forgiveness

I have taken responsibility for so much that has happened in the last 4 months and apologised over and over, but I haven't confronted my biggest transgression properly. I am separated but still married and what I did to my husband was terrible. I literally did a 360 in one weekend and EVERYTHING changed. I still battle to fathom it sometimes how I switched off from my husband so quickly when a week earlier I was still so in love with him and was trying everything to get my marriage back to where it was. I was listening my lover and at the same time my parents and my husband were contradicting what he said and naturally you only hear what you want to hear. You follow your heart but because of my faith and the way I am with my parents I tried to see the logic and felt pressured and bad at times and subsequently kept going back to my husband.  Being with my husband made me feel unwanted and alone all over again and even though he said he wanted to try nothing happened. However this never lasted longer than a few days, if even, and I always ran back to my lover because with him I felt at peace.I honestly believed I had found my happy ever after for good.

No matter how unhappy or how badly I was treated by my husband no one deserves to be cheated on and my faith had taught me this, even though that was obviously thrown out the window at the time. I think of how I would feel if this happened to me. There are far better ways I could have handled my unhappiness with my husband and yes my cheating on him happened for a reason and happened because I was searching for more and there was a person that hit all the right buttons and said all the right things at the time.

I will never forget the day he found us together and I asked my lover to hide and he just lay in the bed and smirked. I saw my husbands face and something inside me shattered. I was so in love and blinded I did not fully comprehend what I was doing or the damage and pain I was causing to my husband and my family. I saw his begging me to come back and the fact that he would forgive and forget as a joke. He loves me unconditionally and would probably do anything to have me back. Whether or not he would be able to stick to his word and actually change for good was what was hindering me as I know he could never change who is really is. Even after 8 years of knowing each other and when we got married I knew things about him that would never change and because I loved him I accepted them and said I would work on being okay with it. Clearly I could not deal with it and it ate away at me and it made me resent him because it just got worse. I know I wasn't the picture of perfection either and I asked to do counselling together but it never happened.

Words cannot say how ashamed I am of myself and I need to learn to deal with this guilt, but first I need to say sorry to him. I don't know how or when but I need to do it. Maybe I will write a letter or ask him to see me face to face but I think once I apologise our fighting will end and we will both feel better and be able to move on with our divorce properly. So many hurtful things have been said and done but as I learnt even with my now ex-lover; he has said some terrible things to me and I retaliate or vice versa and yesterday he said to me that we all say hurtful things but we know its not who we really are and just a reflection of bad circumstances (something like that can't remember now). I cannot judge my husband for things he has said and done because it has been the worst circumstances and I know it is not him. People can accuse him of many things but I have known him for 8 years (7 years and 8 months longer than I know my ex-lover) and I know he has a good heart and is an amazing father. Everyone has a bad streak in them and I think its up to us to decide if we can deal with that in the person we love or if it is too much for us....