I so need help and have tried and still continue with marriage cousling and individual counsling as well. My husband (been together for 18 years next week) has asked me to sit back and let him make a decision on what he wants to do. Long story but he has had an affair about 6 years ago with someone from work. They never actually had sex because he couldn't perform but he did do sexual things with her. Since then he has had several emotional relationships. Always because I am pushing him away and we are argueing he says. Well we have been going to counsling for months and making boundary lists and requests etc. I just found out yesturday that he has another emotional relationship going on with someone, he won't tell me who but I did find the number the messages are coming from. She knows he is married and I have to assume that she works with him. Anyway, he came clean with me after me asking for the truth on what is going on and after a night of crying and hurting so bad I was asked to just let him figure things out. He wants me to sit back while he tests the waters with this girl to see if he wants to continue in our marriage or move on with her. OMG my heart is broken into a million pieces. How do I honestly sit back and let my husband do this? By tiptoeing around and trying to make life perfect so he chooses his family? I just don't know what to think or do. I just want to run away with my kids and go far away. I am hurting so badly. Please understand that I am an emotional wreck even with being on depression meds and meds for anxiety. I have been crying for 2 days straight and am sick to my stomach. Please understand that I am asking for guidance in understanding what is going on and what my options could truly be. How do we move past this if we want to work on anything?

citigirl79********edit*****

I am so sorry you are in this predicament!

Your H has terrible boundaries around women. It's very difficult to recover from a marriage with serial adulterers. Basically you would have to rearrange your lives so that another affair is impossible. And people who have multiple affairs often refuse to do that.

Do you have the names of the other women? Find out the contact info about this current skanko and find out if she's on FB. The first thing you need to do is to expose this affair wide and far.

Have you read the thread Start Here at the top of this SAA forum? If not, please be sure and read through the materials. They will help give you a good idea of what's coming next.

Do you and he have children?

Your emotional distress is completely understandable. We have all been through this and many of us have either recovered our marriages or have left our spouse and recovered our selves. You will get lots of help here and a PLAN. And a PLAN is very important when you are emotional. The plan is very logical and step by step.

Do you have the book Surviving an Affair? It's an extremely helpful resource and guide.

Find out about this skank and EXPOSE your H's affair.

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain.

Please answer LWFH's questions.

In addition get ready to expose and expose to his job.
Please read. Exposure 101

Yes you are right. We set boundaries up in counsling and they included not talking with any women but if had to it would be work related only. Only took to our next session for him to throw that one out. Said he couldn't do it. He said the reasoning was because he works with men and women and in the position he is in he just can't do that. Counslor said ok its off the table and said I would have to either no except it and move on or except it and just work on the other boundaries. These are emotional affairs he is having. He is stressed at work, doesn't think I would ever understand the stress so he doesn't talk to me about it and turns to someone at work and they build one. He works in a security/law enforcement position where he deals with some hard stuff. I do not know who this girl is but I do have her telephone number because I snooped. Don't know who she is and he won't tell me. Says there is no need for me to know. He could either be trying to save me from causing him more trouble in his line of work or just scared at what I will do. I would say if she didn't know he was married than its not her fault, although I know she knows he is married and has kids because the messages I saw commented on them. I have not been able to do anything but cry for 2 days straight. I swear I am dehydrated I have cried so much. I have found myself wanting to do everything I can to keep my husband versus losing him. This did open alot of communication up this weekend although I feel crappy for feeling as if I need to tiptoe around and do/say everything right or he will go to her. Yes this meant having sex and trying to live happy little family life. I have so much hatred for having to go through this but then again 18 years (and I am only 35) is a long time to just blow and let go of someone you love. We do have children. We have had 3 but only 2 are with us. The older one (14)passed away just before delivery. I am worried about exposing it because he supports us with his income and he would lose his job. How would I expose it without it effecting his job?

How do I expose him without hurting our family even more? He would lose his job which supports us with good benefits and retirement, etc.

If I contact this person wouldn't that make things even worse? Not only with his job but he would be very angry at me I am sure.

Do you want a romantic marriage or do you want the job benefits at the cost of serial adultery? It comes down to a choice. As is apparent to you, your present situation is not stable. The choice is going to be made for you, and you will end up with neither.

It is time to take charge of your future. Expose this serial adulterer, and deal with the realities that standing up against evil requires. Otherwise, your future as a family is hopeless.

If he doesn't lose the job you won't have a marriage. Do you want to be married? You will lose the benefits of the job when you get divorced. You are headed to divorce if you don't expose the affair. And it is doubtful he will lose him job anyway, that rarely happens upon exposure.

Do you understand he can't work there anymore? He has to leave the job.


Our goal is to save your marriage, not to avoid his anger at all cost. Do you want to save your marriage? Your marriage can survive his temporary anger over exposure, it can't survive an ongoing affair.

As mrEureka stated so well, your present situation is not stable. It is an illusion. Over the years, your husband has worked out a nice "deal" where he will pay you (support the family) in return for your looking the other way at his lifestyle.

Apparently you are meeting enough of his needs that he wants to keep you, AND keep his secret second life lifestyle.

You can find the owner of most phone numbers (even cell phones) on freephonetracer or other similar sites.

When you are communicating with your husband, please do not tell him about this site for now. You need to keep this a safe place for YOU to come to.

Find out who she is right away. Do a reverse look up on whitepages.com and see if that helps. Google her phone #, call her up. The reason he won't tell you is because he is protecting his affair. The fact that he won't be honest and commit to a plan of protection means that you should plan to separate. When a spouse won't end his affair and commit to the marriage, Plan B is warranted.

Perhaps it will help you to consider that you will only be encouraged to be trying to meet his needs for a very limited time.

What he is demanding resembles what we call plan A. A tactic where you make yourself as attractive as possible to your WW while you are setting up exposure and making other preparations. We know this is emotionally painful while he carries on taking advantage.

For this reason dr h reccomends only a few weeks for women in your situation before you must protect yourself from further emotional and physical harm.

I'm getting way ahead of the usual way of presenting the plans, but I think it may be easier for you if you know that this is expected to be a short period of time. The plan recognizes, and we recognize that this is one oof the hardest things you will ever need to do. When it becomes too harmful to continue, and in your case that may be soon, you will be guided to protect yourself from WH abuse.

CG,
I am sorry you are here. I see you posted back in 2008 when your husband was in an affair at work and was attempting to bully you to comply and force you to enable his lifestyle.

He holds you in a kind of prison in this marriage.

When it comes to his prisoners at work he likely does not listen to their rantings and upset. I'm sure he asks of them to follow his rules.

And he is asking you to follow his rules. That is, you ignore his affairs and keep the benefits. That's how he perceives you keep the peace. He keeps his job and does not get angry with you.

He wins at your cost.

And what is the cost to you of his brand of peace? Your sanity and self worth. A marriage of extraordinary care. An equal partnership where he cares and is concerned for your welfare.

Your peace officer is a tyrant towards you. He is going to keep using his work affairs to bully you when you find out.

Do not allow yourself to be framed by a comparison to another. Staying in this prison is costing you more then the price of your husbands brand of peace.

The keys out are available to you here. Expose your husband at work. Do what you have to do to deal with his anger. Seek shelter if you have to.

But simply crying and hoping he understands how this is affecting you is not working for you. You marriage counselor is helping to enable too. She did not help set up extraordinary precautions around other women and suggested you deal with his interactions at work and this essentially sanctioned his lifestyle. This is a terrible offense to you.

You cannot sustain this lifestyle.

Your counselor sucks if that is the way she proposes to deal with significant affair proofing boundaries.

QUOTE:
Yes you are right. We set boundaries up in counsling and they included not talking with any women but if had to it would be work related only. Only took to our next session for him to throw that one out. Said he couldn't do it. He said the reasoning was because he works with men and women and in the position he is in he just can't do that. Counslor said ok its off the table and said I would have to either no except it and move on or
UNQUOTE:

Now it is time for you to decide if you want to enforce that agreed upon boundary.

It will either have the proper affect or not. If not, then you are in the same position you are in now anyways, do what would prevent you from standing up for your own self and values?

LTL