I am new to this and so badly need some advice or some encouragement. My husband of just over 6 years has told me he no longer is in love with me and wants a separation (he's not sure if that means ultimately divorce as yet). He is moving out tomorrow.

A little history on us is that we met online and lived interstate - one issue with that is that we truly did not have a conventional courtship living so far away from each other. He moved to where I live to marry me and we have since had a child who is now 2 years old. This is his second marriage - the first ended due to his wife having an affair with his friend.

Trust for me was always an issue with my husband. I have caught him out on many occasions lying to me and whenever I have confronted him about this, he says he lied to "protect me". The biggest issue I have with him is that he has no boundaries when it comes to appropriate relationships with others. I always feel as if he doesn't care enough to consider my feelings and so he goes ahead and behaves inappropriately.

In 2011 he started regularly calling and texting my sister's sister-in-law after I had told him that I never liked her and wanted to stay away from her and her family. I discovered this many months later and confronted him and her about this only to be told that we are "just friends" and that he would stop. The following year I fell pregnant and he initiated a full blown affair with this other woman. He claims this started in Nov 2012 and continued through till April 2013 when I discovered their facebook chats which dedicated their love to each other etc. I kept it to myself and tried to work through it with him, as our son was only 2 months old at the time. He promised he would stop and we started counselling together.

Two months later I found further conversations between the two of them. The affair had continued behind my back. This is the point where I told my family and, he to this day, still is upset with me for not "defending him" when my sister tore shreds off him for what had happened and ordered him out of my house. I was so shocked I couldn't speak! We went away for a few days to get away from home and then returned and within 2 months it was back on again with her, unbeknown to me. I discovered this only in June 2014 (after almost a year of them sneaking around during work hours and after work). They had set up a fake facebook account for him so I wouldn't find out and her 3 children were apparently (according to her) happy for their mother and as religious as she is, when I called her a hypocrite, she said because she was in love that it made things ok and that my husband would have been a better father to her 3 children than their own biological dad who left her in June 2013 when the affair was discovered by the family.

My husband says he is "in love" with her and does not feel the same way about me. I know I have my part to play, and it is only after he said this to me a month ago that I fully accepted this. From the start I felt insecure with him and thus I did and said things which were hurtful. I am a somewhat anxious person by nature and this anxiety led me to be controlling and didn't allow me to truly love him and meet his emotional needs as much as I should have. Using MB terminology, my Taker was at work on many occasions and I used many LOve Busters to drive him away from time to time. I believe the same happened from his end. His failure to meet my emotional need for openess and honesty and to truly feel that I was the only woman in his life led me to shut him down to the affection and sexual fulfilment that he desired.

I am facing a train crash of a marriage and I so desperately want to work things out with my husband. I do not want a divorce, I want his love, I want a united family, and we were also only just 2 months ago planning a second addition to the family. I do not have time on my hands. I am almost 41 and if I have any hope of becoming a mother a second time, I need to do so sooner than later. But I also understand that you cannot rush or push someone into doing something that they do not want to either. I have told my husband that I am willing to change, to speak to him about my requests rather than to make demands, to not embarass him if I get upset when we are in public, to be a more loving and affectionate wife. I have been trying to do these things for the past few weeks now, but he has not cared or acknowledged any of these changes. He has made up his mind that he no longer wants to be with me.

I know it's not just about my end of the deal. Both of us have to be willing to accept this challenge. I just don't know how to show him that I mean business - all he keeps saying is that I won't change and he doesn't believe me and he keeps throwing in my face all of the things I said or did to hurt him over the past 6 years. What do I do??

Well there are reasons for affairs but no excuses.

Dr. Harley would encourage you to expose the affair far and wide. Expose to her family and clergy also.

Please read the Exposure 101 thread in Notable Posts and return here after you have done so.

Hello Jedi_Knight. Thank you for your reply. I have exposed it to our close friends and to our immediate families. I am too ashamed to tell others as I feel I had a part to play in ruining our relationship and I already feel crappy without others thinking badly of me if they hear his version of the events.

Also, I want nothing to do with the OW...unfortunately we share the same relatives as she is related to my sister, and I just want to stay as far away from her as possible. Her parents know what is going on but they are not in the mental frame of mind to do much to keep her away from my husband in future. Both her parents suffer from mental illness.

I know the "reasons" my husband says he had the affair, but he still blames me for pushing him pretty much into her arms. She "was there" for him in his time of need, as he puts it. He said I am more than half to blame. I would never cheat on him doesn't matter what happened, and I find it ironic that he who experienced the very same infidelity with his ex wife, can go ahead and do this to someone else. Oh well.

Jess, move this to the SAA forum.

You can't compete with the addiction of an affair. This isn't about you, it's the thrill of having someone on the side and by sticking around you prop up that dynamic. It's also very unattractive to stick around as his option. He will simply use you as drama fodder to keep his addiction exciting for as long as possible.

You should have been in Plan B ages ago for your own mental health. Women have breakdowns if they try to do this longer than three weeks.

Hi Indiegirl. How do I move it to the other forum? And what does SAA stand for?

I failed to say that since June of last year my husband called it quits with the OW...he says he hasn't seen her since then, but he still loves her and can't seem to get over that. He lived separately until mid December 2014 when we decided to move back in and give it a go. Unfortunately that didn't go as well as I had hoped, both due to my rude behaviour towards him on a few occasions, and also due to the fact that he hasn't truly let go of the OW and can't seem to love me the way he used to (assuming he ever felt that deeply in love with me in the first place). We really didn't connect as a couple and it was only a couple of weeks ago that I realised I needed to get help and started looking into Marriage Builders and read the book His Needs, Her Needs. In his eyes it's too late, but I don't ever want to give up hope. As for Plan B, I was reading another person's forum earlier today and I felt so much like her in the sense that she said that she was scared she'd push her husband even further away if she tried that. I know I can't push him further because he has pulled himself away already, so my pushing would be futile. But I want him to know I still love him and don't want him to leave me or my son. Self doubt is kicking in now, I know that. I am just so scared. Took me so long to meet someone I thought I could spend the rest of my life with, and now we have made a mess of it!

How can people get over their affair addiction??

Dr H says don't read his needs her needs if you are experiencing an affair!

This is not about you and the A is ON.

But most important is your mental health. You need to protect yourself from this abuse.

You should tell your friends.

So what should I be reading instead for some advice or suggestions? I read His Needs Her Needs as someone had ironically bought it as a wedding gift for us many years ago, and it has been sitting in my bedroom for 6 years and I have never bothered to read it. If only I had huh?? Might not be here right now.

I know this is partly about me too though. A marriage doesn't spoil itself completely on its own. I don't blame myself for the affair, but I know I pushed my husband away with my bad habits.

As for my mental health, I know I am under a lot of stress right now. I am trying to believe that my husband hasn't made any contact with the OW since last June, but I guess I cannot follow him or keep him under complete surveillance all of the time. I believe he is suffering from withdrawal symptoms from not seeing her (I may be wrong though), and maybe this is why he hasn't given me the time of day lately and he is quick to point out all of my errors to cause him to want to leave me.

I told my friends about the affair last year but have only spoken to one of our close couple friends who are aware of what is going on at the moment, and my family knows too.

SAA = Surviving an Affair. It is the right book for your situation.

Go to Notable Posts and Read the thread "For the Newly Betrayed."

Then read the book ASAP.

Dr. Harley would encourage you to expose the affair far and wide and then enter Plan B.

Jess, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that have brought you here. It sounds like he has been actively pursuing women almost from the start. The issue is his philosophy of marriage, which is that he feels free to pursue other women. So of course you would be "insecure." That is the normal reaction to a playah.

Dr. Harley would advise you to expose his affair and then separate and go into Plan B. He will destroy your mental and physical health if this continues. Please take your time and read up on Plan B.

How do you know this, based on what he has told you? Or have you spoken to his ex wife to confirm this?

I would bet, given his behavior toward the opposite sex in your own marriage, that either he had affairs or they both had affairs which facilitated the end of his first marriage.

You already know he has been dishonest with you about many things throughout your marriage, so you can reasonably assume he has filled you full of crap about the demise of his first marriage too.

This describes a man who is still in an affair. I'm sorry but he is continuing this affair, just as he has all of the other times he told you it ended. He is continuing to see and compare you to his lover, and you cannot compete with this, nor is it attractive for you to.

You should not be 'trying to believe' him.

That is a dangerous and delusional stance. Anyone with sense can see he is trashing his marriage due to the love of the chase.

There isn't anything YOU can do about it, by competing with him and showing him love. That will only prop up the affair.

The affair is an addiction which a real marriage cannot possibly compete with. Everything is happy and perfect there and they lie through their teeth to each other to keep it that way. They only say nice things to each other and the only complaints are about you. That's why he needs to be on again/off again with you. His mistress likes the competition and it's all they have to talk about.

So allowing him to go back and forth doesn't help. You should allow the affair to become very unpleasant, because that's the only way to stop it. Exposure is the best way to kill the A for good.

If you were to go into Plan B, there's a better chance that the relationship will become real. Most affairs die a natural death because the fantasy is not sustainable.

However someone with your husbands history will probably bounce from one marriage to another. He will go through wives like Kleenex. The only way to find out is to go into Plan B and wait for the A to die a natural death.

Jesse you can't afford to be scared right now. You have to be a rock star for your little son. you have to hold the bar high if you want any chance of his having a daddy he can respect one day.

Tell him you love him SO much in your Plan B letter you cannot stand the pain and will not be in contact with him until he commits to you and your son properly.

Then stand back and you will see what he is really made of.

in Plan B you will be far more attractive, creating a far more attractive life and you will be a better mother - because you aren't being horribly abused!

Of course you were a bit rude while being blatantly cheated on!

I've asked the mods to move your thread to Surviving An Affair and I strongly recommend you read the book of the same name.

I am very concerned about how long you have been in Plan A. You can only Plan A for three weeks without harming your health. Dr H has outlined the symptoms it causes and in a few years on this forum I have even heard of betrayed wives losing their children to the OW because of the mental strain. One poster who helped me when I arrived here is dead now - she fell in love again but the years of Plan A with her first husband caught up with her and she died far too young of a sudden heart condition for such a young and vibrant woman. Her son had to leave his beloved stepdad and go live with his dad and OW stepmother. Who had both turned into drunks.

How long has it been since you ate or slept well - or felt happy? How high is your anxiety around him?

The A has an expiry date. You should keep yourself happy and well while it approaches. Don't become haggard before your time.

I don't see any mention of you exposing OW? I would do that and expose to anyone else who may be effective. Then I would go into Plan B. His moving out is the perfect opportunity to Plan B because he will leave expecting to come and go as he pleases. Once he is out you should change the locks and communicate only through va third party. You should only agree to drop these measures if and when he is ready to send a no contact letter to OW and commit to a recovery program.

OW will then be responsible for meeting all his needs by herself and exposing her before you disappear causes trouble in the A and starts the process on a bad footing.

This thread explains Plan B

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2482787

The purpose of Plan B is not to punish your spouse, but to protect you emotionally.