married and started affair with an old flame....

Thanks, CJ, but it sounds better to me the way some others say it...

jake123 - If you really have found love, do what you have to do to make yourself happy. However, sneaking around isn't good for anyone concerned because it just adds stress to your new relationship, and will make your wife feels like **** when she finds out. So, if you decide to leave your wife do it honorably; tell her the truth and get it over with.

I also agree with Jane and Marty.


The right thing to do would be to end the marriage before getting into anything else. It'll be painful no matter which way it goes, but why hurt her even more by having an affair?

I share Marty's pain from being cheated on and it goes deep! Very deep!!!

Yeah!

well said! I struggled for a long time with the fact that the man I thought was my best friend betrayed me. My focus was more on that than the fact that he fell in love with someone else.

Well marty, if it is any consolation: it shows a very weak character trade
if you cannot come clean with your spouse.

Let me ask you this, marty: had you not found out, do you think
your husband would have left in the long run?

Yes, he fell in love with her and they are still together. She lives in another state but they work within the same company so work related travel hooked them up 4 years ago and allows them to see each other still. She was divorced with a child. Recently, he took the kids back to the midwest for a family reunion. On the way to the airport he told the kids that she would be meeting them there with her son. I figure it must be pretty serious if he's introducing both her and her son to his extended family.

I could start another thread just on the stupid things he's done since he left as far as our kids are involved. This has really affected them too.

Well, it's punishement enough for him having taken the stupid decision of leaving you....

I agree with Francis. He is more than stupid to have left a woman like you.

Francis and CJ you're so sweet. Thanks!

However, a woman like me has made some stupid choices lately too.














But not as stupid as him, that big stupid head

Stupid stupid man!

Wow.

I know I said I wasn't going to post on this subject anymore. But I've seen some really insigtful things posted here.

I will clarify a couple things:

I consider am having an affair. I've been emailing and talking on the phone with, we'll call her "Jane", since June when we first saw each other again. We've seen each other in person only twice since. I will admit that we were intimate on one of those occasions.

This isn't a case of falling in love. This is a case of having been in love all along and neither of us knowing how the other felt. This relationship goes back 20 years. There are many circumstances that kept us apart, mostly due to our inability to communicate. I don't remember if I posted the actual overview of how this started in the first place.

Jake, you don't mention if there are children, particularly young children in either relationship. If your feelings for Jane go back 20 years, then I'm thinking perhaps your children, if any, are grown or perhaps teens.

Allow me to take exception to one thing in your post above. You say that you have been emailing and talking on the phone since June and that you were intimate on one of the two occasions you met. You are not considering an affair, jake. You are having an affair and are considering whether or not it should continue.

Sorry, that was an editing mistake.

I started to write: I consider myself to be having an affair.

I was going to change it to: I actually am having an affair.

And yes, what I am considering is whether to continue, stop, or come clean with my wife and either work that out or leave.

I wasn't going to put it out here, but there are young children on both sides here.

The kids aside, but don't you think, Jake, that this is unfair to your wife?
Here you are having an affair and trying to work out what further steps
to take. In essence you're feeling it out if your affair is going well - if yes,
you'll make a move, if not, no harm done you'll stay with your wife.

Your wife doesn't have the advantage of choosing what she wants, she'll
be either hit hard with the news of you leaving, or she'll be left clueless
and life goes on.

Very shrewd behavior! As I said previously, if you fell in love with your
former girlfriend - so be it, but have the decency to tell your wife and either work it out together or split.

This of course requires some back bones, you don't seem to have.

Infidelity Makes Me ILL!
I'm feeling a little nauseated by all this blatant infidelity going on. WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEOPLE?! If you're so unhappy with your spouse, why not try be an adult and spell it out. Get out of your marriage. Don't be deceptive.

I just hate reading over and over and over again about how calmly people cheat, or how calmly they CONSIDER cheating, or how calmly they PLAN their next illicit rendezvous!

I'm sick to my stomach hearing of this cr@p!

Yeah. I guess I am pretty spineless. But look at my last post.

One of the options I'm considering is: Come clean with my wife and either work that out or leave.

What I am getting from your message is that that is the fair thing to do. And, yeah, it will take me some time to work up the courage to do that.

To me, the fact that there are young children in the picture is key. Two adults decide to get married. One of those two can decide they want out and end the marriage. Two adults who have become parents should, IMO, realize that they have produced off-spring who didn't ask to come into this world. They were brought into this world as part of a plan (hopefully) that the two adults considered and decided would be a good thing. Maybe they were naive and didn't realize what being parents would do to their intimacy or other aspects of their relationship. Maybe the couple would have grown in separate directions whether there were children or not. However, the fact remains that your children deserve two parents who have their best interests at heart until such time as those children are able to support themselves.

I am not suggesting that two adults should stay in a miserable marriage because they have children. I am suggesting that two adults should focus their energies on improving their relationship with each other through openness, honesty, and perhaps counseling so that they keep their end of the unspoken bargain they made with their children when they were conceived.

<nodding>