Years ago I visited this website after my husband had an emotional affair with a co worker (he was in the Army). He since got out and we moved away and things were ok. We had been working on things until I got a call from the former mistress that he had called her and told him to call her at work (2 years later!). I was so distraught over learning that he was still trying to cheat on me after I thought things were going better (AGAIN) that I moved out. He is now apologetic and agreed to work on his PTSD and alcohol problems. In the midst of this he disclosed that he had had two more sexual affairs with two different women before the third emotional affair. That's 5 years of lying to me (I had suspicion but no proof). We have been married 13 years and have three children. I am lost. Confused. Afraid to believe anything he says and don't feel like he has done enough work on himself or in resolving what went wrong in the first place for me to move back. I've been ostracized by my family for even talking to him after all this let alone the notion of reconciling. I don't want to be fooled by his manipulation any more. I couldn't find anything in the basics that can address my situation. All I ever hear is that his pattern of behavior is lack of good character. He has been to one individual counseling session in over a months time, hasn't made an appt for us to go to marriage counseling and attends two twelve step meetings a week if he isn't busy doing something else. These are things he said he would do to show me that he is a changed man. Am I being impatient? Is reconciliation possible? People tell me that we are just in denial about it being over. I don't know how to feel anything except afraid to trust and doubtful about my future with him. Any links or advice or whatever would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I'm so sorry to read about this. I've been through this situation, where the workplace enabled my H to continue contact with his whore for 5 years after he stopped travelling and meeting her in person. I went through too many D Days to count. I know how you feel to discover this now.
The only solution to your H's serial cheating - which he will continue whenever you cannot see what he is doing - is for him to stop working outside the home. In the end, it took my H's early retirement for me to know that contact with his whore had finally finished.
There is a poster here, SusieQ, whose H serially cheated, and his job as a hospital nurse was the environment that facilitated his secret second life. Even after doing the online MB course with the direct supervision of Dr H, he cheated for a fourth time. Dr H told the couple that the only way that recovery would be possible would be for him to leave the mixed-sex hospital environment altogether. He would not do that, and they are now divorced, because Susie could not take any more D Days.
With spouses like these, who take the opportunity of working outside the home to cheat, the only solution is for them not to work outside the home, or for the spouses to work together. For example, they could set up a business and run it together.
Is there any possibility of that kind of solution for you? If not, the reality is that he will do this again, and you need to protect yourself from that by divorcing.