Should i tell my lovers wife about us

If you want to kick this drug, you have to stop feeling ashamed, which means you have to stare straight down the barrel of your shame.

Give this fantasy and this pain a home. Write down how good it felt to live inside your twisted, wicked world with this man. Acknowledge how good it felt, how warped it was, how guilty you felt, how deliriously into it you were. Be honest with yourself to break yourself out of this dark box of addiction. Coax yourself back into reality this way.

You can still have imagination in your life. Cultivate these things a tiny bit on your own, and understand that they belong to you and no one else.

All of the imagination you brought to that affair can be used to build pretty new worlds. You can savor that ability and talent without letting it take over reality again. Look around and ask yourself what this guy had that you wanted. Ask yourself what you were avoiding. Ask yourself what you hate about showing up and speaking to a real, relatively powerless guy who is needy and fragile, just like you, in real time. Figure out how to meet someone who is also reckoning with these questions.

This is the path away from addiction. It can be bold and delicious. You were loved. You were erased. Stop erasing yourself in his honor.

Stop thinking of this picture in terms of rejection and not being good enough for him. Those are shame-driven lenses. And do not go on Facebook and look at his baby! These humans have nothing to do with you now. Make that real for yourself however you can, and then drop it forever. Every single time you spy on them, you hurt yourself.

Is that who you are? Are you a masochist? You are at the center here. Your life is still brilliant and wild. Feel that inside your skin. How much time do you have left on this planet? Do you need me to remind you that your time is limited? You are already worthy of all the love in the world.

The energy you poured into this addiction can also pull you out of this darkness. Close your eyes and have faith in yourself. Love is all around you, always. Can you feel it? Now open your eyes and look. Her advice column will appear here every Wednesday.

All letters to askpolly nymag. Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription. Account Profile. Sign Out. Tags: advice ask polly self. You say that you realize that this will cause his wife much pain, and that you take responsibility for that and will have to find a way to come to terms with it.

At that point, you stop talking. Give them space to react, and avoid responding defensively to their feelings by trying to justify your actions I was lonely ; their relationship had been dead for a decade.

For instance, they might not want to be around the two of you early on, and you will respect their feelings as they evolve. Your partner, of course, has a more difficult task.

He needs to tell his wife first, and she may tell the children before he does. If she is willing to go with him to a therapist to talk about how to manage the fallout of the affair and the end of their marriage, including how to best help their children process the infidelity and subsequent divorce without burdening them with their own issues your father is a scumbag ; your mother is an alcoholic , that would be ideal.

The more you can empathize with their losses, the safer they will feel as you all adjust to this next phase of your relationship with your partner. As for what to say to the wife, ask yourself what you might say that would be helpful to her. An apology, for example, might make you feel better by alleviating your guilt, but it might also add to her pain.

Remember that she will be experiencing a double betrayal—first the affair, and second the involvement of someone she considered a friendly fellow mom for many years. She may feel that you stole not just her husband, but her dignity, the life she had planned to live for the next several decades, and her sense of safety or trust in those she believed loved her. Dear Therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

I never knew I could feel like this. So deep. I can tell her anything; my dreams, my fears, my strengths, my flaws. John spoke slowly but fervently as he explained his relationship with Sheila. It was not his idea to visit with me; he had come because another friend asked him to do so. She understands me more than anyone. And I know everything about her. We were meant to be together.

John admitted his feelings for her and his intention to divorce his wife and marry her. The pastor lectured John that what he felt was not love, but an unhealthy lust that would destroy him and his family. He seemed surprised, though pleasantly so.

He figured I would take the same approach as his pastor and others who defined love in a way that denied the authenticity of his intense emotions. I had no doubt that John deeply loved Sheila with a kind of love that involves a concentration of feelings most types of love cannot touch. For example, your pastor knows that in his Bible the kind of love called agape differs from liking or friendship love.

What you feel is a measurable and identifiable kind of love. So, yes, I believe you. I gently told him that before he made himself too comfortable, he needed to hear the rest of what I wished to share. He had been talking for nearly a half-hour; now it was my turn. The most important thing to think about is what you do next and how that will affect the rest of your life.

Also the lives of your wife, children, parents, friends, and even your church. Before leading John through considering his future, I guided him through his recent past, starting before he and Sheila connected emotionally. I did not ask him to tell me about his past. Instead, I told it to him, though I had not heard it from anyone. It was not an effort to impress him, but to demonstrate to him how deeply I understood him.

Correct me if I get something wrong. At first, your conversations were nothing special, just friends talking about mostly inconsequential matters. However, as you enjoyed being around each other, you became more open and transparent. Gradually, you evolved to discussing personal matters, trusting each other, and liking the attention and validation. Somewhere along the line, one of you began to slip in words of affection, cautiously at first, and then openly.

Well before either of you openly professed love for the other, you both knew what the other felt. Neither of you considered the possibility that you violated boundaries as friends, co-workers, or Christians, though both of you were still actively involved in your churches. Nor did either of you entertain the idea that by your deepening desire to be with each other you violated your marriage vows to Melinda. You each believed strongly that both of you were good people who had no wish to do anything wrong.

That eventually led to warm, clinging embraces. Next came kissing which finally progressed to full physical expression of your emotions. It reached its peak when you became sexually intimate.

Before you left each other after that first time, you wept and prayed together, asking God to forgive you and help you not sin again.

Instead, you thank Him for bringing you together. So what does that have to do with anything? Why is that important?

Same reason. Hundreds of them. He was not enthusiastic about hearing my predictions, but realized it would be irrational to refuse. Even if you stay together, which is not likely, you will have difficulties in that marriage because of the way it started.

Everybody thinks that. Nobody is. Allow me to explain what you have before I predict where you will wind up. You cherish those feelings so dearly that you want to do whatever it takes to maintain them. We know from science and from our own experience with thousands of people that limerence lasts somewhere between three months to three years and then it begins to fade away.

This is real. Very real. Your brain makes the chemicals driving these amazing emotions. Admit it; you spend a lot of time thinking about Sheila. Honestly, do you spend as much time with them as you used to? You still love them, but if you are honest with yourself, you know that you will miss events with them if Sheila wants you with her. Same with your parents and your close friends. Spend much time with any of them lately, John? Your job requires you to think, be creative, and plan.

I know all about that. That is an identifiable and measurable kind of love. It may be more intense than any other form of love. Dorothy Tennov, PhD, named it limerence in to describe what people feel when they are madly in love with another person.

Helen Fisher, PhD, and her associates now do most of the research concerning it. We know from their research that powerful brain chemicals are associated with limerence and, as a result, a person in limerence behaves differently than he did before, and differently than he will after limerence fades.

And it will fade, John. It always does. It does not last. In fact, you cherish and adore letters, words, and events associated with her. Those things are special to you. For example, you experience some of these — euphoria, energy surges, insomnia, lost appetite, abrupt mood swings, or rapid heartbeat. You may even occasionally feel anxiety and panic.