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I found out about three weaks ago that my wife was having an afair with a man at work. When i confronted her with the emails I found she said that she was in love with this person and that there was nothing wrong with it. then she said that she was sorry but only about not telling me first. This person has change my wifes hole moral out look. He has convinced her that she is polyamorours and that there is nothing wrong with it. I have made her quit her job and stop seeing this person, but she still beleave in this polyamours. Help! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

ws-37
fs-35
together for 10.5 years
Married for 9.5 years
1-24 month old boy

<small>[ March 26, 2004, 10:49 PM: Message edited by: Dominick ]</small>

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Hello Dominick, and welcome to Marriage Builders.

It's always sad to see another spouse has been betrayed, and I am so very sorry for the pain you're feeling. Many of us know exactly what that feels like! This us a great place for you to learn skills to hopefully rebuild your marriage.

Have you read the General Welcome at the top of this page yet? If not, please do, or read this link .

Please share a bit more about your marriage: How long you've been married, how many children you have... and I have one more question that I'm kind of embarrassed to ask: by "polyamour" do you mean "lover"?

It's good that your wife quit her job, but when you say you "made" her, what exactly do you mean? I ask because she might feel some resentment, and wonder if that has had any affect in your marriage? I say again- it is EXCELLENT that she quit the job. The first step to healing is NO CONTACT, and leaving the job is one big step toward that.

Again, welcome... the boards get kind of quiet at night (it's after midnight in the eastern US)... so don't get discouraged if you don't hear from too many until the morning.

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We have been married for ten years. I am a loving, and caring husband. I never was jelous in any way. I never evan rase my voice to my wife. Except for the night that I confronted her about the affair. We have a little boy that is 25 months old we tried for two and a half year to have a baby. My wife quit here job after she realized how much it was hurting me to see her just leaving to work and she does resent me for it. Polyamorours is a person that can love two people at once, they have a primary relationship and secondary relationships. The people that do this think that they are more sufiscated.

<small>[ March 16, 2004, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Dominick ]</small>

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Welcome Dominick,

So, she believes in Polyamory huh? You know....so what? Believing that it's possible to love more than one person and living that lifestyle are separate things. For now...you wife is still deeply "fogged" by her feelings for her affair partner....and frankly the stuff coming out of her mouth right now is pure undulterated garbage. Forget about it. Don't listen to it....it's BABBLE. Believing in polyamory is just an excuse not to end the affair....and complete rationalization. Don't let it scare you. Also...make your boundaries very clear about the fact that you can't control her feelings....but that expecting you to embrace a concept like this one in unrealistic. You won't.

I know you mentioned that she has quit her job...good. Here are some other questions that will help us help you:

Has she stopped all contact with her lover?

Are there conditions in place to help prevent further contact? (wrote a no contact letter, changed her cell phone number, opened her life to you....credit, cell bills...passwords)

Are you seeking marriage counseling?

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I have told her that I understand that she loves this person but she is to have no contact with him and she has agreed. But it took about two weeks to get her to stop trying to make me agree in letting her see him. But Me and are counseller think that she has Post Partum Depression . She will not do anything about this.

<small>[ March 17, 2004, 07:52 AM: Message edited by: Dominick ]</small>

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Post Partum Depression occurs after pregnancy....but the feeling is probably not that different. Here, we call it "withdrawal" from the affair. Much of what a spouse says during withdrawal is not reliable or real. If she can maintain no contact at all...expect things to improve in these incremements...6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months. After six days she will be slightly better...after six weeks somewhat better, after 6 months almost normal. Real recovery takes even longer. Still, the results are worth it as anyone who has rebuilt their marriage will tell you. But please don't place much stock in what she tells you right now...because she is still confused. If she had experienced a philosophical change BEFORE having an affair that embraced polyamory then it would be far scarier....but now...it's just a simple attempt to have her cake and eat it too. It's hard to be patient when things hurt so badly...but try your best to give this a little time. Good Luck.

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The She has told me that she has been Deprest for two years. She also told her boy friend in an email the same thing that she has been deprest ever since she had are son. Since she had are son the way she deals with thing is by lashing out in anger. It is very difficult on me, anything myson does or I do can set her off. Its been two years of walking on egg shells. She knows that she has a problem but won't get one on one help.

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My wife is still saying that she should be able to see other poeple.She thinks that therer is nothing wrong with it. She tried to convince me that it was ok to sleep with some else that you loved, but know that she doesn't think that she loved om that it is ok to sleep with someone that is a close friend. The sloap is getting very slippery. I tell her sooon it will be any one the she finds atractive. She says that won't happen.

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You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. If your spouse is NOT willing to work on your marriage, is denying involvement in an affair despite the evidence, and/or is continuing an affair, read What Are Plan A and Plan B? after reading the "Basic Concepts" links below. In that case, you need to start Plan A with the help of a marriage counselor (see item #2, below). There are a couple terrific posts about Plan A that are worth reading at: Plan A, Doormats and Love Busters by Zorweb and Cerri on Plan A, which will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Your situation is harder, but your chances of saving your marriage and actually making it better than before are still good. But, whether your spouse is "on board" or not, you should do three things:

1.) Learn. The most important and helpful single source of information for my wife and I was “Surviving an Affair” by Willard Harley (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore, Amazon.com, and bookstores all over. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them. So that you can get started right away, while waiting for SAA to arrive in the mail, read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity You will find that I mostly followed his plan. It works.

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I am a man of faith. That and my son are the only things that are keeping me going. It seems that my wife has lost her faith in god. I ask her what will she do when the day of jugdement comes. An she stands before god, as she looks up to christ to see if her name is in the book of lambs. She can't answer that question.

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</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I ask her what will she do when the day of jugdement comes. An she stands before god, as she looks up to christ to see if her name is in the book of lambs. She can't answer that question. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Dominick,

I am so glad that your faith is strong...but your wife is in the fog and these statements will not penetrate her selfish behavior right now. I will encourage you to do a very good Plan A for a time...and if she still continues to insist that an "open marriage" is what she wants...you may have to move to Plan B before she may be willing to recommit to a real marriage. She may even have to experience the spiritual emptiness of living the life she suggests before she wakes up and sees how destructive it will be. You can't prevent her from doing that if she wants to...but you can prevent her from hurting you or destroying your love for her by separating yourself from her while she insists on acting this way. Please get a good marriage coach.

Blessings and prayers!

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Hi Dominick. I come from a polyamorous relationship. Because of that, I think I understand the kinds of things your wife may be telling you.

There are lots of things that I could talk to her about, and she's welcome to e-mail me if she wants to (my e-mail address is in my signature line).

One thing I'll say to her is that polyamory requires honesty. And lots of it.

You don't have that here. Your wife had an affair and then used "polyamory" to say that's okay.

That's not okay.

It's NEVER okay to hide things from your spouse. It's NEVER okay to do things that you know will hurt your spouse.

It's NEVER okay to do things that threaten the survival of your marriage.

You two have a lot to do to survive this crisis and you both have a lot of learning to do. Neither of you is even remotely ready for polyamory.

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Well My ww has agread to not have a relationship with anyone for six months.She is going to get help for her anger problem, and see a counsler one on one. Hopefuly we can weather this storm out. At least I can sleep at night now.

Just thx for the post it realy helped my wife will email you i just don't know when.

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Dominick, I'm very glad to hear it, and I'd love to hear from your wife. You guys can, as you say, "weather this storm" and come out of it ahead of where you were before.

I'm glad your wife agreed to a six month cooling-off period. Has she also implemented no-contact with her affair partner? That's very, very important right now.


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