I posted this earlier in "Emotional Needs" but maybe that was the wrong place to get advice.

My H and I have been together for 24 years. For the past twelve years my H has used me to fulfill only one of his EN -- domestic support. (And to some extent financial support to help supplement the family income to ensure he could buy/do whatever he wanted.) He has looked to other women to meet his other needs -- attractiveness, attention, recreation, and sexual fulfillment.

In this same time he failed to meet my needs for anything except financial support. I didn't receive the attention, family committment (we have two sons), honesty and openness, or conversation I needed.

The changes in our marriage seemed to happen gradually - I thought it was the natural progression of a long term relationship - but in the past two years, we became more like roommates then H and W.

When my H disclosed one PA in September which had just ended after six years, I thought my world was coming to an end. I soon discovered he was also engaged in an EA with another woman in the months before his admission. In October, just when I thought I had decided to stay in the marriage, he disclosed an earlier PA. So, in all, he has admitted As with 3 women in the past twelve years -- all disclosed to me within the past 2 1/2 months.

I had no clue, no suspicions, that my H was having affairs. We were married 12 years when he started the first one. I trusted him completely and he took advantage of my trust.

During this twelve years I suffered several periods of depression. At the time I didn't understand why -- I just knew I was incredibly sad. Now I think I was probably just very unhappy with my marriage. I had never considered divorce and never thought about going outside the marriage. I guess depression was my way of coping (or not coping) and having affairs was my husband's way.

After spending so many years not meeting each other's needs, how do you start?? There is a lot of tension and awkwardness. Now we not only have to work on problems in the marriage -- we have to deal with the affairs too. It would have been so much easier to work through the EN questionaire and make a committment to make each day an opportunity for growth if I didn't have these ugly memories of years of unfaithfulness -- years of selfishness -- years of failing to be a good father. I still can't believe this has happened. I can't stand knowing that other women knew more about my marriage than I did -- they knew more about my husband and what he was thinking.

Do you have to work through accepting the As before you can move on to meeting the ENs?? I know my emotions are very unpredictable with the memories/triggers and sometimes I ask myself, "Why would I want to stay married to this person? I don't even know who he is." The pain is eating me up from the inside. I am so afraid he will do this again. You know, "fool me once, shame on you -- fool me twice, shame on me." This time I was exposed to a STD -- next time it could be HIV or the OW's angry husband.

I know the marriage won't survive unless we are both committed but I'm not sure if that is what I want anymore.

Toofargone,

It doesn't sound too far gone to me at all. It will take A LOT of work but there really is hope *IF* your H is committed to restoring the trust he destroyed. And IF he is not a serial adulterer. Is he committed to recovering this marriage?

What you are feeling is perfectly normal. You are supposed to feel angry because this is the greatest a betrayal a spouse can commit. You will ask yourself for many months why you should stay married to this person. If he is trying to reprove himself, you may have an answer. If not, the answer might not be pleasant.

Here are some good starting places:

1. Run out and get the book Surviving An Affair and read it as soon as you can.

2. Get counseling with the Harleys. They are pro-marriage and specialize in infidelity. They can often do in 2 sessions what most counselors can NEVER acheive

3. You need a committment from your H, such as:
a. the willingness to answer ALL your questions about the affairs

b. send a no contact letter to the OW telling them that he loves his wife, that what he did was wrong and he is sorry for his part. He should tell them that he is committed to working on his marriage because he loves his wife and would ask that she NEVER EVER contact him [this is the LEAST he can do if you are willing to take him back]

c. open up all his methods of communication to you. He should give you all passwords to cellphones, voicemails, computers, EVERTHING. He should report his whereabouts to you all day long and stay in touch all day long

That is just a FIRST STEP in restoring your badly damaged trust.

Another thing you may have to consider is that this is not an aberration of character for him, but a way of life. If he is remorseful and willing to change it may be the former. If not, it may be the latter. For me, I would never choose to stay with a serial adulterer.

But if he is, you have to accept that is how he is and make a decision about whether or not you can live with that. Because, you cannot change him and will only cause yourself enormous grief wasting your time if you believe you can. On the other hand, if his affairs were out of character, you have much more to work with here.

I'm afraid this may be a problem with his character. I think that is why I am so scared. He had an affair when he was married to his first wife which ended the marriage. He had just found out she was pregnant when the A began. He told me that he didn't think he ever loved her and that he had made a mistake marrying her. I believed that his love for me was real and never thought he would do that to me. I was naive.

He has had three As over a twelve year period -- two PA and one EA. But that just may be all I know about. He didn't understand EAs until we talked after d-day -- he didn't think there was anything wrong with having "friendships" with women as long as they didn't become sexual. He says he finds it easier to talk to women. So, there may have been other EAs during our marriage that he hasn't revealed. I know about this one because I looked at his cell phone records AFTER he admitted the PA that just ended. He had been secretly calling a female co-worker "just to talk." One month it was 76 times. He was taking his cell phone to walk the dogs and run errands and would call her then. He didn't think there was anything wrong with it -- they were "just friends" and there was no sexual contact.

I am reading books and material on the MB website. I am trying to find peace in whatever decision I make. I want him to read also but he says he doesn't like to read and doesn't have time. He wants me to accept his word that this will never happen again.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Toofargone:
<strong>

I want him to read also but he says he doesn't like to read and doesn't have time. He wants me to accept his word that this will never happen again. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What is his plan to repair this marriage then? His word is not good enough because he has demonstrated that he is an untrustworthy person. Only an insane person would trust the word of an untrustworthy person. At BEST, it will take YEARS to restore your trust.

Without a full fledged plan for him to repair the damage and fix what has led him to have multiple affairs, this is all of waste of your time. If the problem is not fixed, it will continue.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Toofargone:
<strong> I'm afraid this may be a problem with his character. I think that is why I am so scared. He had an affair when he was married to his first wife which ended the marriage. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Toofar, if he justified an affair with her because he wasn't "in love" then he can easily justify affairs in your marriage. Couples fall in and out of love all the time. It is a normal part of marriage. You are not safe as long as he believes this is a rationalization for affairs. There is NO rationalization for an affair when you are married and he doesn't seem to understand that. You are not safe with him until he does understand.

My H is in IC but he doesn't want to tell me everything they discuss. He is supposed to be there to determine WHY he can't be faithful. I asked him if they had that figured out -- he said "no." I think he is holding on to the idea that he was just unhappy in the marriage(s). I asked him if that was justification, was it okay for me to have an affair. Of course he said "no."

I can't resist... this is a somewhat flippant answer, but it's also entirely serious, TooFar:

It's never to late, or too soon, to begin to build the marriage of your dreams.

It's a flippant answer because it's Penny Tupy's slogan (www.saveyourmarriagecentral.com), so it's easy for me to say it.

It's a completely serious answer because Penny is RIGHT. And darned good at helping people do it, too.

You've made a good start by finding this site and the concepts here.

You and your husband each have a huge amount of work to do in your marriage. The first thing I'd do is fire that counselor. Who CARES why your husband had affairs? Everyone is susceptible to them because they're seductive, addictive, emotional candy. Why do we need to know a deeper "why" than that?

What we need to do is to "affair-proof" your marriage. And yes, that requires your husband's full cooperation and accountability. If he can't give that right now, it's time for you to learn ALL ABOUT Plan A. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

But for heaven's sake, who cares "why" people have affairs? I mean, jeez, people have had affairs since the days when Zeus was running around seducing every milk maid who came by. It's not like it's a new phenomenon or anything.