A
female
age
41-50,
*ellasunshine
writes:I have been married for 12 years. My husband never knew how to communicate or show affection. We became just friends and not lovers or husband/wife. I have been having an affair for over a year now with "the love of my life" from years ago. I have always loved this man and after many years we reconnected and it became so intense and we are more in love than ever. But because of circumstances and location and us both having kids, it is not possible for us to be together. Our spouses both know what happened and think it is over. It is so hard to break away from him. He is like my drug and I am addicted. He is my best friend and my soulmate. I don't want to hurt my husband any more than I already have, or our children, but the thought of not having my lover in my life kills me... how do I move on with my husband that I am not in love with and forget about my lover? He is my everything... how do I let go of him to do the "right" thing?
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affair, best friend, move on, soulmate Reply to this Question
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2007): Get a divorce, and have the love of your life get a divorce then be together. Life is short, your kids will grow up fast & you'll still be in a loveless marriage.
A
female
reader, angelblueeyes  +, writes (15 October 2007):
 Hi, i think that your relationship with your husband has come to an end, and maybe its time that you sat down together and talked about it all,
i don't believe that you can finish with the lover and work on your marriage as you would never be happy and that is not fair on either you or your husband nor to your children,
Don't believe all you hear about the messed up children after seperation/divorce my parents got divorced but i have managed to lead a normal life and been married for over nine years!
I wish you luck and i hope everything works out good for you. x
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A
male
reader, eddie  +, writes (15 October 2007):
 Did you post this question before? You can not have everything. You've already done the dirty work and now you're trying to turn the situation into something it's not. IF you are so "in love" with your soul mate, give your husband a chance and let him find someone who cares.
Your first mistake was when you didn't work on your marriage. You can't go back in time but that is where you should have started. The lines have been crossed and you've already got yourself too far into this other relationship. You see, you don't really care about your marriage. That is why it's hard to put your husband first. If you cared about him it would be easy to put him above the other man. You've had your head in the clouds with this other guy and that has made your marriage seem stale. Now it would take a miracle to change it back.
Every time the knew relationship went to a higher level, it knocked your marriage down two levels. It's difficult to compare a marriage of routine day to day events to the excitement of a romance with another person. That is where people get caught.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (15 October 2007): Unlike some of the other advice I don't think you should see your life as one big compromise. So far you have stayed in a marriage that has left you cold - for the sake of your children. Of course it would have been best not to bring children into an unhealthy relationship for their own stability but the situation you have to confront is the one facing you right now. Damage limitation would say live on your own for a while with or without your children to see how you really feel. However.... think about this..one day your children will leave home - it could not be that long away and where will that leave your marriage if you stay in an unhappy one? I would never respect my parents for staying together on my account if they were 'acting' it out and unhappy. That would teach me that I trapped them. It would make me feel guilty. It would teach me also that you sacrifice your own happiness for others. Surely that is not a good way to live?! If you and this other man can live with the impact this will have in the short to medium term and you can truly imagine spending the rest of your life with him then you should be together. If you are not sure about him then I would cut him out your life and do whatever you can to distract yourself for the next 12 months while the hurt lessens. Everyone is entitled to happiness, including you - just remember that.
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A
male
reader, rcn +, writes (15 October 2007):
 You asked, DO I DO THE RIGHT THING? Let me ask you something, how about sitting your kids down and tell them what mommy had been up too. Ask them if you should do what's right or not. I have children, and once I did I had to make changes. My kids know what I do and who I am because I live my life as if they were watching my actions. I want to be a positive influence in their lives, so if given an opportunity like yours with an old lover, I would have turned it down, because my kids are MORE important than my own personal desires.
So what if he had difficulty showing affection. That would have been an area to work on. You had absolutely no right to go outside the marriage to find what you were missing. I can't see how you can even look at what you did as being even remotely OK. If I was married and she had an affair like this, if she wanted to stay in the marriage, It would be a sexless marriage. I really couldn't see myself touching her again knowing she'd been touching some other guy. That's just gross. They say when you sleep with someone you sleep with whoever they have for 5 years.
If you went the route of divorce. I don't know you're whole marriage life story, but custody is being given less and less to those who commit adultery. For some reason they think the kids parents choices help develop the children, and those who commit adultery lack in ways that are important to raising children to be healthy and strong.
It's your choice what you decide to do, the options are: have your children grow up with respect for themselves or others, or really screw them up and their beliefs. It's your choice.
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A
male
reader, Tommy7 +, writes (15 October 2007):
Either divorce yor husbabd, get his permission or dump the bf.
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