Struggling to fix the “whys”
Currently listening to "Not Just Friends" on Audible, and chewing on some of the posts from here. One refrain seems to stand out to me: you are meant to do the inner work so that you can meet all of your own "needs," such that you are prone to seeking an AP to meet them, or "displacing" those needs into your BS.
But what if one of those needs is social interaction? I could talk to myself, sure, but that’s not satisfying in any meaningful way. (Also other people would think I am crazy.)
One of my "whys" for this affair is that I have zero adults to talk to during the day outside of my BH, and exAP provided that. In my head, conversation leads to connection/companionship, and connection/companionship leads to romantic intimacy, and romantic intimacy leads to sexual intimacy…and so it was a slippery slope of rationalizations and boundary-breaking from the point where we were just talking as just friends to having a full blown A.
I know my husband is not meant to meet all of my social needs. I know that I need to make some friends. I am not sure how to disentangle good, quality friendship from romantic intimacy, after several years of the only real friendship I’ve experienced coming from BH. In the past, I have had to cut off friendships after I felt that I had started liking that friend a little too much, and it is my plan to continue doing that (and doing it "more better!" as people in my profession like to say) going forward as a means of preventing any further infidelity.
But of course, it’s painful to cease interactions with people you really like. I’m afraid of having to do that again. And I think it would probably be a *safer* bet to make female friends— it’s just not entirely safe because I am bisexual (possibly biromantic, though I haven’t explored romantic relationships with women to be able to say with any certainty, and obviously it’s too late in my life for that.) I also really struggle with connecting with other women; I suspect my on-the-spectrum-ness makes it hard for me to understand the more complicated set of social rules women follow. With men, it just seems so much simpler— until they want more with me, and then it’s game over again.
I have considered trying to make friends with other married people, though "Not Just Friends" is leading me to believe they are not really much safer options, given the prevalence of infidelity, either. It would be really nice to have friends that are both mine and BH’s… but that’s also a bit complicated because of our age gap. It’s hard to find people who would want to be friends with both a 28 yo and a 53 yo. (Other age-gapped couples would be an option, but… how do we find them, other than swinger sites, which obviously comes with a unique set of risks?)
And if we do manage to make mutual friends (maybe other parents, through kid-oriented activities?) Can we make the time to all hang out together? I feel like we really only get to spend quality time together as a family on the weekends, as BH often works late into the evenings. The rare times that we get a babysitter, I think we are desperate for time alone as a couple... Can we fit socializing with other couples/families into our lives right now? Similarly, is it possible for me to make time for non-mutual friends when my only child-free time is three weekdays, from like 8 am - 5 pm, when most people my age are working? (And maybe when I should be tending to my responsibilities as home too?)
I just don’t know. I feel stuck and afraid, and still so lonely. Am I doomed to feel like this forever? I want to rip my own heart out so I don’t have to feel anything at all, at this point. I’m so tired
0 comment posted: Wednesday, September 10th, 2025
Regretting having been the OW
I don’t know how this will be received, but I want to talk about it anyway.
When I was much younger (17-19 years old) I had a lot of relationships with older, married men. I didn’t feel bad about it at the time; I rationalized that it wasn’t me who was obligated to remain faithful to anyone else. I thought that if someone’s husband was looking outside, there were obviously problems inside the marriage, and they weren’t my problems. That if I didn’t have relations with them, surely someone else would, so why refrain?
It wasn’t until much later that I changed my mind about it during a debate on social media. Obviously it’s very wrong to be complicit in someone’s efforts to betray their spouse in such a horrific way, and that we owe it to fellow human beings to do our individual parts in preventing infidelity, through saying "no." Sure, unrealistic to expect every potential AP will also say "no," but to be the one who does enable the infidelity is a moral failing.
One of the men for whom I was the OW has been emailing me periodically for the last 10 years, which I found out when I recovered that old email address. I hadn’t responded to him, as I’m married now myself, but back in April I did respond with "It’s been 9 years," as in like… "Why are you still trying?" But he didn’t seem to take it like that, as yesterday he replied "It’s been 10 years actually! Life goes by so quickly… how are you doing?"
I considered not responding, but in light of my current situation with my own recent infidelity, I decided to anyway. I told him, "I am married with children now. Please stop contacting me.
What we did to your wife and child was not okay. It’s one of the most horrible things you could do to a person and I deeply regret being complicit in that." (And then I went and shared the interaction with BH for transparency purposes, of course.)
I don’t know whether he’s still married to his BW today, though it’s really hard to imagine her staying married to him after finding out he was having sex with a high schooler downstairs on the couch while she and their disabled child were asleep right above us, or that he’d given her a (thankfully curable) STD after we’d had a threesome with another young woman. I don’t think I care whether he is still married or not; if he’s still reaching out, it’s hard to imagine he has any remorse for what he’s done. I thought someone ought to tell him he should.
But at the same time that I feel so angry for that poor woman we hurt, my shame about my own character has compounded. I have barely been functional today for all the sadness and anxiety and disgust with myself that I’ve felt. My BH has been so wonderfully supportive (Thank you. I know you’re reading this), but it makes me feel worse at the same time because I know he is hurting, probably a lot worse than I am, and that I’m supposed to be the supportive one for him. It just feels like I can’t stop being selfish and making it about me, and I hate it so much. (I’m so sorry, my love)
I need to figure out how to get it together somehow. This can’t go on.
0 comment posted: Tuesday, September 9th, 2025
Thought Dump
I have a lot of thoughts and feelings swirling around in my head. It’s easier to not be alone with them, so I figured I’d write them out here. Maybe you guys could help me make sense of them.
It’s been almost two months since D-Day, which is strange. During my affair, it felt like time was going by so much faster than it actually was; it felt like it lasted months, when it was really only 4-6 weeks. Now it feels like time has slowed down: it seems like it’s only been two weeks, at most, since BH found out about everything. Maybe that’s a good thing, if it’s going to take years and years to recover from this.
The love I feel for my BH since then feels different: deeper, but also more desperate. I know if he needs to leave me for any amount of time (including… I don’t even want to say it, but forever) in order to heal, then I need to let him go. It’s still so terrifying to me to think about. When we are lying together in bed or on the couch, I feel like I can’t get physically close enough to him, and that I can’t squeeze him tight enough. I find myself waking up from nightmares and checking to see if he’s there a couple times each night. (He’s often awake too.) I’m savoring each kiss goodbye when he leaves for… well, anywhere I’m not going with him, like it might be the last. I’ve always had anxiety that my family members will get into car crashes or freak accidents or go missing when they go out, but now it feels 10x worse because I imagine him deciding to exit my life voluntarily too. And I know it’s all my fault, too.
I literally can’t even imagine what my life would look like without him in it.
He has brought that up as a problem a few times. I think (and I could be misinterpreting this; I need to talk with him about it) that he wants me to be able to do that, to know what all the other alternate universes look like where I didn’t meet him at 19 and get married to him at 23 and have our child at 24 and be where we are at 28, and still choose this reality with him. It doesn’t feel fair, because how am I supposed to know? My life has always been filled with twists and turns, usually taking me places I love ending up in. I feel so freaking grateful for it all the time. It feels like God wrote this wonderful plot for my life and that it’s going exactly how it’s meant to, all according to plan. I am genuinely happy to be where I am, with him and our family and our home, even if our marriage is in a rough place right now. But he worries that he’s arrested my personal development, I think, because of our age gap, and that I’ve never had a chance to "find myself." Meanwhile, I feel like I continue to find a little bit more of myself each and every day, especially while we try to recover from my infidelity.
I’m trying IC again. I have my first session scheduled for Friday. I’m nervous about it. Every time I meet up with a new therapist, I hope so much that they’ll be the "right" one for me. There’s been a lot of disappointment and "break ups" with therapists, and I fear that happening again (and again and again…) I’m still trying to go in with an open mind, but it is difficult. I want to heal from my own shit, too.
I thought I was completely over exAP, with whom I’ve gone NC. But I listened to country music for the first time since D-Day (I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped) because I had "Carrying Your Love with Me" by George Strait stuck in my head, and I immediately started missing AP. (He’s from the south.) I felt so sad and also so disgusted and confused by the sadness. How can I love BH so damned much, and still be pining after this other person? I have thought, "Maybe I am polyamorous. Maybe, if I weren’t committed to a (mostly?) monogamous marriage with BH, that these feelings for exAP would just be additional feelings; maybe love is not a finite resource, and having it for more than one person doesn’t diminish the love I still have to give it in any amount."
But then I remembered being hypersensitive to all of the weaknesses in my marriage and falling prey to comparison between the idealized version of exAP I had in my head and the excitement of a shiny, new relationship, to BH (who is a much better man and partner to me than exAP ever would have been) and our decade-old relationship. It’s not a good thing. I am trying to focus on all the negatives about exAP and the poor ways he treated me. All the lies I suspected him of telling. The awful rollercoaster of emotions he put me through, and the immorality of his pursuit of a married woman. The disrespect of trying to contact me again despite telling him we were through, that I’d hurt BH more than I could have ever imagined, and that I am choosing my marriage…
Last night BH called me into his office and showed me a couple who had messaged us on a swinger website. I felt confused, and a little worried. I know we are both interested in looking for friends for the both of us, and that I feel fine with him being sexually involved with other women (maybe excited even ?), but generally the expectation with swinging is that I would be involved with the male half of this other couple. I don’t really feel one way or the other about it— I certainly don’t actively desire that or feel the need to sleep with other men at this point in my life— but I worry it could be triggering for BH… I guess we need to have a conversation about it. Or, maybe I am getting ahead of myself; maybe they would just be friends. Who knows.
Well, I’ve gone and written a whole book. Thanks for reading, if you’ve made it this far!
2 comments posted: Monday, September 8th, 2025
