Why is she still single? Has she ever remarried? Or possibly, she is waiting on her huband to come home when his fantasy dies off?

A second marriage most definitly could be happy...but yours was an affairage, I am not too sure about that ending happily.

Bingo I am male 54 years old

I did not see your response to what you are doing about treating your depression. It will have an impact on your marriage. If you are self medicating that will have an impact on your relationship. It is also an indication that you have some work to do on yourself. Depression can be brought on by several factors. Depression is really a misnomer, it really is anxiety, if the anxiety is not dealt with, you body starts to shut down. The thing is you need to get to the root of the cause of your depression and anxiety. The depression will cause you to Love Bust (LB).

ARE YOU SELF MEDICATING????


The posters here are starting to home in on the foundation of your marriage. It started out as an affair. Keep in mind that this forum is based on Christian principles. And you will likely find a number of people here who believe there are consequences for not following the patterns and principles laid out in the Bible. You see references to Karma bus, well in reality that can be "consequences for sin" or "disobedience to Gods law". One of the ways to recover is to repent of our sin, meaning to turn around and make right the wrongs WE have done. That can consist of forgiving and asking for forgiveness, righting a wrong, paying a debt.

All of this can play into the cause of depression. Depression can be chemical imbalance but it can also be cognitive and spiritual.

I still get the sense you are looking for a quick fix. But I think there is more to the ball of twine you have accumulated in your life. Now is an opportunity to deal with the accumulation and do the house cleaning that is needed.

Please do not be defensive. I sense the posters are trying to break through your shield, to get to the root issues in your life. I have a sense you have become skilled at hiding them. This is an opportunity for you to do some serious self examination and to look at the factors you are bringing to the relationship that are detrimental.

Bingo,
Here is my observation. Your 9-year marriage has not been successful. You have been neglectful, you both have made poor choices and your M is worse than probably it's ever been. Obviously it wasn't getting better when your woman gave herself to OM (sorry I don't believe her tale of events). She chose to give of herself to OM.

The problem here is that you never worked on improving you and your behavior in your first marriage - thus the neglect and behavior is repeated in the second marriage.

Had you put effort into the first M maybe you would have learned how to be a better man, husband, father and be actually be in a successful M and you would not end up here.

So where does this leave you now? Well you need to start becoming the better man and learn what it takes to make a M successful - it starts with you. The odds are against you because you both are liers and cheaters.

Gg

No heart
No brains
No courage

You're a wayward and your wife is a thief. Neither of you possess the ability to have an open and honest relationship of value and integrity...thus, ignoring any and all problems by closing your eyes and clicking your heals together is by far your best option.

Back to Oz with you...where, it seems, you've just discovered you married the wicked witch. Life is just a movie afterall...it's not real so don't worry about it. It's gotten you this far (NINE years).

Mr. Wondering

p.s.- Give custody of your children of the first marriage back to your ex-wife before it's too late.

Then why are YOU having so much trouble getting over it? After all, it was just a moment of madness.

The point many of us keep reiterating to you is that, from our perspective, based on the way you write, it seems like YOU have some issues that would benefit from being looked at. Not your wife. YOU.

Now, are you interested in knowing what we see? What bothers us about you? Or are you only interested in getting your wife to 'make things better' for you?

Because there is one key theme here at MB. It is this: If you want a better marriage, fix YOURSELF. Because you CAN'T fix your spouse.

having had time to reflect a little about some of the comments posted, some accurate and some ridiculous, I have this to say in answer....
I married for the first time because my girlfriend, whom I was about to dump told me she was pregnant (4 months gone) and I felt at the age of 21 that I should stick by her. I was not in love with her, she was in love with me, but I LEARNED how to be a husband even though I wasn't ready for it or even wanted it. I started to have panic attacks soon after making the decision to stick with a person that I didn't want to be with but fell in love with the my little boy and love him as much today as I did then. He is now 19 and studying to be a Doctor. I am proud and as the second boy, who, again, came as a bit of a surprise has an equal place in my heart and is 16, custody is no longer and issue. I never loved my first wife but somehow learned to create an environment where I could be with my children but never really be with her. I worked away from home a great deal and spent all my time at home when I could be around the two boys. I learned a great deal about marriage from my parents, who were deeply unhappy for 30 years and somehow made things survivable for the sake of my kids. I got tired though after 10 years. I really did. I hadn't slept with my wife for over a year, had totally separate lives, lived away a great deal and sincerely made every effort to rescue the unrescuable. It got to the stage where I had been away for 8 days working and would get home at night and she wouldn't even turn the TV off and say hello. I was, in effect a single father when I had the kids and had no love in my life except them. I didn't want to hurt my wife at the time because she seemed to need nothing (only child) from me except a roof and a loving father, which I was able to provide both of. I am a believer in the sanctity of marriage and even though I fought hard to cling onto something that was never meant to be, admit that I gave up after a great deal of thinking and therapy.
I met my current wife when I was about to file for divorce, I know you're going to doubt that, but it is absolutely true. I was deeply unhappy, working very hard and drinking to try to give myself some happiness.
My current wife and I met by chance, the same way many do, and were instantly head over heels. She too had lacked love in her last long term relationship and together we showed each other what it could feel like to love. It was never about sex or sneaking about or an affair, it was very much about two people who, in a different place and time would have fallen in love all the same.
I admit whole heartedly that I should have been single when we met, but sometimes these things aren't ideal. I divorced my wife as soon as I knew that I could feel love but gave it six months with my current wife very much waiting in the background willing to move away if it made life easier, ensuring that I got it right for my kids and dealt with the horror of divorce as best I could. Only at that point did I commit to my current wife as girl friend and boyfriend and way after that moved in with the kids that I had joint custody of and whom both at the age of 16 (as that is what the court decreed) chose to live with my current wife and I more or less full time. We must have got something right here as it certainly wasn't persuasion. I have never since had even the slightest emotional feeling for my ex wife, never did, still never do and whenever we meet I still don't understand how I managed to stand 10 years of marriage as I can't stand to be with her and don't even particularly like her.
I felt guilty for hurting her and creating a divorce and splitting a family and still do, but truly I feel nothing for my ex and never did. Nothing to do with my current wife, just the way things were.
I understand that this forum is based on building marriage, but I find it incredible that people judge what they don't know !!! I was not married, I was existing and then met someone whom I wanted to be with !!! Is that really such a sin.
Anyway, we are all entitled to our own opinions, but heres where I think it went wrong and I am truly grateful to those who have been constructive and not judgmental as it has pointed me very much in the right direction.
I carried with me every tool that I had made for myself as an independant living married man into my next relationship. I was so used to doing things my own way without the need for another and coping with the kids, cooking, ironing, cleaning working, that I didn't really know how to conduct myself as a partner in a relationship. I was conscious that I had to be controlling in my last marriage as that was necessary, but didn't realise that it was not necessary in my current relationship, until recently that is. I suspect if you sit on anyone hard enough for long enough they will wriggle and that is precisely what happened. I was, always have been, and always will be deeply in love with my current wife, but just acted like the 20 year old idiot that got married to the wrong person and controlled things that he needed to to manipulate a relationship into something that suited the time. I didn't realise any different even though my current wife was trying her hardest to point it out.
I made my wife ( i think "current" is now unnecessary) feel so lonely and unwanted because I had learned from my past marriage how to act alone and still be married, how to live in an unloving place and how to make sure things happened my own way. What I hadn't taken into account was that I truly and deeply loved this woman and was crushing her with my past learned behaviour.
So, she cheated, it was not sex as such it was a cry for help. She passed a polygraph test to say as much and nothing she has ever said to me has been proved to be a lie, EVER, or since. She did not steal me from my last wife, I was not married really, just existing. All she has done is loved my and put up a fight to keep me even though I couldn't show her the same affection in return as I did not know how to.
Since I found out about the ONS it placed us in a position where there was a chance that we would loose each other and that really made me and her realise quite how strongly we felt about each other. Almost as if it had to happen to one of us to place us in that position.
That was a year ago and we have spent hours, days, weeks working on us. Perhaps what I failed to do is work on me as an individual.
What I have also failed to do is look at the bigger picture and realise that we are all human and in effect we can all make mistakes. None of you out there have seen the tears my wife has shed over her actions, how physically sick it makes her when it is brought up and quite what steps she has taken to mend what she did, selfishly, in a moment of loneliness, having been dumped yet again by the one person she really wanted to be with.
My work is about showing her how much I love her. This whole episode opened my eyes as to where I had gone wrong and I suspect that I carry much guilt about the fact that if I had done something about this long ago, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. She is not a cheater by nature and never had an affair, that has been proved. She just got drunk one night having never drunk really in her life, because I acted up and shamed her, and made a very bad call in a very vunerable condition.
The reason I can't get over it is, i think, because I feel like I caused it and am acutely aware of that. She accepts full responsibility and has never once blamed me, quite the opposite. She has taken all the steps that this web site suggests and more to ensure security, but I have focused wrongly.
Catperson is right. My wife did wrong and fixed herself, I have been doing wrong for 20 years and am having trouble fixing myself. Simple as.
Obviously on a forum you cant see my house and how much love is in it. You can't fake it and I and my wife are both $hit actors which is why I knew something was up in the first place.
We have never been more in love it is almost sickening, and we have never been happier in either of our entire lives, in the main. It is just the fixing of me that is getting in the way and relearning all that I taught myself as a defence mechanism in my last marriage is taking it's toll. I think my silly focus on one minor, drunken, regretted (by both parties incidentally) moment is because I I don't have the tools for that bit yet.
I am not living some fantasy, as someone very helpfully pointed out. I am living a reality. I have made a mess to the extent that someone who loved me, was, and still is a fantastic Mum and step mum, got extremely lonely because I didn't know how to act as a partner in a marriage.
Now we are an US, I suppose I am having every day to work on keeping it that way and part of that is a reminder of what can happen if you don't work on marriage. That's the bit that hurts.
Maybe over time that will fade as I become more confident in my ability to be a good husband. Time is a great healer and whomever it was that said I was looking for a quick fix was right. In my business life things move at a faster pace, in my love life patience is something I am going to have to learn.
I sincerely thank those who have been suggestive and helpful and pity those like dude007 and mrwondering.
For those two, I need to say this:-
Whilst I may well have messed up and whilst I may well be reaping what I sowed, I have always been a great father to my kids and their loyalty to me and my wife and their desire to be with us are testament to that. I never, ever do anything without them in mind and as I have four, soon to be five. I do not take kindly to the suggestion that I have somehow neglected them in any of this. I still feel guilty for splitting a home......every day......so no need to rub it in !!
As fr my ex wife. She was an only child and has had a succession of boyfriends but never settled on one in particular. She is not waiting for me, I hope, as she never really had me in the first place. She also learned to fly solo in a marriage and I suspect she is perfectly comfortable being on her own at present. Some people are you know !!!
Self medicating. Yes. I have throughout my entire life found it difficult to switch off. My mind is one of those that works at a million miles an hour and sleep is a problem to me, which does not help all of this. I used to drink to get to sleep, that is not really an issue any more, or certainly not to the same extent, but I do take a small amount of valium to calm my mind and get me some sleep.
I have never gone down the route of antidepressants because I thought I could deal with it myself, as I have most other problems which have come my way, but maybe it is time to heed the advice given on many occasions and start to give myself a lift so that a little more strength is felt. I will give into the professionals and get medicated properly for depression as I am running out of fight and cannot ever be happy it seems in myself. That is not because of the "fantasy" world I am living in or the fact that my wife was an "affairage" (she was not) that has been going on since I was a very small boy. I know why, but have just never dealt with it.
As I sit here now, my wife is looking as happy as she ever has at the fact that I am actually doing something about getting me fixed.
I am truly grateful to you all for helping me start the process and welcome any constructive help on obsessing and keeping the very, very special thing that I have in my wife, truly happy whilst I recover myself.
Thanks again.

It's amazing how people go to great lengths to justify their actions.

bingo,

If you break that up into proper paragraphs (double-space in between paragraphs) it will be so much easier to read.

I couldn't read it all, but what I got was that therapy resulted in your leaving your first marriage, rather than working to improve it. This confirms much of what is being said in the 'therapist other than MB" thread.

Also, whether or not you were about to file for divorce, when you went into a relationship with OW you certainly killed your marriage.

You did not work to improve your marriage but did what felt good to you and left for another woman. She later did what felt good to her in your marriage to her. "Doing what feels good, rather than what is right" is the mindset that persists in affair marriages.

You cannot sell your affair marriage to us, no matter what you say about it.

oh, and the person that didn't believe that someone can give a BJ without meaning it??? My wife was raped as a young girl and forced to give that particular sex act. I knew that from day one when we got married and as such it is not part of our sex life as she finds it unloving and feels that it is not giving of herself. I am not delusional, really. I know that she would never do that unless under duress. You have to understand that the guy in question (who was single) stated that he was over the top and that she did push him off and that he did try again. I know in my heart that she would have acted that way to avoid more contact. Her thing is kissing, and touching, and intercourse. Both he and she has said that in the two or three minutes that they were having that "moment" she never once touched him kept her clothes on and never allowed him to touch her in any way. She was blind drunk and obviously thought she was more in control that it turned out to be. How do you control a man who is trying to get inside you, bearing in mind that there was a house full of sleeping people to disturb had she screamed run off or caused a fuss ? A bj was her way of controlling and that is precisely what is did and gave her the opportunity to then say no and leave whilst she was on top of the situation.
The OM has admitted to all of the above although he interpreted it slightly differently, but admitted that he was too full on. Rape is not the right word really as she kissed him first. He admitted though that that is all she wanted. Exactly what she said. Sorry, but had to get that off my chest.

Thank you for sharing this, bingo. It does cast more light on your sitch. Here's my take, FWIW:

Your 1st M occurred for the wrong reason and you feel it was a poor decision. I gotcha. It happens. The only problem is that you went outside of your first M instead of tackling your issues as a team. You spent the bulk of your 1st M behaving independently. That was a mistake, one that you may have learned from watching your own parents' unhappy M.

So, okay, you filed for D. But you were STILL a married man when you met W #2. I assume you never told W #1 about her while the two of you were still married. That, IMO, was what made your second relationship one that was built on lies and deception. And, regardless of how 'pure' or 'right' you thought relationship #2 was, the fact remains that it had its roots in those two ugly things. Lies and deception are not good building materials for a M.

So you begin your second M, not having learned from your mistakes in your first M. You continue the independent behavior and love busters because its always been your method. May I point out that, at this time, it appears you are navigating your M unconsciously, paying no heed to the hard work that it takes to be in love and stay in love with one person. Well, your W was doing the same thing. Time flies and nine years later, here you are. So it's safe to say that your, and your W's, methods have not worked to build a healthy M. If I may be so obvious

I'm all for reflecting on past actions, but as a way of making today and tomorrow better. So I'm not going to 2x4 you about your marital history. But I do think you and your W need to learn more about how to protect your M and build it to a place of committed love. Don't take any responsibility away from your W - she CHOSE to go outside of her M to have emotional needs met. That's not your fault, so don't short-circuit her role in this. How much she does - or does not- drink is immaterial. I've got some pretty good history with demon rum, myself. I've have been in situations that could have escalated into your wife's. But it never did, because even as drunk as I was, I NEVER had it in my head to cheat on my H. I NEVER wanted to have a need met that way. Your W needs to acknowledge her poor decision and the damage it has done to your M.

So again, use this event as a way of repairing your M and making it better than it ever was. It sounds like you're trying to do that, and I congratulate you. But don't expect it to happen overnight. You've had a lifetime to learn some poor coping skills. Love yourself enough to know that you're worth the time it takes to learn new ones.

Stay on here. And if she's not on here yet, invite your W to start reading these posts, as well.

And the last word: TIME. You've got to give it time.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

I am not going to great lengths to justify anything. I was wrong, and admit it. My wife was wrong and has admitted it.
My marriage was wrong and we have both fessed up to that.
I think that it is difficult to express yourself when being judged in this way.

Thank you maritalbliss. You make a great deal of sense.
My wife openly admits that she did wrong and why, she has never denied the fact that she started what she stopped and it kills her that she could have ever done it in the first place. I know that she was in a bad place as she spent the entire night in tears that evening as I had dumped her. The others at the party told me so. She was lonely and desperate for some affection and got herself in a messy situation.
If she had wanted sex, she would have had it, that's for sure. She has a healthy appetite for that and as such I know that drink taken would have gone the whole hog had she wanted that. I know in my heart it was a cry for help. and as such it is tricky.
I am not trying to justify her actions. But I do know that she was as devastated as I am when she woke up the next day.
Time..... i know.
Protection.....being worked on as we speak.
Thanks

That's good, bingo. Admitting her poor choice and owning her chit is the first step in recovering, IMO. The hard part (and most rewarding, by the way) is now in front of the two of you. You need to learn why you got to this point, how you got here, and how to change your coping skills to avoid it happening again. Both of you.

Stay on here. Read everything here. You can do this!

Coming to an infidelity section of a site dedicated to marriage, to talk alongside many BS victims of the behaviour that took you into your affair marriage, is insensitive to say the least.

how can I possibly be being insensitive ? If anything, surely I am letting people know what can be done to go wrong in the first place and am letting them know that we as a married couple are still here, smiling, as testament to the fact that sometimes a wake up call is what is required, in whatever guise it comes, to get things back in track.
I was just being honest. I am not in an affair marriage. As I said I was filing for divorce at the time. I had done everything in my first marriage to make it work but they were different circumstances. I was not living with my ex-wife when I met my current wife, I had not slept with her for nearly 18 months. I had been in separate bedrooms for 6 months while I tried to piece things back together, but it didn't work. Shame but it never ever was going to.
I met my current wife too soon, yes, but also have stated that I made her wait on the side lines until I had dealt with the fall out of my divorce. We only ever met for coffee and she never spent a night with me until I sorted my children out good and proper.

Thank you pepperband.
I will look forward not back. That is exactly what my wife keeps saying.
I was just trying to answer some o the more negative feedback....but you are right.
Thank you.