. He obviously loves you and was in the dark about your situation, because he was shocked by what he found. Have you been faking it that you are in love with him?

Either way, Chey is right. Get some help. You have some serious truth issues that you can't go carrying out into the world to only hurt others with. You should not worry so much about money, and our selfish 'needs', but about what kind of person you are.
Get some help. The truth is always easier to deal with than lies.

 

[Guest]

Re: No scorn here, just truth.

I realize that you have pain that is causing this but this line really burns me up.....
"What if I'm throwing away the one man who really loves me? What if there's someone better out there?"
Maybe one line, but two seperate thoughts and questions.

Your discontent in life is your own problem, and I am pretty sure you have caused it, not your husband.
It's never that easy, that cut and dried.

You should not worry so much about money, and our selfish 'needs', but about what kind of person you are.
Money is just as valid an issue as any of the rest of it. Why shouldn't I worry about money? About being able to feed myself? Is there anything noble in starving for no reason? If I didn't worry about what kind of person I am, I wouldn't even be here asking for advice. I'd be merrily fucking people over left and right. But I do care. A great deal.

I wonder if he'd be better off with someone else. Most of the time, I think he would.

We're all searching for answers, sometimes just not the answers that others think are important.

 

[koalabear]

*note to your hubby*.....Put her clothes out for the trash pickup.

You blew all trust he had in you, hope the guy was worth blowing.

 

[MissTaken]

Only you know what it is that you want. Seek help, make some decisions and make a realistic plan to achieve what you set for your personal goals.

I would only add that it concerns me that he read your saved chat transcript. That indicates to me that the trust was waning before now.

Working things out may not even be an option at this point, depending on what he wants. And if he wants to continue being married to you, the work will have to be two fold and requires a vast commitment. It takes to make a relationship.

 

[T.H. Oughts]

He has found the file, plain and simple, go to your husband and tell him the truth..... talking could be the beginning of something beautiful that you never thought you could have with him...

If the disscussion does not come out beautiful, then move on.... find better employment that you can live on and start over....

Either option will not be easy and at times scary, but what ever way it goes there will be happyness at the end of the trail....

We all can only make suggestion.. only you know the answer...

 

[Lasz]

What is with these, "my marriage is messed up threads lately?"
hasent anyone else noticed a large influx of threads like this latley?

Laz

 

[T.H. Oughts]

What is with these, "my marriage is messed up threads lately?"
hasent anyone else noticed a large influx of threads like this latley?

The internet has a lot to answer for sometimes...

 

[fgarvb1]

Your thread has lurked in the back of my mind most of the day. I told myself do not post to it. Now here am i at 9:40 pm doing just what i told mylself not to.

This thread has wakened deep emotions even after twenty-two years.

You see my first wife and i married with her assuring me the she loved me as much as i loved her; and she acted like it too.
In every word and action it seemed to me as well as everyone else that this was so.

Four years later, I found myself in a real life nightmare that no matter what i do or how much help i have/had in my life since then, it still affects me in my relationships.

We were on our way to a couples house (our best couple freinds) that wednesday, April 15, 1980 Janice mentioned that she needed to discuss something with me before we went to sleep that night.
I thought nothing unusual about this as we talked all the time and discussed many things some of them pretty deep and about other people in our lives (we had many friends married and unmarried.) We arrived at mac's and Sue's house in good time, did our greetings and all.

Janice and Mac worked together at a bussiness, janice in the office and Mac in one of the air conditioning crews. One of the new people who had started working there about three months before, Billy had dropped by for a visit.

I liked Billy, He seemed to me like a nice guy and i had nothing against him in all of that mess. In his place knowing no more about Janice than he did i might have doe the same thing.

Hell, she fooled the shit out of me as well as everyone else.

We left Mac's and Sue's and went home about 10 pm, got ready and went to bed. Remembering what she had said i asked Janice What was on her mind, what did she want to talk to me about.

This same woman who not hours ago was still saying and acting like she loved me just came right out and said without any warning that she did not love me any more, in fact she never did and just married me to get out of her Parents house and wanted a divorce.

In the next breath she informed me that she had found someone else that she did love and was moving out the next day.

Well, My ass was sucking wind! We have a saying used around here "I did not know weather to shit or go blind" But trust me you do not want to go there.

I was very fucked up for the next few days. I went and stayed at my mothers, i could not go to work, eat or do much of any thing else. I could not focus my mind on the simplest things.

I was close to insane for about six months and i did not give a fuck about anything. I got myself into several jams, came close to getting killed more than i care to remember now. I do remember telling one guy to go ahead, but you should know i don't care one way or the other and i'm taking you with me.

Truly god did not turn his face from me for i never received so much as a scratch from all of that time and all the things i did.

I married again about a year and a half later, it did not work out.
i think Madonna thought i was only going through the motions although i did lover her as much as i could. She told me one time that i was not over my first wife. I'm not sure a person can get completley over something like that.

After about a year and and a half Madonna came to the conclusion that the love between had not developed like it should.
I said considering all the shit that rained down on our heads that was neither one of our fault, while trying to raise three kids that i for one was willing to try longer, but she had had enough was going to move back home.(to another state) and six months later she did. She would not let me pay her moving expensies, but she could not stop me from paying off her car at least.

Madonna was a good woman and if things had been different we might have made it.

I stayed single for a couple of years after that divorce and ended up marring a woman named Molly, which was the second biggest mistake i made in my life.

We lived together for a year before we were married and everything seemed ok. What i did not know was that Molly had a split personality and that part of the one i had seen up to than wasn't all that moral. Both of her could not keep her legs closed and the worst one would fuck anything male that would walk, as well as having the thing about packing up and moving out with out any warning sometimies at all.

Being to stuiped to give up it took me almost a year to aquire ulcers ulcers start showing a stress disorder. Gee, i wonder why?

After that i did not even try to date for over a year and a half, Shit i was to depressed.

The next serious relationship i got into was with Lisa. Some of you may remember that name as i have written a small amount about her before, may she rest in peace.

We met in those crazy times after Janice left and she lived with me for a little over three weeks before i had to send here home.
( She had CS and was very sick and i thought she need to be at home with her mother who knew how to take care of her better than anyone else.) We dated off and on in the times neither one of us were married.

Two years after i divorced Molly, Lisa moved back to Texas by way of a bad marriage (she could alway pick out the crazy
bastards) and we found each other again. we were always halfway in love with each other anyway and this time it clicked!

Wow! I had not felt that way in years! Time passed and we were engaged. Although her life span would be shorter than normal we did not care. ( she was already the oldest living person born with full CS still alive.) Everything looked great and the future was bright. Her family liked me and i them her farther and i were very close. (It took her mother a few years to warm up to me.)

I was at work when i received the phone call that her father had killed himself. i was stunned. The only thing i could think of was that i needed to be there for Lisa.

I arrived there in time to see Lisa and her mother being driven off to the hospital. They had gone shopping and returned home to find him with his head blown off and splattered all over a back bedroom. A cleaning service did what they could, but it was not enough. Myself and another guy who was there had to clean up what was left over as best we could. I am NOT going into details.

Lisa, had a breakdown and who can blame her. The sad fact is when something like that happens sometimes a person freaks out for a long time. Lisa broke the engagement off.

A week later i was sitting at my desk at work when all of a sudden i felt like i was going to explode. I knew i needed some help and soon. I walked into one of my bosses office and told him.
He took me to my doctor and my doctor called the hospital i use which happened to have a Lifecare unit. Six weeks later they made me leave.

Many thanks to the people at Lifecare, as well as E A, A A, and ACOA here in my town. They helped me one hell of a lot, and i hope i was able to help a few people along the way too.

I will be married to Deranda ten years come the middle of may. It may not be as good as it could be or as good as i would like it to be, but i'm hanging in there and doing the best i can.

My point in all of the long winded story is this. Marriage and relationships are very serious things. What you do and how you do them affect you, your SO and many events around you.

The kind of person you are is proven in your relationships with other people. I think some people are born bad, i think some people are turned bad because of events beyond their control, and i think some people just don't give a damn, down deep inside except about themselves.

What kind of person are you? That i do not know, but one thing i do know and that is GOD knows.

Sorry about the long post and the spelling.

As forrest Gump said" And that's all i have to say about that."

 

[cuz cracker]

Goooddamn cuz!

fgarvb1 you got me depressed! i hope your doing ok now!

i'm in the phone book you know. hell, you might need another fishing lesson!

 

[fgarvb1]

ASSHOLE!

 

[cuz cracker]

snicker!

 

[Guest]

*note to Koala bear*

Do you have nail holes in your palms?

Didn't think so. Those who would kick to the curb so easily can also be kicked to the curb.


Now...to the matter at hand.

I have been where you are. Still am to some degree. Right now the perspectives of you and your husband are way too skewed to make any serious decisions. For awhile you will both just go through the rote mundane routines of everyday life. There may be very little interaction. Along with the distabce will come an almost irresistible urge to talk. Let the feelings cool a bit. Time is a great healer. The damage is done now it is time to heal. Trying to discern your true feelings at this time is almost impossible. For either of you. The situation is too raw..

Perhaps in a subconscious way you wanted him to find out? Like a cry for attention or even a stick of dynamite in a logjam of human emotion?

Just as every person is unique so is every relationship. One thing is certain...counseling is a very good first step. For yourself (to help you find out what you want and need) and couples therapy (to learn how to communicate those wants and needs)

I suspect you...and he are feeling very lonely, and very frightened right now. It will get better.

Peace to you.

One more thing..you may want to reformat the hard drive...just in case any other things may be saved there. If it is healing you seek any fresh discoveries just postpone that process.

 

[Thumper]

I really hate cookies...

unless they are EL Fudges

That was me up there.

 

[sch00lteacher]

I believe things happen for a reason.

Not always for the reasons we want.

Your hand has been forced now. What are you going to do. I can not offer advice. I do not know you. I don't know if I would offer advice even if I did. I would offer support for a friend. I'd back my friend in what ever play they made. But you are the one who has to figure out what happens next.

I certainly wouldn't judge your actions or condemn you. It isn't my place to value judge you on your personal actions.

I hope this works out for the best.