Two years since I ‘ve been away. Thank you for your kind response Anita – and hello to those who’ve just stumbled onto this thread now that I’ve bumped it up. I’m here to write the long overdue update since I’ve contemplated the replies here – hopefully to close the thread with a good note as well.

Since details must’ve waned off after so long, I suppose we don’t have to go through the nails again. Tl;dr, I was a mistress to a married man, and was wondering whether it’s good to tell the wife and how to best deal with the guilt.

To answer Anita’s latest reply: “I wonder about the nature of your relationship with this man since our March 2017 communication, what you mean by being removed from that environment.” –

I’ve since cut off contact with him, removed our social media mutuals, and moved from my initial house.

During my absence on this forum, I met a loving boy who became my boyfriend, to whom I’m also very open with since day one. He knew about this affair and was very supportive of my recovery since I seemed to have an unresolved trauma that manifested in the ways I handled our disagreements.

Eventually, we decided to meet up with someone who belonged in the religious organization where I met the man in question. He was the head organizer, as well as the lead pastor. There’s this one belief in my religion that if ‘one were to heal, they must first open up.’ And that’s exactly what I did: I came clean. The pastor also shared his views.

Apparently the entire organization had had their own suspicions of the man’s affair for a long while – just that they didn’t know that one of the girls was me. The wife ALSO had been suspecting the affair – but didn’t confront me, nor divorce the man in question. Their relationship remained intact though the wife had also confessed her worries in the marriage to the same pastor.

I was fearfully ready to receive repercussions – whatever it might be – but surprisingly the pastor was very fair and accepting. He thanked me for confessing, gave consolation, and reassured that should any further mediation is required for the married couple, he would be the one to mediate – especially since the organization is quite tight-knit, and everyone shares their struggles with the pastor. He would only require me to come should the married couple need a collective resolve, which didn’t happen and I never heard from them afterwards. That night, I cried a lot in front of him and my boyfriend, but also felt the guilt washing off after a long period of it sticking like glue.

What the pastor said that might’ve rhymed with the replies here was, non-verbatim: “past the mistake, it is most ideal to distance yourself from things or people who might have damaging qualities to others. You do not have to be the villain, nor hero in every story. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone has to hold themselves accountable and better themselves. If you’ve done your responsibilities, confessed your sin and moved on – it is good. Whether or not he repents, it is not up to you, nor his wife, nor anyone else’s – it is entirely his responsibility.”

Looking back to this thread and re-reading my own words, I notice a good amount of self-disgust and guilt through the words. The guilt is well-deserved for what I’ve done remains a mistake, but I no longer feel it creeping back up and gouging me inside-out like it used to. It allowed me to recognize and address my own capabilities to do good and bad things, objectively. I’d like to think that I’ve grown a little bit since then.

And for this reason, I feel like opening up about one’s struggles is good in order for recovery to safely slid into view (at least for someone like me). Had I not shared my mistakes here on TinyBuddha, and had I not been open to my boyfriend and the pastor, I felt like it might’ve done me much worse by suppressing all of the negative feelings.

For those who’ve replied to this thread and/or are now reading this, thank you very much. I hope you’re doing especially well, Anita, since I’ve learned a lot from your compassion and understanding. I’ve now just come around to read the recent threads made by others and saw you’re still very much active in writing – something that easily sets you apart from the others. Wish I could send you a gift, if not give a huge warm hug.

Dear Anita,

I appreciate it. I’m still striving to become said woman, however I’m happy that you actually see that in me. I have quite learned a lot from you; I respect the way you think and the way you break it down through words, writing in such fashion so as to make it easier to be understood by others, especially those who are in need of perhaps easy answers and quick resolutions, as well as a way to show you cared + respected them.

Your first paragraph made me smile, and as I read down the rest, I couldn’t help but nod with every paragraph.

I had been feeling the slightest pint of uneasiness ever since he told me his first few stories; how he sounded very lucky yet unlucky at the same time, how he said that he was very open to criticism yet would immediately fight anyone who gave it to him, and how he seemed to rely on praises to LIVE but would also keep saying that he was unworthy of them in (what I thought at the moment was) a humble manner. Overtime, the uneasy feeling grew worse.

For me, this statement of yours:
“There are people, and he is one of them, whose verbal output is a MIX of truths and lies.”
has finally confirmed and explained that uneasy feeling I have towards him.

Having chocolate-mud-cake as an analogy is very clever – it certainly helped lighten up some more pathways in my mind. I will quote several sentences you’ve written after, that strikes me the strongest:

“He didn’t have an answer because he didn’t have a way at the time to present to you a reconciliation between his true and false statements.”
“You asked a woman, it reads to me, who doesn’t know the difference between chocolate and mud. She has been eating both, not knowing the difference. She probably makes-believe the mud is chocolate.”
“When people are presented with too many lies, they fill in the gaps, the contradictions, with their own cognitive creativity. And so, it is of no relevance to me, looking for the truth.”

I agree. (x3)
There are times when he ‘slipped’ while trying to find reconciliation between his true and false statements. The amount of time he ‘slipped’ increased significantly after about 4 months into the relationship, given that his interest in my critical thinking had also decreased. Often, he would simply point that my questions were ignorant, that I “could never understand him”, so that he could successfully avoid the question and save him energy that was needed to make the next chocolate-mud-cake mix.

There are times when I am also led to believe that once he had gotten hold of a woman long enough, he would feel like he already has her caged, uncapable and unwilling to go elsewhere under his pressuring ‘love’. If she ever tries to leave, he will immediately rage and began to take his past pains and dump it all over her, even if it had nothing to do with her.
The “supermodel girl”, I believe, has fallen to said cage, and just like you said, “makes-believe the mud is chocolate.” At one point, I tried to poke a bit of sense into her through indicative questions, but I later found out the brainwash was irreversible.

“You (or I, or anyone) has no chance to help in the healing of a person who knowingly lies so much.”
I have finally come to accept this. But then, do you think there is any way, any chance for such stubborn person to change his own self for the better without anyone’s help?

…my fogged mind is now becoming significantly clearer. I feel refreshed.
I guess what I have been craving all along is a definite confirmation to validate my own feelings. I had my feelings and thoughts shot down so many times by him that I almost could not believe if someone ever sees me valid.

Anita, thanks again for your reply~
I appreciate your specific advice. I will keep this in mind in my process of figuring whether it’s a good idea to tell his wife or not. I will very likely try inquiring her thoughts first regarding the matter in the way you suggested.

I have said this in my update note to you but I will say it again: you don’t know how great of an impact your writings have made on me.

Dear Anita, thank you for breaking it all down for me to easily understand. Your words are always so well-contructed!

I would like to clarify that what I wrote on my initial post might have been affected with my knowledge of him now, and that might make most things, such as “him taking unfair advantage of women” , appear much more obvious in the early paragraphs. I should have written it better (is there no option to edit initial post or am I missing something?), as before the time that I deduced him to be “a well respected man among women”, the facts I heard from him in the past were spoken in very delicate and well-constructed words, even delivered in a positive tone, making me believe in him to be a a man with pure intentions.

I admit, I got very deluded back then and I believed in him more than I believed myself. He also gifted me a lot of material things, which in turn made me feel like I was in debt to him, like I’m responsible to also make him happy in some other ways. It is also partly because of how he had struck me down every single time I tried to give him a feedback that was out of his expectation, good or not.

“So he presented his behavior to you as charity.” Exactly.

“What he told you reveal to me his childhood experiences and how they affected who he became…”
The words following that sentence of yours are…very true.
To add to that: he did tell me about how life has been unfair to him. He lived in a poor family, ate just rice and salt everyday (he likes to somehow brag about this often, implying he was a tough boy who had known all the hardships in life from a very young age) and had a very strict father. He claimed to have taken some of those strict and sensitive traits from his father, while he got his loving side from his mother.
Further more, he would also love to tell me about how lucky he was after growing up and going to college: getting to know said 5 girlfriends, having a lot of beautiful girls begging him for sex, making a lot of money from mere online gaming, having a lot of people support him and much more.
He would, afterwards, tell me that his life wasn’t so lucky at all because of the people who “had done an irreversible damage to his heart.” He had lent a lot of money to friends that ran away afterwards, he had “invested” and helped accommodate a single mother only to be lied and left behind, then many other similar cases which involve him helping people only to be betrayed.

Over time, I began to understand the reason he saw me out; he told me I appeared to be gentle and kind. He was trying to find a person who wouldn’t leave him behind, that would stay by his side no matter what and love him no matter how good or bad he is. But what he failed to realize, is that he already has it. She’s already there with him in bed every night, the very woman he proposed to 5 years ago. He also has the supermodel girl for him as his best friend slash love affair. When I asked him why he didn’t marry the supermodel girl (because they have known and loved each other longer than he does his current wife, and she has flawless looks and as he said to me, she always “treated him like a king”), he answered with just:

“No. I just don’t.”

Then when I asked the same thing to the supermodel girl, she said that “he was insecure. The thought of dating and marrying a woman that is too attractive and too rich scared him. Even if I had treated him like a king with all my fortune, it still wouldn’t get rid of the fear of him dragging me down with him along the unfortunate, poor family road. Isn’t he such the nicest guy in the world for worrying about my future? Yes he is, and I still haven’t found one single guy that is just like him. *Love emoji*” (actual literal translation) (and the supermodel girl is still not married, still hot for him)

Anita, your following statements and suggestions after that opened up my eyes. I genuinely agree with the idea of stopping the harm to others first.
I initially believed that I also have as strong responsibility as to help him heal. I thought that me being the only one to learn a positive lesson from this is not exactly right.
But I now I’ve become more able to distinguish the things I can’t and shouldn’t do, from the things I can and should actually do. I will definitely re-sort my priorities and regroup every bit of me, completely removing myself from this abusive relationship as well.. It has taken quite its toll on me. Thank you very much!

And as for my relationship with his wife;
we hung out a couple times whenever convenient, most of the time his husband being around. We have talked for quite a long time, gave each other small gifts and often talked about the books we love. We liked to hang out in book shops, mostly.
I find her to be a quiet, reserved, cool and collected girl. A woman who’s ALWAYS there whenever her husband needs her emotionally. I can sense that her and him both cared for each other deeply. The thing that always low-key bugged me is how secretive he can be in front of his wife, particularly regarding his romantic pursuits and the likes; I’ve witnessed more lies than I think I should in a supposedly healthy married couple.

What do you think?

Once again, I really appreciate your reply. Thanks, Anita!