Hello! My wife and I are 30 years old and have been together 11 years, married for 5 1/2. We’ve known each other our entire lives but we’ve dated other ppl through school and so on. So she’s having an affair with someone she met at the gym/physical therapy center (where I used to go for PT). She met him about 4 months ago (3 months when she moved out). We haven’t had any real problems leading up to this and nothing was out of the ordinary. We were going to go on a trip to Vegas for our 5 year earlier this year and she even wanted to renew our wedding vows. She was telling her friends we were going to start trying to have a kid back in July and then a month later you decided you were “done”. Of course I got the “I love you but not in love with you” “I’ve been unhappy” “you can’t communicate””you don’t show enough emotion”. Then she would say about her new boyfriend “he understands me” “he communicates with me” “we get each other” “he’s not like that” “he would never do that to me” “you don’t know what he’s been through) How do you know that only knowing him 3 months???? She’s also interested in things she’s NEVER liked before at all (stuff he’s interested in). As far as I can tell he still lives at home (he’s 32).

I wasn’t a perfect person but I never cheated on her, yelled at her or hit her. Even her own family isn’t speaking to her unless they have to. I just don’t understand how you can want to end things so quickly for someone you know nothing about and especially think it’s going to work out.

When she moved out she took her wedding dress, our wedding album & the wedding photos we had in the house. She said she “cherished” those moments. She still says the reason she’s leaving is because of all the issues she said about me and her new man has nothing to do with it. She said “it would have happened wether or not he was involved”.

Welcome to MB, nhraracer. What's your question for us?

Well that would help LOL. My question would be, do relationships that start off as affairs usually work out? Especially ones that you leave a marriage for someone you’ve only known a short amount of time and made your “relationship” move fast.

I’m not the one who wants a divorce, I believe things could be worked out. Nowadays ppl are so used to throwing things away instead of fixing them.

Well no, they don't work out. I don't have precise figures, but a high percentage of relationships that begin as affairs fail.

There is a lot of information on this website and in the forums about trying to end an affair so that the marriage can be rebuilt. Please begin by reading this article by Dr Willard Harley, the founder of Marriage Builders. He recommends the thorough exposure of an affair that won't end.

The fact that your wife has already left you for this man reduces your chances of ending the affair, but it's not impossible. It seems also that your family and hers already know that she left for an affair - is that correct? The fact that you don't have children also reduces the pull that she has to go back to the marriage.

Do you have any contact with her? Do you need to keep in contact to sort out the mortgage and the bills?

Okay. She’s all for the divorce right now. We have our first hearing this coming week. She’s only been moved out for about 2 months. Yes my family and hers know she’s leaving because of her affair though she tells everyone that’s not why she’s leaving.

No we do not have any kids. I have not been contacting her much at all unless it is about the divorce. After I exposed her affair where her AP works she got mad and stopped talking to me (LOL like it’s my fault for your affair). When I confronted her about it, first she said “you aren’t going to tell anyone about him are you”?

And she’s already mentioned getting married again LOL. How could someone rationally be thinking that after only knowing someone a few months???

And she’s already even tried letting her parents bring this guy down to their house. Her father knows who he is because he was his physical therapist while her dad was going there. They told her that he’s not welcome at their house.

Have you exposed on the OM’s side? Have you told his parents? And siblings or other family?

Have you read Exposure 101 ?

No I have not yet. I do plan on it soon though. The two of them aren’t spending Thanksgiving together which I find weird

No I have not yet

Your focus seems to be on her state of mind - how she could end her marriage over someone she has only known a short time, and on whether the relationship can last long.

You are correct to see her behaviour as irrational. She is putting her faith in someone who meets women in sexy situations via his job, and who propositions them. She wasn't the only woman at the gym that he got involved with, and she won't be the last. He isn't concerned with building a solid foundation for lasting relationships; he screws around and breaks up other people's marriages. She'll move in with him and maybe they will even marry (although I'd be surprised he'd go that far), and then he will screw around on her. The relationship will crumble sooner rather than later.

My question for you is: why not move on? If you have no children, why wait for the affair to crumble and for her to go back to you - assuming that your marriage was good enough for her want to go back to it? It's understandable that if you have children, the best outcome would be for the two of you to stay together, but why go through the work that it takes to achieve a rebuilt marriage when you have no kids? You are young and can meet lots of women from whom to choose a new mate.

Also, what happened at the gym after you exposed there? How do they feel about having someone on the workforce who gets off with the clients? What do they think it does for their reputation to keep him there?

I get the moving on part, I really do. If this was a 2-3 year relationship it would be much easier to walk away and move on but 11 years and knowing each other since elementary school is easier said than done. She was always the one who chased after me throughout the years before we got together for good. She does take medicine for depression so I’m not sure of how much that played into this as well. All of that stuff she has been saying, is that just for her to justify to herself what she’s doing is good?

So the gym is actually a physical therapy center with a gym. He’s a physical therapist assistant. As far as I know they didn’t do anything to him. He still works there like normal and she still goes there like she did before. They didn’t even transfer him to another facility or anything. They have some nice online reviews coming soon about it as well. The owner told me “this doesn’t sit well with me and it doesn’t end here”. Well as far as I can tell, nothing has happened.

I don't live in the States and I've no idea how things work there (and each state will be different), but I'd have thought it would be worse for this to happen in a "physical therapy" centre than even in a gym. Surely physical therapy implies a professional relationship between therapist and client.

What are you going to do to push this point home with them?

If you wouldn't mind, try putting into words why it isn't better just to let this go. "11 years is a long time and we've known each other since elementary school" - you could be talking about anyone. I've known people since primary school and I would not want to be married to them.

Did you marriage make you happy? Did you feel romantic love for her every day? If so, why did she think the marriage was "blah"?

I’ll leave them some nice online reviews for ppl to see and I’ll be making complaints against his license to the state board as well.

Yes the marriage did make me happy. I was happy to come home to her everyday. Sure did we get into the daily routine of life and so on? Yes but it wasn’t like we were roommates living together. She said I didn’t appreciate her, I stopped trying, I for the most part managed the money because I was the one who made sure all the bills were paid and everything else. She didn’t have to do any of that and she can’t manage money at all. Said she was “unhappy” which we all know wasn’t true. There were never any signs of that. That and some of the other ppl she started talking to aka her sister in law whom she now lives with but hated her guts for the last 6 years and now they are “best friends”.

As well as doing those excellent things, you need to target the therapy centre itself again.

I don't think you've read the Exposure101 thread that Brain Hurts linked for you earlier. You need to do this right away. You need to expose to his employer (and his licensing board etc) in a PROFESSIONAL manner adapting the letter in the Exposure thread as a template. You need to warn them that they are risking charges of ignoring sexually predatory behaviour/assault, as discussed in that thread. You need to copy your letters to the centre's owners, as described in that thread.

You then need to expose to OM's family, as described in that thread.

If you want to have any chance of saving this marriage, you need to be a lot more pro-active than you seem to have been so far, having let this get as far as a divorce hearing next week without getting OM sacked and without ever having contacted OM's family. This is a MARRIAGE that he destroyed. He didn't just steal your elementary school girlfriend away from you; he didn't buy her flowers and take her to the school dance after she promised to go with you. He violated his professional code of conduct, he preyed upon a married client and he blew up your life. Why haven't you blown up his yet? Don't you think his family will be horrified when you put it to them like that? Do you think they even know what he has done with a married woman? They probably just think he has found a new girlfriend, if they know anything about it at all!

Read the Exposure thread NOW, and learn how important it is to put pressure on this affair if you want to stand any chance of ending the affair after it has gone this far.