How do you know and what are the signs if your spouse is sincere after their affair and the marriage is on the right course?
Background of the affair
From the months of July 2002-December 2002-, my wife had an emotional affair that turned into a one time sexual experience with the other man, her manager. During this time the other man convinced my wife that all would be fine if him and his girlfriend and us would become friends, naive my wife believed him. Furthermore, my wife was scared to mention the affair to me because she knows how I feel about cheats. In addition, the other man reassured my wife that if I found out, she would lose everything with me but on the same note, this man mentioned that my wife could live with him. So basically it was scare tactics and blackmail from the other man that prevented my wife from telling me. Later on my wife riddled with guilt, and shame told me everything after the other man called my wife and gave her a hard time about her not meeting him at a Barnes and Noble book store. In a nutshell this guy loved my wife by she did not love him, so he became frustrated about not having my wife.

Today:
Since the whole escapade, we are in marriage therapy and my wife is going above and beyond the call of duty to atone for her sins and to reassure me nothing will ever happen like this again and she reminds me how much she loves me and not him.
We remind each other of our commitment to the marriage, we write love letters to each other, we try to spend quality time together, do more things, weather permitting. Basically we shocked our selves into working things out, and realized hey.. we are married to each other plus we are thinking of having children.

Me:
I am a moody person and have been diagnosed with anxiety with obsessive-compulsive behavior. Sometime I picture my wife with the other man and I can’t stop thinking about it. I could work a bit harder to get over this, since it has been 3 months.

Question
1.How do you know and what are the signs if your spouse is sincere after their affair and the marriage is on the right course? I know I heard time will tell, but is there more?

2. How can I know if my wife is scamming me again and not leading a double life? I snoop once in a while and have found nothing.

3. We want kids, because I am 36 and my wife is 25. I’m getting older in life. However, I know from past experience with my parents and sisters divorce, that once you have kids and marriage fails its can of worms. Is now a good time for this?

4. pinch me, if everything sounds to rosey

You are at a crossroads. You can either choose to grant your wife some trust, or you can choose to jump at shadows indefinetly. When I was at your crossroads, I chose to grant some trust. Why? Because the uncertainty of jumping at shadows would have probably driven me nuts. After some time of him NOT betraying this trust, I was able to adopt the attitude of "This trust belongs to me, I'm granting it to you. Freely. I will NOT jump at shadows, but will not ignore them either. As proved to be the case the 1st time, I know that if you are having another A, it WILL come out, and I already know how I will react to you betraying my trust again."

I finally had to come up with an action plan should he do it again in order to feel empowered enough to back off and trust and enjoy the progress we'd made. If he does it again, the marriage is over. No questions asked. If he can betray me and our marriage with things going as rosy as they are, then he's not worth being married to. That's my stand.

I'm not going to pinch you because I'm a year farther down the road than you are, and things are still just as rosy if not more so than they were at the 3 month mark. Some here may discourage you, and I suppose there's a place for words of warning, but I've had an excellent recovery that started much as yours did. Put your heart into it and give her 100%. I'll betcha you'll get 100% or more back!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

You can either choose to grant your wife some trust, or you can choose to jump at shadows indefinetly.
Uh, she has to earn the trust. She may be very sincere & doing absolutely everything 100%.

True you can't be watching her ALL the time (nor should you) but she has to be an open book to you. That means letting you know everything she does & everyone she see, talks to, emails, etc. She should be willing to do all this without you having to ask her who she had lunch with at work and such.

But remember, it's a two way street. What you expect from her you need to give to her.

Also, she needs to get a new job immediately. Working with the person she had an affair with is not going to do anyone any good.

Also, since it was with her manager, things WILL happen again in time. Whether it's them getting back together, them fighting, her getting fired, whatever.

SKYLINE

Thank you for the insight. My wife know that if she has an affair again that I will call it quits. This is why she is determined to convince me otherwise.
I realize that I can not go my whole life watching over her back every day. It becomes a full time job.
I basically forced my wife to quit her job the night I found out. I called her company and told her what was going on and the other man lost his job for sexually harassing her. Needless to say it was hard more for her because she made other friends there as well, but she knows that she is not to have any contact with anyone at Staples Inc. ever again.

What I will never understand, is why people have affair knowing that the ourcome will be a distater in the end. In addition my wife learned a hard lesson and now realizes it is never worth having an affair and ruining lives in the process. It is too much baggage to carry for the rest of your life, of what you have done.

Well, let me give you another case. It's two months, nearly, since my H told me about the OW (one month fling). He insists that there's been no contact. Still, he is rather cold and unaffectionate. But he's here.

He says the affair is his fault, not mine. That he falls into emotional ruts in marriages (I'm his third), then the affair that ends the marriage. He thought to break the pattern this time.

It's true I was very unhappy -- pulling my hair out, begging for counseling, begging him to tell me what was wrong before the affair. After D Day, I hit the roof and it took me some time to come down. He feels I "overreacted."

Says he still thinks things may not work out with us, that the emotional efforts needed to overcome his patterns may be too much for him. Not sure he loves me enough, etc. Other times, he seems somewhat committed to change. His reactions are still all over the place. He changes from day to day. No good talking to him, because I don't know which group of feelings he's in, but whatever, they are likely to change.

Emotional needs questionnaire showed his fear of wanting anything -- tepid needs, being served adequately by me. He won't tell me what he needs to make things better. On my side, I was running on empty -- emotional needs unmet while being the giver. Still love him, of course.

Help! Any experience out there?

When my H wanted recovery:
--his life was an open book (affair-secretive, needed his privacy, his space)

--gave me passwords to his email, voice mail, was where he said he'd be, or he called.

--went to counseling on his own

--found male Christian friends for accountability (affair--sleezy friends)

--read the books SAA, After the Affair, & others to work on the areas he needed to change.

--didn't complain when I checked up on him.

As his behavior proved consistant and trustworthy over months, now years, my ability to trust came back.

Well I feel that over time my trust have towards my wife will completely come back. I have only two options work things out or get a divorce. My wife realizes that the next time is the last time. As the saying goes "cheat on me once shame on you, cheat on me twice shame on me" I have to believe that things will get better with my wife and me. Mostly it is really up to me though, because she has confirmed over and over again and again that she was wrong, she loves me and wants us to be happy together.

I have to believe that things will get better with my wife and me.
Just believing they will get better does nothing. You have to take positive actions to make thembetter.

I can relate to your experience. My H had an A and didn't tell me about it. I felt there was something wrong...then after we bought our house and moved in I found out all on my own. I am an emotional roller coaster and extremly hurt. I too have a hard time letting go and keeping it out of my mind because it comes up again and again. It is awful. I have to say I am sorry that people have A's because they cause so much pain. My H said I was not paying enough attention and I worked too much (when he was off too). I thought I was working toward a common goal but in the mean time he met some woman that was there for him since I was not. I don't understand why he would not come to me first. I really don't. At this point I am not even sure I can go on with my marriage. He wants a baby and so do I but I don't think I am ready to bring a child into this world knowing what he has done and how he has betrayed me and my trust. Well, I hope your marriage gets back in order & the love bank deposits are made.

jenHurts
Wow!!! Are you sure we did not marry the person?!
Most of everything you mentioned has/is happening to me.
We bought a house in July and I found out 4 months later about my wifes affair with her boss.
Tell me was your husbands affair with someone at work?
Oh ya I heard the same from my wife as well about not giving her enought attention so she seeked it elsewhere. So does that bascially mean that I best be on my toes because God knows if I don't give her enough attention again she will have another affair. Talk about walking on eggshells for the rest of your life.

I thought in the past we where working for the same goals as well. House, marriage, kids, ect..
Oh and believe me my wife is doing the same about wanting kids now. To me those are selfish thoughts. are kids going to improve on a damaged marriage, I think not at least yet.

How did you find out? My wife confessed to me, but I think she had to because I was starting to notice phone / cell phone bills where mysteriously dissapearing an getting paid by them selves.
Now I have my wife on a leash so short I know everything that happens with her. She realizes that one slip up. one phone number I don't reconize and shes out just like that no questions asked. In additon, if the other man is shiffing around he knows his [censored] is mine