Sorry that this is long winded, but I need some help getting over this situation before it eats me up and ruins all that I have.
I have been with my wife for 8 � years and married just 9 months. We got together whilst I was divorcing and she was just out of a long term relationship. She was 23 at the time and I was 9 years her senior with two kids aged 10 & 7. Cutting a story short, I got custody of the children for just over half the time and after massive amounts of indecision (took me six months to commit to my now wife) we moved in together and she became step mum (fantastically) to my kids. We then had two of our own now aged 3 & 6 and are considering adding to our numbers.
For the vast majority of our time together I have battled depression combined with too much booze and in reality treated her like [censored]. She comes from a very broken home and wished for security, but even though we were engaged and lived together I never truly committed and used to end the relationship on a fairly regular basis and even though she is truly beautiful made her feel like dirt. We got over a close family suicide (my father) soon after we got together , births, step kids, moving several times and career changes. She was and always has been truly wonderful as a Mum and Step Mum as well as a loyal and forgiving partner. I have called her names beyond what anyone should tolerate and could not have made her feel more insecure if I tried. No joint bank account only my name on the house etc etc. On top of that I used to holiday alone a lot and spent a month in rehab did very little with her and the kids and rarely involved myself in her side of the family.
I appreciate that I sound like the worst human being ever, but I truly loved and still love her and know that it was my own insecurities that lead to the whole control issue. I was unbearably controlling and mistrusting and was pretty intolerable for a great deal of our time together. She stuck in there though and stayed quiet such was her love for me.
So at a family party last Christmas (which, as usual, I did not attend) I rang her to ask her not to stay the night but this time she said that she would like to have a drink and not get the kids out of bed and bring them home when they were comfortable where they were. She never or rarely drank alcohol and in very small quantity if she did. I did my usual and reacted angrily, sent her a text or two basically calling her names and finishing (again) the relationship telling her that her bags were packed. She got extremely drunk in the company of people more her age and at the end of the night, apparently completely drunk, kissed a man who had shown her kindness all night as she had been devastated by my texts and call. He, it appears got a little over excited as all she wanted was just a kiss to comfort her and make her feel �loved� as she put it. He whipped his clothes off and basically like an excited puppy tried his hardest to have sex with her. She said no and managed to keep her pyjamas on (they had all got changed earlier in the evening as it was a family home, nothing strange in that) for the majority of the time but after trying to resist he managed to force her pyjamas down enough to enter her. At this point se pushed him off, he came back for more but she didn�t want it and thought the only way out was to give him a BJ as she finds it non giving of herself and unemotional. Seems odd, but I know this to be true. They were disturbed by a dog barking within seconds of the BJ starting, she then made excuses and went to bed immediately. Because he was a member of her extended step family she stayed in contact in a very minor way to ensure that there was no ill feeling or that anyone would have found out as it would have caused major embarrasement.
When she came back the next day from the party I immediately picked up on something being wrong. She stated that she had had enough of the insecurity of our relationship and was leaving me. I persuaded her to stay and give me a chance and she agreed, but was unsure whether it would change her mind. At this point I had no idea of the events of the party, but kind of suspected that there was more to the whole thing and questioned her to death even stating that I had tapped the phones at one point. She eventually after a month of questioning admitted to kissing this guy but stated that no more had happened and that she wanted it left there and was committed to repairing us and did not want to admit this fact as we had done such good work on our relationship and she felt at the time, during and after that it was a terrible drunken mistake that she regretted with all of her being. I forgave her as I had in effect thrown her into that arms of another, but asked her to take a lie detector test so that I knew I could trust her and continue the good work we were putting in. She reluctantly agreed to do it but the night before confessed to the above and another 3 minute misdemeanour within the first 6 months of our relationship. The first one did not involve anything other than kissing and she stopped it after a couple of minutes as it all felt wrong but said that it was at a time when I was still making my mind up about being with her and a guy at work showed her much nicer attention that I did and she gave in to his persuasive nature. They worked together for the next 6 years and nothing even happened again.
She passed the lie detector stating that she didn�t want sex at the Christmas party or any sort of relationship and basically all had now been told about everything that had happened from an infidelity point of view.
I questioned the two guys involved and the first confirmed exactly to the letter what my wife stated and the Christmas party guy basically said that she didn�t want anything else but he got a bit carried away although she didn�t stop him trying. His story differed slightly but only I would imagine because he was drunk too and therefore their recollections and/or interpretations would bound to be slightly different. He though he was onto a good thing, she was trying to think of a way out, so she says.

So, one would think at this point that we could draw a line under all of this and get on with life as she had been an angel for all but 5-10 minutes of our relationship, confessed eventually and passed a lie detector test to show me that she wanted to be truthful and regain my trust. On top of that she was still committed to working on our relationship and asked me to finally marry her, which I did.

However, I can�t seem to let the whole thing lie. I still question her and try to exaggerate what happened. I still try to get her to confess to more and have asked her over and over again to relive the events of the night in question and her story has never wavered. Yet I still continue to ask. She married me, she stayed with me, she tells me every day that she adores me and that the whole thing when it is brought up makes her feel physically sick and she is truly ashamed and that I was and always will be the only one for her, she was just lonely and wanted some affection as I was not giving it to her.

My question really is why can I not make this stop. I adore her, she adores me, we have a great life together and much happiness and the work we have done on our relationship is terrific over the last year and in many respects I cant imagine a better marriage, but this still keeps cropping up a year later. Why can I not see it for what it was, take the hit and get on with things. It is so destructive. She says often during these moments that the butterfly that comes back is yours forever, but I still feel like it could happen again and check her every move. I understand and appreciate my part in all of this. I know that had I not been an idiot none of this would have ever happened because this is not in her nature normally.
Is there anyone out there with some advice before I ruin everything that we have built by this constant reminding of bad times. Why can I not trust her ?

Bingo,
Welcome to MB. Although you blame yourself alot, the problem is you both have not worked on putting extroadinary precautions in place to protect your M. Therefore you feel insecure because there is nothing in place to make you feel secure except her word which you know from past history is not reliable. What scares you is she was capable of being with other men. Recovering a marriage takes time (mine took typical two years) and having a good plan. You should read the articles here and get the book on how to survive infidelity. There are some good questionnaires here on how to determine yours and WS top needs. And you need to learn about how you each have love banks and with your angry outburts you are withdrawing love instead of making deposits. Read about the concepts here and see if it is something you and WW want to work on. You won't regret it.

Here's a article on Why We Can't Forgive & Forget.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.html

Gg

Thanks for that, very interesting article.
She has in fact not just cut ties with the man/men in question, but completely cut herself from that side of her family to prove that she wants us. She has gone to extraordinary lengths to prove her commitment including writing a statement stating that what happened happened and why, how she felt and that her love is so strong that she is so confident that it would not happen again that she would forgo custody of our children in that event. She is basically an honest person that lost the fight that I had created. Its all in my mind I think, not hers. Her version of events were not that is was sexual at all, more emotional. I suspect the mars and venus thing is preventing me from moving on when it is all that she craves and shows deep remorse every tie it is discussed.
Tell me more if you can about your recovery and what happened. It may well help.
Thanks again.

My FWH had EA with OW from gym. The worst months for me were the first six months after Dday. Like many BS here, I went through (in this order) guilt (for my part in relationship), anger (for my WH selfishness) and the worst was resentment (which builds over time) and fear (could happen again). My FWH was also like your WW. He did a 180 after Dday and did everything here and through MC to R our M. I can tell you R is a process and you do go through different phases. Anniversary dates (of Dday) are painful for some BS. Memories and triggers are another issue you have to deal with. I think the most painful thing is knowing that the person who is supposed to love you and be committed to you can betray you. That is not an easy thing to get over. Harley says it typically take two years to R a M. That was the case with us.

Gg

i am new to this forum, or any for that matter. Could you please explain FWH, EA, OW, BS, MC etc.
Thanks

you can find the acronyms at the following link...

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2282858&page=1

I recommend you also check out the Notable Post Forum. There are some good threads on recovering.

Gg

FWH - Former Wayward Husband
EA - Emotional Affair
OW - Other Woman
BS - Betrayed Spouse
MC - Marriage Counseling

Aside from what she did, I question what it is you want? If you want to stop obsessing over her actions of that one night, then what are YOU doing about YOU?

Are you in therapy to deal with all your destructive behaviors? Your selfishness? Your entitlement?

That's where I would advise you to look.

Get into therapy.

Thank you .
I think the obsession cam from trying to find out exactly what happened and the level of commitment my wife had put into the ONS and whether there was really asny feelings for the guy. I went to the extent of setting up a false email account and pretending to be him trying to get back in touch secretly to see what her true feeling about the matter were. Turns out that she politely told him (or what she thought was him) precisely what she had told me and very politely to F off as she just wanted to be with me.
I think perhaps in my persuit of truth I started to drown in the why's and wherefores and made a bigger deal out of the whole thing than it needed to be. It obviously meant nothing and as she was drunk she was not able to think straight. I can understand why she would not want to reveal all of the facts at the time as she did not want to hurt me and felt that it was not relevant to do so as it had helped make her mind up as to where she wanted to be.
That said, all I want is peace. I understand why these things happen and in her shoes, being treated the way she was would have done that and far worse I am sure.
The fact remains that, despite all the assurances one can get, and she has not put a foot wrong in the last year and done all of the things suggested to create a sense of security, that I still run over it in my head on a daily basis imagining every moment as if it happened yesterday.
I did a bit of therapy for OCD to try to calm things down and it has to be said that the episodes are getting less frequent, but it still haunts me.
I suppose as she has been my rock for all these years whilst I have been selfish and controlling she is the last person on earth I thought would do this and s such I am having trouble dealing with that.
I have changed my ways in a remarkable way. I no longer deal with the money in our marriage, I no longer go solo on any decision and we discuss things as never before. All the foundation is there as is the security. I just still feel shattered and worried and scared.
Not once has there been even a hint that what she did was anything other than a terrible mistake without feeling and under duress. I had at that point finished the relationship (again) so I can sort of see where she is coming from with the "I just wanted to feel wanted" scenario.
If it is just a matter of time then I am happy to put in the work and let it become a thing of the past. I just wondered whether it was unusual for it to take this long despite all the effort that has been put in.
I am convinced of my love for her and truly know that it is US that I want, but having never really discussed this with anyone other than her or confided, it is a lonely battle at times.
She dealt with it at the time, boxed it off and made the decision that she wanted me and took from it, quite sensibly, the lesson that she wanted no one else but needed me to understand her dissatisfaction in the way I was treating her.
Am I barking up the wrong tree? Is it true that once a cheater, however minor, always a cheater. Am I misreading this and actually clinging to the wrong woman?
I have to say that at no time have I ever wanted the relationship to end even at the point of revelation, but is that just control and that I don't want anyone else to have her or is it truly that i want to evolve with her, learn from the past and get on with our marriage harmoniously.
Can someone read between the lines for me as I am finding the whole thing a bit of a blur ?
Thanks so much for your help.
Cheers

Here is the crux of your whole problem - which is why I asked if YOU are in therapy. And no, a couple sessions does not count:
This has nothing to do with her, aside from the fact that she - for once - did ONE thing that wasn't completely about YOU.

Your self-esteem issues. Possible toxic shame (look it up). Self-destruction. All about you.

Also, you spent all these years safe in the assumption that you could be an a$$ and she'd still have unconditional love for you. Now you have to accept the fact that, gee, maybe YOU have to be a decent person, too.

So..what to do? As I said, STOP putting this on her. It is about YOU, so get yourself back into therapy, or find a new purpose in your life, and start getting focused. You still sound very selfish and very entitled. Maybe do some volunteering (together, if possible; with the kids, even better). If you stop focusing on yourself, you'll make progress.

You are right on so many levels. I have been incredibly selfish and am still being to a certain extent.
Harsh as it is to read what you state makes perfect sense. She did indeed do one thing for a few minutes that was not about me and even then she claimed that it was, in reality, as all she wanted, ever, was to be loved the same way as she loves me, and for a moment sought it from elsewhere in desperation as I had yet again kicked her to the floor (metaphorically).
I made a resolution to her that 2010 would be the end of the questioning and the blame and that I would do anything to make this go away, thus my first public admission of this problem.
She is a truly fantastic woman that has proved over and over again that she is dedicated (she is pregnant it appears) and that to be rejected constantly was heart breaking.
I know my part in this now and realise quite what an a$$ I have been and really it should be me apologising and taking a hit for the team.
I used to do a great deal of voluntary work, but I run two quite large businesses and as such time got the better of all of that. I suppose because I am a control freak, quite sucessfully, with my work, it spilled into home life and "toxic shame" has indeed occured. I expect everything to go my way and for everyone to conform to my way of thinking when that should be left at work and home should be a more joint effort. I suspect that the reason I am being an idiot about this is down to the fact that I could not control the evening in question and cannot change it and therefor obsess and blame.
I know I am wrong in all of this because, as she has said, if she really wanted to have let go, and lets face it, being drunk can do that, she would have, but she didn't she just wanted to feel precisely what I was not offering...attractive and wanted. It just went a bit further than she had reckoned on and she was not capable due to the drink and speed of developments to do much about it. Vunerable, would best describe it. But vunerable because of me all the same.
At 41 it is difficult to change the habits of a lifetime, and obviously I am giving the impression that I am quite a bad person. In reality, I am, day by day becoming again the person that she fell in love with but let her down.
I will get help and sort this out as she deserves better than to be beaten with a stick that really should be used on me.
You know, i sometimes wake in the morning with her staring at me, her having been awake for an hour or so. I always ask what she is doing and she always says "just looking at my husband and loving him quietly because I can".
Your right, it's me who needs to take the bull by the horns and deal with this and get better for the both of us.
Trust me, it is a different relationship to what it was, because I got the wakeup call that I deserved really, but I now fully understand that, for it to be truly two halves of a whole, one of the halves needs to be just that.
I always felt like I didn't deserve her (and possibly don't) and that's where the whole putting her down issue began. Again, what you say makes sense in that if I gained a little self confidence, which incidentally she asked me to make as a new years resolution, this would not be an issue, or as much of one.
What I do know is that if I had done the same thing she would only care about how I felt about the other person and her and what she had done wrong to put me in that position. I have indeed approached this the wrong way.
I sincerely thank you for your help. As I said this is the frist time I have done this in my life and have confided in no-one.
Any other pearls of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

Congratulations on the baby!

fwiw, you should read up on toxic shame. It's a FOO issue, something you carry all your life from childhood, and it manifests in everything you do or feel or think. I don't think you quite understand the concept. It may help you to learn more about it. I read the book Healing the Shame That Binds You, and it was eye-opening.

Now...how much time together do you spend with your wife? According to MB, to keep your love going, you should spend at least 15 hours each week on each other - no tv, no work, no destractions. That would be a good place to start.

We now spend a great deal of time together. In fact we have not slept in separate beds in the last year ( i used to travel alot) we commit to at least one night a week with just the two of us alone and out of the house. Sometimes difficult because of all the kids. We have just spent 8 days as a family in NYC (we are english) and as such this is the first day in 10 that I have not been by her side constantly. I miss her so much actually.
We text a great deal now when we are apart, just the soppy "i love you" type. I also apologise now if I wind her up the wrong way, which I never did. I respect her in a way that I never did, and we really enjoy each others company. In fact we cut our social lives down to the point where we are a family and do things that way without involving others as it seems we don't need them.
I got to the point with CBT therapy when it was discovered that there was perhaps an abandonment(not feeling loved by Mum) issue when I wqas very small, but it got so uncomfortable that I could not continue with the therapy much against the wishes of my wife who was seeing great positive leaps in my demeanour. I think that may answer your question regarding the concept of toxic shame. I am aware, but scared to deal with it. I know it affects everything and I know you are right that it has to be dealt with.
I will order the book. Thank you.
I know that when we are together it is miraculous and that I cannot ever imagine two people being more in love. I also know that my nagging doubts are stupid really as she would have left long ago, never wished to marry me (she was a single Mum really) and certainly not wish to have more children with me.
I know it's me that need to be fixed a little and perhaps all will be well merely from that. I certainly, having obsessed for this long, realise that she is not about to shut the door on us, but rationality is not something I appear to be very good at.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that WE, as a couple, are past the worst, but I am realising that I as a person am not. I hear this from your wise words too.
I have stated that now we are officially pregnant that I will not touch a drop of alcohol from now on in and I know that will help too.
Bless you for being kind enough to spend time with me on this. It has been a huge relief to have been able to talk with someone about this.
Keep it coming....you certainly know your stuff !!
Your story ?
Cheers

I found an email she sent me quite recently that probably sums up where she was coming from and where the problem lies. I have obviously missed out names, but it is exactly what she sent after I had questioned, once again, her commitment to us and why the whole thing happened. Perhaps more insight.

My darling,
I'm sorry that you are feeling so low. I wish with all my heart that you could just move on and leave it all behind us.
I felt so lonely, so unloved and just desperate. The only person that I wanted/needed continually rejected me.
I read a, in many ways sad, love letter this morning from Jane Welsh to Thomas Carlyle which she started with 'Unkind that you are ever to suffer me to be cast down, when it is so easy a thing for you to lift me to the Seventh Heaven!'. The line spoke to me on every level. Just a smile from you leaves me with a feeling of euphoria.
Our subsequent, too numerous and lengthy, talks have been about all this and telling each other how we feel/felt in the hope that we can recognise emotions in each other and learn from our mistakes.
The talks have opened each of us up and having you express the feelings in your heart serves only to make me love you more.
I have always loved you, I truly didn't/couldn't believe that you felt the same. I still know that I love you more than you love me but all I can do is hope that one day you catch up. We have made great progress already but still have a way to go. I am fully aware of this but am strengthened by you...by us. I don't know why but you don't seem to be able to do that. You need to stop all this foolish, harmful self doubt. What good is it doing? It is serving only to make us weak and is so unnecessary. I love you, I am your wife, this is forever...from my side at least. You still seem hell bent on dooming our relationship at a moments notice...that I am sick of. Should you really want us forever then realise it is a joint effort. At times it feels like I am running a three legged race with a partner who's wearing one lead boot! I don't want to run it solo, I don't want a substitute running partner, I just want you to kick it off and let's win this thing! (I don't know if that makes sense to you but please let me apologise for not being as good at analogies as you!)
Your questions about marriage...I have made my choice, I have made the vows, I have made the commitment. I have never been married before and don't really care what marriage means to other people nor what other people do in their marriages. I know what it means to me...and that is that it is for life. I chose you my darling, I chose us. I told you that we cannot help who we fall in love with...so just accept it....accept that I completely adore you. I know that you'll question why but it is everything and nothing and that is so hard to put into words because using any one reason as an example would be doing an injustice to all the others.
Please cease fretting about the self and understand that you are part of an us...we win together, we loose together...simple.
Yours forever and eternity

mmmmh. that does make sense of what you posted earlier. She, it seems has got the gist of my problems, maybe I haven't. Until now.
Thanks again.
This has been truly helpful.
Cheers

May be it's just my story, but this forum ( the first of which I have ever been to ) seems to allow you to open your heart, get a character assassination for honesty, and then be left high and dry.
I admitted my faults, told the truth and then just as it seemed it was becoming a useful tool, people stare but say nothing.
How is that constructive ?

Um...you hadn't asked about anything in your last post. I don't think people realized you were seeking a response. What would you like to hear from us?

whether I'm on the right tracks. I opened myself and my wife up, to a certain extent, and was looking for opinion really as to whether she had recovered and as such, I can ?

Sorry, bingo. This is my first time on your thread. I see you registered here four days ago. What is it you have been expecting? From my limited experience, the process here usually takes the following form:

* Desperate, hurt, confused, angry person (usually a betrayed spouse, or BS) arrives, introduces themselves, describes a bit of the reason for being here, and confesses to being afraid and at a loss.

* People begin to respond. They ask questions, mostly to understand what it is the poster is asking. These questions sometimes seem heartless, but because timing is so crucial in matters such as these, being polite and demur is a waste of it.

* If the poster wants to recover the marriage (which is, after all, what this site is all about), he or she is then encouraged to learn as much as they can about the Marriage Builder (MB) principles, concepts and plans.

* Frequently, the poster will object to some of the guidance offered. That's okay, no one forced them to come here, no one gets paid for their advice, and everything is done with one basic purpose behing it: recovery.

* This site is based on principles that are PROVEN TO WORK. Early arrivals sometimes feel they can "pick and choose" which parts they want to use. It doesn't work that way. Plan A is followed by Plan B, and so on. One without the other does not work.

* The use of 2x4's is employed because people here don't have the time to hand-hold each and every person who comes here. The best advice is to get started, get smart and get moving.

* Recovery is based on what a person wants to get out of it. Do you want to recover your marriage? Do you want to do that at the sacrifice of your own sanity? Are you willing to do the HARD WORK necessary to accomplish recovery?

* Like any other program that works, it only works if people WANT it and are WILLING to do the work it requires. If that's a 2x4, so be it.

So, what's it going to be, bingo? Is that constructive enough for you?

I appreciate that, and I hope I don't sound arrogant, but we have put a lot of hard work in, and my wife seems to have recovered far better than I.
I have taken into account everything that has been said to me, ordered the books, read the instructional parts of the site and done all that i can to calm my mind.
I just wanted an opinion, harsh as it may be, as to whether, I can move on. I want to, but seem to find it hard, that's all.
cheers

Ok, then. What steps have you taken to change YOU?

Have you found a therapist to deal with your controlling ways?

Have you signed up for phone counseling with the Harleys?

Have you ordered any books to read?

Have you asked your wife to fill out the Love Buster questionnaire so you'll know what YOU have to stop doing to LB her?

The point I've tried to make is that you are focusing on HER and what SHE has done, when you should be focusing on YOU. IMO, your problem is that you're like that eye in Lord of the Rings, that is nonstop looking around at the landscape (i.e. your wife) while it can't look down or inward at itself.

What about volunteering? It would get your mind off of her and after awhile, you may find you have stopped trying to judge her.

Books, yes. All that have been suggested and more. still awaiting them as Amazon are on a go slow weather wise.
Therapist....please read the above.
Love buster quest. Covered. I printed it out and realised that our work had already covered those bases, in spades.
Changing me.......I have, in spades also. It is more about obsessing every detail that I cannot get over. I understand why and how on both sides. Just cant seem to straddle the hurdle to peace......if that makes sense.
cheers

I am trying not to judge. I have already stated that I understand her actions and appreciate my role in them. I am, i suppose looking at whether the brief snapshot I have given of her, means that she is committed and that I can relax a little and do work on myself. thats all really.
The letter she wrote me was one of may on the same theme over months, I just wondered, as I have never done this before whether it was BS or genuine in the opinion of those with more experience than I.
Thanks so much

I guess I'm not reading you clearly. Did you recently marry after being with your wife for a long time? You said that you guys met when you were divorcing and that she's much younger than you. Was there infidelity in your first marriage?

Maybe I'm missing something, bingo, but I get the feeling that you want to fast-track your healing and be done. I wish it were that simple. I doubt that many of us would be on here if that were the case.
Recovery is a process. You can't hurry it along, but you CAN facilitate its success. You've done a lot of work - good for you! Time will help you.

You sound a little frustrated by some of the responses you've gotten. Let me tell you - I arrived here a few months ago, beaten and bloodied by my H's A. Coddling, yes, I got a little. But I also got an education, and it came in the form of crisp, no-nonsense responses and suggestions.

When my ego was whimpering to have my pain taken away from me because it was too hard the fine people on here were teaching me how to stand tall and direct my own recovery.

When it seemed like it was too hard and I was languishing in my victim mode I read how much worse other posters had it than did I. It's been quite an education.

This is a battle-hardened group, bingo. Lucky you - this group has YOUR back!

ok, I had a very unhappy first marriage that produced two children that I cared for deeply and tied to rescue that marriage. I met my current wife during that process and as such, even though my past marriage was over, we ( my current wife and I ) were and affair. It Changed my life in son many ways, but the complications of kids and past has made our route difficult. Combined with the suicide of my Dad in out early days it has meant that I have been self centred. I passed all of my grief onto m wife who stuck my be in thick and thin, but i think jut gave up in the end regarding her own self worth.
She is particularly attractive and that has been a difficult one for me to handle as I am indeed older by 9 years. She feels that her mistakes were merely that she felt unloved and that i was too wrapped in my own world. Just moments of relief almost that she was still attractive etc. i suppose I just wanted to know that this was the case if the above were taken into account.
thanks

oh, sorry, i'm trying now to reply to several messages of support.
Yes I was unfaithful in my first marriage. I knew it was wrong and regretted, and still do, my actions. When I met my (now) wife i fell totally in love, but was not really prepared or it and took action to ensure she and I and my children from the first marriage were all OK. Not ideal, but that's the way it panned out.

Ok, so, your affairage partner cheated on you? And you are surprised by this? Sucks dunit? DUDE

I see your Betrayed ex-Wife didn't make the list? The wheels on the Karma bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..DUDE

why should i be surprised ?

Where is your ex-wife? Right now? today? Do you still talk to her?

she lives close and I still talk to her. we have no feelings whatsoever between us I was too young to be married and we both respect that. I still talk to her as she is the mother of our two boys who are wonderfully happy and thriving. Why do you ask ?

You see sir, your AFFAIARAGE never had a CHANCE. Well, statistically, a slight one.(3%) Now your f'd. You have to try and save this marriage but you should have saved the prior one. I'd go talk to your ex-wife right now. Call her up, tell her what you are experiencing and you are so sorry for EVER hurting her in the same way. You my friend have just been steam rolled by the KARMA BUS.(I'm sure you dont see it that way!) DUDE

That's what I thought. Good luck to you.

also, they (the two boys) lied with my wife and I for the last 9 years in happiness. They always had their won bedrooms despite our current two sharing....have i done wrong ?

i meant lived with my wife not 'lied"

Bingo
You stated you suffer from depression and were self medicating with alcohol. Is that under control? What is the current state of your depression? What treatment are you undergoing for your depression. It sounds like it may run in your family, did your father suffer from depression? Depression is very hard on relationships. It is hard to give out when you are trying to survive in a depressed state.

You sound like you are looking for a quick fix. You may need to reset your expectations. This is not a quick process. It probably took some time for your relationship to deteriorate, so it will take some time to rebuild it. It also takes time, effort and focus on retraining how to break old habits and adopt new ones.

Right now the folks here are trying to get enough information about your situation to try and asses how to help you. After reading your posts I am not totally clear on where you are at. I understand the hurt and the betrayal. Perhaps you can fill in the blanks a little more on your history and what you suspect is causing your wife to feel unloved? What is causing her to be looking to fill her love bank?

Take a deep breath and be patient. Just getting over the trauma of betrayal takes a long time. Possibly years, but in the meantime you can be learning a new way of relating to prevent it from happening again.

Blessings
BCBoy

dude 007. If that were the case, how come my current relationship lasted longer than my previous marriage ?

BCboy. please continue. You make absolute sense !!
Cheers

BCboy. are you male or female ?

dude 007. 9 years is surely more than the 3% you predict. This is not about an affair this is how to conduct myself in this marriage, surely ?
Thanks for the doom though. Very helpful !!!!!!!!

**edit**

I think what Dude is trying to share with you is that, statistically, very few marriages that begin as affairs will last. 3% is the number used when referencing marriages that last after having their roots in an affair. The philosophy being that they were built on a foundation that was predicated on lies and deception.

well then tell dude to read m wifes email and then tell whether that's the case in my particular circumstances.

The longer the affariage, the larger the Karma bus. DUDE

Dude's not bad peeps. You'll get to know him better as you go through this with us.

Ok, I'm going to read them. Understand though how you started out this M. She knows you obviously didn't value your first wife much(since you cheated on her) and now she has strayed because of it. Do you see that? You started this relationship out on the WRONG foot so its hard for it to last like a REAL marriage would have? Get it? DUDE

if you say so. is i not impossible that we found each other and just got on with it and made mistakes. You sound sooooooo bitter !!

if 3 % is average then by that statisic, we have done well !??

dude 007 have you read them ?

I read the email you posted, and I read the title of your thread, meaning that you cannot get past your W's A. Can it be that Dude's comments and the title of your thread are related? Marriages that begin in an affairage usually implode, as the deceit and lying cause the partners to mistrust each other. Is that what is happening here? Was the OM married as well?

You want us to help you decide whether your W's email is genuine, yet you are the best one to determine that. You can end the marriage if you like. That is your prerogative based on her adultery. Or you can decide to work at making your marriage stronger than it ever was. That decision should be based on your feelings first and foremost. Either way will take work.

I propose everyone stop being judgmental and see if there's anything here.

Bingo, when I read your posts I get a sense of a very controlling personality at work. Does this resonate with you? If so, you might want to consider that at this point in time, the only thing you have control over is WHAT YOU THINK and WHAT YOU DO.

You do NOT have control over your wife and what she thinks and does.

Therefore, it's in your best interest to refocus your lens on YOU and see what you can do for YOURSELF.

I am probably the last person who should be talking about marital recovery. Less than three months into this miasma, and I have pretty well written off any hope of my wife's return. As someone else told me, I have no CONTROL over future events, so could it happen? Yes. Will it? I have no freaking idea.

But what I do know, and the reason I continue to read and post here, is that MY OWN PERSONAL RECOVERY can be found here by learning the principles and concepts found in "Marriage Building." Because even if I can't recover this marriage, why on earth would I ever want to put myself into the position where I can be subjected to the same kind of pain again? MB is helping me become the kind of husband my wife would WANT to be married to. And if not her, maybe someone else.

There are people here from all walks of life, at all levels of marital recovery (or not). The veterans here have all walked the path we are currently on. We can choose to follow their footsteps or try to blaze our own trail.

Do you know how to recognize a pioneer? He's the person with the arrows sticking out of his chest.

The people here have helped me see the truth about my marriage. They have helped me investigate the type of person I married, why I married her, and what my part was in the marriage that may have led her into being susceptible to having an affair and destroying everything.

Finally, this site has a Terms of Service (TOS). The moderators here will delete offensive posts or those that contain personal attacks. They have no place here. No one forces anyone to come here, no one forces anyone to follow suggestions, and no one is required to hold your hand and guide you to every page and every quote on the site.

But understand that this is a community of people who have a common belief -- a common FAITH, if you will -- that the MB principles work. If you cannot bring yourself into alignment with that idea, perhaps this is not the community for you.

OK, she is really into you. Always has been, but felt like you never paid a dam bit of attention to her. She has screwed everything up w/ stooping to an A. She feels lost and is probably a little bonkers right now. This is probably mixed w/ the guilt from breaking up your first marriage. I think she is a lost soul who needs to find her moral compass and get grounded and quick. DUDE

dude 007 read her letter to me , then judge.

is this marriage builder or destructors. I'm not looking for a way out...just peace !!

Just a reference point: My mother had multiple affairs. I was the kid she kept with her through them. She was married to her last affair partner for seventeen years.

I played nice and acted happy for seventeen years until he died of cancer two years ago. Now that he's dead, I'm happy to admit that I hated him every second of that time for breaking up my "real" family. And even my wayward mom knows it.

So what's wrong with being judgmental? IMHO people are too afraid nowadays to speak judgment where judgment is due.

Dude was stating statistics. Heck, many of us joke every day about that dang karma bus and look forward to its arrival. This guy represents the WH in most cases where a WH continues to be wayward and goes on to marry his OW. THAT is offensive to me and I think it's insulting for him to come here and ask for help from people who are CURRENTLY suffering the pain of adultery in their own marriages.

Sorry, that's just the way I feel and I suspect a lot of others here on MB feel the same way. I don't condone tolerance or the what's done is done, let's just move on attitude.

He should go to gloryb to get support.

ok, i am trying to control a situation that I perhaps enabled. it was nothing....why are you all looking so deep. i wake up and smile at my situation as does my wife. 9 years ago does not really count now.....we are over that, as is my ex. I am am only here to get the feeling i am on the right track and that recover is in due process.
Dude 700 may not be included in this. Sooooo unhelpful.
I adore my my, as does she adore me, Its about repair not judgement. We both did wrong and we know it.
Help please not judgement.

Hello Bingo,

I am not sure if someone previously brought this up but your wife's desciption of the event indicates that the OM did have intercours with her for a short time without a condom. It is absolutely essential that she get checked for STD's. I wish you luck.

oh, my god.......he managed 4 thrusts i that makes you happy. no, no stds.
\

The problem my friend is this site is predicated on HONEST MARRIAGES, not AFFARIAGES, yes it was a long time ago, but the principles employed here run counter to the foundation of your relationship? In reality, even biblically, you are not married to this woman. You are in a really long term affair and should unwind it legally and go back to your original wife. That why I said you are f'd. You don't have a real marriage and I think you know this. You have a really long inappropriate relationship. I'm outta here. DUDE

How would you feel if the affair were to resume, you divorced, and he were to one day come to this site to seek advice on saving his affairage with your WW? Would you respect the posters here for helping to legitimize that relationship?

PRECISELY...DUDE

what do i do then?

oh for christ sake. She, a a gee total, got almost raped at a party. party, yes, wiling no. 3 minutes yes, more no!! because of this i should doom everything ?

THIS WAS NOT AN AFFAIR. A MOMENT OF MADNESS AFTER I HAD PUSHED HER TO THE CURB !!!!!

sorry. She is teetotal and got very, very, drunk !!

Hello again,

I am not sure if I understood your response to me. The man that raped your wife sounds like a total scumbag. It does not make any difference whether it was one thrust or 4. It only takes 1 thrust to transmit an std. Are you aware of this?

No, the marriage was doomed from the start. Thats what people are trying to tell you on here. YOU ARE IN AN AFFAIR RIGHT NOW!!! So is she w/ you. What she did was cheat on her married boyfriend. You came here for help in your AFFARIAGE. We are helping you see the light, I hope. Its actually pretty simple. You cheated on your wife, dumped her, got a legal divorce and a legal marriage(affairage). You need to undo this if its humanlly possible. You are a mouse in a maze who has wandered so far off the exit path it will take hundreds of turns to get back, you want to keep moving forward on your current path cuz it seems easiest but IT DEAD ENDS. DUDE

Bingo,

For the record, I would not expect my W to offer a BJ to a man just to stop intercourse from happening. I think you are totally deluding yourself in thinking this is somehow better than penetration. I will never understand that point of view at all, in fact, I think it is worse than penetration. but that's just me.

Dude has pointed out the obvious to you. Your M was based in an A and was thusly based on lies and deceipt. This is EXACTLY why Dr. H says the chance of these M's to survive is so slim.

What kind of foundation is this to build a M on? It is like building a house on shifting sands and expecting it will stand in the precence of a storm. Deluded wishful thinking at best!!!

Your 3% chance has come and gone and you now find yourself in the 97% loser category that these Affair mariages find themselves. You may find him (and me objectional) but he has spoken the unabridged truth to you.

What did you really hope to find at the end of your fantasy rainbow? A faithful M?

Based on lies and deceipt, you got what was predicted by most experts in the field, BINGO!@!!!!

All Blessings,
Jerry

9 years though ?

Sucks doesn't it...I think you know we are right don't you? BE HONEST w/US and YOURSELF...DUDE

A week ago I spoke with a man who married his affair partner 25 years ago. They are still married. And he carries the guilt and shame of his behavior with him every day of his life.

Quite a burden to carry, don't you think?

When and where did the dynamics of your M change??

It may have happened in your mind, but apparently your WW was not onboard.

The problem as I see it,(MVHO) is that the two of you are not on the same page.

It may take quite a bit of work for that to happen, but based on statistics, it will be harder and more difficult than most.

I still do wish you the best,

All blesings,
Jerry

Yeah, I'm out on that guilt crap...My conscience is a BEATCH!!! DUDE

thanks . an abortion in on the cards. wonderful.
9 years ? surely that counts for something. Is her letter to me false ?
thanks for your help

A nine year fantasy my friend. I know, it sucks. Is your ex-w single? Not trying to be funny I'm just curious..DUDE

i dont cary guilt. What for ? I got married to early, that ended, i still have custody of the kids and and we ( step mum and i ) have done well with that. why guilt after 9 years ?

my ex wife is single

is it not possible that a second marriage could be happy? i feel that way as does my wife. We just went through a period of adjustment. surely that is normal. test and all that ?

Why is she still single? Has she ever remarried? Or possibly, she is waiting on her huband to come home when his fantasy dies off?

A second marriage most definitly could be happy...but yours was an affairage, I am not too sure about that ending happily.

Bingo I am male 54 years old

I did not see your response to what you are doing about treating your depression. It will have an impact on your marriage. If you are self medicating that will have an impact on your relationship. It is also an indication that you have some work to do on yourself. Depression can be brought on by several factors. Depression is really a misnomer, it really is anxiety, if the anxiety is not dealt with, you body starts to shut down. The thing is you need to get to the root of the cause of your depression and anxiety. The depression will cause you to Love Bust (LB).

ARE YOU SELF MEDICATING????


The posters here are starting to home in on the foundation of your marriage. It started out as an affair. Keep in mind that this forum is based on Christian principles. And you will likely find a number of people here who believe there are consequences for not following the patterns and principles laid out in the Bible. You see references to Karma bus, well in reality that can be "consequences for sin" or "disobedience to Gods law". One of the ways to recover is to repent of our sin, meaning to turn around and make right the wrongs WE have done. That can consist of forgiving and asking for forgiveness, righting a wrong, paying a debt.

All of this can play into the cause of depression. Depression can be chemical imbalance but it can also be cognitive and spiritual.

I still get the sense you are looking for a quick fix. But I think there is more to the ball of twine you have accumulated in your life. Now is an opportunity to deal with the accumulation and do the house cleaning that is needed.

Please do not be defensive. I sense the posters are trying to break through your shield, to get to the root issues in your life. I have a sense you have become skilled at hiding them. This is an opportunity for you to do some serious self examination and to look at the factors you are bringing to the relationship that are detrimental.

Bingo,
Here is my observation. Your 9-year marriage has not been successful. You have been neglectful, you both have made poor choices and your M is worse than probably it's ever been. Obviously it wasn't getting better when your woman gave herself to OM (sorry I don't believe her tale of events). She chose to give of herself to OM.

The problem here is that you never worked on improving you and your behavior in your first marriage - thus the neglect and behavior is repeated in the second marriage.

Had you put effort into the first M maybe you would have learned how to be a better man, husband, father and be actually be in a successful M and you would not end up here.

So where does this leave you now? Well you need to start becoming the better man and learn what it takes to make a M successful - it starts with you. The odds are against you because you both are liers and cheaters.

Gg

No heart
No brains
No courage

You're a wayward and your wife is a thief. Neither of you possess the ability to have an open and honest relationship of value and integrity...thus, ignoring any and all problems by closing your eyes and clicking your heals together is by far your best option.

Back to Oz with you...where, it seems, you've just discovered you married the wicked witch. Life is just a movie afterall...it's not real so don't worry about it. It's gotten you this far (NINE years).

Mr. Wondering

p.s.- Give custody of your children of the first marriage back to your ex-wife before it's too late.

Then why are YOU having so much trouble getting over it? After all, it was just a moment of madness.

The point many of us keep reiterating to you is that, from our perspective, based on the way you write, it seems like YOU have some issues that would benefit from being looked at. Not your wife. YOU.

Now, are you interested in knowing what we see? What bothers us about you? Or are you only interested in getting your wife to 'make things better' for you?

Because there is one key theme here at MB. It is this: If you want a better marriage, fix YOURSELF. Because you CAN'T fix your spouse.

having had time to reflect a little about some of the comments posted, some accurate and some ridiculous, I have this to say in answer....
I married for the first time because my girlfriend, whom I was about to dump told me she was pregnant (4 months gone) and I felt at the age of 21 that I should stick by her. I was not in love with her, she was in love with me, but I LEARNED how to be a husband even though I wasn't ready for it or even wanted it. I started to have panic attacks soon after making the decision to stick with a person that I didn't want to be with but fell in love with the my little boy and love him as much today as I did then. He is now 19 and studying to be a Doctor. I am proud and as the second boy, who, again, came as a bit of a surprise has an equal place in my heart and is 16, custody is no longer and issue. I never loved my first wife but somehow learned to create an environment where I could be with my children but never really be with her. I worked away from home a great deal and spent all my time at home when I could be around the two boys. I learned a great deal about marriage from my parents, who were deeply unhappy for 30 years and somehow made things survivable for the sake of my kids. I got tired though after 10 years. I really did. I hadn't slept with my wife for over a year, had totally separate lives, lived away a great deal and sincerely made every effort to rescue the unrescuable. It got to the stage where I had been away for 8 days working and would get home at night and she wouldn't even turn the TV off and say hello. I was, in effect a single father when I had the kids and had no love in my life except them. I didn't want to hurt my wife at the time because she seemed to need nothing (only child) from me except a roof and a loving father, which I was able to provide both of. I am a believer in the sanctity of marriage and even though I fought hard to cling onto something that was never meant to be, admit that I gave up after a great deal of thinking and therapy.
I met my current wife when I was about to file for divorce, I know you're going to doubt that, but it is absolutely true. I was deeply unhappy, working very hard and drinking to try to give myself some happiness.
My current wife and I met by chance, the same way many do, and were instantly head over heels. She too had lacked love in her last long term relationship and together we showed each other what it could feel like to love. It was never about sex or sneaking about or an affair, it was very much about two people who, in a different place and time would have fallen in love all the same.
I admit whole heartedly that I should have been single when we met, but sometimes these things aren't ideal. I divorced my wife as soon as I knew that I could feel love but gave it six months with my current wife very much waiting in the background willing to move away if it made life easier, ensuring that I got it right for my kids and dealt with the horror of divorce as best I could. Only at that point did I commit to my current wife as girl friend and boyfriend and way after that moved in with the kids that I had joint custody of and whom both at the age of 16 (as that is what the court decreed) chose to live with my current wife and I more or less full time. We must have got something right here as it certainly wasn't persuasion. I have never since had even the slightest emotional feeling for my ex wife, never did, still never do and whenever we meet I still don't understand how I managed to stand 10 years of marriage as I can't stand to be with her and don't even particularly like her.
I felt guilty for hurting her and creating a divorce and splitting a family and still do, but truly I feel nothing for my ex and never did. Nothing to do with my current wife, just the way things were.
I understand that this forum is based on building marriage, but I find it incredible that people judge what they don't know !!! I was not married, I was existing and then met someone whom I wanted to be with !!! Is that really such a sin.
Anyway, we are all entitled to our own opinions, but heres where I think it went wrong and I am truly grateful to those who have been constructive and not judgmental as it has pointed me very much in the right direction.
I carried with me every tool that I had made for myself as an independant living married man into my next relationship. I was so used to doing things my own way without the need for another and coping with the kids, cooking, ironing, cleaning working, that I didn't really know how to conduct myself as a partner in a relationship. I was conscious that I had to be controlling in my last marriage as that was necessary, but didn't realise that it was not necessary in my current relationship, until recently that is. I suspect if you sit on anyone hard enough for long enough they will wriggle and that is precisely what happened. I was, always have been, and always will be deeply in love with my current wife, but just acted like the 20 year old idiot that got married to the wrong person and controlled things that he needed to to manipulate a relationship into something that suited the time. I didn't realise any different even though my current wife was trying her hardest to point it out.
I made my wife ( i think "current" is now unnecessary) feel so lonely and unwanted because I had learned from my past marriage how to act alone and still be married, how to live in an unloving place and how to make sure things happened my own way. What I hadn't taken into account was that I truly and deeply loved this woman and was crushing her with my past learned behaviour.
So, she cheated, it was not sex as such it was a cry for help. She passed a polygraph test to say as much and nothing she has ever said to me has been proved to be a lie, EVER, or since. She did not steal me from my last wife, I was not married really, just existing. All she has done is loved my and put up a fight to keep me even though I couldn't show her the same affection in return as I did not know how to.
Since I found out about the ONS it placed us in a position where there was a chance that we would loose each other and that really made me and her realise quite how strongly we felt about each other. Almost as if it had to happen to one of us to place us in that position.
That was a year ago and we have spent hours, days, weeks working on us. Perhaps what I failed to do is work on me as an individual.
What I have also failed to do is look at the bigger picture and realise that we are all human and in effect we can all make mistakes. None of you out there have seen the tears my wife has shed over her actions, how physically sick it makes her when it is brought up and quite what steps she has taken to mend what she did, selfishly, in a moment of loneliness, having been dumped yet again by the one person she really wanted to be with.
My work is about showing her how much I love her. This whole episode opened my eyes as to where I had gone wrong and I suspect that I carry much guilt about the fact that if I had done something about this long ago, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. She is not a cheater by nature and never had an affair, that has been proved. She just got drunk one night having never drunk really in her life, because I acted up and shamed her, and made a very bad call in a very vunerable condition.
The reason I can't get over it is, i think, because I feel like I caused it and am acutely aware of that. She accepts full responsibility and has never once blamed me, quite the opposite. She has taken all the steps that this web site suggests and more to ensure security, but I have focused wrongly.
Catperson is right. My wife did wrong and fixed herself, I have been doing wrong for 20 years and am having trouble fixing myself. Simple as.
Obviously on a forum you cant see my house and how much love is in it. You can't fake it and I and my wife are both $hit actors which is why I knew something was up in the first place.
We have never been more in love it is almost sickening, and we have never been happier in either of our entire lives, in the main. It is just the fixing of me that is getting in the way and relearning all that I taught myself as a defence mechanism in my last marriage is taking it's toll. I think my silly focus on one minor, drunken, regretted (by both parties incidentally) moment is because I I don't have the tools for that bit yet.
I am not living some fantasy, as someone very helpfully pointed out. I am living a reality. I have made a mess to the extent that someone who loved me, was, and still is a fantastic Mum and step mum, got extremely lonely because I didn't know how to act as a partner in a marriage.
Now we are an US, I suppose I am having every day to work on keeping it that way and part of that is a reminder of what can happen if you don't work on marriage. That's the bit that hurts.
Maybe over time that will fade as I become more confident in my ability to be a good husband. Time is a great healer and whomever it was that said I was looking for a quick fix was right. In my business life things move at a faster pace, in my love life patience is something I am going to have to learn.
I sincerely thank those who have been suggestive and helpful and pity those like dude007 and mrwondering.
For those two, I need to say this:-
Whilst I may well have messed up and whilst I may well be reaping what I sowed, I have always been a great father to my kids and their loyalty to me and my wife and their desire to be with us are testament to that. I never, ever do anything without them in mind and as I have four, soon to be five. I do not take kindly to the suggestion that I have somehow neglected them in any of this. I still feel guilty for splitting a home......every day......so no need to rub it in !!
As fr my ex wife. She was an only child and has had a succession of boyfriends but never settled on one in particular. She is not waiting for me, I hope, as she never really had me in the first place. She also learned to fly solo in a marriage and I suspect she is perfectly comfortable being on her own at present. Some people are you know !!!
Self medicating. Yes. I have throughout my entire life found it difficult to switch off. My mind is one of those that works at a million miles an hour and sleep is a problem to me, which does not help all of this. I used to drink to get to sleep, that is not really an issue any more, or certainly not to the same extent, but I do take a small amount of valium to calm my mind and get me some sleep.
I have never gone down the route of antidepressants because I thought I could deal with it myself, as I have most other problems which have come my way, but maybe it is time to heed the advice given on many occasions and start to give myself a lift so that a little more strength is felt. I will give into the professionals and get medicated properly for depression as I am running out of fight and cannot ever be happy it seems in myself. That is not because of the "fantasy" world I am living in or the fact that my wife was an "affairage" (she was not) that has been going on since I was a very small boy. I know why, but have just never dealt with it.
As I sit here now, my wife is looking as happy as she ever has at the fact that I am actually doing something about getting me fixed.
I am truly grateful to you all for helping me start the process and welcome any constructive help on obsessing and keeping the very, very special thing that I have in my wife, truly happy whilst I recover myself.
Thanks again.

It's amazing how people go to great lengths to justify their actions.

bingo,

If you break that up into proper paragraphs (double-space in between paragraphs) it will be so much easier to read.

I couldn't read it all, but what I got was that therapy resulted in your leaving your first marriage, rather than working to improve it. This confirms much of what is being said in the 'therapist other than MB" thread.

Also, whether or not you were about to file for divorce, when you went into a relationship with OW you certainly killed your marriage.

You did not work to improve your marriage but did what felt good to you and left for another woman. She later did what felt good to her in your marriage to her. "Doing what feels good, rather than what is right" is the mindset that persists in affair marriages.

You cannot sell your affair marriage to us, no matter what you say about it.

oh, and the person that didn't believe that someone can give a BJ without meaning it??? My wife was raped as a young girl and forced to give that particular sex act. I knew that from day one when we got married and as such it is not part of our sex life as she finds it unloving and feels that it is not giving of herself. I am not delusional, really. I know that she would never do that unless under duress. You have to understand that the guy in question (who was single) stated that he was over the top and that she did push him off and that he did try again. I know in my heart that she would have acted that way to avoid more contact. Her thing is kissing, and touching, and intercourse. Both he and she has said that in the two or three minutes that they were having that "moment" she never once touched him kept her clothes on and never allowed him to touch her in any way. She was blind drunk and obviously thought she was more in control that it turned out to be. How do you control a man who is trying to get inside you, bearing in mind that there was a house full of sleeping people to disturb had she screamed run off or caused a fuss ? A bj was her way of controlling and that is precisely what is did and gave her the opportunity to then say no and leave whilst she was on top of the situation.
The OM has admitted to all of the above although he interpreted it slightly differently, but admitted that he was too full on. Rape is not the right word really as she kissed him first. He admitted though that that is all she wanted. Exactly what she said. Sorry, but had to get that off my chest.

Thank you for sharing this, bingo. It does cast more light on your sitch. Here's my take, FWIW:

Your 1st M occurred for the wrong reason and you feel it was a poor decision. I gotcha. It happens. The only problem is that you went outside of your first M instead of tackling your issues as a team. You spent the bulk of your 1st M behaving independently. That was a mistake, one that you may have learned from watching your own parents' unhappy M.

So, okay, you filed for D. But you were STILL a married man when you met W #2. I assume you never told W #1 about her while the two of you were still married. That, IMO, was what made your second relationship one that was built on lies and deception. And, regardless of how 'pure' or 'right' you thought relationship #2 was, the fact remains that it had its roots in those two ugly things. Lies and deception are not good building materials for a M.

So you begin your second M, not having learned from your mistakes in your first M. You continue the independent behavior and love busters because its always been your method. May I point out that, at this time, it appears you are navigating your M unconsciously, paying no heed to the hard work that it takes to be in love and stay in love with one person. Well, your W was doing the same thing. Time flies and nine years later, here you are. So it's safe to say that your, and your W's, methods have not worked to build a healthy M. If I may be so obvious

I'm all for reflecting on past actions, but as a way of making today and tomorrow better. So I'm not going to 2x4 you about your marital history. But I do think you and your W need to learn more about how to protect your M and build it to a place of committed love. Don't take any responsibility away from your W - she CHOSE to go outside of her M to have emotional needs met. That's not your fault, so don't short-circuit her role in this. How much she does - or does not- drink is immaterial. I've got some pretty good history with demon rum, myself. I've have been in situations that could have escalated into your wife's. But it never did, because even as drunk as I was, I NEVER had it in my head to cheat on my H. I NEVER wanted to have a need met that way. Your W needs to acknowledge her poor decision and the damage it has done to your M.

So again, use this event as a way of repairing your M and making it better than it ever was. It sounds like you're trying to do that, and I congratulate you. But don't expect it to happen overnight. You've had a lifetime to learn some poor coping skills. Love yourself enough to know that you're worth the time it takes to learn new ones.

Stay on here. And if she's not on here yet, invite your W to start reading these posts, as well.

And the last word: TIME. You've got to give it time.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

I am not going to great lengths to justify anything. I was wrong, and admit it. My wife was wrong and has admitted it.
My marriage was wrong and we have both fessed up to that.
I think that it is difficult to express yourself when being judged in this way.

Thank you maritalbliss. You make a great deal of sense.
My wife openly admits that she did wrong and why, she has never denied the fact that she started what she stopped and it kills her that she could have ever done it in the first place. I know that she was in a bad place as she spent the entire night in tears that evening as I had dumped her. The others at the party told me so. She was lonely and desperate for some affection and got herself in a messy situation.
If she had wanted sex, she would have had it, that's for sure. She has a healthy appetite for that and as such I know that drink taken would have gone the whole hog had she wanted that. I know in my heart it was a cry for help. and as such it is tricky.
I am not trying to justify her actions. But I do know that she was as devastated as I am when she woke up the next day.
Time..... i know.
Protection.....being worked on as we speak.
Thanks

That's good, bingo. Admitting her poor choice and owning her chit is the first step in recovering, IMO. The hard part (and most rewarding, by the way) is now in front of the two of you. You need to learn why you got to this point, how you got here, and how to change your coping skills to avoid it happening again. Both of you.

Stay on here. Read everything here. You can do this!

Coming to an infidelity section of a site dedicated to marriage, to talk alongside many BS victims of the behaviour that took you into your affair marriage, is insensitive to say the least.

Yeah. I've got the best advice ever.

Here it is:

Exercise the self-control and maturity to NEVER mention the OM BJ ever again.
Even on message boards.

Instead, read/write/learn/implement the MB concepts. Make it your business to fill your W's ENs, every day.
Make it your decision to avoid love-busters, every day.

That's it.

The magic formula.

Go do it.

The VERY next time you bring up the past (anywhere, including this forum) is proof you want "this constant reminding of bad times" to continue.

You're choices are your choices.

how can I possibly be being insensitive ? If anything, surely I am letting people know what can be done to go wrong in the first place and am letting them know that we as a married couple are still here, smiling, as testament to the fact that sometimes a wake up call is what is required, in whatever guise it comes, to get things back in track.
I was just being honest. I am not in an affair marriage. As I said I was filing for divorce at the time. I had done everything in my first marriage to make it work but they were different circumstances. I was not living with my ex-wife when I met my current wife, I had not slept with her for nearly 18 months. I had been in separate bedrooms for 6 months while I tried to piece things back together, but it didn't work. Shame but it never ever was going to.
I met my current wife too soon, yes, but also have stated that I made her wait on the side lines until I had dealt with the fall out of my divorce. We only ever met for coffee and she never spent a night with me until I sorted my children out good and proper.

Thank you pepperband.
I will look forward not back. That is exactly what my wife keeps saying.
I was just trying to answer some o the more negative feedback....but you are right.
Thank you.

Well good then, you've got it all figured out and won't be needing this forum!

Your entire post was nothing more than justifications and rationalizations. The "all about me" attitude persists...Not surprising of course...What ALWAYS gets me about the affairage people that come here is that their selfishness knows no bounds as is evidenced by coming to THIS VENUE for help! It's truly like the rapist trying to get help in a room full of rape victims...that amount of pure blindness and selfishness will NEVER cease to amaze me...that same amount of blindness and selfishness - that complete lack of care for others [with no realization or repentance] is what allowed you to commit adultery in your first marriage and what will ultimately lead to the demise of your "relationship"/9 MONTH affairage with your WISTRESS... [with 2 children of the affair [ages 3 & 6] already born PRIOR to the affairage - proving, yet again, your inability to learn from past mistakes]

Here's something I agree with, less one word, from your post...


Yes, it most certainly is...Now, off you go...

Mrs. W

Marritalbliss.
I know we can. We have never been so sure of anything as a couple before. I also know that my personal fragilities need to be looked at too.
Pepperband. Sorry I don't understand the icon ? what does that mean ?

Hang on, bingo. You're missing the forest for the trees, here. There is an elemental thing you've got to embrace about your previous M: it doesn't matter if you were physically WITH W #1 when you met W #2. The fact remains that you were MARRIED when you began your second relationship. I don't care if you benched her until your D was final. She was there, on the bench, waiting. That changed the whole complexion of your first M.

Again, not 2x4ing you, here. I just want you to be conscious of yourself. Your second M was STILL adulterous - EA or PA, doesn't matter. Your emotions were not on repairing your M and they should have been. They were distracted by the bench-sitter. That's just how it is. Understand that, as a way of understanding yourself.

And I'm still a believer that there are M's that should not have happened and should not be 'repaired'. It's just the circumstances surrounding the end yours that have to be acknowledged as a way of continuing to rebuild your current M. That will only help you.

thank you Mrswondering. Most helpful.
again I stress that my current wife was not an affair. I was not living with my ex wife and had already gone through the process of preparing for divorce. Poor timing yes, affair no. I never cheated on my ex wife even though I was unhappy for the vast majority of the 10 years we were together.

goodness. I appreciate that this is about repair and that is why I am here, but i repeat. I was divorced bar the paperwork and that was being prepared when I met my current wife.
I wasn't looking for her, was actually looking forward to being a single Dad, she just came along, but I was not married in reality. Not a justification, the truth.
Even my ex has no axe to grind with my current wife as we had been apart for long enough and I think she had already had a boyfriend too.
I would not be as sad about what has happened to us recently if I had met my wife as a bit on the side. I would call that Karma. She wasn't I was living alone I was single but in the UK it takes and age for the paperwork and money side to be sorted and that is where we were at.

My post was helpful...You ABSOLUTELY need to open your eyes and see!!!

What began as ADULTERY remains ADULTERY...You can put lipstick on a pig every single day, but it will still remain a pig...polish a turd daily, and guess what? It still remains a turd, but good luck with that...

Mrs. W

again pepperband. I don't understand the icon. Please explain

You can never get help on this forum if you continue to JUSTIFY your AFFAIRAGE....How can you fix you new AFFAIRAGE, if you wont admit and realize your past WRONGDOINGS....These thing you are saying are things that all Waywards say, I would love to hear your ExW take on what YOU DID TO HER...I am sure it is much different than your take on YOUR AFFAIR.

You will eventually have to acknowledge the emotionally handicapped beginnings of your second M. I think it's critical to your recovery. Keep working on this. It's your first step in knowing your own reality and being honest with yourself.

well if it is considered by you to be adultery then fine. I know where I was at and how long i was living on my own in a separate house from my ex and i also know where I was at legally.
My wife would be thrilled to be called a pig or turd I am sure.
How can this in any way be constructive?!!
We all got married somehow. Some here will have been an affair marriage, some not. Some will have met when they shouldn't and some not. You can't help who you fall in love with and when or why, I want to move on and have managed 9 years but have made mistakes. learning is something that takes time I am seeing.
Oh, and by the way, alcoholics are the best teachers of alcoholics.
If nothing else my tale may tell a few how to get it right from my stupidity.

Calling a cat a dog does not make it a dog. You were married at the time you began your new relationship. Under any definition, that's infidelity. One of the ways waywards try to rewrite history and justify their behavior is by making it seem that "the old relationship is over therefore I have the right to pursue a new one."

You know, I read every post on this forum, and this is the first thread I am about to pull the plug on. I can't take this. Maybe it's because I'm hearing from you the same sort of crap I heard from the woman who was my loving wife until she met up with a slimeball who was as unprincipled as she's become.

I've had enough.

It's like

I know the start of my second marriage was not ideal, but sometimes relationship starts are not. Of course I would have preferred to have been a little more settled and really know that it was difficult to start that way. I did live it.
"In an ideal world" is not always possible.
The perfect marriage surely is not about how it started but where it is today.

The reason why you cannot be helped here is that until you understand what you did in your last M was WRONG....then how can we move forward..all this that you are saying is what we call fogbabble and you are still deep deep in the fog...we cannot help you while you are like this, you see?

i'm sorry fred. I didn't mean to hurt you in any way. I am not trying to justify anything. You are right, i should have waited the year and two months it took or final divorce papers to come through until I took up with another woman.
I had been separated for months.

ok. I was wrong as legally I was still married.
I had been through six months of councelling with my ex. Could not bear to touch her, had been living in a separate house for at least 4 months and had agreed to divorce, mutually. Then I met my current wife.
If that is adultery then I admit it.

It was not a seamless as you all think.

I would not be here if I thought adultery was a justifiable thing and certainly find it immoral. Thus my own problem.
Ask the question before judging !!!!!!

]
Bingo, all of the above reasons explain why your marriage collapsed. It failed because of neglect. You didn't love your wife and she didn't love you because you had set up your life in such a way that made that impossible.

You are the homeowner who does nothing to maintain his home and then complains when the house collapses from neglect. You neglected your marriage in every way and surprisingly don't understand why it collapsed after all this time.

The solution to a bad marriage is to work to turn it around, not to continue to neglect it. Just as the solution to termite infestation is to treat the home, not to neglect it. For example, if termites infest your home, do you complain about the home and just come home less often until the house collapses, or do you do what it takes to keep up the house?

What you say about your last marriage are not justifications for divorce, but clear signals that upkeep was warranted. If you treat your current marriage the same way, as if you are a freeloader, then you are headed for the same end.

But be assured your last marriage collapsed because of neglect. The conditions made it impossible to fall in love. And then when you had a new point of comparison, your current wife, it was hopeless.

Some cognitive dissonance here.

In your previous marriage, you (say) your wife was separated from you. So it was okay to move on to a "not ideal" next situation when it came along.

In your current marriage, you were separated from your wife when she had her ONS. So why was it not okay for her to move on to a "not ideal" next situation, when it came along?

It's okay to cheat, until it happens to you. This is the problem with affairages.

Freeloader is unwilling to put much effort into the care of his or her partner in a romantic relationship. He or she does only what comes naturally and expects only what comes naturally. It's like a person who tries to live in a house without paying rent or doing anything to improve it unless the person is in the mood to do so.

Renter is willing to provide limited care as long as it's in his or her best interest. The romantic relationship is considered tentative, so the care is viewed as short-term. It's like a person who rents a house and is willing to stay as long as the conditions seem fair, or until he or she finds something better. The person is willing to pay reasonable rent and keep the house clean but is not willing to make repairs or improvements. It's the landlord's job to keep the place attractive enough for the renter to stay and continue paying rent.

Buyer is willing to demonstrate an extraordinary sense of care by making permanent changes in his or her own behavior and lifestyle to make the romantic relationship mutually fulfilling. Solutions to problems are long-term solutions and must work well for both partners because the romantic relationship is viewed as exclusive and permanent. It's like a person who buys a house for life with a willingness to make repairs that accomodate changing needs, painting the walls, installing new carpet, replacing the roof, and even doing some remodeling so that it can be comfortable and useful.

Firstly, it was not your wistress that I referred to as those things...It was the affairage itself - you must see it for what it is - as Dr. Phil is fond of saying, "You can't fix what you won't acknowledge"...

And YES, you absolutely CAN and SHOULD help who you fall in love with...Are you saying that you made no choices yourself? Ahhhhh, life just happens TO you, does it? You need to rethink that...those are the thoughts of a child...

Btw, it is RECOVERING ALCOHOLICS that are able to help other alcoholics that WANT to change - those that SEE the need to CHANGE...I've yet to see a falling down drunk help another falling down drunk...again, rethink...

Mrs. W

and FYI my ex would happily tell you the same thing. We both agreed that it was a crap. The only tears shed were over the kids not each other. We were happy to be divorcing. She was actually pleased that I met someone else and has, on many occasions thanked my wife for being a good step mum. Our two little ones quite regularly go and stay with their brothers when they are at my ex's house. Surely that says enough.
I am beginning to realise that this is a witch hunt not a help forum.

Thank you melody lane. At last someone is making sense.
Wondering.......how can you help who you fall in love with, thats ludicrous. Did you plan to fall in love with your husband ?

Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.

And look at where you are today - certainly not in a "perfect marriage"...and STILL refusing to acknowledge WHY...

If you robbed a bank and were caught would you continue to explain and explain why you should get to keep the money, and how good it would be for you and those around you, or would you acknowledge your wrong doing and relinquish the ill gotten gains?

Mrs. W

Instead, read/write/learn/implement the MB concepts. Make it your business to fill your W's ENs, every day.
Make it your decision to avoid love-busters, every day.

That's it.

The magic formula.

Go do it.

I give up. Sorry if i offended anyone, it wasn't the intention.
I came for help and got pi$$ed on because of my last marriage ending. I swear that this has done no good and cannot to anyone while people are being judged like this.

Here's how *link*

This is what all waywards say.....you can help who you fall in love with...love and marriage take WORK and TENDING TO if you neglect a marriage the love goes away, can you see that?

GO DO IT.

oh, before I retire, thank you pepperband !!

GO DO IT.

Repeat after me: "My first marriage needed work that I didn't give it and ended while I was having an affair. I must learn about myself and how to protect my marriage now, so that we do not come to the same end." Repeat as often as necessary until you can embrace it for the truth that it is.

No witchhunt, bingo. But you ARE going to get some from caring - yes, caring - posters on here who really are trying to help you.

I occasionally read a post from someone who has been around for awhile and they'll wryly comment on their old, unhealthy way of thinking and mention with a smile the 2x4s they got from the posters on here. And they THANK those posters. Then they'll proceed to talk to new posters and give them the same 2x4s. Because they CARE enough to help them become conscious and honest with themselves I'm not giving up on you - I think you're going to be one of those posters one of these days.

Even though I admit that I have done this a couple of times this morning.

i'm not a wayward for goodness sake. I wouldn't be here if I was. That precisely the sort of judging that must damage a great many who come here for support.

Bingo, thats the problem, you cant see that we ARE trying to help you.

GO DO IT



Here's how *link*

I've got the best advice ever.

Here it is:

Exercise the self-control and maturity to NEVER mention the OM BJ ever again.
Even on message boards.

Instead, read/write/learn/implement the MB concepts. Make it your business to fill your W's ENs, every day.
Make it your decision to avoid love-busters, every day.

That's it.

The magic formula.

Go do it.

The VERY next time you bring up the past (anywhere, including this forum) is proof you want "this constant reminding of bad times" to continue.

You're choices are your choices.

thank you marital bliss. I admit categorically that I should have waited for as long as it took before meeting my current wife. I also agree that I was not mentally ready for a relationship and admit that this has created the problems in my current marriage. I have said that from the start and agreed that the timing was awful.
I am totally honest with myself in my failings. I have admitted my part in my awful first marriage and am seeing with very open eyes why we got to a spot a year ago when my wife felt so desperate as to do such an awful thing to us.
I state again. My ex was happy that I got together with my current and sometimes looks after our kids. It's not what it seems folks.

now I have confessed, can we look at tomorrow instead of dwelling on yesterday . please ?

ABSOLUTELY! I did not CHOOSE to date anyone that I would not consider marrying...I was 23 and single when I met Mr. W...

ETA: and he was 25 and single...

A married man would NOT have been on the menu for me...my CHOICE...

Mrs. W

You strayed from your first M before it was over. That makes you a wayward. And - hear me out, here: a wayward will maintain a wayward mindset until it no longer works for them or until they CHOOSE to change that mindset. A sense of entitlement while in a M that leads to actions that are not in the best interest of the M is wayward. A lifestyle of independent behavior while in a M is wayward. Conducting an emotional relationship with a member of the opposite sex while in a committed relationship is wayward. You didn't trip and land in your second relationship. No one sprinkled magic dust on you as you slept and tricked you into attaching to another woman. You CHOSE that. That's wayward.

Now that we've gotten that definition straight. I'm still in your corner (C'mon Fred, he's just resisting...he still needs you here

Even if that is true, your ex-wife didn't have the authority to tell you that committing adultery was okay...Adultery is ALWAYS wrong...that is a moral absolute...


From dictionary.com :

ADULTERY: voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone other than his or her lawful spouse.

Yes, I think it is exactly what it seems...

Mrs. W

i'm done. Call me old fashioned but I believe in the romance of love and the fact that it is indeed possible to fall in love even though it might not be the perfect time and place.
If I was wayward then so be it. I admit it !! Happy now.
I truly adore my wife and have whole heartedly admitted that I was an a$$ because I hadn't learned how not to be and not listened to my wifes needs and thus her actions. I paid for my refusal to listen and learn and we have spent the last year happily picking up the pieces. I was having trouble with obsessing which is why I cam here in the first place and now feel like I have been kicked around for things that never happened.
I did trip and land on my second relationship, you were not there...I was. It was one of those OMG moments for us both and I suddenly found someone who I wanted to be with and she too. I was not prepared for it admittedly and made damned sure I messed things up, but I am wanting to recover and am not going to be made to feel any worse now.
Thank you those that helped. Good luck those who judge.....must be lovely being married to you !!!

who said I had sex !!!!! This is exactly the sort of BS judging that is preparing me to leave this site. I did not have sex until the decree nisi came through which is the English divorce paper that states that two people wish to divorce and why. Then I did have sex and plenty of it and still do. I am not being judged any more. How on earth is this helpful to my current marriage.

Grrr. I'm here. But only because I just got off my very boring Friday conference call and want a breather.

Believe it or not, I want to see Bingo do a turn-around. But this is very tough. Reading Bingo's posts is like watching the train wreck that became my marriage. From the other side.

You still dont get it...

Have you finished reading/thinking about/developing an understanding of the MB concepts link already?

Now, GO DO IT.

We are not priests. We're not here to absolve you of your sins. Your confession is not the goal. We're trying to help you look at tomorrow by understanding how you got to where you are today.

Let me amend my prior one-word counsel (which was TIME, btw.) You also need to accept the concepts of PATIENCE(with yourself so you don't give up reading what we're trying to tell you) and EDUCATION (so you GET what we're trying to tell you.) You don't sound like an unintelligent person, bingo. I think you're going to get a real education about yourself here, with patience.

(And can I add: this post from you sounds like a lot of wayward spouses: Can't we just forget about it (the A) and move on?" See where you're a little 'waywardy' here?)

what am I not getting ? What do I need to turn around ?

Beware of any "newbie" who refuses to READ the concepts and perfers to argue.

Okay so you had an emotional Affair...That is just as bad if not worse. It is still an Affair. So if you keep wanting to justify it we are gonna keep reiterrating until you get it, see? otherwise we cannot move forward with repairing your relationship now.

im gone. it just sounds like a lot of bitter divorcees here. I am sorry or you, but I cannot change your pasts or mine. I am however going to change my future so that I never have to be anywhere near this sort of forum again.
Good bye

That we are not judging you, we are trying to help you. If you cannot see your that what you did was a wrong and keep justifying it we cannot move forward yet.

My advice earlier on this thread was wholly serious. MB principles aren't successfully adopted by affairage partners. You've got two young children and one on the way and you foolishly married your mistress just 9 months ago after a 8 year "affair". As you are remarried...you can't go back to your ex-wife (as she is biblically forbidden from taking you back since you married another) and I'd rather your young kids have the two of you than have you two adulterous persons running around torturing other married persons with your carefree adulterous and disrespectful of marriage ways. Thus...my advice IS serious. The best way to keep a mistress/wifstress happy is to CONTINUE the fantasy of the affair the best you can. Ignore what she did with whomever and hope you can stop the next one (and there will likely be more) by being the most soulmate type fantasy lover you can. Don't bog this affairage down with trying to develope real intimacy as that isn't possible....you'll just be perceived as a drag and she'll likely cheat on you even more. Be fun. Be spontaneous. Most importantly you must feign overwhelming confidence because she thrives on your seeming self-esteem to fill her empty self-esteem. If you expose your REAL lack of self-esteem to her...you'll be destroying the essence of the fantasy and she'll seek [her] self-esteem from another...AGAIN, AGAIN and AGAIN. It's GOING to be miserable but don't you dare show it. Just accept yourself, internally, that those are the consequences of marrying your affair partner. You've got a 3% shot of making it to your 5th wedding anniverisary....my advice is the best way of making it there...FOR THE KIDS.

Dr. Harley, the founder of MB and owner of this site, has written about Affairages (affair marriages). The issues you're experiencing are the consequences Dr Harley describes occurs in nearly 100% of adultery-based marriages experience.

Read on.

Funny, because to me, you are here BECAUSE you are wayward...Only a wayward could dismiss the reasons why someone in an affairage should not be here in this venue seeking help for affair maintenance - asking for help from a community filled mostly with victims of the same crime that you committed...Logic is suspended in a wayward mind...

And the whole "don't judge me" thing has a GIANT WAYWARD STAMP on it...You aren't the first to say that here and you won't be the last...Though I can't quote it exactly I love what Pep once said about the "don't judge me" crowd..."Don't Judge Me" is like a flashing neon sign alerting others of BAD BEHAVIOR...which should be judged...No one ever says, "I take excellent care of my children, don't judge me!"..."I eat healthy foods all the time, don't judge me!"..."I get a physical ever year, don't judge me!"..."I give money to charity, don't judge me!"...

Mrs. W

.... cruel world

You cant move forward without fixing yourself and part of that is admitting past mistakes, quit justifying them and work on yourself so you dont make those mistakes again.

bingo, you should not allow someone other than your spouse to meet your needs, that is how you help who you fall in love with. If you and your wife had done the same things you and your OW did, you would have fallen in love with your wife. But you didn't. By your own admission, you traveled and completely neglected your marriage, making romance impossible.

Even so, falling in love with someone outside of marriage is no excuse to destroy your marriage and the lives of your children. Seeking happiness is no excuse to wreck the lives of others. Is that what you want to teach your kids? What if it makes them "happy" to use heroin or give blow jobs to boys on the bus? Your example teaches kids that anything is ok as long as it makes me "happy." See what a dangerous example you set for kids?

This is why it is somewhat ridiculous for you to complain about your wife's ONS. If it is ok to do what makes you "happy" then why is it wrong for her to do this?

Is nobody going to tell this poor man that Pep's icon is a queen (wearing a crown) having an "it's not fair! They're all so mean to me!" moment?

It's a drama queen, bingo!

I have just read your entire thread and am a little speechless. How is all of this helpful to your current M? People who will not admit past sins are doomed to repeat them. Your "It all turned out OK in the end" mentality is rather undermined by your current wife's adultery. You may not have had sex but you did have a safety ney, an exit strategy, someone loving waiting in the wings, an excuse to not honor the vows you made to your first wife.

That may now all be water under the bridge but the truth remains that if your current WW would cheat with you, she wiil cheat on you. That has been proven whatever justifications she has used (and you have allowed her to use)for her adultery.

Now, you can knock the chip off of your shoulder and begin again in this M aided by the excellent and free, I might add, advice that you have gotten here during your pages of denials and justifications or you can get mad, take your ball and go home. Your choice.

These very good people have taken there time and resources born out of intense pain to post to you to help you through a situation that we have all walked through with varying degrees of success. You will not find anywhere the experience that you find here to help you to fix what is wrong in your M and yourself. Again, Bingo, the choice remains yours.

God's Blessings,

Say

ok, ok. I did do wrong. I understand what you are all saying. I didn't see it that way, nor did my current wife but maybe that is why I have been such an a$$ and she got too tired of it. We are past that stage now, looked doom in the face and decided to make the whole thing work the right way. That's why I am here.
We adore one another and when I made my vows to her, i meant them absolutely. We just did our wedding in front of our children as she too wanted to do this thing for life.
The way we got together in the first place was wrong we have survived for 9 years and in that time she was wayward for a few minutes. We know why and how we got to that point and it was entirely down to my neglect of her and I admit whole heartedly that it was lessons not learned from a previous failed marriage.
I did try hard the first time, I am at peace with that. I am imperfect and am at peace with that .
Let's to get past this, imagine that I am one of the 3%.
What next ?

READ THE MB CONCEPTS

will do.
Thanks and goodbye

No offense taken, bingo, but if you read these threads thoroughly you'll be astonished at how many of us are in recovered Ms after going through horrific As. Do we need to be on here, talking to strangers about their angst? Hell, no! Geez, I've got kids getting up who are going to want their breakfast and I'm blowing off baking the biscuits so I can respond to you! (I'm not gonna be happy if I get flour wedged into the keys of my laptop.)

We are survivors of the terrible crime of an A - either our own or one inflicted upon us by our spouse. We are driven to do everything we can to help others who are trying to survive because we know what they are going through.

This forum is a little different than others you might find. We don't just sympathize with fellow victims. There are tools here! We can tell you how we did it. We can tell YOU how to do it!

It won't affect my existence one iota if you recover or if your M goes down in flames, so why would I bother with you? Your outcome does not personally affect any of us on here. That should flag you that we are trying to HELP. If you don't want one-on-one posting with us, I hope you'll continue to lurk and read these threads.

Well, imagine you're one of the 3% who succeeding in breaking up a marriage as one person tried to do mine. You come here for help with this marriage that broke up mine.

What next?

... cruel world !

Hold it a second...

Your wife "cheated" on you a year ago...but you just got married 9 months ago. She didn't even commit adultery. You weren't even an affairage yet.

Let it go. She was an unmarried woman at the time free to date and have sex with whomever she chose. A free agent if you will. I can understand you being somewhat upset about the competition but it all worked out in the end....she CHOSE to MARRY YOU.

Yeah...Fantasy Affairage wins out again. You two were MEANT for each other.

Can you say a ssoulmates?

Mr W

Eck...Why did we all even bother.

I think he was M for nine YEARS, unless I misread.

So sad. God lead him to the right place at the right time and he still may manage to blow it.

God's Blessings,

Say

He has been with her 8 1/2 years...married only 9 mos...

no we weren't married and I had dumped her.
We did massive amounts of work trying to make sure we were indeed right for each other and then got married.
I am trying to rid myself of a nasty memory prior to marriage but during engagement. It may be resentment or anything else, but yes, it was march last year that we got married and have been blissful and in perfect line with the principles quoted here.
I am no drama queen, perhaps a little touchy as I was not expecting the grilling, however. I accept the past was a terrible mistake and I am extremely sorry for the hurt I caused every one through my actions. I am committed to my wife and said my vows because I meant them.
This is more about the fact that I am letting the past get in the way of the process and am obviously giving the impression that I went into this with my eyes shut. After 8 years of being together we knew each others faults, knew how and why we got together and brought up our 4 kids as best we could. In all of that we got lost but when faced with final loss were both instantly determined to stay together forever and work on what had got us to such a low point.
I know that is may smart to some that we got together whilst I was still married on paper and i know that is wrong.
Neither of us has had an affair whilst we have been together and neither of us want to go through the horror of what happened to us a year ago again.
She has dealt with it differently to me and I am just, i suspect, a little slower at getting the secure feeling back.

Saving this one for the wayward hall of shame.

Like having children?

Tell me again, what is your favorite part of MB's BASIC CONCEPTS?

yup, we did have children. They are gorgeous.

Pepper, I agree. They were not applied at the time which is why it all went wrong.

THAT is what's been missing!

Anyone want fries with their order?

But you werent even married to her yet bingo, she did not have an affair....Why cant you get over it? Werent you technically not together at the time, I mean you werent living together, right?

What a great bit of information for the OW.

This guy kept his affair going for 8 years without having to marry the mistress. She even pops out a couple kids for him along the way and he still won't marry her. So...what's a enterprising desperate OW to do but get drunk and have sex with a psuedo-relative at a family christmas party, then immediately expose herself to her "married man" being sure to add some salty victim-like language to the encounter and hope he responds AS PLANNNED.

BAM...

3-5 months later she's finally got her married man at the altar.

Bingo's got himself a reel keeper. Turns out his snapper is really a cunning shark.

Mr. W

You ARE talking about your FIRST MARRIAGE, aren't you?


Which MB concept is your favorite?

Yep, OW is even better than his first W, he didnt LOVE her like he LOVES OW. I mean he found his soulmate, Good luck to ya, Bingo.

one way of thinking about it. Or could it just be that actually two people can meet at the wrong time, make huge mistakes along the way. Get married and be happy ?
Just a thought.
Why would she want to marry me (this is her first marriage) for any other reason that that she wanted to commit for life. That's certainly what it now means to me.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
Could you repeat your order please?

Well gosh, could it be that she wants a legitimate father for her children?

But this is her first M, maybe it will be a mistake for her, she is young...She might meet her soulmate at the wrong time, Oh but she is committed for LIFE...

OMG, that is so funny, I cant stop laughing, PEP, your killin me.

Like you married your first W for LIFE....

Except that when you marry your secret lover you then necessarily create a vacancy at the secret lover position.

Unfortunately, for you BOTH, "happiness" IS a singular pursuit and, for your wife, it seemingly REQUIRES drama of the kind atypical to the standard "happy" marriage.

It's only a matter of time. Within the next four years and 3 months to be precise for about 97% of your sort.

Mr. Wondering

she had a legitimate father to her kids. I also had two others that I/we looked after beyond a marriage. What she didn't have was the real me. The one who could show her the love that I felt and she hoped for.
There were options out there other than me but she married me for some obscure reason.
Is it just possible that this could end well.
What would so many of you wish it not to ?

i didn't marry my first wife for life. I married her out of obligation and knew it at the time. I did what I thought was the right thing and just could not take it anymore. This was a totally different set of emotions and circumstances.

Boy, I'll say. Can you say, "understatement?"

what drama. There is no drama. She requires security and love and support just like any other woman does. Thats not drama ?

Seriously? For life? What would be your response to that question about your FIRST wife?

Look Bingo, what you can't seem to get is that your affairage is based on a foundation of sand. Your chances of success are 3%-- not very good is it? She has already been unfaithful to your "relationship". You went ahead and married her anyway for whatever reasons.

I'm thinkin' there's a lot more that you're not telling us because most affairs THRIVE on the drama. It's what feeds them. You know the truth and hopefully you can at least be honest to yourself.

You want to know what to do to make things right? You say you can't go back to your first wife, but you CAN have a HUGE impact on your children by teaching them to do the right things in life. Start by admitting to them that your affairage was wrong, by admitting to your first two children that you were wrong to treat their mother the way you did. By SHOWING them that redemption is possible with a repentent and contrite heart.

God will forgive you. We're just people. But part of repentence is turning from your sin and making things right.

Are you sure you want to stay where you are? Save this entire thread and revisit it in five years. Depending on your choices-- maybe you'll get it then.

why so nasty Fred ?
I don't get your problem.

You committed to her for LIFE, when you married her, your first W....so why would you think suddenly marriage vows mean anything now. I always amazes me, Why would you commit again to me married for life when it meant nothing the first time you did it....How can you and your new W ever trust each other...I am not wishing you unwell, but I do not see a marriage lasting when you made a commitment before and didnt keep it. Why would this marriage be different, you both cannot trust each other.

I get that the chances were slim for us. I get that affairs thrive on drama, but in the main there was none. Our lives were fairly mundane and unremarkable.
I married wrongly the first time, for all the wrong reasons. I took a great deal of time to get married again and kept making the same mistakes until i nearly lost my now wife. We both decided to marry for all the right reasons. Wheres the problem in that.
We have been living as man and wife for 7 years under the same roof etc etc with kids. The vows, I admit, were not there but it was a real situation that I messed up.

Something tells me your time would be better spent focusing on your problem. That is, if you can identify it.

I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
Could you repeat your order please?

I explained earlier. I had an unexpected son with my first wife but was not married to her at the time. I wanted to do what I thought was the right thing but I was very young (21) and very wrong to have committed to a marriage I knew was not going to last.
This is extremely different. I actually love this woman and didn't marry out of obligation and am glad I waited the years before doing it so that I could be absolutely sure. It took nearly loosing each other to realise that we wanted to be together forever. I meant the vows the second time. I just said them the first. I am so sorry if that hurts anyone but i am just being honest

I agree Fred. I do have issues and have never denied that on this site or to myself.
All I want to be is perfect for my wife and our children and avoid divorce again. Thats why I am here to understand the principles of getting and keeping it right

what am i lying about then ?

Oh, I see. That excuses everything. Because you didn't mean it the first time. Bingo, you're a peach.

"Your honor, I only swore to tell the truth the first time because it was the convenient thing to say. Now that I'm the defendant, it's important for you to believe that I mean it this time."

... this ...

In addition...you seemed to indicate that you kept your affair on the back burner as you settled your divorce and custody matters. Assuming YOU knew, in advance, that you were going to be pursuing a divorce (how else were you going to be with your soulmate?), then I presume, as an attorney, that you took advantage of your exwife in the divorce process (hidden cash, assets, jewelry, gifts for OW, etc.). In fact, it's possible that to this day neither your kids nor your ex-wife know that you and your current affair wife were romantically involved prior to the divorce. You kept it a secret...didn't you. (I also don't believe the "we didn't have sex until I was divorced" bullcrap but that's beside the point). You've not only got to FESS UP to your EX and your children...BUT you must PAY UP as well for what you STOLE from her. I think some MONETARY payment for her pain and suffering over the years would be in the cards as well.

Now I can't begin to tell you exactly how YOU are to repent as I believe repentence is a GIFT from God. He will direct you IF and WHEN you (and your co-conspirator wife) take this to Him. I'm just giving you (and maybe Him) some ideas.

Mr. Wondering

oh for heavens sake. Ok I admit it......I did it all the wrong way round and am living with the consequences. I just want to get it right this time around and am living with a memory of heartache and why. I just wanted to get over that.
I hurt more when she revealed that she had the ONS more than when my dad killed himself. I had worked with him for 12 years. If it were the case that this was just an affairage and born out of all the wrong things then why would we have both felt so strongly about the whole mistake ?

I actually gave my ex wife everything we had because I knew I had done wrong in marrying her in the first place without doing it for life. It was no secret to either the kids of my ex that I was with my current wife during the divorce process as it took 14 months to complete.
Believe what you like, but there are two pieces of paper in the UK that you need to divorce. One is the decree nisi (statement of intent to divorce) the other is the decree absolute ( final papers which state what has been agreed and everything monetary has been above board in court etc). I did not sleep with my current wife until the first of the two papers were served. And.......it was a mutual divorce. No rows no bitterness, just relief I think on both sides. I made a cataclismic youthfull error and paid for it.
When I began in proper my relationship with my current wife I had nothing and we started from scratch.

and what if my current wife were on the back burner. what if I had fallen head over heels after 10 years of loveless mainly sexless and certainly emotionally void marriage. What then in my current wife and I started with nothing made a home for us and my two kids from the first marriage, had two of our own and got on with our lives. It is not uncommon for people to live together and not be married for their entire lives here in the uk. We got to a stage when we knew absolutely that we could both say those vows and mean them

You need to just follow the MB principles...stop justifyin your Affairage and get over your wifes one night stand....you werent married, it wasnt cheating. good luck.

so cheating can only occur during a marriage. interesting take. How about an engagement does that not count either.

But what if you worked on your first marriage, gave your first wife the attention and love she needed, you probably would have recieved love back and you need to work on a happy marriage it doesnt just magically stay that way, your first wife, you and your children could have built a happy life.....Now you are in an unhappy marriage, with someone you dont trust...hence the not being able to get over her ONS.

Forget about what ifs, you made your bed now work the MB principles and STOP TRYING TO JUSTIFY YOUR AFFAIRAGE.

This is a LIE...admit it. It's the same thing ALL Waytards say.

Mr. W

NO it doesnt count..

You'd kicked her out.
You'd set her free.

I am following the MB principles. I have been saying that ! I just cant get over the cheating as quickly as I would have hoped thats all.
I know people who have been married from affairs very happily for many, many years. I agree that it is an improper and dishonest way to start a relationship but it can work. I am testament to that to a certain extent. 50% of marriages have an A at some stage, that is all that I am here for. To learn to deal with that and make sure it doesn't happen again.

You were not married. You broke up with her. In other posts, you have implied it was close to rape. I don't understand how you think this was an affair. It wasn't even cheating.

I had pepper and she didn't like the freedom, she wanted us and it took that awful moment to realise it after all. I regret that we got to that point. So does she and we are committed to not letting it darken our doorstep again.
Why is that and all the rest of what I have said so wrong. I don't get it ?

You need to just get over your W ONS...We cannot help you with that...Just get over it...Move on from that, thats all you can do.

"Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

They are concepts. Not principles.

Concepts you have not read yet, or you'd already be working on your marriage instead of working on your arguments.

We realize that.

Two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun

Bingo must be reading now.

Listen...

One of the first steps to insure that adultery doesn't happen [again..cough] in your current marriage is to make it NOT o.k. or justifiable in the least in your prior marriage.

You achieve that by repenting of it. You [and your co-conspirator current wife] have to go to your first wife [and kids] and fess up. You two must apologize without any rationalizations or justifications for what you did to her [and them]. I don't need your apology HERE at all...your ex-wife and children do...from BOTH of you.

In addition, you should offer your ex-wife reparations. Her life has likely been severely impacted both emotionally and economically by what you and your wistress did to her. Make MONETARY amends to her. Don't just offer...INSIST. Depending on your resources make it as substantial as you can. Pay off her mortgage or pay for her to get some schooling so she can support herself better now that the kids are off to college if you can or, if you are stapped insist on a payment plan of some type but try to make her somewhat whole economically.

This type of honesty CAN be something you and your wistress CAN build upon. Your current wife CAN and SHOULD respect you...as a man...for taking such a stand FOR MARRIAGE. It will also send the message to your current wife that adultery is inexcusable and unjustifiable, which in turn, just maybe will make it less likely to happen.

Finally, just maybe your sons will LEARN from your mistakes and NOT repeat them. You reported the errors of your parents and yet look at the mess you made. If you want to end the cycle that is surely likely to repeat (your doctor son will likely soon knock up and marry some money chasing hussie at college) you do so WITH HONESTY.

Nobody ever regrets doing the right thing and actually, the true "happiness" you seek is only found THERE.

Mr. Wondering

Ooohhh...hmmm...that puts a bit of a different twist on things...

this is like watching a Jerry Springer epidode......you can't turn it off, yet you get a sense of being defiled while looking......

(but I am LOVING Pep's use of .....)

This is the most BIZARRE thread ever...Hi All! DUDE

why does how long weve been together put a twist on things maritalbliss ?

The image that keeps playing in my mind is that of a man trying to walk a straight path with one boot nailed to the ground.

its bizarre to me too. I came here for what I thought was a minor OCD type problem getting over a ONS and end up having my entire life questioned and told my 9 yr relationship is doomed cos I was married before and failed at it.

Because, you werent married when your W "cheated"

fair comment fred. I should just get over this as it was when we were apart and needed to happen to get us to where we are today. Which, unfortunately for those that don't like the fact that we started at a bad time, is a really very happy place. I was just struggling a little with my own insecurities thats all.

It will be doomed if you dont realize and fix the mistakes that YOU made in your first marriage.

I see stillhere. Yes you are right, it wasn't whilst we were married and the pain it caused her was tremendous too. It was against all that she thought she was and how strong she thought she was. I made her feel lonely and as such it happened.

Oh- common mistake!

You made a wrong turn.

This is MARRIAGE BUILDERS not OCD problems anonymous

So now move forward and work to make it work.

I have always put my last marriage down to a huge error of judgement. I have always contributed to my ex wifes life financially and tell her I am sorry at least once a year. I supported both the children from my last marriage and still do and gave her everything we had at the time so that she could start fresh with a house,car and some money in the bank. I started the current relationship with absolutely nothing.
I know I have offended some here by the fact that I started out with CW in the wrong way and that has had an impact on us I know now.
I am thankful every day for what I have now.

Except for this:

Quote

I cannot get over my wifes one night stand

I will move on now and allow some others in more pain to gain the advice that you have all so kindly given. It has been odd, but I now have a better understanding of many things and am especially relieved that I can now move on and get over what was a very silly mistake on both our parts.
Believe it or not. I am blissfully happily married and intend to keep it that way.
Good luck to all.

It takes time to get over a betrayal of trust, as I know all to well. But working on your marriage and building trust again will take time...you wont just get over it all of a sudden...ya know?

She was in an uncommitted relationship. Ergo, no cheating. And don't try to tell me the two of you were committed to each other because you both lived under the same roof That's not a commitment, that's an arrangement. Committed people get married.

So, what you're saying here is that you wanted what she had to offer, but you weren't willing to commit to her to get it. Yet, you expected HER to commit to YOU by staying within YOUR guidelines. And when she strays outside of those, and behaves like an uncommitted person, you're surprised?

Regardless, bingo, I still think you can repair your M. But you've GOT to read everything here. You've GOT to come to terms with the affect your past has on your present.

I believe I can get over it now as I realise it for what it was. I was not doing that and was wallowing a little in self pity. I realise that my ego was too big and that I thought I was able to be an a$$ and it not affect my relationship.
The ONS taught us both a great deal about ourselves and our relationship and we came out the other side stronger and a team. we were individuals before living under one roof under my rule. we now talk and laugh and love having learned. I am just a slow learner it seems and unable to look at the bigger picture at times.

Come back in five years. Maybe you'll have gotten it by then. I feel really bad for your first wife and your children.

Except for this:

I cannot get over my wifes one night stand

Thanks soooo much. I now know more about why we got in a mess and I really shouldn't have been surprised. Still hurt though but I suspect I had it coming.
A year has passed and I have changed so much. I realised the error of my ways for many years past and work on those every day, with the help of my beautiful wife......for life .

Actually my first wife is very happy. We talk quite regularly and my two kids from that marriage are both happy kids and love being with us. I always made sure that they came first and asked them early on what they wanted over and above what I did. That was the same for my ex. We both wanted out !!!

I don't think this is entirely accurate. Ya know what I think? I think you're seeing that there is no panacea for you. Good. It's good for you to realize that. I also think you're seeing a fairly steep mountain in front of you, now that we've put these things out here for you to read. And I think you're hoping that if you mean well, and are very, very good, you won't have to climb that mountain. Not so good. And do you see a theme, here? That attitude LACKS COMMITMENT. Sorry for the shouting.

I'm going to say the same thing: keep reading. Keep lurking, if you don't want to post.

I also think it's possible you are a bi-polar manic depressive.

Self-medicating (drinking/valium and who knows what else)...racing thoughts...trouble sleeping...marital issues...infidelity...strained family relations (not ever attending family functions with your girlfriend/now wife).

Only you can know for sure if you "suffer" episodes wherein for a short time (days, weeks, months) you are HIGHLY CHARGED and energized and on top of the world follow by months of depression where you can and do sleep A LOT. D you find yourself making substantial sums of money only to blow it all in a few months of outrageous inconceivable [in hindsight] spending? Do you have delusions of granduer [are you smarter than most everyone you know]?

I hope not, but on the odd chance you are you need to be seeing a doctor and taking medication...if you ever want any "happiness".

Mr. Wondering

No, I know there is a mountain to climb and I wish to do it with my wife one step at a time. I know where apathy got me and I also know where control got me. tears !!
I am more committed than you think maritalbliss. I know that to achieve anything great one has to work hard at it. This is a marathon not a sprint. I dearly love my Mrs and am kinda glad now, reading all of the stuff that has been said that I got what I deserved. I needed a kick up the a$$ to stop me from continuing to be one.

I was diagnosed bi-polar and do have great highs and lows which I hid quite well for a while from my wife. I have avoided medication but agree that for continued happiness for both of us it may be required. I come from a long line of them thus my father taking his own life.

that said. I have had a lifetime of that and more recently as my marriage has improved, the episodes have lessened.

So you know this and have 2 young children with another infant on the way and yet you AVOID medication.

We aren't talking about happiness anymore.

There is little to no happiness living with an unmedicated untreated bi-polar.

And it's not just suicide that will kill you. My bi-polar divorced FIL died of his 6-10th heart attack during a manic episode flat broke in a casino elevator at age 60 [he "avoided" medication as well as he made and lost fortunes over the years]

Regardless of your marital situation...YOU NEED TREATMENT if you want to see your infant reach his 18th birthday.

One way or another Bi-Polar is gonna get you if you don't. You won't be able to hide it long...the episodes get worse with age.

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - ummm...may I also suggest it's time for a vasectomy...maybe???

Thanks for the advice mrwondering.
The episodes were very bad when I was first married as i needed to find happiness in anything other than home cos there wasn't any there. They improved a great deal as time wend on with CW and have got significantly better since we got married.
Thanks for the snip advice. I adore kids and we are lucky that we can have them. We are fortunate to be able to feed and house them well and they have a great life.
Will definately think about it soon though.....perhaps one more !?

As the child of an unmedicated bipolar, I BEG you NOT to have more children while unmedicated - My God, that is just so UNFAIR!!!!!! Don't kid yourself, the episodes absolutely WILL get worse with age! TAKE THE MEDS!!!

Of course, I, of all people, realize this advice will fall on deaf ears...Don't know why I felt compelled to post it...my issue...ugh...

Mrs. W

So you are saying you are currently experiencing a manic episode.

I can see that. I'm impressed with your defensive coping mechanisms. Nice.

When you cycle back down perhaps you'll be more ready to talk about addressing it.

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - Bipolar's typically suffer their first heart attacks in their 40's so, at least, carry aspirin around with you all the time so you can take it immediately when your chest starts tightening up.

no, not at all. I do still have them, but am not right now.
I hear what you are saying and quit drinking a while ago and that REALLY helped. I suspect I am just dealing with a past that I didn't want to deal with.
I will see a doctor. I promised my wife that 2010 would be the year that the depression was nipped in the bud. I know that it must be hard to live with a Bi-polar and am grateful that she has seen fit to stick with me.
I am also sick of having to try and hide it.
I was best in my life when I was off all medication, drink in particular. I am heading that way at present easing the valium day by day and should be clean of that in a couple of weeks.
The only time in my life when I slept well was at that point. I just have stress at the moment as my work life is overwhelming and I am trying so hard to be an angel at home too.
Juggling, i think they call it .
Thanks

Don't you find it a little unsettling, Bingo that these virtual strangers in an MB forum made spot on mental and emotional diagnosis' of long term, ongoing "issues" in five days using only the information that they could pry out of you? I'd stick around.

After following this all morning, I would say that until you are able to admit that the demise of your first M was a failure and not a mistake, you are doomed to repeat and sadly, pass on the legacy to your children. You married your first W out of a sense of responsibility/obligation after finding that she was pregnant. Then you proceeded to feed your lack of love and unhappiness instead of building on the committment that you had made and nurturing the small floundering amount of love that the two of you had.

Many people have grown just such a M into a warm, loving, committed lifetime love. Arranged M's have turned into 50 year love stories. You can make love happen by showing love or you can destroy powerful existing love by not showing it. You have seen both sides of that and that is what MB is based on.

You say that you want this M to be not just a lifetime committment but a loving, giving relationship where not just you and WW are able to thrive but also your children. Then do it.

You and your WW need to discuss and agree that your relationship began as an affair and was very, very wrong and should not have ever begun. That said, it did so embrace the MB concepts 100% and build that covenant M that you both claim to want now.

Call the Harleys. Go to an MB weekend. Admit, repent and then commit. Don't walk away from the help that God has lead you to.

God's Blessings,

Say

DEJA MOO!

GET THIS BOOK AND READ IT...*click*

Mrs. W

I get it saynomore. I would rather seek professional advice o matters of illness and totally hear where you are coming from re my last marriage.
All of that said surely all of that doomed talk about my current marriage should also be avoided as this is where I find myself and very much in love.
My past marriage was a failure on my part as i could have done something more I suspect. I don't know what but I do deeply regret that I was not the husband I could have been. I feel guilt for my children and ex and current as they all suffered to an extent. If arranged marriages have turned into 50 year love stories, then surely my marriage should not be written off by those who have not been as lucky.

Hmmm. For the first sentence there I thought we might have had a break through. I believe you may have selective comprehension readin skills. Best of luck to you, Bingo. You are surely going to need it.

God's Blessings,

Say

On reflection...marriage has nothing to do with luck. That is where you went wrong first time around. I don't know what will help you this time.

God's Blessings,

Say

Good. :::smacking bingo's wrist::: now quit threatening to leave and hunker down for the ride. It's worth every sometimes painful minute. Sure, you're going to get some 2x4s. Consider them the rod of discipline. You'll be rewarded for your commitment.

i know where I went wrong the first time round I really do. I gave up on marriage and that is totally wrong. I shouldn't have done, I should have done more for longer, but I didn't. I cant take that back after 9 years. I deeply regret that I met my current wife the way I did. we have always said that we met at the wrong time and wish that I had been properly single. I didn't deceive anyone and was honest with my kids and ex wife, who I still get along with, just don't particularly like. The difference is that the last 9 years, despite the ups and downs that I have created have felt like a whole different thing. I enjoy my wifes company, we enjoy being together, quietly. We adore time alone and with our wonderful children. I know that my baggage has caused us much harm over the years and realise that she deserved better of me. I brought all that I knew into a knew relationship and chose, it appears to not learn from my past.
My marriage is solid, it is wonderful and it is all I ever dreamed a marriage would be. My ex wife was delighted when we got married and I have also been very happy when she has been in love.
I know marriage is not about luck, it is more about judgement, but I cannot change yesterday I can only learn from it.
I have never asked for advice about my marriage, more the fact that I obsess on the one negative that I didn't create directly.
It just hurts thats all and whilst I definitely needed the jolt, it was painful and I suppose I was expecting too much for it to all go away so soon.
I appreciate that no one here wants to hear a story of success due to an affair, if that is how everyone wants to look at it. But this is how it is and I am not about to make the same mistakes again. I feel now like there is too much to loose.

My ex wife and I did not have even one year of happiness really. We just existed and were thrown together by an accident and a decision that I made because of my views on abortion. I asked her to keep the child and said that I would support him and her and have done. I married out of a sense of obligation and shouldn't have done but I was 21 and didn't have a clue what I was doing. At 31 I realised that I was wasting both of our lives carrying on the way we were and even went to the extent of taking her back to the place where we got married abroad to try to rekindle things. Nothing worked, nothing !!!
I have tried to explain as best I can that my current wife was nothing to do with my decision to leave my ex wife. I had left her after months of therapy and we both agreed to part. My CW came along months after I had been living apart from my ex and had filed papers already, in full agreement with my wife.
I met my CW already a single man living a single life being the best Dad that I could under the circumstances. I asked for patience from my CW as I was not ready to start a relationship, and as such I did not see it as an affair and still to a certain extent don't.
I deeply regret offending anyone here with my story. I realise that it may cause much pain for some, but it was never my intention.
I will stick here and keep working to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated. having lived through the pain of splitting a family, trust me, I don't want to do it again. But be assured that it was a joint decision to split. She had actually got a boyfriend before I had even met my CW and as such I didn't see the harm in meeting a new woman.
My only concern was for the kids and that has always been mine and my CW's focus.
My own personal problems are a different matter. Thats for the professionals to determine. Not amature psychologists here.
I like maritalbliss feel like I have rediscovered what I almost lost and thank the lord I did. We both do. Never a day goes by when that is not mentioned really.
I never, not even once looked back on my first marriage and regretted anything I did to my ex wife, only the fall out for the kids. She was as apathetic as I and admitted that she had been unfaithful due to boredom. I was never unfaithful whilst I was officially living as a married man.
Not an excuse, I know, but just how it panned out. When I was told that my first wife had cheated, I didn't care and wished her luck I was that out of love !!
So where does that leave me ? Guilty for trying but failing ? Guilty for falling in love? Guilty for continuing to be in love ?
I tell you where it leaves me. Proud that I learned in time to save this proper marriage and continue to work on it !!

"I was never unfaithful whilst I was officially living as a married man."

When does it become unofficial? This statements speaks of bonkersness which is worse than waywardness. DUDE

i meant whilst we were together and before we had made the decision jointly to divorce. I was living in another house sharing custody of the boys and had been for 4 months before I met my CW. I was never, ever unfaithful during 10 years of dull and loveless marriage even though I did not have sex for over a year.
Stop picking the little bits out of the picture I'm trying to paint it is pointless.

Still waiting to hear one.

I am a believer in marriage, but failed to get it right first time round. I don't blame anyone but me and my ex wife and certainly don't consider my CW to have anything to do with my divorce. I only ever said initially that I met her whilst divorcing. In some countries I could have been divorced in 4 months, its just slow going over here.

i mean proper because I feel differently about marriage now. I was 21 when I made a decision that I lived to regret and keep getting beaten up for here. It's so unhelpful.
And yes if I was having an affair, then 9 years later I am testament to the fact that there can be success.

What's the average length of a marriage ?

Bingo, your doin it again, justifying. Just move on...

I'm being asked/told to justify, thats why.
I am trying to move on but people seem so hell bent of dragging up a failure that it is not helping.

Bingo, how can you be a teastment to the success of affairages when nine years later you find yourself in this place on these forums posting that you can't seem to get over your wife's ONS?

It is those kind of seriously foggy comments that resulted in 2X4s for you. What about counseling with SH and/or an MB weekend. You reply to certain things that grab your attention. Curious.


God's Blessings,

Say

Bingo, this is where I have a problem. You see, this site is all about MARRIAGE. In your *mind* you were a single man, but in *fact* you were still married. There is a sense of what is proper and what is not. Marriage is either a sacred institution or it is not. This is why waywards sometimes go out of their way to convince people that "we were separated before I took up with XYZ" because they think that somehow "makes it OK."

You know what? My WW is sleeping with another man, the POSOM. She is still married to me. That makes it ADULTERY. And even though we're headed down the D Trail, I will not even try to date another woman until the D is final. To do so would lower me to her level. And my depth meter doesn't go that low.

ok, i was unfaithful. In the eyes of the lord I was still married and I deeply regret that it hurts anyone here. Or anyone anywhere for that matter. I know it didn't hurt my ex wife and that is what matters to me. She was, as I have said, already seeing someone.
I am not trying to say that my affairage is a wonderful thing, but we are married, we have been together 9 years and now we have got over a hump are blissfully happy. I was just privately (from my CW) trying to broach the subject of not getting over a ONS prior to marriage and hoping to gain some insight. It appears that character assassination seems to be the way you folk cure each other. I was not ready for that, and now realise that my very slight problem is just time and the fact that I obsess generally in a depressed sort of way.
In the UK a decree nici is final the decree absolute only serves to complete the financial and child aspects of the divorce. For me it was complex because I wanted (as did they) to be with the kids half the time, and that had to go to court as my ex was wanting more money than I actually had. No fight really just the process.
I gave in to temptation sure, but I am not and never have stated that morally I was right. I think quite the opposite actually.
This site has actually unsettled me more that I was before.

You know what? It looks to me like he gets it, folks. He's been told ad nauseum what YOU think he should have done and that YOU think he should just divorce this woman because he erred. Well, guess what? We ALL err. And hopefully, we ALL learn. I can bet good bucks that he would not do the same thing AGAIN because of what he has learned here.

So...where does that leave him? With a WIFE. No matter how he ended up with her, he IS married. And he IS here trying to fix it. And he IS here agreeing with you, despite the monumental whopping he's been getting, that he has a lot of personal work to do. He's still here, which is a lot more than can be said for most of the people who get battered into goo around here for affairages.

So how about we go down THAT road now? Help him figure out exactly what to work on so no more damage is done?

I tried.
He hasn't, can't, or won't read the MB info.
He says he has, but he cannot discuss any portion of them.


I cannot abide by the "tell me what to do" peeps who will not pick up a book.

also, affairs happen for a good reason. My affair, if that what it is now, after 9 years, against all odds, was because I was divorcing in agreement and met someone that has been since my soulmate and friend, my lover and my kids mother. She mad a mistake, I made many and we moved on.
I quite rightly felt and still feel insecure because of what has happened, but that does not relate to my first marriage which ended nearly 10 years ago.
My second relationship has lasted nearly as long and my marriage, as far as I am concerned, is forever.
Why is that sooooo wrong ?

I actually printed them all out and understand the principle. They don't change the past they look at today and how to secure everything for a happy marriage, which is precisely what I am trying to do.

Thank you so much catperson. That means a great deal. I actually am shedding tears.

I do get it, I did @�$% up and I have found a person that I wish to be with for the rest of my life but was no good at making her feel that that i what I wanted. We hit a wall, bounced off it and fell to the floor hand in hand. We got up hand in hand and have been that way ever since. I adore my wife and all that marriage means. I hurt because I have been hurt and only thought it was taking a long time to heal. Apparently it is normal and as such I am happy with my lot. Knowing that it is not just me that takes time to heal is good. I have before this, never spoken to one person about this matter, apart from my wife and we have got this far.
I only came here for some reassurances that I was not being a total numbnuts about the ONS.

I wasn't doing it for you so much as to redirect the thread back to the original point; 100-200 posts just to get you to admit something is not resolving anything. You say you now understand where you have been lacking; what are you doing to that end for personal improvement? You say you've read the material; what steps have you taken to incorporate MB program? Have you both filled out the LB questionnaire and gone over it? That is your first step.

Bingo, if you re-read your entire thread, you will see that I was the third person to respond to you. I didn't throw brickbats or insults at you, I simply tried to get you to see how the "process" here works.

You have pushed back, argued, insulted and in many ways, made a mockery of this site. And yet, people here are trying to help you.

Catperson was one of your original respondents (#2, gc was #1). Pepperband has been gently, subtly trying to get you to GET YOU TO READ AND LEARN MB CONCEPTS. All of the talk and wordplay on this forum amounts to naught if you don't understand what it takes to recover and build your marriage.

I try not to speak for others, but I believe that anyone and everyone who has responded to you has been trying to help you accomplish these goals. Are they what you want?

If so, then I think it's time you took a breather from posting here and started reading the articles on this site. Start by clicking on the links to the right, under "Most Popular Links." Read Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts. Read The Most Important Emotional Needs article. Dig, dive and spelunk your way around this site, absorbing everything you can.

Only then will you understand what the people here are trying to do to help you. If you do not, you will continue to get the you often seem to deserve.

No one here is your enemy unless you make them so. Remember, the people here have all been victimized in one way or another by the horrid crime of marital abuse. When the one person to whom you have vowed to honor, protect, love and defend stabs you in the heart, the emotional toll it takes is unparalleled. Take heed.

If you want what we have, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it... (where have I heard that before? )

we actually did that on our own long before I had even been on this site. Part of the work we did was based on exactly what those questionaires say even though we didn't know about them. The love bank and steps to avoid an affair were put in place long before I had ever stumbled onto this site.
I remember the evening when we both wrote statements as to where we felt the other had gone wrong or was lacking. exchanged them, prioritised the importance of where each other had gone wrong and committed to try every day to avoid any problems learned.
Read my wifes letter to me, it tells you that we went to great length to discuss all that had got us to where we were and how to avoid it happening again.

ok. time for a rest. I will read and keep reading. Thanks for your support one and all.
Cheers for now .

hi bingo. be careful of advice from those who confuse legality with morality, pieces of paper in a court house do not represent god's will , too, those who project their own bias onto divine will are to be avoided as well. as is the case with all of us. you must listen to your own counsel. the experiences of others can be a great help or hindernance, you are not a total numbnuts, I see by your spelling you are in the u.k. generally speaking, the population there may be less fundalmentalist than here in the u.s. remember , at one time of another , all step wrong in one way or the other. jesus seemed to teach that his philosophy was a matter of the heart. based on love. he offended the order of the day by healing on sundays, forgiving others etc. the religious leaders of the day , also pronunced him wrong. to a sincere person adultry is a matter of the heart. to those who have helped lawyers wreck our world its a matter of paper work and money . trust your own counsel. many here simply wish you the best.

Perhaps it's the way your write. Or the way I read. What I read was,

Thankyou chaumont. I did get the impression that there was some religious views being thrown my way. I don't have a problem with that. I am at peace with what I have done in the past just living with it today and reminding myself of it can be tricky.
I am in reading mode now.
Thanks for your support.

Fred, that is totally wrong.
I am not arrogant enough to assume I know best. We looked at each others faults and certainly looked at our own. That is surely the only way to work on a problem.
I came here admitting that I had problems. Don't shoot me down for that.
I have printed off the MB principles and have put in place most. I wasn't suggesting that I was doing it my way alone. The bible is interpreted in different ways by different people. This is no different.
I was actually just stating that by chance, we got some of it right before even getting here. Luck more than judgement, which I have had quite enough of for the time being.
Thanks for your help

I think we all got off the point of my post in that I was feeling insecure about the fact that I was taking a great deal of time getting over something that hurt me. It went from that to a massive debate about my past marriage and how and why I came to be married. My marriage has been faithful and I am blessed to have a lovely wife and that is what I wish to protect, as does she, forever and beyond.

I truly and honestly wish you well, Bingo. As one whose marriage is probably one that should NOT be recovered, I am in a poor position to pass judgment on anyone else's. I would really like to see you and your wife build the best and strongest marriage possible.

Thanks so much. I know that we will. I look at her right now asleep and pregnant and couldn't think of a better place to be. I sincerely wish you well too. Advice, if I am now allowed to give it. Life is short. Marriage is very, very important, but I have seen my parents and grandparents die in unhappy marriages that should never have been saved. I will not be taking my last breath regretting the person that is holding my hand should not have been my wife and life partner.....that's for sure.

if you try your best but you don't succeed etc etc. Coldplay

oh, and finally. I believe in true love and I believe that somehow our angels throw us together for good reason. I have met friends that way that have been vital to our lives, I have met my wife that way too. I understand everything everyone has said about affairages but stand by the fact that fate/our angels played a hand is allowing us to collide. I didn't realise that even true love needs work. The angels gave me the gift of love and my wife, unfortunately they didn't leave instructions. This site does and I am grateful that I found it.

**edit**

Wow, Bingo gets all the new and one-time posters on this thread siding w/ him. How lucky can you get??? BINGO
DUDE

I do know it's honest and always have done. I did get a rotten hand in my first marriage and played it as best I could, but I did loose. I know that I am lucky in what I have and that it was saved from the jaws of death by the fact that two people in love forgot how to communicate and got floored. I have stared loss in the face, didn't like the look of it and made an effort (both of us) to ensure we never hurt each other again.
I thank my wife every day for the fact that she only ever gave up on me for a moment and gained enough strength from that moment to continue the fight and show me where I was going wrong so I could work on myself and never let either of us down again.
True love is a wonderful and lucky thing indeed. I took it for granted and will never, ever do that again.
I have learned a great deal today and been brutally honest at all times. Taken a battering and survived in the knowledge that I was on the right track, just not seeing the wood from the trees.
This focus that I was having on the negative thing that happened prior to my marriage is now very much more in perspective and I now know that it was a blessing in disguise. Harsh one, but a blessing all the same.
I have also realised that trust takes time and I am an impatient numbnuts. Healing also.
What I absolutely know is that I love my wife for all the right reasons and that will never change. How we got there and why are irrelevant. I refuse to be judged because I am now happily married.
Thanks

THIS and that other newby (who ARE the SAME PERSON registerd twice and very well could be you [or your wifestress] posting to yourself) are, ironically, telling you precisely what I did in my first post on this thread.

"Just click your heals together and you can go back to OZ (fantasy affair-land)"

He can "know in his heart" whatever he wants to...doesn't make it real OR honest whatsoever.

On top of that...it's just the self-delusion of the RELIGION you are spoutting herein:

Either Atheism or "Being good enough on our own would be a doctrine of salvation by works alone" otherwise called Pelagianism.

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - This poster is a unmedicated bi-polar. He won't learn anything here and will continue on with this thread until he gets bored and moves on to the next thing his racing mind attaches to. I suggest we all TRY to stop beating our heads against the wall as there is NO WINNING AN ARGUMENT and NO RATIONAL DISCUSSION to be had with a mentally ill unmedicated cycling bi-polar. Whereas some people don't get it and don't get that they don't get it...this guy doesn't get it and CAN'T until his underlying mental condition is addressed and treated.

oh and Dude007. You've been on this site posting for 2 1/2 years. Perhaps you should also look at yourself instead of judging others and making them feel worse.
Surely the fact that you are on here so often and for so long means that you are not spending time with your loved one !?

i am not double posting, how dare you. and my wife is asleep.
shame on you. Go see your FWW and have some fun.

your a doctor are you mrwondering.
5 years on this site means that you are not recovered.
Maybe you need to see one.
I am not cycling, I am not either high or low today and have explained that the episodes are few and far between these days.

no wonder few make it through the first day of this forum. There is a great deal of bitterness and religious views that may not be for everyone and their recovery.
The AA may work for some, but it has only a 5% success rate. This feels very much on the same ilk . Old timers beating up newbies.
Good luck to those that spend years here. I have a wife and kids to attend to and feel blessed to be able to say that.

Well if that's the case...then tell me why these TWO posters show up at nearly the same time...identify you as being somewhere in the UK and imply that they live over in the US but end up using UK language themselves...including the following obvious blunder:



Americans spell it "GRAY"...not "GREY".

Nice try though.

Mr. Wondering

I have this feeling that we've been played.

played by who. I swear on my 4 and a bit childrens lifes that I am not double posting. why would I ? I have no axe to grind and have no reason to justify myself twice.

Perhaps you should consider us as you do medication for the illness YOU TOLD US you'd already been diagnosed with and AVOID US.

Back to OZ.

Mr. W

p.s. - I AM a doctor

and I was accused of being delusional

Why are you baiting people? This accomplishes nothing.

i was diagnosed with that 5 years ago by a therapist but have since sought other advice and been told that alcohol may have played a part and until clean for a long period of time would avoid medication. That is what I am doing.
The valium is for sleep only and I take 5mg a day if I cannot sleep.
what on earth is your issue. As I said, are you a doctor ?

I am not baiting anyone. I have been accused of something I did not do. Thats all. I am within my rights to reply

Bi-polars have a way of making you feel like that.

He won't stop until we do, he gets bored or distracted. Although, most unmedicated cycling bi-polars won't handle discussing their mental illness for long. Once they figure out they can't "hide it" nor deny it...they move on deluding themselves with their own pompousity and ability to "handle"/"control" whatever it is that ails their racing mind ["we" the little people of the world couldn't begin to understand]. If you've ever seen people high on cocaine...that's how GOOD and OMNIPOTENT he thinks he feels right now. Mania can be intoxicating...ESPECIALLY WITH AN AUDIENCE.

Mr. Wondering

me wondering, I am very familiar with the culture in the u.k. and sometimes even use the word "bloody" too much time in the pub. but I assure you I live in the u.s. cant speak for someone who uses different spelling for grey , or gray . we often slip into some vernacular which may or may not represent where we live.

also dr wondering my father killed himself 6 years ago and we were the best friends in the world. I was unsure at the time whether that might no have a bearing and unwilling to take medication for something that could just as easilly have been grief

thanks chaumont. I get the impression that some here wish doom

***edit***

Notice how the first word of each post for both posters is lower case? Where is Schoolbus when you need her? I bet she'd confirm it as well.

***EDIT****** please don't contribute if you don't like me or what I have done. There is such a thing as milder versions of bi-polar. I am not doing this for an audience. Please leave

Flambeau. I agree, which is why I came here to avoid bringing it up at home. I did indeed marry her warts and all as she did me. Forgetting is the difficulty, not forgiving. That I think perhaps takes a little more time than I had bargained for. But in essence you are right. I should let it lie. It was nothing really,and I am exaggerating it in my head for no good reason.

This poster is a unmedicated bi-polar. He won't learn anything here and will continue on with this thread until he gets bored and moves on to the next thing his racing mind attaches to. I suggest we all TRY to stop beating our heads against the wall as there is NO WINNING AN ARGUMENT and NO RATIONAL DISCUSSION to be had with a mentally ill unmedicated cycling bi-polar. Whereas some people don't get it and don't get that they don't get it...this guy doesn't get it and CAN'T until his underlying mental condition is addressed and treated.

oh , my god, you really think I am double posting. I came for help not for the witch hunt I stated was going on earlier.
Why would I double post. It would achieve nothing.

you are not a doctor !!!!!

***edit***

leave wondering. You are seriously out of order. You have not met me, my wife or been my doctor. ********EDIT************

Yup its the forgetting that brought me here. I am sure with time it must go, but this is new to me and i thought, that some insight here would help. instead, I got blasted from every angle about things unrelated to why I came in the first place.

How bout them Cowboys!?!? Woohoo!!!!

looking at the bigger picture is difficult when the small parts are the most painful.

love and peace to all (except the dr) I am going to have to go to bed soon. My wife is waiting for me there. Neglect, i believe, is on the list of no no's.

Oh, please.

(A plaintive outburst from the doormat of the NFC East)

for me, what I have learned today is that my situation is pretty good actually however it came about. I am troubled by a past incident that I have forgiven for and will take time to forget it in it's current form. Hopefully it will eventually be a reminder of where neglect can lead and not a reminder of the mistakes we can all make.
I am grateful to all that have taken time to write. I wish you all the very best and know my heart is in the right place, perhaps my head is taking a while to catch up.
I had a 12 week scan yesterday followed by a funeral. Circle of life and all that.
I do know that it is for living and spending time in guilt is not healthy. It is a useless emotion that serves no one. People here today have attempted to make me feel that way over and over and I refuse to be shafted by it. Regret is something different. I, as Frank said, have a few, but I wake with a smile when i see who is next to me and fall in love all over again. I am a lucky one. I wish the same to all.

LOL Fred!!!!

I wish I understood what you were saying Fred. could you explain before I leave for bed ?

That's what I've been saying as well, Cat. How about we call a moratorium on bingo's pile-on and proceed with the mechanics he needs? He's not going to get religion re the sanctity of M today. But I am convinced he WILL, will help from the folks here and a willingness to learn. As a matter of fact, I can see bingo on here on future postings, sagely giving accurate advice to newbies. Let's roll with this guy, shall we?

What I have been trying to say since the first response I gave you, was that you need to look first at yourself. You need to find out what your shortcomings are/have been and correct those before you can hope to be the best husband, and have the best marriage possible.

Posting here and arguing against those with whom you don't agree is fruitless. When I first arrived here, I balked at doing some of the things that I was told to do. But it was pointed out to me that these people knew what they were talking about and I didn't. Humility is the first step in becoming stronger and willing.

Whaz goin' on mon?

No need maritalbliss, I am done with being judged. I would love to help others and spent many years working on the phones over here in the UK as a samaritan. I have heard a great deal and dealt with a great deal, but the unhealthy way people are lambasted here is not structural. I understand that I am married to someone who is considered a husband stealer, but you don't know her and you don't know us.
We made a few idiotic mistakes along the way. I mainly, but we got to where we need to be. I just find the forgetting part tricky. I obsess and always have done. can be a very useful tool in business but not so if it turns against you.
Thank you though for your kindness.

i will go away and work on myself. after all I have to live with me 24/7 and I know that my shortcomings are many and varied. I want to do this for me and my wife, but mainly US. Thanks for the wise words.

:::sitting up, folding hands primly::: My goodness...why, are you two attempting...jocularity?...lightening up the moment, perhaps?...goodness! Because those two teams SUCK!!

Back to your regularly scheduled post...

Oh my heart!!

I like the LIONS...

poor me

Dr. W

I like the Niners

Dr. Pepper

I can not get over.....,why?

You cheated with a cheater. Then married her, a cheater. Time goes by and what does the cheater do? She cheats on you.

You reap what you sow.

For the last time. I never cheated, nor did she as I was getting divorced. She did cheat on me because I was not fulfilling any of her needs. That's true.
Yes I reaped what I sowed. How wonderfully helpful in a "how to survive and affair" forum.
Brilliant insight

**edit**

Keep reading.

Flambeauone was edited for multiple aliases so someone was double posting and I think that is the person who said Mr Wondering was a lawyer.

Well cool then - since we aren't supposed to "go on a poster's comments" then that makes all of YOUR posts irrelevant - in fact that makes this forum irrelevant...What are you doing here?

Mrs. W

P.S. He is a doctor...a juris doctor...lawyers CAN go by "Dr."...he does not IRL, however in college I had several professors that did...perfectly legit...Mr. W's using it here was tongue in cheek...

so I'll accept an apology from anyone who accused me or double posting as I have not been removed

I had a think about this overnight. I fully understand why I upset people yesterday. I was not married in a house of God either time, I have civil ceremonies which exclude religion. Sorry if that offends, but we are all allowed to be different. Therefor, legally, I was not married when I met my CW. That is the last I wish to say on the matter.

That said, whether humanist,hindu,Jewish,Catholic or civil, marriage is a binding agreement between two parties. I have not had infidelity in my marriage and therefor maybe I am on the site to help with my problem.

I am open to let others decide that and if constructive advice is that I should look elsewhere then I am happy.

To the Dr. Please leave this thread alone, you are not medically qualified to make such statements an I have a Doctorate, but would never use it to give someone medical advice as it is in an entirely different field.

sorry, I meant "maybe I am on the wrong site"

No, bingo you still don't get it. There are all kinds of people on here from many different situations. I am a Jewish woman who married in a Christian church that I don't attend (although I'm sure the people there are very nice so I don't know WHAT that makes me!

That's not what matters! You're not getting it! Leave Mr. W alone and concentrate on what we're saying! Sheesh!

bingo

"I have civil ceremonies which exclude religion."

This the best one I have heard in a while.

So because one say's I do to a judge but not a priest then the marriage is not legit.

Then there was no need to get a divorce. The marriage was not legit.

Yeah, I like to see a H use that arguement in front a judge when alimony, CS, and custody, and W get's half the pension, the house and the bank CD's.

that is not what I was saying at all. Of course the marriage was legit. It was legal and binding and all of the other things it should have been. I am just not going to be beaten with the religion stick. I have just got off the phone to me ex actually. We get on fine. Just leave the past please. I failed. Lets get over it.
However, i got together with my CW at in inappropriate time.That I do get. And I do get the consequences of that. But 9 years on we are married and that is what I want to get right.

Whether an affairage or not. I am married, I adore my wife, I want to stay married until I draw my last breath. That is that. The past obviously affects the future. I understand that we perhaps would have a great deal more work to do because of how we started, by against the odds we are here now having had a hiccup prior to saying the "i do's" and I want to ensure that I never ever have to say "i don't" again.
I know how painful a divorce is and would advise anyone against it. I failed by not doing everything right the first time, but I am not alone in that and I certainly do not deserve to be lambasted for accepting both my part in my past problems and the ones I face today.

Then why do you keep bringing up the past with new justifications...You still dont get it.

listen, I understand that you may well be bitter about the fact that your husband is still seeing another woman and that as far as statistics are concerned, he should not last more than two years with her and will have caused a great deal of destruction along the way. I also realise that you must, therefor, have very strong feelings about affairs and those who have them. If I am in that category and I offend, then I apologise. BUT. I am one of those who lasted and am still up and at 'em with regard to my affariage. It is possible, for some, that they found a soulmate after much soul searching and decided to go along that path of life with that new person.
One cannot predict whether that happens or when and there are many people that stay in marriage, unhappily for many years and die that way. I was not going to be one of those.
My divorce was MUTUAL. My CW came along quite by surprise some time after we had agreed to divorce. I'm sorry, but 9 years later we are still as in love as we ever have been.
I carried alot of the behaviour that I had learned from my first "failure" with me into my second attempt at a life partner situation and got bitten, slightly, because of it.
I am here to learn how to avoid that happening again and to ensure that this time, I get is absolutely right and learn how to nourish the very valuable thing i have in my marriage. IS THAT SO WRONG ?

I AM upset about my situation...That being said I was honestly trying to help you because you cannot seem to stop making excuses and excuses to justify your past mistakes.....

I dont judge people for their past, but sometimes you need to except responsibilty for past mistakes so you can move forward and have a better future....I just see you, not excepting resposibilty for your past mistakes, but constantly coming up with excuses to justify them.

And everytime I check your thread you come back with an unprovoked NEW EXCUSE for your past mistakes....You start out by saying you understand that you made mistakes, but you dont leave it at that. You follow that with justification after justification......

I am done helping you....Good Luck with your new affairage.

Oh and since you have decided to be nasty....I have something to say...

You seem to think that you were not married by god or some foolishness that you were saying about your first marriage...but you now seem to thing that angels brought you and your affairage together.

I am sorry but angels dont hook up married people....you and your first wife were brought together by angels and were blessed with beautiful children. You just screwed that up.

I am beginning to think that we have been duped by this entire thread for someone's sick entertainment, Still. I didn't know that it was possible for anyone to be so obtuse, insensitive and unappreciative all at the same time.

It has been a very long time since I followed anyone's saga in real time but a freak snowstorm and my appreciation for all that MB and the posters on this forum have done for me in the last 31 months brought me on here yesterday. I don't give up rooting for someone easily but I for one am done with this one.

God's Blessings,

Say

I am not justifying anything I SCREWED UP !!! I admit it, have never denied it and never will. But my marriage finished because both of us wanted it to, not just me. We had tried and tried and are both to blame, if blame is the right word. We separated nearly 10 years ago and were unhappy for the vast majority of that.
All that said, perhaps, if I had found this site then I may still have been unhappily married now to a woman that I did not love, didn't love me and had nothing, and I mean nothing in common with. I accept that I made a bad decision early on in my life, but who at 21 doesn't. I should have been persuing a career or having fun but I CHOSE wrongly, to stand by a woman who was carrying my child. I regret that choice but saw no alternative at the time.
I don't need help with that thank you. It is a decade gone and 17 years since we started to live separate lives. I even had a second home for 8 of the 10 years we were married !!!!!
Anyway. I understand your position and have no idea how you could help anyway as you are obviously capable of helping people get through the trauma of an affair and that is not why I am here.
Thank you anyway, and I wish you luck with your life and hope that it all pans out well for you in the end. I'm sure it will as you seem like a very lovely lady. Maybe he didn't deserve the obvious qualities that you have, just by reading your threads.
Your WH will have to make his own mind up as to whether he is in the right place. Only he knows that.
Sadly for some, it is possible that they were in the wrong place in the first place. That is certainly my position. There were no tears shed by either my ex wife or myself about our divorce except about the kids. Surely that is the only way a divorce should be, if it happens at all.
Bless you and thank you

Sadly, the decision to stand by the woman carrying your child at the age of 21 appears to be the only really good relationship decision that you have made.
God's Blessings,

Say

The name of your thread is "I CANNOT GET OVER MY WIFES ONE NIGHT STAND" and you are on the surviving and affair forum.....I am sorry but I had mistaken all that with you needing help with the trauma of an affair.....

So I guess I cannot help you, you are right. Sheesh!

saynomore. No duping going on here. But I appreciate that you tried. I am not deliberately trying to upset anyone, but because I am a man who had an "affair" seem to be being blasted from all angles.
Angles did bring my CW and I together as I had spent most of my adult life unhappy and found happiness and still have it. I made some massive mistakes along the way. I am just trying to learn how to avoid making them again.
Leave my kids out of this, they are perfectly wonderful still and I see them all every day except the one at university whom I speak to most days. My fathering skills are not in question here !

Well said, Say.

How is standing by a woman under those circumstances a good decision. I was too young I was confused, I was not in love, I was not even in "like". How is that any way to start a marriage. At least this time we had a little time and experience behind us to create a solid foundation.
Stop knocking my CW and I for taking a great deal of time to try to get it right this time .

it's simple. I have forgiven and have married, but I am finding it difficult to forget the pain. That is why I am here. Would it be possible to concentrate on that ?

I think we already have.

fine then thanks and good luck.
I have learned nothing except that there are a great many very bitter people on here who cannot see the wood from the trees and choose to judge when that is not what this forum is all about. We have all won and lost and we have all had pain. That doesn't always bind us and the way others choose to lead their lives may not be to our taste, but just as I don't understand the multi wife thing that happens in Dubai, that doesn't mean that I would judge it.
I met my CW and screwed up and paid for it. Maybe that's all there is to is and I should accept that and get on with the very important job of being the very best husband and father I can.

Oh, and sorry for any offence caused. Truly.

Then you need to read through your thread again.

And I am sorry that I ever tried to help you.

The first sentence shows you havent learned anything. You dont FIND happiness in someone else, it comes from within...And you are trying to learn how to avoid making mistakes again, then how are you supposed to do that without realizing your past mistakes and taking FULL responsibility for them so you dont make them again. NO JUSTIFICATIONS. And I NEVER questioned your parenting skills, I only questioned the fact that you seem to think angels brought you and your affair partner together, but somehow not you and your first wife.

And those are the reasons you cannot be helped on this forum, you dont want to be helped...you already know everything.

Its like a train wreck...I cant seem to stop reading this thread and posting....
You just dont get what we are all trying to tell you at all....and I dont know if you can accept the help right now. You need to read this in the future, maybe then you will see what we have been trying to tell you to HELP you not to JUDGE you.

No, you have all missed the point. An unwanted pregnancy is not an angelic act. I brought two adults much misery in the end.
I admit that I need to work on self to try to find true happiness and will do so. That I have learned.
If I had just come on here and said that I was married and was having an issue I would not have been lambasted in the way I have.
I am truly sorry I came here as it seems to me that it is entirely directed by those who cannot accept that there are, just sometimes, different ways of going about things.
I read on other threads people being advised to leave their husbands or wives.
I wish you all well. Whilst I am blessed with a wonderful wife, be assured that I will do everything to keep her and us happy.
Good luck to all.
Bye

Kookoo for Cocoa Puffs....Peace, my brotha! DUDE

All I have accomplished today so far is giving myself a huge headache...Its just talking in circles with you bingo.

Yeah, I'm a pretty patient person, but bingo, buddy, you're stretching me thin. You have much to learn. There's nothing wrong with that. Time is being wasted right now, volleying posts back and forth that are accomplishing little.

How about this: let's take a breather from this thread. Bingo, make it your weekend homework assignment to read as many of the links on here that you can. Let's talk more after that. What do you think?

Dearest Still, Say, MaritalBliss and others that are finding themselves frustrated on this thread...I understand...Dealing with bingo is EXACTLY what it was like living with my father during mania...there seriously is no getting through...really...I tried for YEARS and YEARS...it is fruitless while this mentally ill man remains unmedicated...

I leave you with Mr. W's wise counsel...


Mrs. W

I know, I know Mrs.W...I should have listened....Ive learned my lesson beleive me.

So now we have two doctors, who have never met me, never been professionally trained yet, very dangerously, feel the need to label someone who was in serious grief when diagnosed with "MILD" bi-polar. That was by a qualified phsyc who prescribed nothing more that some sleep aid pills for a short period of time. I have never been diagnosed with that since and have been in therapy with qualified phsycs who have not suggested your diagnosis.
I will refer friends to the Wondering Practice. Possibly alongside that very nice Doctor who treated Michael Jackson.
You amature doctors are very, very dangerous indeed.
I will take a breather from this thread as no one has actually asked the question "How long were you with your ex-wife before you married her ?" The answer...5months (of which, unknown to us 4 of which she was pregnant) would possibly explain why the Marriage was doomed from the start. Basically what was a few dates turned into something I am told here was a gift from God (the marriage) and even though we were never ever compatible in any way and mutually separated and divorced perfectly happily that counts for nothing. The fact that my current relationship has lasted nearly as long counts for nothing either.
I don't claim to know it all and certainly don't wish to pour scorn on the obvious religious bias here, but, really, I am wondering wether it really was worth bothering.
If one cannot be accepted for who they are, warts and all then it is shameful that these sites exist.
I came for help with a very minor problem about forgetting and spent the next few days defending myself about something none of you watched, lived through and saw the demise of. I speak to my ex wife now as a colleague and co-parent and we get along just fine thanks. She has no axe to grind, no remorse, no hatred, no sadness, no loathing. Neither do I. And especially, we have no bitterness, of which this place seems to ooze in bucket loads.
I'm sorry for wasting anyones time. But i'll leave judgement to those who really know me. None of which have ever, ever stated that I made any sort of error at the end of my marriage. All of which said it was a stupid thing to do at the start. Again, with my current wife, no one has ever said to me, including my ex, that she was an error of any sort. In fact, we went out to lunch together, that is my ex, my CW and me and discussed how best to deal with the kids and introducing them to my CW.
You think I am justifying, but you have got it all wrong ALL wrong.
My marriage now is the one that I wish to make perfect forever because believe it or not, I found someone who I want to work to be with forever. We all make mistakes, we all have regrets and we all have to live with them. None of us are perfect. That doesn't mean that one needs to be reminded of imperfections.
Guilt is a useless emotion as it serves no-one. That is what you have except a few good people, have tried to pile onto me and my wife.
Well. Thanks.
If I don't get it......then how come I am still married and have been in this relationship for so many years, and few of you have managed the same. People and glass houses springs to mind.
I'm out of here.

You already said that. A couple of times, I think.

You may want to ask yourself why it is you feel compelled to continue to have the last word, on an anonymous forum, no less. That could be a great avenue to explore for personal growth.

So does this mean you are over her ONS and you have forgiven her - well then the job here is done?



Gg

Bingo, this would indicate to me that this process has been at least some benefit to you;

You came crashing through the front door of this site called MarriageBuilders. You demaded to know "why you couldn't get over your W's ONS.???"

People escorted you out and brought you around to the back door. That was done to teach you something important: HUMILITY!!

Based on your above quote, I think you almost have it now.

So based on the premise that no one gets over it, but has to spend long hours and lots of work to "get through it", have your learned anything here? I truly do hope so.

I hoped you've learned that your W's unfaithfulness in not something new to mankind. It's been going on since the beginning of time, and you are right, we all make mistakes, many of them. Myself and my FWW included. Something like " the poor banished children of eve" syndrone.

Bingo, stop trying to go around the mountain. The only way to the other side is to do the hard work of climbing the mountain. Once you have conquered that, true forgiveness will be your reward. And life from that point on can be wonderful.

All Blessings,
Jerry

Yes, Although angry with some posters, I have learned a great deal over the last few days.
Call it Karma, call it what you like, but I truly appreciate that what you cannot do in any relationship, good or bad, is just give up on improvement. I gave up on my first marriage for what I thought and still do think were very good reasons. That is not to say that it was right, but that is what happened. I deeply regret the way in which I met my CW because I didn't have a chance to grow personally enough to allow the new relationship to have a good start. Ironically, there has never been any jealousy from my CW, and as such she felt that she was truly getting into an honest relationship with a recently single man. That is not true, I was not single by any means, I was still legally married, I realise that now, and have never really thought about it that way until the last sleepless night that I have had.

What I did do, and thank you for all of those that have pointed this out, is carry on the same behaviour into my second relationship as I had committed in my first marriage. A great deal of that was taught to me by my father and mother who were unhappily married for as long as I can remember. Learned behaviour.

I suspect what I did was marry my first wife for the sake of the child as that is pretty much what my parents did even though my father was a jew and my mum a gentile. That created a very imbalanced view on marriage and as such I had not got a clue what I was doing as my own compass was with out a magnet.

I promise you all that I clung on in there, but when I divorced 10 years ago there were not the resources that there are now, and the therapy that we took was deeply uncomfortable and really only served to divide us further as we realised quite how far apart we were. Regrettable, but true.

When I met my CW I was a mess, as was she (she came from a terrible 3x broken home) and as such we had to write our own rules as we knew no better. What we did know is that for both of us we could not do anything but be in love. She was quiet and demure, spiritual (not religious) and sensitive. I was controlling, as I had to be in my first marriage, and as such even though we were, and still are deeply in love, I was trying to create everything I thought I wanted in a wife and she knew that I was everything she wanted in a husband and just waited for me to calm down and relax into what we had. I didn't, and if you sit on anyone long enough then eventually they wil wriggle, which is precisely what happened.

She made one silly drunken mistake, not an excuse, the truth. I paid the price for years of continued controlling behaviour. She deeply regrets what happened and although it was a 5 minute moment of selfishness knew at that point that she was in the right place with me, but things needed to change dramatically for US to work for the "ever" that she had hoped for.

I had made her so low and so unloved and so deeply wounded by my actions that for a moment she gave up the fight and rightly or wrongly made a drunken decision to make herself feel better. In fact it only served to hurt her heart and then the real hard work had to begin.

She didn't go, she didn't carry on with an affair, but she did let me know in uncertain terms that enough was enough. The fact that this happened (the ONS) is actually irrelevant and in many respects I should be grateful, because if it were not for that, we would have wound up with much more work to do and perhaps looking at a D at some stage in the future.

Sure, she lied to try not to cause any hurt as she felt that her threat to me of moving out was enough and as her eyes had been opened to my/our long term issues that was enough, but in the end the truth prevailed and she has done everything she can to prove that to me time and again.

My insecurities have been around for far longer than I have been married either times and looking back, I have treated women the same way since I was a young boy. Learned behaviour.

The last year has been an immense learning curve but one that I am truly grateful to have been able to have been given the opportunity to have been able to take on.

As I said earlier we both had compasses that were truly $%^&ed when we met and wrote rules that worked for us and did so for some time, al be it, in an imbalanced way. When DD came a year ago we realised that what we had written so far was wrong, or not working, and as such looked at our relationship with fresh eyes and started to write the rule book of our foundation again. Three months of day in day out talking got us to the point where we KNEW that we wanted the security and loveliness of marriage for both us and our kids and every day since we work to ensure that there is a balance in our marriage that means we work as a loving team and that there is no more controlling and we fulfil each and every one of each others personal needs both emotionally and in every other way.

What I missed in all of that, and I truly believe whether an affairage or not, we have a strong and wonderful marriage ahead of us, is that I had not repaired the broken bits of me enough to sustain that strength.

So where does that leave us. Well, I start with remorse, work backwards a bit to enable me to look forwards with a clear head and soul. I will do my best to ensure that any fortune I have takes care of not only US but my past as well. I ensure that my ex is never in trouble as it is my responsibility and I ensure that everything that I have done wrong in the past, whether I think it was right or not, is looked at with scrutiny and righted.

It is now far too late to CHANGE the past, but I can certainly go a long way to make those who I may have hurt feel better about why it happened and do everything in my power to ensure that they are taken care of.

What then has to happen is that I have to do a great deal of work on myself as well as my marriage to ensure that history does not repeat itself and that my CW, who has deserved better for the first 8 years of our relationship, never, ever feels so lonely again that she is put in a position of doubt about US or anything else for that matter.

My CW fought very , very hard for US and I did not for 8 years and took her and pretty much everything else, except my children, for granted. I have been spoiled, selfish and truly awful, but that is not where it has to end.

My mistakes have been a million times worse that my CW's and yet I dwell on her one and only moment of selfishness. Why, because that is the way a broken mind works.

That is not to say that I am in the wrong place, I truly having thought hard about even the most hurtful things that have been said here, KNOW I am in the right place however I got there.

BUT, to ensure peace for US and myself, I am going to have to did a little deeper and look back at history, make the puzzle again, look at it long and hard and learn from it.

I came here with all of my emotions in a very tightly strung bag. I came here thinking that all was OK except that I had a WW.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I don't have a WW I have someone who ran out of fight and for a moment thought there was an answer, but it wasn't where she thought it was. It was exactly where the fight was still occurring.

Everything is not OK, far from it. But that is not in my marriage, it is within me.

I need to spend time repenting and looking deeply at what makes me arrogant enough to think I have the answers. I also need to hear what my CW has said all along as in reality she had been proved to be right in our house continually and I have ignored it. I don't want a stepford wife, I want the person who is asleep right now with our child in her tummy to be who she was and has continued to be all along. I know what I said to her on the night of the ONS and in reality just from those hurtful words I do not deserve her. She loves me so much and I rejected that for so many years. That is not the case now, but that is not the end of the repair.

Mountain......yup, it's huge, but I will walk every step hand in hand with her, carry her if I have to, deal with pressure sickness if it comes and one day in the not too distant future feel the security that we did it together and that is never a journey I or she would wish to do with anyone else again.

I am blessed with all that I have and have not been thankful. We have all that we have because I have been smart, but not in the right areas an have neglected the very one thing that could really be the glue that sticks this whole thing together forever........myself.

I have never felt so humble and vulnerable in my life. But belief now, with much gratitude to those who took the time out to bang their heads against the wall that I had built around me, is that my life will change for the better for this and most importantly those of my children and wonderful patient and ever loving wife. They all deserve better.

Finally, I am truly grateful for everything that I have read here. I apologise wholeheartedly to those I have offended and would not wish this to be the last word, more the stepping stone to a greater and more fruitful life ahead for all of us.

You were right to judge........we all need a dose of that occasionally.

Love and Peace

bingo, I know that feeling well. It took me about a year here to get to that humility. You're doing great!

Me too Cat. Bingo, I've read your thread with my mouth hanging open. I often felt the vets were being too hard on you, but I've learned they almost always 'see' things I don't. Therefore I was silent and let them do their job. Loved the analogy of taking you around to the back door.

Anyway, best to you and your wife. We do all make mistakes. We do all need to forgive and be forgiven every day.

I'm so glad you've awaken to this. Some people go through a life repeating the same pattern of behavior. We all have personal barriers that get in the way of us being objective and truthful about ourselves. Now that you know better you will do better.

Gg

bingo! I KNEW you'd start getting it! You've just driven your first crampon into the mountain.

A's typically don't exist in a vacuum - while the BS is NEVER to blame for a WS's choice to indulge in the destructiveness of an A, there is usually some work to be done on the BS's part in the M. Working on yourself is only positive for the M. We've all got work to do. The most important part is realizing it. And then doing it.

Bingo!

Bingo,
Do something different tonight.

Pray, together with your wife.

All blessings,
Jerry

Bingo GETS IT!!! Good man, now f'n do something w/ this knowledge! DUDE

Bump

So different from this:

Yup!

bingo, you wrote, "look deeply at what you have and how lucky you can be".

Larry's marriage ended. To a large extent, that was the predictable result, based on its origins.

His XW wanted out of her first marriage and, aged about 25, became involved with a 60 year-old that she was chatting to online. He gave her "a safe place to land", in Larry's own words. About 5 years into the marriage, she has an affair with the closest relative he has.

The marriage started in the wrong way and the outcome was inevitable.

Whether Larry's marriage failed or not is not the issue to which I refer. I used the words "can be" to point out that, as with all relationships, some work and some don't. We are not, and should never be, the judge and jury when it comes to others.
I went away from this site having listened to all that people had said, a complete mess. I spent time with a psychiatrist to attend to the bi-polar that I don't have ( thanks to the Doctor on here.....you know who you are) and then to proper marriage guidance which, it turns out, was not about how my relationship started, more where it was at now and what one should do to ensure it stays in good condition.
I am lucky, but I can imagine that many here who have come for help but are then basically told that their marriage is a sham take that advice to heart and then approach their marriage in a very negative way.
The "it'll never work because..." school of thinking is not conducive to assisting the wounded. More sticking your respective fingers in the would and twisting.
I can only speak for myself, but there was more damage done to my relationship on this site than I can even begin to express. It put dangerous and unfounded thoughts into an already fragile mind and created merry hell at home.
Luckily I saw sense and did it properly, only to discover that there was really no need for the attention that the beginning of my relationship seemed to have created and certainly no need for the lambasting I got.
Each of us is different and on set of rules does not always fit all.
I wish all of you good luck with your relationships and advise anyone with an ounce of sense to seek professional advice and not waste hours and days getting swallowed up in the bitterness that this site offers. I'm sorry, but that is precisely what an eminent professional called the pages of "advice" i was given here.
I wish larry Luck. He deserves a little. I sincerely hope that he gets it right next time. I suspect, on reflection, that a 35 year age gap can present some issues of their own.
I really am done here. I am not getting embroiled in unhealthyness again.
Blessings to all.

Just because you are bitter, does not mean the methods you find here are the cause. Bitterness must be dealt with, and yes, you will have to swallow that bitter pill, but as with most pills it will help you.

Thank you karma.
I am not bitter in any way. I am appreciative of what I have, however I got there.
I have not wasted any time at all and yes, 10 years have passed and I thank my lucky stars that I have my lovely wife and children. That is precisely how I wish to spend my life.....with them.
I don't understand your analogy and perhaps don't need to. All it does is serve to create uncertainty where it is not required.
I am not blaming the methods here for anything really, merely pointing out that you cannot apply one rule to all.
There are many ways in which a relationship starts, and, if nothing else, each and every marriage should be respected for what it means to the individuals involved.
We each have our own agenda and whether right or wrong in the eyes of this site....that is all that matters.
Peace.

What do you believe of affair marriages, then? Should they be respected and treated the same as a marriage with no infidelity involved?

The analogy is this.

Swallowing the bitter pill is akin to facing the unpleasant issues. You must face them, identify them, and deal with them despite how terrible it is to go through them. Like a BS dealing with a WS.

I believe, very firmly, that it is today that is important. How things got started is not always relevant to that. If one contemplates ones naval for too long about a past that is truly just that then it does no good.
Sure look back at mistakes, but don't dwell. That is not good.
Affair marriages........I am not in a position to judge anyones relationship really.
What I do know is that I have ten years under my belt and am blissfully happy as is my wife, and dwelling on how we started has not, and never will help. We started and that is what matters. We hurt no-one and continued that way. The problems were not about the beginning, they were about neglect in the present.
I do not care how others start their relationships. Very few would leap from a loving marriage into another relationship without deeply looking at the consequences. I am not an advocate of affairs, obviously, but also know that sometimes, timing is not perfect. As I said, it is not one rule for all.
Peace

"Living in the present" is what seems to cause an affair.

Looking back at mistakes, and dwelling (for a time) on them can be good for you because you will realize what you did wrong; you will rectify it, and make up for it. Then it can be put behind you.

A bad beginning begets a bad ending; that is why so many affair marriages fall flat.

Another way of saying it is, 'If they do it with you they will do it TO you.'

Actually Karma, I agree with you on certain points.
Learn from yesterday, live and be thankful for today and plan for tomorrow are all things we need to bear in mind.
I cannot speak for all, but I had carried into my current relationship a great deal of what I had learned years and years ago, not just in my previous marriage, but stretching as far back as a young boy. Learned behaviour can be a critical to the issues found in any relationship. In my case I had a considerable problem with intimacy. Not in the sexual sense, just letting people get too close to me.
Now, after years of rejection and controlling behaviour my then partner (we were not married) finally gave up the fight and, after I had finished the relationship and told her that her bags were packed she got very drunk at a party(she is tee total normally) and kissed another man. He too was drunk and he tried and tried to have his way with a vunerable lady, luckily to no real avail. There was instant regret and then the truth came out and we both realized what a devastating thing we had done to our lives together.
Fortunately I have not had to deal with an affair as such and therefore cannot judge other peoples position on that. What I do know, however, is that the bitter pill had to be swallowed and what was a terrible situation all round came right in the most remarkable way.
On the subject of how my relationship started, it was not a �bad� beginning, quite the contrary. It was a beautiful thing between two damaged people that spent many years trying to deal with their pasts but ignoring the fact that their own relationship was not being nurtured in the correct way.
I have no idea what percentage of marriages fail in the US, but here in England it is almost 50%. Having been part of that statistic, I am never going there again and as such, how my relationship started is irrelevant so many years later.
I am not suggesting that it is perfect to start a relationship whilst in another. Far from it, but, in the words of Coldplay, �when you�ve tried your best but you don�t succeed�, things happen, and sometimes out of ones control.
I just felt that Larry was correct in that he had been lambasted for starting a relationship in the way that he did. Whether it lasted or not is a different matter entirely, but to lay the blame squarely on the fact that the lady in question was still technically married, has no bearing on whether they were suited.
I am a believer in fate and also realise that all relationship require dedicated attention at all times. But love is a great and wonderful thing and living in a relationship without it is futile for any period of time. Again, in the words of a great English songwriter, �I wake up and fall in love with you over again�. When that has gone, and gone for a long time, it�s time to move on.
A great friend of mine told me that when you walk away from a relationship and nothing hurts inside you, you have made the right decision. That�s how it was for me.
We are all different and none of us own our husbands/wives and certainly cannot control them. We all make catastrophic mistakes now and again and have to deal with the consequences. Just as I would not wish to meet someone in a night club, others feel that the way I met my wife, and Larry met his is inappropriate. All I will say is that I am here to tell the tale and blissfully happy to have had some hiccups along the way to focus the mind.
To dwell on a beginning as some here do only serves to try to predict, even wish for, an end.
Live and let live please.
Good luck to you Karma, you seem absolutely lovely.

bingo,

your depression and drinking and other pressures seem to have created an unhappy relationship. You admit to having treated your partner really badly for most of the time you have been together.

I doubt very much whether your encounter with posters here made your marriage into the near-wreck that you describe. It seems to have been in a terrible place already.

I'm happy that you find that the lyrics of Coldplay and other songwriters give better marriage advice than does Dr Harley.

Your marriage counselling seems to have created a blissfully happy marriage. Can you tell me what it involved? I live in the UK, and marriage counselling here seems to take a different approach from that of Dr Harley.

Dr Harley has given reasons why affair marriages face difficulties. Your UK MC seems to think that the origins of the marriage make no difference to the behaviour within it. It appears that the counsellor read this thread and thought that the Harley-based advice we were giving was wrong. Did he or she show a good success rate with affair marriages?

Hi Sugar,
I was not implying that MB had wrecked my marriage, my marriage was not wrecked, my relationship was and I was obsessing about the minutia of a drunken reaction to my appalling bahaviour.
I am also not suggesting that song lyrics resolve problems that professionals should deal with. Please do not take every word so seriously.
What did happen is that I was made, by posters here, to doubt the integrity of my marriage and its chances of survival. That, let me tell you straight, was pure wrong !
I found a good counsellor quite local to me actually who didn't dwell on where we started, more that there was a huge amount of love that had endured nearly 10 years of togetherness and that we had buried our heads for a great deal of time, combined with my absolute neglect of my partner, we were bound to run aground.
My behaviour has changed now we are an us, I have to say. Being married is a terrific thing when all is well, but one has to keep working.
What my counsellor stated, and she has been at it (marriage therapy) for nearly 30 years is that it is true that affairs, however serious rarely last, and it is true also that marriages that come from affairs have different problems to deal with over time, but in her experience, they are no more likely to fail than a "traditional" single boy meets single girl marriage.
I am not saying that she is the worlds fines expert, but what was pointed out is that many marriages start whilst someone is still involved legally as the process, as you may well know over in the UK can take years to sort out. In my case I had been living away from the marital home for 6 months before I clapped eyes on my wife to be. It was well over a year before the divorce was finalised and as such I had actually spent quite a bit of time alone.
I know that doesn't count here and I am fully aware of what the belief system of MB wishes us all to adhere to.
I do not condone affairs, I truly don't, but I disagree with the premise that all, or most marriages that start in circumstances are doomed, that is just not the case.
Yes my marriage counsellor read my story and listened to it, obviously. It makes no difference after this amount of time where we started, the fact that we are happy is all that counts.
My behaviour, as I have often stated was just the same as it was since I started having relationships. Nothing to do with the way my current relationship started....nothing at all. Learned behaviour is what I was dealing with and a large dose of insecurity.
I am happy with my marriage and hope that with continued work it will remain as happy as it is today.
My experience here has been savage and it did indeed cause a tremendous amount of unwarranted pain in my home. I am so glad to have got some proper help.
If you wish to have the name of my counsellor, then do let me know.
peace

Well, bingo, you did accuse the posters here of nearly wrecking your marriage, in the post you made to Larry's thread. You also painted a picture of a very harmonious and happy marriage until you brought your problem to this forum. You said,


In your original post, you spoke of serious depression and hard drinking, enough to necessitate a stint in rehab. You spoke of treating your partner like "censored" for most of the 10 years. That does not sound like a relationship that was wrecked by this forum.

I think that it was fair for posters to describe depression is a kind of mental illness.

You wrote this week as if you had very few problems before your wife's infidelity. You wrote as if you had had a happy relationship before you brought a "minor blip" to this forum and were described as having serious problems, which you didn't have. You wrote that it was "a total disaster" ever bumping into this site.

I'm challenging what you wrote earlier in this thread about your 10-year relationship against what you wrote recently.

Your MC might not be aware of the failure rates of affair marriages, but they can be found. Her ignorance of them does not give me confidence in her abilities.

Please don't be so silly. I admitted to depression and drinking and never once stated that my relationship was harmonious prior to my wife's (partner then) infidelity. I also stated that I had massive problems prior to that point. You have misread or mis interpreted my posts. sorry.
I have been happy since I was married 16 months ago. The only reason I came to this site in the first place was to try and calm some of the obsessivness of my thoughts surrounding the situation my wife got herself into and my part in all of that.

What I was saying is that having come here with a marriage that was happy but past issues that I was not coping with very well, I got the @�$% kicked out of me for how I met the lovely woman. That was unhelpful to the extreme and ceratinly not conducive to helping me along as it caused a great deal of angst in my house.

Sure my therapist who has specialised in marriage counselling for 30 years may not have a clue about statistics, but it seems unlikely to me really. With the amount of letters after her name, she has studied form. Your comments are unjustified and come from an uncomfortable place.
Do tell me where, not on this site, these statistics can be found ? I am curious, not because I don't believe you personally, but statistics are an ever changing thing just as what we should and shouldn't eat changes as science, or scientific opinion changes.
Also, yes I suffered depression because my Father and best friend killed himself leading me into a downward spiral of drink and sleeping pills that I dealt with in rehab. Something else to shoot me down with !? What I did not like was unqualified lawyers telling me that I had bi-polar only to be told, expensively, that I was actually suffering from post traumatic depression that seems to have died down to the occasional down day. I needed no prescriptive treatment and have been given a professional all clear.
I seem to be having to justify myself again.
I have a happier marriage that most I have come across. Partly because I am lucky and partly because we had to come to a point prior to marriage where a good hard look at what we were doing was necessary. We both made cataclysmic mistakes, me far more than my delicious wife and for that we paid in tears.
What I wont listen to any more, and is, in my opinion wrong, is waffling statistics and guess work.
My Grandfather smoked 60 cigarettes a day until he died of a stomach problem at 91. Sometimes statistics should not be blanket applied.
Good luck and peace.

I have clinical depression,a mental illness....I dont take offense to being "accused" of mental illness...I have it...

Dealing with loss by hard drinking and sleeping pills is a form of depression, a mental illness (maybe not clinical, but depression none the less.)

I take offense to you taking offense to having a mental illness...you had one. You saw a professional to deal with it...get over it. We were only trying to help you. It seems to me if you were in a "happy" marriage you would not have come here for help with your obsessive thoughts.

Why did you come to the forum dealing with AFFAIRS, why? Because something was making you "unhappy"? We tried to help you deal with it head on...by learning by your past "mistakes" and dealing with them. You took offense to that for some reason. You took offense to everything we tried to tell you. You had a "perfectly happy" marriage. Then why did you come here?

I'm guessing google sent him.

BINGO!

Dang search engines messing up peoples wonderful marriages to their delicious wives.

I agree, depression is a harsh mental illness, but it is not bi-polar as was diagnosed by a poster here, who also spent a great deal of time announcing that I should be left to stew because I was apparently "cycling". Not the same at all. Grief and bi-polar are very different indeed.
I came here because the incident that happened prior to my marriage was playing on my mind and was wondering whether it was normal for this to happen. I had a great deal of trouble getting over the event and that was all. What the ensued was a quite unnecessary attempt to make me feel that the whole premise of my marriage was doomed to failure because of the way we met.
My marriage was fine at the time....I wasn't.
I have not taken offence to constructive advice about the very subject I came here for, I have just found some of the doom and gloom disheartening.
I don't think I am the bitter one here.
Good luck in finding happiness stillhere. I hope that the right one comes your way soon.x

This is one thing that you keep saying that I dont get...We were trying to get you to learn from your past mistakes and to do that we had to help you see your "past mistakes" so they would not be done in your current M....I dont even know why I was trying to help you since I loathe "affairages", but I was none the less.


And thank you, I hope I meet the right one when I am ready to....I am not ready for that yet since I am still married and I feel I still have work to do on myself.

I agree with you. I do keep saying that. Mainly because it bears no relevance. I am married, happily, and have listened long and hard to advice given and accepted and taken on board much of it.
The only reason that I reared my ugly head again was because I simply object to the fact that I was legally still married when I met my now wife seemed to be the focal point of where discussions lead and it did more harm than good in someone that was obviously suffering from insecurity issues at the point he joined this forum. That seemed to be the theme with Larry.
I already knew that I had been a complete bast@�rd in my relationship as you will read from my first post ever here. I had already accepted my part in the self fulfilling prophecy that was my relationship. Obviously, having been married once I was not about to step up to the plate again without making sure I was doing the right thing.
All has been well since I said the "I do", but a bit like a scar, the hurtful bits of my past seem to have healed slowly.
I can tell you that if you do find someone else, he will be a very lucky man.
x

Please don't feed the trolls.

I know, I know...Thanks for reminding me KA.

I don't know what you mean by trolls. please explain.

Folks were just trying to help you understand that an affairage is very likely to have an episode of a pajama party BJ with some stranger.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[2] In addition to the offending poster, the noun �troll� can also refer to the provocative message itself, as in that was an excellent troll you posted. While the term troll and its associated action, trolling, are primarily associated with Internet discourse, media attention in recent years has made such labels highly subjective, with trolling being used to describe many intentionally provocative actions outside of an online context

ok. that makes sense.
Thanks Mai Mai, very helpful !! I WAS NOT MARRIED AT THE TIME. IHAD FINISHED THE RELATIONSHIP AND SHE WAS KICKED OUT OF THE HOUSE !!

Affairage. Karma.

I WAS NOT MARRIED WHEN MY PARTNER GOT DRUNK AND STRAYED. IT WAS NOT, THEREFORE AND AFFAIRAGE AT THE TIME. NOR IS IT NOW.
READ LARRY'S LETTER FROM THE GOOD DR. HIMSELF !!

Well Bingo, that is quite a statement......However it is a complete
fallicy.

Think about it, HOW are we ever to decide what is right and what is wrong, if not for using jidgement?

Our great nation is even built on this. One third of our government is judicial, in which their entire job is to judge. Judge which laws should be allowed to be made, judge the actions of people who have wronged others, to judge what is right and what is wrong. I personally am THANKFUL for this, other the monster who molested my daughter and his step-daughter would be a free man today. All one needs is a hideous crime committed against him or his loved ones to see the GOOD that comes from having judges and juries, juries which are ALWAYS by their peers.

You might be thinking at this moment that my example is a bit extreme, after all adultery isn't a crime, at least not one on the law books (in some places in this country it still is......), HOWEVER, having been cheated on I KNOW the absolute hell and anguish it has caused, to me and my children. It was quite comperable to the hell we went through in my daughters ordeal. But then by stating that "We should not be judge and jury" I suppose I shouldn't trust my OWN judgement of that......however, I will be ever thankful that that is not the mantra this country was built upon.....

Not2fun

ps..... And since we should NEVER judge others, I will be highly offended if anyone judges my spelling and gramatical errors......

This is precisely why this site is unhelpful. A marriage, which is what I am in now, is just that, however it comes about.

I meant in relation to judging others relationships and how they wish to lead their lives within those relationships.
We are all different. One rule cannot apply to all. Isn't that communism or arranged marriage type areas ?

Precisely why you shouldn't have ever been upset and/or judgemental when your wife cheated on you. How she wishes to lead her life is none of your business. She's different and has her own set of rules, as do you....live and let live.

W

She was not my wife and I did not judge. I was upset, but as I have said earlier, we cannot own or control anyone, and if I were in her shoes at that time, I would have done that and worse. We weren't even together at the time.

...um...that would be TWO m's in 'grammatical'. Two. I'm not a believer in never judging others.

Well now you have done it, Maritalbliss, you have offended Not. Now, I too am ofended.

did you judge your wife at all mr w ?

Karma

Okay, let's be ofended toggether, how's that?

thanks maimai. Whats your story ?

I dont think Mr.W was saying you shouldnt be judgemental. That was you, Bingo. Eh, but what do I know?

This makes an excellent siggy.

I miss Dude.

What even gave you the right to be "upset".

"Upset" about what?

This thread is titled "I cannot get over my wifes one night stand", but you weren't married to her or even "together at the time" and you don't claim she did anything wrong (as she has the right to set her own rules and live her life how she chooses)...

so...

It appears there was never a problem you needed help with in the first place..

which...

kinda makes you a troll (just talking nonsense for nonsenses sake), or perhaps, mentally ill (untreated) and lacking "sense" at all, doesn't it?

Mr. W

i have no idea what a siggy is ?

stilhere. I was not suggesting that one should not be judgmental about ones own relationship. surely using judgement is a good thing in a marriage. After all, it's team work.

You betcha.

Unless you were never in love in the first place and only married out of obligation.

There is TWO l's in Stillhere....count em, Two.....Just kiddin Bingo. I got a little caught up in the gramatical judging... And dont call me Shirley.

You are also in a "relationship" with your children...do they get to be "judgmental" of you too???

W

...um, that would be "there ARE", still. There "are" two l's.
:::ducking:::

Okay, I'll quit. Scout's honor.

i was in my marriage out of obligation. I had left my first wife, then girlfriend as it was a very on and off relationship when she announced that she was 4 months pregnant. I stayed at the age of 20 because I thought it the right thing to do. I have no regrets as my two older kids are adorable, live with me a great deal of the time and the eldest is going to become a Doctor soon. I'm a proud Father.
My ex wife sees all of my children and we have a pretty good relationship really.

maimai. leave it please.
sorry my spelling is getting worse.

You were in a marriage out of obligation? You had no choice? I am so confused. Did you Choose to sleep with her before you were married? Did you choose to sleep with someone you didnt love? I am NOT judging you, but getting married out of OBLIGATION is a cop out to me. You married her because you chose to.

Just because you FELT obliged to doesnt make the marriage any less marriagey? Grammar, Grammar...I know.

I did love her the last time i slept with her but I was a young man and didn't want to be with her and had, in fact, fallen out of love.
I agree, I made a commitment that I should have stuck to, but all the counselling, effort and work that we put into saving our marriage didn't work. We both then agreed to give up and move on. Quite amicable.

B.I.N.G.O

B.
I.
N.
G.
O

B.I.N.G.O

And Bingo was his name-O

Are you sure you are the biological father of your second child born of your first marriage???

Certainly you weren't the one having sex with a woman you didn't love???

Mr. W

And the "fallen out of love" thing you speak of, Bingo, that just proves to me that you havent got a grip on the MB concepts at all yet.

That is why you are here, right, bingo? Because in your new marriage you are following the MB concepts?

so no-one here has ever had sex with someone they did not love ? come on!!
Yes I do apply all that is valuable and applicable from the MB writings in my marriage. That's why it is brilliant !!

That would make a wonderful sentiment to put on your son's next birthday card.

You find that unbelievable?

The only person I have ever had sex with is my wife. This is what is supposed to be normal.

This event happened in December and by early January she was pregnant.

But you said you did love her the last time you slept with her, so the point is moot, no?

Anyway . . . . .

Bingo, you aren't a fan of the folks on this forum and aren't a fan of the MB principles. However, Larry seems like he liked the folks on here and tried to practice the MB principles. Where is he? Is he gone forever? Banned by the mods? I wonder . . . .