I have not seen any help for my particular situation. Everything I read is about restoring a marriage that is long term and/or has children or other reasons to stay together.

Here is my (long) story. My questions are at the end.

My H and I had dated over 3 years. I thought I knew him well. We are both professionals, in our mid 40's, and we have both been married before. His first marriage lasted 13 years and mine lasted 21 years. I have one grown daughter who does not live near us.

Last year before our marriage my H became involved with a married woman. I was completely clueless. He says they broke up after a couple of months - mostly over feeling guilty -- and then he and I got married. He immediately restarted the affair with the other woman after our marriage. Our "marriage" was entirely an illusion for me. It never even existed for him. He broke his vows immediately, betrayed me in such a cruel heartless way.

Our married life was horrible. He was mad at me all the time about everything. I started moving my things into his house after the wedding and he hated everything. Suddenly I couldn't move furniture in his house, couldn't hang pictures, couldn't put my dishes in the cupboard. I couldn't figure out what was going on with him. He was just always mad at me and we fought and I cried all the time. I didn't know all of this was because he was having an affair. I sold my house and spent most of the equity trying to pay down bills. He never even put any grocery money in our joint account and I had a brand new business that wasn't generating any income yet. I spent thousands of dollars of my own money on groceries and things for the house. He actually let me sell my house and furniture and all my appliances exactly one week before he told me he was leaving me for another woman. He left me completely homeless without any place to go.

We had been married a little less than 3 months when he told me he was in love with this other woman and he was leaving me. The woman is married, has 2 small children, and is 18 years younger than him.

I was completely shocked and shattered. I had no idea there was another woman in the picture at all. After his announcement about the other woman, he struggled for a week and decided that he wanted to stay with me after all. (She purposely brought things to a head by calling our house during dinner and telling my H that she'd just admitted the A to her H, and he'd kicked her out of the house. She was alone and scared and crying from a motel room.) I could tell from his end of the conversation that something very very strange was going on.

He hung up the phone after a bit and sat down and looked at me. He said: I have bad news. I've become involved with another woman and I want to be with her.

Needless to say, my world reshaped itself at that moment. The shock nearly knocked me to my knees and I started shaking and crying. Even today, nearly 11 months after he said those words, I cannot get over the shock. It was so unexpected, so totally out of the blue, and I was so so trusting and hopeful and newlywed.

In the end, he never did move out, and he never saw her again after that first week of fence-sitting. She went back to her husband.

We have stayed together (barely). Several times I have left him for a night or for a few days. He always manages to convince me to come back and try again. He says he loves me and wants us to stay together forever, that he wishes he'd never met her, that he wishes he could undo the past.

After 11 months, I alternate between being full of explosive rage and total numbness. We have been to two counselors who were virtually no help at all. He quit going for a month but started back after I told him I was leaving because he wasn't doing anything to make things work. I took anti-depressants for about 6 months but neither prescription helped much. We fight all the time about everything. I cry all the time. I have been struggling with debilitating depression. I had to close my business because I could not concentrate enough to do my job (I was a brand new attorney, just licensed for a few months when all this happened) and I lost a lot of money.

Last year I thought I was making a wonderful brand-new start in life. I was starting a new marriage with the man I'd loved for years, I had a brand new promising career and had just opened my own business. Within a few months everything crashed and burned. My marriage was non-existent, the business failed, my new career is nearly dead in the water.

The past year has been a rollercoaster ride. Two horrible things happened this past spring that made me decide our relationship was hopeless. First we took a week trip to a beautiful Caribbean island. It was supposed to be the honeymoon that would give us new happy memories. On the first night there we got into a fight and it ended with him yelling at me: Why did you drag me down here anyway? Who is our travel agent so I can get on the next plane out of here.

Needless to say, the "honeymoon" was yet another week of incredibly depressing memories.
Then in April when checking his cookies to see what he's doing online I discovered he was searching for the woman's email address. I confronted him with the knowledge. He insisted he had no intention of contacting her, she'd just passed through his mind and he wondered if she was ok.

I was not ok. I told him this had completely destroyed the last bit of new trust I had placed in him. No one looks for an email address so they have a way to NOT contact someone. A check of his cookies showed he'd been searching for her about once a month since "physically" ending the affair. There are many other things he has done over the past year that have increased my resentment and decreased my hope of a future.

Ok, I have to stop writing somehow. He quit his job and took a new one. He sold the house that he had the affair in (I couldn't stand to be in it), he has tried in many ways to fix things. We have just moved nearly a thousand miles away from the city where all of this happened. We have been here less than two months. We still fight all the time, we have registered to attend a Retrouvaille weekend in a coupld of weeks, but I told him I was ready to leave. I just can't live this way anymore. I am starting to feel very very old, and that life is very very short. I do not want to spend anymore years of my life feeling as miserable as I have the past year.

I do not love my H anymore. In fact, mostly I loathe him. I thing he is a reprehensible person, capable of incredible deception and betrayal. I do not want to stay in this "marriage" as I don't think one ever existed.

The reasons I stay are mostly that my deep depression has left me unable to make major decisions, that I was raised to be committed, loyal, trusting, honest and to forgive those who wronged you, and because of the extreme embarrassment of admitting the reason I will divorced is because I was so stupid as to marry a man involved in an affair. Also, there's still the shock of losing the dream so early on. It still seems incredible to me.

My questions are:
Has anyone heard of overcoming an affair when it was going on when you got married? There is no "history" to the marriage to hold us together. There were no "good years"; there are no children to keep us together.

Has anyone had to deal with a similar situation? How did you do it? How do people deal with this level of betrayal and deception? Is there really a way to forgive this? How?

Thanks for your time and suggestions.

I am sorry to hear you so sad. I don't have any advice or words, just do what is best for you. It sounds like you need to take care of you.
Good luck and hugs s

Sorry, one more thing. Is an affair why his first marriage ended. Im curious as to his history of honesty. S

His first marriage ended because his wife had an affair and left him. He says he never saw other women for the next 3 years whle he waited and hoped she'd come back to him. She never did. He finally divorced her when he realized she was never going to come back to him. He's lived alone for over 10 years until we got married last year.

He knows first hand the devastation an affair can cause. He lived through the pain. It makes it even less possible that this happened. I thought I knew this man.

Zoa ... you're a really good writer!

One thing struck me when reading your story ...

"I was so stupid as to marry a man involved in an affair."

Your intelligence is not in question. You're one smart woman. Feeling stupid for having been betrayed and lied to is soooo standard around here. Instead of working on forgiving him for now ... my opinion is this:

You need to forgive yourself.

Quit calling yourself stupid. You are not evil. You are not mean. You did nothing wrong. You are not stupid. You cannot see through walls. You cannot predict the stock market. You cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound ..... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Just for today ... and for tomorrow ... and perhaps a few days longer ... every time you pass a reflection of yourself in a mirror, or in a window ... say to yourself ... "Zoatora, you're a good and decent woman. I forgive you." And then give yourself a smile.

You can decide later if you want to stay in this M or not ... but you have to live with yourself no matter what ... so heal the wound that makes you say ugly things about yourself first.

Later ... you can take a look at WH and make up your mind. For now ... drop the relationship discussions with your H. Let the tide come in and go out without you pulling on it ... take a rest. Be kind and gentle with yourself ... and with him .... that won't cost you anything.

Peace,

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

<small>[ September 05, 2002, 03:01 PM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

I am so sorry you are going through this. I hope you have read the information at this site. Sounds like the two of you really need some help with communication. I think that if you can get to the point of talking about things instead of fighting you may have a start.

Ok, you said you have no "history" and no "good years", but I see things different. Sure, ok, so you don't have this in a "marriage" but you do have it in the "relationship". Look at the good and the history in the relationship itself. Start there. The fate of your marriage will be the same no matter what, but I think you need to determine what happened, and that is something the two of you need to venture through together.

Something is missing. Something wasn't being met for him and something isn't being met for you. Take the time to fill out the needs questionaires and see if that gives you a starting point. There is love there, if you didn't love him you wouldn't be here. Look between the lines here, a lot of this can apply to your situation.

I don't know how much this will help, but I hope it gives you a starting point. If there is anything else I can offer, just ask. I'm a bit short on words today because I'm a bit down, and I'm sorry for that. Usually I'm a lot longer winded. I'll check on you tomorrow. Hopefully I will be having a better day and can offer more. I wish you the best, and hope others can offer you some more insights. Take care.

What was missing (for him) was:
1. I am not a beautiful blonde with a 30 year old body.

2. I do not write him emails 5 times a day telling him how much I love him and crave him and can't wait to be with him again. (I read all her old mail when I accidentally found out I had access to all her old emails that he thought he'd deleted from his computer.)

3. I don't sneak into his office because I'm desperately eager to have contortionist sex with him on his desk. (The reality of him is arthritis and viagra, but I suspect that's not the picture he let her see of him.)

4. They were both professional musicians and I'm not. I cannot share the "spark" that classical chamber musicians create when playing off of each other's energy. (Yes, the music was a major attraction. He in fact once blamed the whole affair on them making music together. She just adored his playing.)

5. I don't have the flashy professional lifestyle she had (mostly provided by her husband) - the embarrassingly huge (tasteless)house, big (tasteless)SUV, my god - the woman's career is saving animals (veterinarian). What more could a man want? All I have is a bunch of student loans from the past 3 years of law school, and no job to pay it off with. I have a 10 year old car, no house (as I explained above) and my daughter's college loans.

Yes, I expect it was quite a rush for my H to have the adoring attention of this beautiful talented successful young woman. But what they had together was hardly reality. She was planning a wedding with H, while forgetting my H makes a bare fraction of the money her H does, he's much much older than her young hunk of a H, my H would be clueless about stepfathering her preschool children, and the list goes on and on.

All he ever had to say to me last summer when he started seeing her was, I think we should start seeing other people. Instead he asked me to marry him. Within 3 months of our marriage, he'd asked HER to marry him.

Can someone explain all this to me? He sure can't.

In your situation I think his affair had nothing to do with your relationship/unmet needs. Given your description of the OW it sounds like a midlife crisis affair.

I think he knew on some level that he could never have a "real" relationship with her and that's why he married you. But he found the relationship w/her very addictive and couldn't end it.

Is he willing to get some counseling to figure out why he did this? Without counseling I don't know how your marriage can recover.

We went to joint counseling for a while. He will not go to counseling by himself.

I agree it sounds like a mid-life crisis, but I don't think that's when a confirmed bachelor (he'd been divorced 11 years ) suddenly decides to propose to two different women within three months time. Isn't it a last grasp for freedom and youth?

I'm just incredibly confused by all of it. No one can explain it, least of all him. I do think therapy would help him. Thanks

zoatora,

There are many parallels between your story and mine. My H was having an EA with an old girlfriend, and several other women, during our dating, engagement and early marriage. I believe it was a character issue and that he had an entire secret life that he fully intended to carry on while married to me.

I sensed something was terribly wrong and eventually intercepted some damning emails shortly after we were married. I told him our marriage was over and made arrangements to sell our house and move away. A few days later he came to me and begged me to give him another chance. I agreed to go to counseling with him thinking that I would go to counseling a few times to be able to say that I tried before I dumped him. Because once I realized that he was a sneaky, deceitful adulterer, I wanted nothing to do with him. I could't feel love for a man with such a low character. I just felt nothing but disgust.

Anyway, to make a long story short, my H made a miraculous change over the course of a year and has become a trustworthy [verified!] loving, open and honest man. If I hadn't witnessed it, I wouldn't believe it but I can honestly say that I do respect and love him now and admire his character.

The reason my situation worked out is because my H felt remorse and made great changes in his life. If he hadn't done that, I wouldn't have wasted 2 seconds of my time. Noone here can tell you what to do, but you are in the prime of your life, not getting any younger and are married to a man who is STILL being deceitful and whom you can't trust. I would say if he were at least trying, you would have something to go on, but what do you have to go on? Personally, I would get out before more of my life was invested in a man who is just not marriage material and is not committed. Just my 2 cents............

I just realized it will be TWO years next month! Wow, does time ever fly.

Thank you for your story.

What made your H change so dramatically? Was it counseling/therapy or more?

I do know for sure that H has never contacted OW since the first week after d-day when he wasn't sure what he wanted. That she would cross his mind now and then is also not surprising. That we would act on that impulse to see if she has an email is something different.

If I wanted to listen to his explanation I might even be understanding, but I'm too angry and hurt and I don't want to understand. H says that OWs H cancelled her cell phone, her email accounts, won't let her have access to computers, reported all her credit cards as stolen and so on, when she told him about the A. He completely cut her off from everyone. (deservedly so, I might add)
At any rate my H's explanation of looking for her email address was to see if her H was still treating her badly.

I was very clear to H that it is hardly his concern and that I hoped OWs H is treating her badly. She knew exactly what she was getting into when she started an EA, and she knew she was making it worse when she continued it after H married me. She made bad choices, just like H, and they both have to face the repercussions. It just comes with the territory. No one walks away free from an A.

Zoa ~

I hope you are keeping a thoughts and feelings journal.

I found it to be so very helpful for my healing.

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by zoatora:
<strong>Thank you for your story.

What made your H change so dramatically? Was it counseling/therapy or more?

.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">HE changed when he became a Christian. He said it was like a black cloud was over his head that simply moved away. If I didn't see the remarkable changes with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it, but there is no other explanation. We only went to 3-4 counseling sessions, jointly, so it's not like he went through intensive therapy.

Yes, I've tried journaling. Sometimes it makes me more and more angry when I write things down. It gives me the opportunity to make lists of all the wrongs he's done to me. I am not sure it's theraputic for me or not.

We tried a double journal once where I wrote my thoughts down on one side of a sheet of paper and he was supposed to write his thoughts about what he was feeling and his responses to my feelings on his side. But it didn't work at all. He would just read what I wrote and get mad at me and not write anything back.

My last attempt was on our anniversary - Aug. 1st. I bought him a small box with little journal inside. The box is printed "Love Letters". I wrote a love letter in the journal and said that let's keep this book just for sweet things we want to say to each other. He's never written anything back to me.

You should have seen the emails he would send her. He's a very articulate man, and can express himself very well. But I have nothing in my box of love letters.

Melody
What made him want to become a Christian? Was it your counselor that pointed him in the right direction or did you go to something like Basic Youth Conflicts?

I have only seen a profound change in one person in my entire life, and that was my father after attending Basic Youth Conflicts.

zoatora,

I had mentioned earlier that I had agreed to go to counseling. I wanted to go to a Christian counseler because I have been able to relate to them so much better in the past. This particular counselor was a big Marriage Builders advocate and that is how I was exposed to MB.

Anyway, in the 3rd session, John asked my H if he was a Christian and if he knew he was going heaven. My H responded that he believed in God and hoped he could be "good enough" in the future to go to heaven. John explained how it really worked and asked my H if he wanted to say the sinner's prayer with him. That is how it all happened!

Zoatra,
I am in somewhat a similar situation as you are. My H started A 2-months before our M and I found out about it about 1 month after our M. A started right after my miscarriage. At that time, H was far away on his business trip, devastated by the news of miscarriage and had PA with OW. He invited OW to meet him there before the news of miscarriage and why he did that is a whole another story --- possibly suggesting the problem was "there" already whether or not I had a miscarriage. Obviously after that OS, they continued their A. She is in Japan, so physical contact was limited. However, 2-months after the initial PA, my H lied to me and went to Japan to see her (told me it was a business trip). He called me while he was there and asked me to marry him as soon as he gets back. We were already engaged at that point, but our plan was to get married a month later. I was puzzled by the urgency in his voice and also by the fact that he did not call me for close to a week since he never missed his daily phone calls to me over our close to 2-years courtship. Nonetheless, I was happy to marry him, so we did. 3 weeks later I found out I was pregnant with his child again. 2 more weeks later, I found out about his on-going A. It was almost a year ago. He continued his A even after D-day, went to Japan to see her twice --- the last one was when I was 8-months pregnant. I also found out that he proposed to her and I saw his e-mails to her suggesting some very constructive plans for wedding, honeymoons, etc. with specific dates, etc. He finally stopped contacting her in early May this year. But who knows he could still be sending her e-mails, etc.

Our M has been a sure h**l. I feel the same way as you do. We just do not have a long history between us. Therefore, I feel like there is not anything to "salvage". I did give a birth to our baby back in April, but that alone is sure not enough for me to stay in our M. My H also told me at more than once occasion that his M to me was a big mistake, and having a baby with me was also a gigantic mistake. Very hurtful.

I was recently diagnosed with a moderate case of depression. I go through mood swings, fears, anger, countless nights with nightmares, no sleep, and tears, tears, tears. We talked about separting at more than a few occasions. We had so many discussions, pointing fingers at each other, but also lots of making up, hugging, kissing, and "I love you"s. Recently I have been feeilng so bad that my H really started to questioning whether I will ever recover from this or not. Mind you, other than stop contacting OW, so far, he has not gone to MC or read any book or anything. In other words, I did not really feel that he was trying to repair our M although that is probably not a fair statement.

Then one night, after another tearful talk with me, he told me that he thinks I am really demented. He also told me I should get a grip of myself and try not to focus so much on what I cannot control (i.e., him or him cheating again, etc.) and that if I become who I was again (i.e., confident, secure, etc.), maybe all those things I am looking for to get from him may start coming without asking. I thought he had a point. More than anything, I hated who I became as a result of his A. I felt stupid, unattractive, needy, insecure, etc., etc.

So, I decided to fix myself first before I make any kind of decision to stay or to leave. That is what my IC has been telling me all along anyway. To focus on my own recovery, taking care of myself. I consciouslly not to pay too much attention to what he does or he says (for now). I went to get a new haircut for myself yesterday. I kept it long for a while because my H likes longer hair even though I hate it. OW had her hair down to her a**. I am not going to try to be someone I am not. As a result, my H, indeed has been nicer to me. He even told me that something kicked back in him (i.e., loving feeling toward me ??). He even told me that he would devote his lunch hour every day to surfing this website to gain knowledge so that he would be able to help me. And most importantly, I feel much better.

So, it's been a long story, but I do not think you have to force yourself to make the decision now. Try to heal yourself first so that you would not make the decision you may regret later on. I think you still love him, otherwise, why do you hurt so much ??

Thank you all for sharing your similar stories and suggestions. I don't feel like I'm the only person in the world duped into marriage.

I do feel like I need to make a decision to go or stay soon because the past year has been extremely hard on me. Nothing ever really gets better or gets worse, it just drags on and on and I'm just miserable. I put a deadline of Oct. 15th on it. It was an artibrary date I picked and told my H because it coincided with the end of the lease where we're temporarily living. He never took things seriously until I put an end date to things. Then suddenly he got us registered for the Retrouvaille weekend in Sept. Although first he registered us for the Oct 12th seminar. I said I thought he might be cutting it a little close to expect enough change in the marriage in 3 days for me to decide to stay.

Tonight H is out of town. I spent some time working through Dr. Phil's Relationship Rescue book. I got to part where I was supposed to look at all my answers to questions about the future and saw that I had written things like "I don't think about the future" or left things blank. I suddenly realized I must still be extremely depressed and I need to address this first, then all the other problems. I guess I need to go back to the doctor and start anti-depressants again although I didn't think they were working at the time. Perhaps they were helping more than I realized.

For those of you who have situations similar to mine -- how did you get over the shock? I think the shock and timing of the news of the A was worse than the A. It's like insult to injury when you're telling your bride of a few months that you're in love with someone else and leaving her.

I wish I could erase the memories of this past year. I know this sounds crazy - but has anyone ever heard of a hypnotist being able to ease away memories? Is such a thing possible? Or are lobotomies still available?

Thanks to everyone who replied.

zoa,

I was already IN a state of shock before I found out, because of recent earth shattering tragedies, or I wouldn't have married him in the first place. There were red flags all over the place that should have told me he was NOT marriage material. The truth is that he married me under false pretenses. He hid WHO he was. He hid his private life from me.

Strangely, I wasn't shocked at all when I discovered his affair, but relieved. Because I knew something was very very wrong. Had I been in my right mind I would have never married him. I have pretty good judgement usually, but my judgement was very impaired during this time due to the death of my boy.