It started with an affair ... now I can't move on

CantMoveOn

Hi all
*sorry this is so long * and no need to reply just my airing my dirty linen

I fully expect to be flamed for this, as I know more than anyone that I’m the bad person in it too, believe me. Just the usual first though …. I am a regular user but am using this name as I don’t want a colleague of mine to know I’ve posted as I’m pretty sure she knows my user name on here.

I am 26 female, OH is 32 male. I was in a long term relationship when we met at work in March 2007, as was he (both 6 year relationships). We started an affair in June 2007. I’ve never typed that before and it feels so strange. It was so out of the ordinary for me and something I never thought would happen. I thought I was happy in my relationship but quickly realised I wasn’t if I was willing to have an affair. No-one knew apart from the two of us – our colleagues knew we were close, but as far as I know that’s all they thought it was. We would meet for lunches, and outside of work ad spend as much time together as we could but I always knew it was killing both of us that we weren’t together properly.

After around 5 months, he left his partner and moved into a rented flat on his own, wanting me to go with him. He didn’t tell her he had met anyone else, just that he was leaving. I stayed with my partner – we didn’t live together but had bought a renovation project together and were mid-way through that. I didn’t know how to leave my boyfriend. I didn’t want to hurt him (I know how ridiculous that sounds) and he was so involved with my family I didn’t know how anyone would react, plus we had this half finished house and I was about £5k in debt.

In Nov 2009 I made the decision to leave my long term relationship to be with my new boyfriend. Just as I was about to do this, I received a text. Its long gone now but I still remember the words “I don’t know who you think you are sleeping with MY boyfriend when he’s having a baby with me. Your boyfriend might put up with that but I certainly won’t”. To say I was shocked was an understatement. Clearly the guy I had been seeing had also been seeing someone else – I genuinely thought we were in love and was devastated.

I broke up with both guys, and was on my own for a couple of months. But there is a genuine and unexplainable draw between myself and the guy I had been having an affair with, and we were soon back together. He explained that the girl who was pregnant was someone he had had a one-night stand with, he totalling regretted it and had done it because he thought I would never leave my boyfriend and be with him. I get this. I really do because it must have felt that I strung him along for such a long time.

Throughout her pregnancy the girl began to stalk me. I’m talking sending letters to my boss at work about me, making phone calls to my work phone, mobile phone, work mobile, countless texts, scratching my car, prank calling me etc for months on end in the middle of the night. I called the police twice and they warned her to back off. During this period I was terrified. I didn’t know what she was capable of and was still very vulnerable from what had happened. I was ill from it, so shaken, and felt like a victim, although I fully acknowledge I’m not. She stopped after the police had been involved, and we started to get on with our lives. The baby was born in June 2010.

Fast forward to now my partner and I are still together. Very happy, in our own house now, plan to have children etc, and I can genuinely say I have never been happier and it was the right decision for both of us to be together. My ex is happy, back at uni studying, and my partner’s ex has a new partner. They raise the baby together. My partner does not have anything to do with his son, which I agree is awful but that’s his decision rather than mine. He pays his child support but that is where it ends.

The problem is that I’m struggling to move on
1. I feel guilt about the baby not having his father around
2. I think about the other woman and the baby almost daily. We live in a reasonably small town and I’m so wary of bumping into her. I am not in any way confrontational and the thought of even seeing her sends my head into a spin
3. I worry about more affairs in the future. What if it happens again? I do know my partner loves me but now there is always that seed of doubt
4. I can’t talk to my family or friends about any of this because they don’t know that it started as an affair, and I’m so very ashamed to admit that it did. As far as they are aware I split up with my long term boyfriend in Nov 2009, and got together with my current boyfriend in June 2010. They know about he stalking etc but believe this was an ex of my boyfriend who was kicking off about him and I being friends

I’ve never written this down before. I don’t even really know why I have. I struggle with what we have done every day, I feel intense guilt about it, and although I love the bones of my partner, I don’t know how to just forget about that girl and move on from it.

If I read this I would say leave him, move on, find someone new, but I LOVE him truly, madly, deeply. I know then that the alternative is to shut up and put up - we made our bed, now lie in. I know deep down he would never hurt me, but I am getting (I am ashamed to say) almost obsessive about her. I check her facebook (open profile) daily and its torturing me. Her son looks so much like my partner. I don’t want to have children and see how much they all look alike.

I know I’m a bad person. I accept that. And this is my fault for stringing him along in the first place. I just needed to get it all out. Thank you and sorry

busiscoming2

It's fine to vent. Can't add any words of Wisdom but it is his decision not to have contact with the child. She has moved on. Let it be.

Can you and your partner not move a little further away?

shellsuit

One thing sprung to mind and that was, stop living a lie.

You were lying through your affair and you're lying to people about your relationship now.

Youdontseeme

You are not a bad person.

Ok, so perhaps you didn't go about things in the correct way, but life doesn't come with a rule book, very few poeple do the right thing 100% of the time.

You are with a man who you love "Truly, madly, deeply." there are people who would kill for that!. Dont detroy your relationship with guilt (if you do then it really would have been all for nothing!)

You cant change the past but you can change the way you deal with it.

YDSM

Alikay

You and your partner are both people who have had blurred boundaries, or no boundaries when it comes to fidelity, honesty and commitment within relationships. How you're feeling now simply illustrates that anything other than a monogamous 1 to 1 relationship generally brings profound difficulties for the cheat as well as the cheated.

Learn from it and live with it.

Lotus-eater

I would tell him how you feel, you need to share it and work on your issues together.

j.e.j.

I hope you feel somewhat better for having written it all out. It sometimes helps just to put it all down in black and white, and read it back to yourself.

You love this man, but deep down something is telling you that something's not right about all this. Trust your instinct. I'd say don't rush into marriage or kids with this guy, - I think your worries/concerns are very valid.

fluffnutter

Why should you leave this guy? His unfortunate actions resulted in a child but you're now very happy together. I assume he's kind and loving, why leave him?

But... there's clearly unfinished business here (for you at least). You can't move on, you can't stop thinking about this woman and her child, you worry about future fidelity. Sounds like you need to start talking things through with your other half... you need to put this behind you, or at least find a way of living with it that doesn't constantly torment you. Only by talking and really exploring your feelings can you work out what's really bothering you.

victory

You can't live in guilt, you can't accept that finally you are happy and have what you wanted and still do this to yourself? The only one that is going to be brought down by it all is you, deep breathe, thank your lucky stars you got out of all the above move on and be ultra happy with your kids in the future, the present and the future stick to that

Desperado99

busiscoming2 wrote: »

It's fine to vent. Can't add any words of Wisdom but it is his decision not to have contact with the child. She has moved on. Let it be.

Can you and your partner not move a little further away?

That was my first thought. Life can get messy sometimes, but for gods sake stop looking at her FB page....... it won't achieve anything.

daska

You've already been to the police and she's had warnings so it's not as if you can't go to them again if she does something. OK, so you're at fault for having an affair and yes, sorry, it is the case that there is a risk that your OH will cheat on you (again) and again, sorry, you'd get short shrift from me if you complained because that would be a tad hypocritical. But that might be as much at the root of why you are apprehensive of bumping into this woman as her behaviour, she is a reminder that you don't know if it was genuinely a one night stand, his only one night stand or whether that ability to lie and cheat might mean that he has lied and cheated more than you know.

But why the guilt that your OH chooses not to see his child? As long has you have made it clear that you would welcome the child in your lives then that's his responsibility. (N.B. I do mean actively make sure you tell him the child is welcome, not just ignore the subject or not say anything negative.)

It's time to move on, either with your OH or without. You could physically move away from the area but you'll always have that nagging doubt over whether you can trust him.