Guilt, shame, regrets... What have I done?

Many of you are going to judge me and I deserve it, all of it. I need to get my story off my chest.

Right before joining this site, my thoughts were the darkest ever. With a bottle of sleeping pills in my hand I googled "I want to die" and landed on a page about suicide. This website came up as a suggestion.
I am so exhausted. I wake up every 2 hours sweaty, panicky, sick to my stomach when reality sinks in.
I keep an oppressive secret and the weight grows heavier every day. I feel desperate. My efforts at an apparent normalcy are exhausting. I have not shared the burden of my secret with anyone... Guilt, shame, remorse, hate and regrets are all getting to be too much. This is when the pain in my soul outweighs my coping mechanism and all I think about is to end it to make the pain stop.

I have been married for 22 years, have 3 beautiful children, 22, 19, and 15. I have the perfect husband, perfect life. Yet I strayed. I had an affair with a man who swept me off my feet, made me feel beautiful, special, loved. Had unprotected sex. I was going to leave my husband for him until something in me woke up: common sense. I stopped seeing the man and worked on my marriage. But reality hit me in the face. That man had been lying every step of the way, like a con artist. Turns out he infected me with HPV and I unknowingly infected my husband. I discovered it with my yearly pap and went through colposcopy, cryosurgery alone without telling anyone. Then my doc discovered I had an emoraging syst on one of my ovaries and endometriosis which could be cancerous. Went through the agony of biopsy and wait for a diagnostic that came back negative. I wanted it to be positive and die from uterin cancer like my grandmother. I have HSV1 (cold sores on my mouth) a condition I have managed not to pass on to my husband and my children all these years by being careful. At least I thought the doc was wrong, that my strain of HPV was the one harmless to men but deadly to women, the kind that has no symptoms to men but give women cervical cancer. I was wrong. I have a low-risk HPV, the one that gives GWs.
I just found some genital warts in the lower part of my vagina, well hidden. I know my husband will get them soon and I'll have hell to pay. In the meantime I go on lying to everyone, perfect wife, perfect life when deep inside I want to die.
I simply am too coward to do it because I know it will hurt my children beyond repair. I had a friend in high school who's mother committed suicide and he and his sister were a mess even years later.
I am guilty as sin and it hurts.
I never swear but in my head now I always do. I swear at myself, at what I have done.
I simply don't see any way out. I have put my husband's health in jeopardy and he is so innocent.
Here is the underlying issue: the lack of communication in our marriage. I wanted out a while back. Never could for the children. I felt pressure from my parents and my in-laws who have the perfect marriage.
Now our 2 oldests are in college and we have one more in high school.
I am lost. I have lost my self-respect. I go through the motions. There isn't one moment in the day when I feel relief from this grief. It's getting to be too much. Yet, there is something deep inside my soul that keeps me going, one day at a time, telling me I'll end it all tomorrow, a survival instinct that says "it's not over until it is." So I'm surviving, one more day and I really don't care what happens to me, only that I stopped hurting others.
If only I could undo what I've done!
It feels good to talk about it at least. Thank you for reading.

Hello, and welcome to PC. Others here may have better suggestions than I. But, from what you've described, there is no other alternative than to be honest with your husband, since it sounds like you may have infected him. I am not speaking from an objective judgment of you, but from the viewpoint myself from having been unhappily married, staying for my daughter till she left for college, then leaving myself. The communication between husband and myself, the lack of emotion between us, was nil. I strayed emotionally, but never physically, but I can totally understand your predicament, based upon my own exp. You are going to have to "face the music," and come clean with your husband. He may choose to reject you, divorce you. As you say, you are just now "going thru the motions," living with intense guilt. So, yes, it may get much worse, but if you have infected your husband, he deserves to know this. So sorry.
Patty

It sounds like your various sexual diseases could be your own (based on your cold sores, you could have had them first and the other followed/broke out) or even from your husband. Many have has HPV wandering around their bodies, just not everyone gets it! Your husband may/may not get it, 90% of people do not; I would tell him you are infected, get him to the doctor and let the doctor check him out and educate him about it.

http://www.cdc.gov/std/hpv/stdfact-hpv.htm

I would deal with the health issues and then work from there when you know if he has signs or what is happening with him and explain to him you did not tell him before because you were ashamed, thought you had "caused" the disease (no way to know if it was you, he, or the cheating) and did not understand that he might or might not get it but it needs to be checked out.

Thank you Perna ~

Your words really helped and gave me hope.
There is no HPV test for men, the only diagnostic is with visible signs like warts. What is done can't be undone and I will face the music sooner than later.
Everyone is home for the Holidays right now. I've called off work for 2 days because I am such a mess. I have a GYN apptnext week.

Your thoughtfulness makes a difference in my life right now... Thank you.

Hi.

It sounds that you have suffered enough. It was not the right thing to do, but attraction is a powerful thing, and you are not the only one that has done something like this.

You are at an all-time low. Things don't seem to get any worse. You are very afraid of damaging your marriage which may seem perfect on the outside.

But again, here you are close to wanting to leave life. So have you not thought about telling this to your husband? A marriage is not destroyed often by only an adulterous relationship, but also by what happens after that. If you love your husband, I think you marriage has a big chance of surviving.

How do you think your husband will react if you tell him? Walking around with this secrets is killing you on the inside.

From what I know, there are good treatments against HPV, and often it goes away by itself. Also, even if you have HPV, it might not be active and express/manifest itself, unless you live a very unhealthy lifestyle. If you tell your husband he'll be able to do something about the HPV.

Are you SURE you got it from cheating?...I also had a "abnormal" pap test come back..Related to HPV...It scared the **** outta me...I've NEVER been to the OBGYN and had a test come back abnormal...Needless to say, they called me, told me to come back in, do another test, yadda yadda yadda...

My doc told me this:

Men rarely have signs of HPV...Which is why it goes undetected and spreads so easily...The strain that you had is harmless to men...Which to me would mean that he won't see any symptoms...I would definetly wait until your next appointment to verify some information with your dr...Ask him whether or not your husband can get the warts...That would be my first suggestion...Don't even say a word to him about it...I'm sorry this happened...I can't imagine....And I agree with Perna, the HPV could have come from anywhere...Your husband, who wouldn't even know and may have been carrying it...HPV is sneaky...It's the most common STD for women because it goes undetected in men...Believe me, when I got that HPV scare, I immediately goggled information and learned everything I could...

Edit: And a health note for you all...They are actually thinking about start giving kids HPV vaccininations since it's so common....

What you are going through must be really painful, and I probably don't have the best advice but I believe you should start by being honest with your husband. Not only does he deserve to know the truth but also, you have already put yourself through enough and you need to get that weight off your shoulders. Dealing with the consequences of our mistakes is always hard, but it is part of life. I know what is like to hold a secret and believe me, even though things will probably "not be pretty" once you tell the truth, you will feel a lot better and you will be able to start working on solutions rather than worrying about what will happen. Good luck and remember, you are not alone.

Hello, I feel so terrible for you on this situation. I hope that you soon
understand to be kinder to yourself for being human. I personally have
had problems with sexual desire in varied periods through my life. I
think we go through stages where we are needing more affirmation
about our desirability and attractiveness.

I remember going through this right after menopause. Luckily my
husband was the recipent of this sexual desire. I think almost all
women go through some attractions outside of our marriages at
times. I know that I was very tempted and if all things being
equal, I could have easily been drawn into adultry. Fortunately
it did not go there.

I have been widowed now for over 4 years and have been surprised at myself for lustfullness I have felt and acted upon. I think my morality
and church life causes me a great deal of shame connected to this.
My councelor tells me that my behavior is normal and having a sense of
freedom that I have not had before.

My husband cheated on me during our early marriage and it
devasted me for years. He and I discussed this years after and his feelings were that he had made a stupid mistake. Big difference
here as to how men feel about their cheating as how woman feel
about theirs.

It is the time for some self love, forgiveness, and understanding for yourself, instead of your hammering your soul with all these accusations.
Bless your heart, none of us are perfect and hope you soon realize
this and not continue to torture yourself over this, just realize a lesson
learned. Be well!

Dear Hopeless Adulteress, hmmmm,
not really sure where to begin. First off, you may be surprised by this, but
we are not all angels. I have never cheated on any in my life, not really done much wrong.
but people make mistakes. You have done the early step of acknowledging to yourself,
that your performance and behavior was not up to par of what you wish for YOU or
for the golden shadow you feel your husband to be.
I can not live your life for you, and your decisions on how to live that life, you
will have to live with come good or bad... but for me, I feel you should come true to
your husband. Such guilt will destroy your marriage eventually, unless you
wrestle it with earnest. Either get counseling to handle the feelings, or be
really frank and get counseling, or a cooperative peer to make you
and your husband deal with A) you love your husband B) you cheated C) he is infected
whether you did it or not. D) you want to repair things as best as can be done
given what has past. E) ask him to please come to counseling to deal with
the repercussion of the indiscretion and why it happened in the first place.
Shame is our hearts alarm system telling us, "hey, I can do better than that, wake up."
You made a horrible mistake. It will have results, many bad ones, but that
does not mean that some good can not come from this is making your
marriage (or the next one) not grow, and make you grow should you
choose to expand beyond your errors.
In my life, I was brow beaten for every mistake. I now know mistakes and regrets
are part of life, we survive them, hopefully, and we learn, and grow.
Your choice of "hopeless adulteress" as a sign on, I think is too hard, you
have remorse, a sign you can rise above this, because you know your actions
are not true to your nature and potential.
P.S. if anything else, you are just like me. Human. give yourself that.
Practice mercy, with others, with yourself.

Hugs and blessings
SW

Thank you all for your kind words of encouragement. They mean a lot to me and brought my morale up a little.
I wish everyone a safe and happy new year. 2012 is a better number!!!
Peace.

please please seek some professional help. it will be the best thing that you have ever done for yourself. your relationship with your husband had a glich and there is a reason for it. take care of yourself because no matter what you have done you are worth it.