One thing I’ve learned in my forty plus years on the planet is that:

1. Ain’t no one perfect. You are feeling shamed. But just remember that all of us have been not-so-great in our past. And those that have been? They haven’t been there yet or they haven’t lived a lot of life. Half the people who react to you in horror have done just as not-nice things ~ only they haven’t been caught and they would never admit it.

2. Does everyone (and I mean everyone) know? If they do, a strong offence is a good defense. I would write a mass email/message and say, “Mistakes have been made, but not to the degree that this hysterical woman has led everyone to believe. I have sent out a restraining order to (INSERT HER NAME – do it!!) and hopefully she has stopped her misguided vendetta. If any of you is contacted by her, I apologize, and please let me know immediately. Let’s pray for this woman who has mental health issues and send her white light and love.” Since you have always been perceived as good, sweet, loving, etc., they will support you. When they ask what exactly happened, tell them that you don’t want to give any more energy to it. You will get a lot of written FB support that everyone will see.

3. The sheer anger of the fiancé worries me. Is it possible he’s been tempted himself, resisted temptation and is now having a tantrum? I can see getting hurt, crying, withdrawing, a sullen, simmering anger, but breaking things, etc. I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t been there.

4. Only time, time, and more time might fix this.

Good Luck!!!!

Sweetheart, everyone makes mistakes, and this is one that you have made and you are now facing the consequences. You need to forgive yourself, learn from the experience, and move on from it. One thing you mentioned “How can I fix him”, you can’t fix him, you can only make changes to yourself. It must be extremely humiliating for you facing people, but that’s exactly what you must do, face your fear and humiliation, you will find out who your true friends are, if it means that they do not stick by you and support you, then perhaps they were never really your friends in the first place. Everyone on this earth makes mistakes in life, we can’t go back and change the past, but we can use those less than perfect experiences to move forward positively. It is quite normal and natural that your ex is angry and feeling hurt. Give him time and space, let him know how much you love him, but give him the opportunity to grieve for what he thought he had. If only life were black and white, but it isn’t. Even good people make mistakes, but don’t keep beating yourself up. I truly wish you good luck, and remember, one way or the other, things will turn out for the best. Take good care of yourself. XX

No one on here knows you personally so what we may suggest is purely based on our personal opinions and what information you have provided so please don’t get offended or think my advice is right for you or that I’m judging you because I’m honestly not and just want to help. I sincerely hope things are going better for you and I’m sorry this has happened and hope my advice can help your personal situation.

To answer the question you posted, well that’s a yes and no. I personally know a man who cheated on his partner and they are now married and have two children. But there was a difference in the fact that he told his partner straight away (that week) what he had done, as it was a once of event. I’m not saying it can’t happen because it could but that will really depend on your x and if he can ever learn to forgive you.

Trust me, I understand people make mistakes, in fact everyone does so please, what happened is in the past and we can not change the past, we can only accept it and learn from it so we do not repeat the same mistakes and you really do sound like you have learnt this lesson. I am proud of you for accepting you have made a mistake and trying to better yourself because of it. That takes a lot of courage because I think every person knows it’s not easy confronting personal issue’s.

I also understand it is hard to have everyone you knew and thought of you as ‘good’ turn there backs on you but you also need to remember you made this choice, knowing there would be consequences. I understand you might be angry at your friends, this is not to be ashamed by, it just reminds you your human but this is a good time to learn and practice the very compassion you yourself would like.
Firstly compassion for your friends – it sounds stupid but you have also betrayed there trust and put them in a hard spot to choose. I don’t think it’s that your friends do not like you anymore or even hate you but if you and your x were friends with all of them, then they may feel they have to choose to side with your x, as they may feel morally obligated to do so.
Compassion for his family – you say you wasted 6 years of your life bonding with his family but you also have to remember they may feel they have also wasted 6 years of there life as well as there son’s life, which let’s be honest most parents will choose there children’s well being over that of someone else. You may have shattered there dreams for grandchildren and there son being married so please understand why they may not be able to forgive you.

Compassion for the wife – I apologise in advance if maybe I interpreted what you wrote wrong but it seems you feel angry at the wife for exposing you but please remember this wife has every right to know the women who slept with her husband, I’m not saying how she handled it was the best, but put yourself in her shoes, she may have given up a lot to be with this man who she loved and he has betrayed and deceived her almost every chance he has gotten and she most likely took her anger out on you as she had no way to take it out on her husband (he could be financially supporting her, or they have children ect). Please be grateful she has not done anything more extreme, and just exposed the truth. Maybe this is divine timing and you were not meant to marry this man.

Compassion for yourself – I know a lot of people will judge you and I am sorry for that but unfortunately sometimes our bad choices may haunt us. Please realize you made a big mistake but it doesn’t define who you are as a person or that you have to punish yourself for the rest of your life because you still deserve to be happy. Relationships, especially love is complicated and think of it as a blessing. If you had got married and your x did not know the truth that kind of burden/secret would eventually of worn your self esteem down and could of even escalated into suicidal thoughts, which no one deserves to suffer.

Compassion for your X – If he can not forgive you, he has every right to choose what is best for him. It does not make him a bad person for not forgiving you, it simply makes him a person who is hurting. He may not be perfect in his thinking but his opinion is still his and you must accept and respect that and for the benefit of both of you guys, move forward.

I know you still love him and you will probably always think about him but judging by what you have written of his opinions it would be best to start a new chapter in your life and cut all contact and move on. If he wants to contact you in the future he will do so but for now concentrate on yourself. I’m pretty sure you have but if you haven’t already done so, maybe ask your self the question of why you had an affair, even though you loved your X. Maybe this will help you to gain insight into any self destructive thought patterns, so you can learn to love yourself again.
But please don’t fall into the victim mentality that you were wronged or that you deserved to be punished. ( it sounds silly, but it is sooooo easy to do when times are hard, I know this from personal experience, because it will only make it harder on yourself)