My marriage was based on this simple agreement...You lie to me, you cheat on me, you lose me!!! I'm not a man who has an easy time with compromise or grey areas. Help! Wife met man for coffee 3hrs. Told me afterwards. She felt guilty becauise of sexual feelings towards him.
Was the Meeting a cheating, and does ommission until after the fact qualify as a lie. And how do I re-instate the original premise of trust and repercussion into our marriage after this compromise of hers.
Terry

Welcome to MB.

First read everything you can on this site.

Second I sugest getting "Surviving an Affair" and "His Needs, Her Needs" both can be ordered from this web site.

Third, think about Marriage Counsling before it is too late.

It's not as easy as saying "you lie, you cheat, you lose me." People make mistakes. Talk to your wife about these things and see if she is willing to come along.

Come here for support. This place is a life saver to me.

Good Luck.

Hi Bourbons,

I'd hate to live under the conditions that you've set for a marriage. I do understand your feelings of wanting your spouse to be faithful to you.... I think that we all expect that from our spouses.

To answer your question... It sounds like your W showed very poor judgement in meeting an OM for 3hrs... but this doesn't constitute an affair or cheating. You should consider yourself lucky that your W chose to share her feelings with you BEFORE something did happen. I know that many BS here sure wish that their WS had done so before deciding to move to an EA or PA.

On re-instating trust... you have a golden opportunity to build trust in your M by responding to your W's revelation that she has feelings for this OM. She needs to be able to trust YOU enough to tell you when she is attracted to someone else. Being attracted to someone else is not cheating...

Read all that you can here on the MB web site and thank your W for being honest with you with her true feelings...

Take care,
RIF90

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" /> We have our second therapy session today at 4:00 P.M. I guess I want to get past the first step of denial and admit that she has lied & cheated, regardless of magnitute or degree. And, that "affairs or meetings of secrecy" have stopped or will stop now. Or the end result will be divorce, separation, and the end of my trying to work on our marriage. And, yes I need to read & read, everything on this wonderfull site. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

Terry

bourbons, that is certainly not an affair, but indicates that there are some underlying problems [or the start of one] going on here that need to be explored. And you can't explore them if you are shrieking accusations at her and threatening to end your marriage. Why not relax a little and read the material on this website. Take the emotional needs questionaire with her and find out what is going on here. If you haven't made her too scared to be open and honest about her feelings, that is. She might be having 3 hour coffees with men because she is not getting her needs met at home. THAT is what you need to determine.

Hi Bourbons. So sorry you are going through this pain. However, the others are right, count the blessing that you felt secure enough in your relationship to come to you and say - this is what happened, and this is how I felt/feel. She is screaming to you for help in the relationship. She is saying I see there is some sort of problem here but I need your help to find it and fix it.

I understand what you are saying about lie, cheat, & lose. My husband often mentioned that if I ever cheated he'd leave instantly. We are now fastly approaching our 1 yr. since d-day (1 yr. of rebuilding). We are doing very well, and have progressed tremendously. He does not trust me the way he once did, nor do I expect him to right now, but the trust is slowly being regained. We have one of our biggest tests coming in a couple of weeks (which I will post about soon under my own thread, if you care to read it).

Point is, my DH and I have grown strong together. We are doing great and I can foresee a strong and long future for us together. We are happy again, and growing happier by the day.

It is a long hard road, but is is possible to work past and it is well worth the effort. It appears obvious that your wife desire to take this road with you, and I don't think you are in any way demeaning your values. It may seem that she stabbed at your value of trust in going for coffee with this man, but think of the value for you and your marriage that she showed when she came to you to talk about it and tell you the truth.

Value her openness and let her know you appreciate it. Also, I would suggest that you simply discuss with her how this affects you and how you feel inside. Let her know that you apprciate her openness and that you hope she will continue to be this way, but that you need her to know that as you will try to handle things in the most productive manner that sometimes it may be difficult and you hope she will work with you through all the obstacles as you will agree to work with her.

I hope this helps. I wish you the best. Take care.

It's hard to do everything right & not make mistakes upon mistakes. Thanks. Please, look at my other post under To consent or not to consent to an open marriage.

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Embarrassed]" src="images/icons/blush.gif" /> Terry