I am overwhelmed with loss. My husband, my AP, I lost my business I was building with my AP so I am unemployed, several of my friends ended relationship with me over this as well.

My husband is very, very hurt by my behavior. Of course, he should be. What I did was horrible. I met and started a business with a co-worker for 2 the past years. The last 9 months it became a physical affair. We did truly start out as partners to be successful and build a dream that would secure both of our families financially (neither of us have kids). We bonded over being in the trenches and working so hard together to make the business successful. In our industry we were a dream team. Businesses loved working with us.

I have read so many books, articles, seems like everything. What the majority of them say about cheaters is just so awful that I feel like I just have to pretty much own it becuase it's never going to go away. Seems we are a different breed, inhuman. It's been 10 weeks since my AP and I got caught and my husband and I still haven't discussed the affair. We are both in separate counseling and we are starting a joint counseling next week just so we can communicate because he is so hurt. He asks me "why" and "how" and that always leads me to our marriage but that is just so unacceptable as a communication in this situation. I don't understand why it's not allowed to be part of the discussion. Everything has a context no matter how hurtful it is. I have learned the only acceptable answer until he opens up the conversation is, becuase I am a bad person who is awful. I feel like I have no rights anymore at all. Like I had to hand them over because I'm one of the inhuman now.

This next part is the part the betrayed cannot tolerate at all. My husband has been a very difficult man to live with. I know it stems from his childhood but he has absolutely no emotional connections to any human in this world and he is charmingly cruel about every single thing. Call it a low self esteem, some have suggested narcissism (which is a word I hate) or whatever, but the 23 years of our emotional marriage have been me going 99 steps and him barely managing 1 step. I realize I should have left a long time ago but raised and entrenched in a religious community I had convinced myself that was not an option. Now of course it's even worse. I'm doing a lot of work to get my thoughts right about my own value in my counseling.

In all of this, I am struggling very much with getting over my AP. Even if it was all a lie and a fog as we are explained away in so many resources, he loved me so well for those 9 months. He was so kind and gentle to me. He asked me how I was and listened. The sex was the least of it althought it could be the reason my husband never gets over this.

We fell in love in the trenches for better or worse. He wanted me to "run away" with him just before Covid took over but I told him I had to give my husband an honest ending after all of this hurtful behavior and deception and I didn't think it was healthy to continue to fully run away to another intense romantic relationship right after leveling a 23 marriage (no matter how dysfunctional it was). We also had never had a chance to date or know each other outside of the bubble of our affair.  It became apparent very quickly that he was either going to stay with his wife or be with me. For him being single and working through this was not an option. In contrast, I was understanding that we both were very damaged and needed some self help. I expressed that our friendship had proven it could stand over time but our romance had not and we were very stressed and overwhelmed. Over the course of the next 8 weeks he approached me several more times to "jump" (while he was back with his wife in counseling and living at their home) and when I stuck to my guns about my counseling and getting my own head screwed on straight he cut the relationship off entirely after his wife checked the phone bill and saw that he was making periodic calls to me. He expressed he had to start getting over us and move on. 

Thus began the second caving in of my chest. He is hurt that I wouldn't make this happen "now" and I am hurt that he wouldn't wait for me. I've committed to not blame and have some "realization" that he is not who I thought he was. That would be so wrong. I don't know if he will do the same. Perhaps it is easier for us to villianize the other person so we can accept ourselves but I will not do it period even if he does it to me. 

Add to that my joblessness and losing the business I have literally bled for over the past 24 months. Then the icing on the cake, the break-up texts from friends that tell me "this is where we part ways". Lastly, I'm coming to grips with the life that I made for myself. I didn't fight for my own worth and value. I didn't stand up to my husbands way of being married to me and say this is unacceptable. I never ever fought for myself and then no one else did either. I set the personal standard and everyone else agreed to it. I thought that I was strong enough to be unhappy forever but I just wasn't.

My loneliness right now is stifling. The nights and mornings are so painful. I have an constant lump in my throat and pressure on my chest. I miss my AP so much and I see my husband saturated in his own hurt and pain loathing me.

Thanks for reading if you did.