I just "celebrated" my 25th anniversary, have been unhappy with my marriage for many years and don't know what to do about it. When I was a teenager I wanted to marry a good-looking man who was a Christian but not a minister. When I was 18 I married a man 5 1/2 years older than I after knowing him about 4 or 5 months! He was NOT good-looking and I knew he was going into the ministry!! I was extremely unhappy with my home life and pretty much feel I married the first thing that came along just to get away from home. Anyway, about 8 years into our marriage he went to seminary as well as working full-time and we spent very little time together. My needs weren't being met, and I had, I guess, an brief emotional affair with an extremely good-looking man who wasn't having HIS needs met at home. My husband and I were getting ready to move to another part of the state anyway, so that relationship ended. I've pretty much been living in limbo for years, and we developed separate interests. I get more emotionally from my dog than my husband. In the past I tried to talk to my husband about problems and he became defensive and yelled at me, so I shut up to avoid a fight. We haven't had sex in 6 years because I am so turned off by his weight problem and his physical inactivity and his past controlling behavior. I think he has been trying to appease me because he bought me a new car and sometimes does nice things, but I am totally emotionally distant. Now here's the worst part: Last summer, with no warning at all, I suddenly fell "in love" with a man at my church. This was also emotional with kissing. This relationship was very brief, and I cannot say that I regret it. I hadn't felt what I did for YEARS, and it was wonderful. I wanted it to go further but the man had enough sense and said no. Now things are great between him and his wife, but things are worse in my marriage, because I compare my friend to my husband. My friend is extremely good-looking and has a great personality and is well-liked by everyone, and when I look at my husband I see the opposite. There is nothing physically attractive to me AT ALL. I went through extreme depression and am still in it. It's worse on weekends, because that's when I see my friend at church. It hurts because he acts as if nothing ever happened between us. I read on Marriage Builders that people should move away or otherwise stop contact, but to do that would mean my husband would have to give up his pastoring job! I am unwilling to leave this area because I like my job and I'm taking some evening college courses.

I want to know if my feelings for my friend will ever go away. And how am I supposed to be attracted to my husband when I am repulsed by his appearance? I feel I am hopelessly attracted to good-looking men. I am also going through midlife crisis and feel desperate to get what I want before I am too old. (I know that is a totally selfish attitude, but that's what I feel.)

There is NO WAY I would tell my husband about my emotional (and physical) ties to other men and what I really want in a man. He can never be what I want (good-looking). I can't leave him, because he would lose his job and in his field would probably not be able to find another. I know I have done wrong; I know years and years ago we should have gotten things settled; I'm not good at conflict resolution. I don't know what to do. I feel like I will live the rest of my miserable existence in limbo and never fulfilled.

Willies Mom

First thing, outer looks can be deceiving. What you see on the outside isn't really important, its the inside that counts. I'm not saying an A is OK, its not!

Now comes the hard part. You need to tell your H. You need to tell him of your EA's, of what your feeling, emotional and otherwise. You need to do this now, not later. There must have been something that attracted you to your H. You both need to start reconnecting. If your not comfortable talking to him, write him a letter. Do something, you both need help. I would also recommend MC for both of you and IC for you.

What you take for appeasement, might be his attempt to reconnect with you. He just might not be able to communicate it. And from what you say your EN's were not being met, and I doubt his are either. Strange how both people in a marriage will spiral down together, neither knowing how to talk, to share whats happening. One of you needs to break the ice. And, it will have to be you.

Its taken both of you to create this problem. It will take both of you to work on the marriage. Be open and honest. If you want your M, and a better one. A redeemed one, it will take both of you.

I will tell you this, my W's OM had a good cover, inside he was dead, still is as far as I know. He used lonely, confused women. He would manipulate them into an emotional attachement, the into a physical affair. His only interest was in his own needs for SF. He neither cared for or loved any of the women he slept with. He has played this game for over 30 years, and I don't know how many women he has left in pain. I tell you this because I don't want you to fall victem to that type of shark.

Read all the material you can on this site, read Surviving an Affair, His Needs/ Her Needs, and Torn Asunder. Keep posting.

As a man whose wife did some similar thigs to him, except the affair parts went farther and longer, I want to slap you upside the head. Don't you understand that your refusal to be honest with your husband is CAUSING you to be disconnected from him? In addition, he cannot rectify a problem that he does not know exists - so your dishonesty is causing him to be unable to effectively work on your relationship. I, too, did "nice" things for my wife, but she was never honest with me, and so they missed the mark. I know this avoidance is not all your fault - his response to your requests to work on your problems is deplorable - and you probably need professional help to get him to deal with them.

I'll bet your lack of attraction to your husband has more to do with how he acts than how he looks. As long as you don't tell him what bothers you, he has no incentive to change his habits. My wife excused her affair partly on the grounds that "John can't give me what I need, because he is just not that kind of a guy". The truth, which she found out only after she started being honest, was that I could meet her needs MUCH better than the OM, once I knew what they were. BTW, her honesty with me started with confessing her affair out of the blue, I did not discover it.

You have had two affairs, but never resolved the issues that led to them. If you do not resolve those issues, you will have another, and it will likely go further than the last. Recovery from an affair is hard, but it can be done. In your case, as in mine, it should be fairly easy to have a much better marriage than you EVER had in the past. Here's how: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. If your spouse is NOT willing to work on your marriage, or is continuing an affair, read What Are Plan A and Plan B? after reading the "Basic Concepts" links below. In that case, you need to start Plan A with the help of a marriage counselor (see item #2, below). There are a couple terrific posts about Plan A that are worth reading at: Plan A, Doormats and Love Busters by Zorweb and Cerri on Plan A, which will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Your situation is harder, but your chances of saving your marriage and actually making it better than before are still good. But, whether your spouse is "on board" or not, you should do three things:

1.) Learn. Read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity Then buy and read “Surviving an Affair”, by Willard Harley, (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them.

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity Read it while you wait for your copy of "Surviving an Affair" to arrive in the mail. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

<small>[ November 20, 2003, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>