My husband and I are reading surviving the affair. We also have read a lot on your website. We have a really hard time coming up with 15 hours a week of undivided time.

I wake between 4am and 6am depending if it's a day I need to go to the gym. I am a teacher and am at work by 7:30-8 am. I work Til 4:30 and most days I then pick up my son from after school care and then take him to one of his sporting events. He is ten. The rest of the evening is getting ready for the next day, dinner etc.

My husband is the executive chef of a very large resort, seven outlets plus banquets. He leaves for work at 8am after driving our son to school. His season is October to end of May. He gets Sundays off usually, but there are times like during the holidays where he will work a week or two with no days off. We live an hour from his job which adds to the time away from home. Most Friday and Saturday nights he's home at ten on an early night 11 most others. So Sunday becomes a family day. During season I try to stay awake to see him but then I'm exhausted the next day when I need to get up early. Summers is when we reconnect but it's not enough, especially knowing he's had multiple affairs, all of which I just learned about this past June.

I feel at times that I have to compete with his job for time with him. He knows this but we can not seem to come to a solution. I have asked him to look for another job but they are not as easy to come by at his level. He also will not accept a position that would require him to lose 30-40k in pay.

Can you tell us about his multiple affairs? How many were there? When did they occur? Who were they with? How did you find out?

Hi Smeig, welcome to Marriage Builders. Can you give us some background on this? What steps have you taken to prevent repeat affairs? Has your marriage been affair proofed? Has he ended contact with his affair partners? Have his affairs been exposed? How did you learn about his affairs?

Welcome to MB.

I underlined a sentence in your post to make the point that there are solutions to your problems, such as his changing job and choosing a major downgrade in responsibilities, but for a solution to work, your husband must be prepared to use one. If he is not willing to change, he is telling you very clearly that he places his job above your happiness, and above the future of his marriage.

Essentially, it comes down to a choice between changing your lifestyle (which means a radical change to your husband's working patterns), or staying as you are. If you change, then the problems can be solved. If you don't, then they never will be solved.

The poster above me, unwritten, asked crucial questions about your husband's affairs. It is clear that your husband was able to have multiple affairs because his lifestyle allowed him to get away with them. You've posted your question in the Recovery forum, but when a marriage has suffered one or more affairs, and the lifestyle and freedoms that enabled those affairs have not changed, the marriage is not in recovery, and never will be. Your husband's woking life, which robs you of time for undivided attention, is also the direct connection to his affairs. As long as he continues this working lifestyle, I'm sorry to say that affairs will be the norm for your marriage.