Four years ago I had an emotional affair. My wife found out and I believed we moved past it. Six months ago, my wife suggested we try an open relationship. I told her I didn�t really like the idea. That it made me uncomfortable. She said I could try first. I asked if we should set up rules and guidelines. She said; no just tell her if anything happens. I should have said no, this is an awful idea. But, instead I started talking to other women.

My wife found out and was very upset, saying I was again cheating on her. One of the women I had been talking to is a woman I work with, I told her if this makes her uncomfortable, let�s stop, that I didn�t really want this, and was completely transparent with my relationship with the coworker. I asked if she wanted me to get another job, she said no.

Three months passed that were a little tense. I asked if she wanted a divorce our counseling several times, she said no every time. That we were just in a low point and it would get better. I thought it was until one night she went out with some friends and some guy gave her his number. She started talking to him, and hiding it from me. About 2 weeks after this, she said she wanted a divorce.

I was and am heartbroken. I asked her to try and work this out with me. We have two kids, 4 & 6, a house together and have been together since 05, and I still love her. She said no, she wanted a divorce. So I started going through the steps, getting a lawyer, figuring out child care, and all the rest of the miserable process.

A week after she said she wanted a divorce, she said she wanted to work it out and go to counseling. I stopped everything divorce related at once and jumped at the chance to try and rectify our marriage. We set up counseling and have gone twice over 3 weeks. (I had to miss one because I found out my dad has cancer and took him in for surgery) During this time, I found she is still talking to this guy she met, daily.

Last week I asked her how she thought we were doing, and she said she no longer loves me, doesn�t really want to work it out, and will continue to go to counseling until our 4-year-old starts kindergarten, and then she�s gone. I told her that her relationship with this guy is making me uncomfortable and all she does is hid it from me now. I have since told her that I am going to stop asking, but if she ever wants to talk to me about it, I�m here to listen, but haven�t actually called her out on her affair. Please help me. I have recently found out about marriage builders and am now scared it�s a little too late. I want to save my marriage. Want to be a better husband and get through this, but it weighs on me every day. She can be so nice one minute, and so distant the next. What should I do? Is there any hope of saving this? Please help me. We have counseling Thursday

There is hope but it will require you to make radical changes to your lifestyle.

First, you need to go to her and tell her that it was a huge mistake for you to agree to an open marriage. Tell her that you love her and you are sorry for the past, that you are willing to make the changes necessary to create a better and SAFE marriage. Demand that she end her affair.

Read the Exposure 101 thread in the Notable Posts section. You will want to expose your multiple affairs. You need to expose her current affair to fight it and bust it up. But you should also expose your own affairs. You both need accountability and support to get through this.

Is the current OM married? If so, his BS should be at the top of your exposure list.

I would put money on the fact that she has had multiple affairs herself, or this current affair has been going on for longer than you think. When a spouse suggests an open marriage, it is almost always because they are already interested in someone else. It is their way of making it OK.

Do you still work with the coworker OW? If yes, you will need to quit that job. You will need to never see or speak to anyone who either of you have had affairs with again. I would highly suggest moving from your area to make a clean start in a monogamous marriage.

Thank you for the advice.

I told her I regretted agreeing to it. Her answer is I should have advocated for myself harder. In one of our sessions she said she brought it up because she was board in our marriage which blew my mind. I missed the suggestion as the red flag it was.

I have told her that I love her and want to change to help identify and meet her emotional needs, but she says she�s so burnt out she doesn�t really care or believe me.

I have no idea who the other OM is, or anything about him. I know his first name. That�s it. She has hidden everything else from me. I am all for exposing everything if it will help.

I do still work with the OW, and have taken steps to cut her out of my life. I switched buildings I work out of and stopped talking to her. I made my phone accessible to my wife while I was asking if she wanted me to find another job. I am totally willing to find something else.

We have counseling Thursday and I�m thinking about bringing it up then, but have no idea. I don�t want her to throw up a wall, and I�m scared she�ll just say she�s done and wants out. I know that�s on the horizon, as she said, and my day to day life right now is awful, but I have a semblance of my married life and am scared for it to end. I'm trying to figure out plans A & B, and how to implement them.

If anyone could give me advice on how to address her in counseling, I would appreciate it. I do not want to drive her away.

I hear you saying you that you advocated against the open marriage. But in reality this isn't true. If my H came to me and asked me for an open marriage, I would be shocked and would absolutely not go along with it under any circumstances. You may have said no, but then went out and had an affair under the guise of an open marriage. When your W was upset about it, you continued to do it because you were transparent about it and you are acting as if this made it OK. It was not OK and hurt your wife deeply, whether she agreed to it or not.If I were your wife, I would feel very very uncared for and unprotected.

I would refrain from making the open marriage concept something you hold her accountable to, when you yourself took complete advantage of it. It was a decision you BOTH made that was very harmful to your marriage.

Were you here to get information about Marriage Builders? The MB program is completely different from marriage counseling. It has been our experience that marriage counseling is destructive to marriages.

Counseling is in general a very bad idea. The reason is because most marriage counselors have no idea how to deal with affairs. Many many people come here with stories about marriage counseling that almost destroyed their marriages. I personally went through a couple marriage counselors myself before I got here, looking back I know that it was a complete waste of money and had I stayed in traditional marriage counseling we would be divorced.

Right now you need to forget about counseling and focus on killing this affair. You cannot fix a marriage when there is an active affair going on. Exposure is going to be your best weapon to kill the affair. You also need to go into "Plan A." Plan A is basically a two part process of 1) being at your best at all times, meeting her needs and avoiding any lovebusters, while simultaneously 2) doing everything in your power to end the affair. You want to present yourself as the best option to her, while also putting great pressure on the affair.

You need to find this information out. It doesn't sound like she works very hard to hide the fact that she is in an affair, so it should be relatively easy to snoop on her. Can you put a VAR in her car or any other place she might be talking to him? Can you put spyware on her phone? It is crucial that you get the facts about what affair or affairs she is having, so you can do a complete and thorough exposure.

Unwritten you are correct. I should have said no. I regret not doing it. I know I hurt my wife deeply which is why she started her own affair. I said no, but then she continued to bring it up and tell me we should do it. This is the way I feel. To me, I would have never otherwise done this, had I not been asked to try it out. The emotional affair I had four years ago was the worst thing I have ever done. It ate at me ever since. She told me to, then tell her. While I feel this way, I don't want to hold her accountable to it. I messed up.

Melody Lane, I am here about information about Marriage Builders. I'm doing marriage counseling because I have no other tools available to me at this time

This is not enough. Every day you go to work with the OW, is a day your WW is triggered about your affair. Whether she asked you to or not, YOU need to take the initiative here and quit this job. You need to never see or speak to this OW again.

Do you understand that you are waiting for your wife to lead the way here, you are letting her make decisions that are destructive to your marriage and you are just going along with them saying 'its not my fault because that's what she wants.' If you want to fix this, you need to take the lead and turn this around. You need to stop agreeing to things that are destructive to your marriage. An open marriage is destructive, obviously. Having affairs is destructive. Working with one of your OW's is destructive. So stop.

You need to quit this job and never see or speak to this OW again. Tell your wife you are quitting the job, because you know your affair hurt her deeply and you want her to feel safe.

How do you know the first OW, from 4 years ago? Do you ever see or speak to her?

It is your lucky day Daceman. Because the advice of Dr Harley, founder of Marriage Builders, is the best tool available to fight affairs and help recover marriages. I cannot guarantee that it will work in your case, with multiple affairs and so much destruction, but if you follow the advice it is your best chance possible. I am not paid to say that. I am someone just like you who came here for advice and turned my marriage around, as are all of the posters here.

What are you bringing up? That she is having an affair? I would assume that she knows she is having an affair.

This is one of the problems with counseling. There is a lot of talk and no action, no PLAN to follow to fix things. An affair is an addiction, you cannot talk her out of having one. You cannot rationalize with her. You cannot make her fall in love with you by 'talking' about all the pain you have caused. You cannot repair your marriage by talking.

I would suggest you ask her to ditch the counseling session and go out on a date instead. Take her out to do something she really enjoys, be at your best.

Meanwhile, start snooping and get more information about the OM.

He has a book, surviving an Affair, I'm picking it up after work. I am looking for steps and appreciate the advice you've given me. It has been very helpful. Are there more steps I can take? Should I take charge tonight and talk to her, about finding a new job, and how sorry I am. Should I confront her about her own affair tonight. I want to apologize. I'm not even mad at her. I just want her to know I am sorry I wasn't there for her emotional needs but I want to learn how to be. I feel like I'm lost and have no map.

I have been snooping. She's hidden everything from me. I have his name and that's it. I will ask her if she wants to ditch counseling and go on a date, but I fear her answer. I feel helpless

This is going to be hard to write, even though no one here knows me. After all, to me, this is the lowest thing I have ever done. The OW was a friend�s girlfriend. We hung out a lot as a group and talked a lot. At the time, I was working fulltime and going to school full time and truly felt like my wife did not care about me. So, my relationship with this OT grew and I hid it. We never held hands or expressed love for each other, but it doesn�t matter. I had someone else I was emotionally confiding in. Since then, I have cut her out of my life, and see him on occasion when we get together with mutual friends. I�m going to cut him out of my life too.

Her phone is hidden from me. She password protected it along with all of her other email accounts. As for a VAR, I have no idea what that is.

Voice Activated Record. It records only when sound is present. Velcro one in an area where she is likely to have private conversation or activities with OM. They are an effective form of intel.

If you have his name, have you searched online for information on him? Checked social media?

Okay, I'll pick one up, but that will be hard to listen to. I have his first name. Nothing else. I'm trying to figure out her password to get onto some of her accounts to see if I can get his last name or something. I put a keylogger on our computer, but she never uses it anymore. Just her phone, which is now password protected and always with her.

Does she have an iPhone and do you know her Apple ID and password?