Confused

Let me begin by clarifying a few important facts up front, before we dig into the nitty-gritty of it all.  You’re married 28-years, with two wonderful children, you’re unhappy, and you’ve had an affair with a coworker.   This just screams DISASTER!!!

While I understand you are and have been unhappy for quite some time, this is no way to handle your affairs (no pun intended).  You have two wonderful children that will be greatly affected by the reality of their mother having cheated on their father, let alone coming to terms with an unexpected divorce.

And the same rings true for any husband cheating on his wife.  The point here is that if you are unhappy in your marriage and you earnestly feel it is over, then respect yourself and the rest of your family enough to do the right and honorable thing.

It’s not why you leave, but how you leave, that matters.

Most people enter into relationships and/or marriages full of love, hope, trust, optimism, honesty and respect.  However, somewhere along the way, the bloom falls off the rose and they stop communicating or fail to communicate honestly with one another.

They then look outwardly to satisfy their needs instead of looking internally.  They fail to exit the relationship with the same love, care, concern, honesty and respect they entered it.  I’ve said this before, by failing to communicate, acts of failure occur.

Having an affair, not to mention one with a co-worker, is a major act of failure and the lessons that are sure to come from it will be plenty.  Fundamentally, you are dealing with issues of lack, unhappiness and self-worth. You are looking externally to fix or satisfy, that which can only be resolved internally.

Everywhere you go…there YOU are.

If you were to divorce your husband and take up with this co-worker, stop and imagine the amount of baggage you will bring to this new relationship.  You haven’t even dealt with leaving the one you’ve been in for 28-years, how can you possibly begin anew with a clean and trusted slate.

In the back of his mind, he’ll always know you were unhappy and the way you dealt with your unhappiness was to have an affair, thus the likelihood that you will do it again. You’ll also begin this relationship with trust in the toilet and that is never a proper place for it.

Ultimately, you need to be brutally honest with yourself and then have the decency to do the same with the man you’ve shared the past 28-years.  He deserves better, just as much as you deserve to be happy and fulfilled.

While it’s never an easy conversation to have, the respect, care, compassion and kindness you show him, is a direct reflection of how you respect, care for and love yourself.  Love yourself enough to exit this relationship the same way you entered it.

Then give yourself the gift of time.  Look inside yourself to see why you cheated in the first place and then be willing to do the challenging work to find and restore your inner happiness, identity and integrity.

Then and only then will you truly be ready for a new relationship, and you’ll embark on that chapter of your life, with CLARITY, not CONFUSION.