Had an affair and now the AP's wife has tried to kill herself

I think more counseling is a very good idea.

I also think that you should remove yourself from the situation. You are responsible for your own actions... and nothing more. You are not responsible for anyone's threatened suicide. That is just manipulation.

I am pretty sure your therapist will tell you the same. Your part in this tragic tale is over. You need to move on, there is nothing possibly that you can do that will be good for anyone. This does not involve you any more.

I assume you have already said you are sorry. I am not sure I fully understand the story, but it doesn't matter. It sounds like this guy is manipulating you, and she is manipulating him. There are lots of people who find out about affairs without threatening suicide... that is just screwed up. There is nothing else to say.

You should end communication with anyone involved and block anyone who tries to communicate with you.

Thanks for your quick response. Yes I did apologise in the very beginning. I did remove myself from the situation, I have changed my phone number, blocked their emails, but he used a different email address and sent it to my work email and it came through the system - headline was attempted suicide. It has all been a very tragic state of affairs, if I could turn back the clock I would.

To add to what Max said, I agree you should remove yourself from the situation.

And this woman's illness and her choices? I don't feel they're your responsibility or anything of the sort. It's odd that she didn't act until a year later. That's like blaming anything else that happened years ago. I'm not saying it's in the same league as a barista giving her skim instead of half and half.

What I am saying is that there's a Statute of Limitations on things being your fault. The statute has run.

Counseling is always good. And treat yourself well. Yes, it was a lapse in judgment. So learn from it and come out stronger, okay?

You had an affair with him... right? If I understanding the story, he is being ridiculous. He is the one who is responsible not you. You didn't break his vows... he did.

Tell him to F*** off. If he keeps it up, get a restraining order.

I think we are both responsible, I told his wife in the end and this hurt her very much. I wish I had the grace to walk away, I certainly had tried. Our relationship is complex, when I met him 26 year's ago he was seeing his wife, they split up he started seeing me, he then left me without a trace, just abandoned me. He contacted me 21 years later and I had forgiven him and unfortunately even though he had treated me badly all those years before I let him back into my life again. I'm trying so hard to move on from this, but things just seem to get worse.

This doesn't sound reasonable to me. You are only responsible for your own actions. You aren't responsible for their relationship or her mental issues (there are millions of us who have dealt with a partners infidelity without becoming suicidal... it is a part of life).

He is the person who is making things worse. You don't have to let him. Your part of this sad story is over. They are choosing whatever paths they want to take, there is no reason for you to be involved. They are responsible for what they do from this point on in their lives.

Walking away is the correct action. Whether things get worse or not doesn't involve you.

Are you saying it’s been a full year since all this happened? (The affair and you telling the wife?)

Seems like he didn’t put things together between her and him.

You are out if the picture now. He can do the work needed to repair his marriage. He wanted to tell you because he needed someone to blame.

Continue counseling. Help yourself to realize that every action has a consequence. This will help you make better choices in the future.

Yes it was a year ago since I told her.

We can train our mind to focus on almost anything. We can just let ourselves stumble onto something to focus on, or we can consciously choose a focus until that focus becomes habit.

The easiest way to break a habit is to replace one habit with another. If you are trying to break a truly ingrained habit, you need to put support mechanisms in place. I would suggest

1. Don't flirt with men who are dangerous to you
2. Don't put yourself in a position to flirt with men who are dangerous to you
3. Remove all ways of putting yourself in a position to flirt with men who are dangerous to you

(Stick to the above over and over. Even if you stumble occassionally, always correct the situation (by carrying out 1-3))

4. (if you are thinking of a guy who is dangerous to you) Make a promise to yourself that 'whenever I think about ####" I will instead think focus on @@@@"

(Don't worry if you stumble few times at 4 - you are attempting to replace one habit with another (it's the easiest way to break a habit), and when we aren't concentrating we fall into habits. Still, always correct yourself (by turning your focus to @@@@))

I'd still recommend seeing a counsellor - with a note of caution that though psychology may be a science, the application of psychology to individual humans is an art (ie. if you go down this route, I'd keep trying until you find one that you feel rapport with)

Then clearly your actions had very little or nothing to do with her suicide attempt despite what her husband says. He clearly did nothing over the last year to heal the injury he caused (and probably aggravated it) and now he wants to blame you. If he wasn't cheating with you, it would have been someone else.

It's been a long time that he was a part of your life. Now it's time to live your life differently. And those changes can be kinda scary at times. But underneath there is a you in there who isn't attached to him, isn't defined by him, isn't listening to him, and isn't worrying about him. You aren't affected (except in the abstract) by the relationship drama that goes on in the next state, right? Treat him like those strangers in Iowa or wherever.

As I see it, you feel remorse because of the reasons that motivated you to talk to his wife.

I suspect you talked to his wife as a way to end an affair which you thought had to stop but you couldn't bring yourself to stop. So you used her to stop it. And now you feel remorse, rightly so because it made her feel real bad. The moral thing to do was not to involve her, but face the issue by yourself.

No need to cry over spilled milk, and i doubt there's any way for you to repair the damage done. Just try and avoid using other people in the future, that's all.

So let me see if I have this right....

You had an ongoing affair that lasted for FIVE years and the only thing you feel bad about is the wife trying to harm herself??

I disagree with most posters -- This Is Totally Your Fault. What possessed you not ruin not only a marriage but a person's sanity as well? She must dwell on the fact her husband is a scumbag and his lover (you) wanted to see her nose rubbed in YOUR mess.

Yes, return to counseling to figure out how to keep your pants on.

This is nonsense. There has never been a marriage ruined by an affair. If there is a good marriage, the affair won't happen... or even if it does the marriage will survive. If the marriage falls apart, any affair is a symptom not a cause.

You can't blame an affair on ruining someone's sanity either. Affairs happen, just like broken bones or influenza or losing your job. You either deal with life, or you don't.

Affairs are quite common and quite natural. They have been a part of life since the time that priests invented marriage. Humans aren't meant to be in lifetime monogamous relationships, they never have been. The problem is that marriage has been given unrealistic expectations that human beings don't meet.

My opinion is that these two people should ended their marriage before involving you. That is their fault, not yours. The mental health issues that they are trying to pin on you were not caused by an affair.

I am not saying that you aren't responsible for the affair... you have half of the responsibility. Affairs are common even though they can cause pain for people involved. However they are a part of life, and they aren't responsible for suicide any more than getting fired, or having a car accident.

Any mental issues are not your responsibility. The wife is an adult. If she doesn't like the pain, then she should herself end the marriage and walk away.

That's the biggest pile of crap I've heard in a long time. In case you haven't noticed, affairs CAN happen in a good marriage or a bad marriage. Affairs don't just "happen" like a broken bone, it's calculated with an intent to deceive. Although affairs might be common, there is no way it's natural to break a marital bond. OP IS responsible for purposely hurting someone for her own gain. OP had plenty of chances to walk away but CHOSE to involve someone else instead of doing her own heavy lifting.

This is the core of our disagreement, I think. What is a "marital bond"?

The "marital bond" you are talking about was invented by religion... particularly Judeo-Christian religion (the ideas about marriage invented by other religions are quite different). This "marital bond" is just one way to regulate sexuality... something that religion wants to do. Sex is natural. Sex with multiple partners over your lifetime is natural in humans (and most other primates). Our views about monogamy and marriage come from our history with a particularly repressed brand of Protestant Christianity.

The marital bond is not natural. It is imposed by religion. If two people want to have a meaningful marriage, they need to figure out what that means to them. I think it would be better if people would just be honest that after many years of a sexually monogamous relationship, people want to have other partners.

Unfortunately our society has trouble with this type of honesty.

This has never happened to me, but I am not saying it is out of the question.

If a married woman wanted to have sex with me, and I was so inclined, I wouldn't feel any moral problem. This woman made vows to her husband; these vows are between the two of them. I didn't make any vows... and the current state of the commitment in their relationship is none of my business. I have the right to have sex with any consenting adult. The idea that one spouse is the property of the other is outdated.

Personally I don't think there is anything morally wrong with having sex with someone who is married. If you are married and have made a commitment to your partner, breaking that commitment may be immoral to you. But it is your responsibility to keep your promises, not mine.

Many people probably disagree with this. I am OK with that.

Totally agree. As a matter of fact I am on round 2 of an affair. I'm single. He is making the choice to cheat, not me. A choice he's made twice now.

OP, her mental state is not your concern. And as far as telling her, I have a good friend who did the same thing. It was the only way she could truly end the affair. You aren't alone, there are plenty of people who understand that we are not always perfect.

Zulufoot

He left her for you, he left you for her, somewhere down the track, he decided to try to find you again, that probably made you feel "special" but I think more so you needed "closure" after all he left without a trace and he was your first love.

First love's are hard to get over when young, you think they are the bees knees and always will be, yet you were with a "wonderful man" for 25 years or thereabouts, but we don't forget our first love, if at some stage, it presents itself, I think it would be hard not to venture there. We don't mean to be selfish people and in fact we aren't we can be quite vulnerable. I can imagine all that he said to you to get your emotions all worked up to enter this affair.

I'd say he had a hold on you, if you couldn't walk away trying 7 times but one that isn't healthy, he's pissed that you truly have ended it, he stalked you and sent you an email to your work address, as you blocked him. He chose to find you, chase you and try to manipulate you into staying over and over. His wife has been with him 25 years, she knows him more than you do, better than you do, perhaps you weren't his first affair, perhaps he treats her badly, tells her everything is her fault, she's a worthless bag of ****, perhaps he entered another affair and she found out about that one too.

Anyone that can't "walk" from a person for a better life, doesn't have strength, you did it, keep walking, head held high we all make mistakes, perhaps this wasn't one, rather a closure for you, regardless of right or wrong, what is right and what is wrong at the end of the day.

This man, to me, seems to enjoy playing the victim, putting the blame of his actions onto anyone else but himself.

His actions.

He located you, chased you.

Doesn't really make him a man does it.

Worse, he located you, sort you out, to tell you you are a worthless bag of ****.

That's all he wanted to do, he lost, you aren't going back. He hates to lose.

A real man, wouldn't even think of it being your fault, they would own up to their own responsibilities, own up that he looked you up and found you, deliberately with every intent of an affair, the old saying probably being true, wasn't getting enough emotion, sex perhaps.

What a man.

She knows more about him than you remember that, there is more to this than just that affair that is hurting her.

If he called you a worthless bag of ****, after spending forever finding a way to tell you that, what else did he call you, how else did he put you down, during the affair, I would guess he did quite a bit.

So, if that's true, imagine how he has treated her for 25 years, it's her that needs counselling to get over him and move on herself.

He is the worthless bag of **** in my opinion, playing with your mind and perhaps hers.

Do not feel terrible. This has nothing to do with you, this has to do with him and how he played it all out, coupled with what ever else he has done, stated, to her over the years.

I'm not saying I am right, but I am trying to put out there to you, the realisation of the type of person he is, and perhaps a side you are looking at .

The best thing I think sometimes to do when you can't escape, is to tell "someone" and it doesn't matter who that person is, what matters is that it's a person that you know, once told to, there is no way going back, you are free.

Safe.

You can't beat yourself up after, we all make mistakes, or get into something we find very hard to get out of.

You do need to let it go, it happened, it's over and he's a bag of **** for even emailing you as he's still playing the victim, still playing the control person who's aim and goal is to make you feel it's all your fault.

You say, it's both.

He went out of his way to find you.

Certainly he may have thought what if. But, at the end of the day, he ditched you to go back to her, so whilst he was your first love, she was his love.

So why did he do it. As you said, "it was a toxic relationship"

So again, ask yourself what he has put her through and I think in that thought, you may see, why she is so down and out, nothing to do with you, your actions together were and are only a portion of the situation.

I am not a counsellor and these are only my thoughts, take from this what you may find is real to you and don't take what you think is not, even pose a question of this to your counsellor that you feel may ring true and see what he/she thinks.

It's ok to leg go of this and leave it as a memory good or bad, that doesn't belong in your life anymore.