I am reposting in hopes of getting more response. I need some real advise.

Hi, this is my first time writing and I am looking for some help.

Marriage of 5 years. Very happy. Poor communication between us. I am the talkative one, my wife keeps a lot of things to herself.

Anyway, On New Year's eve, my wife and I went to spend the evening with two of our closest friends ( another couple ). Several months ago, we found out that this couple was involved with "swinging". We had been friends with them for years, and I did not consider this a threat to us.

In fact, the fact that they were swingers somewhat intrigued us ( my wife much more than I as you'll soon hear ). I discussed this issue with my wife prior to this evening and let her know that I had no intererest in doing any swinging. I also discussed briefly with the my friend ( the male husband of the other couple ) that I would never want to participate in that type of sex with my wife.

So this evening, we all had a lot to drink, and were having a good time. Then, my wife and I pushed some boundaries and had sex together while the other couple did the same thing on the other end of the room. While I did not want to swing, I was willing to have sex in the same room as the other couple. I was hesitant, but my wife was excited about doing this so I continued.

Shortly after the sex, my wife and I fell a sleep in the same room as the other couple. The alchohol really knocked me out. Well, the next morning my wife was crying as she explained to me that she had sex with the other couple ( both the man and the woman ). She said she stopped the man and only had sex with him for a minute or less( ok sure ).

I was so shocked I could barely breathe. She says that she always had a fantasy about being in that type of situation ( now she tells me ! ), and that the alchohol allowed her to act out on her fantasy and didn't think about the consequences. While all of that was going on by the way, I was right there in the room. If I would have woken up, I would have gone crazy and there is no telling what I would have done.

I am now destroyed, depressed, humiliated, lonely, and every other possible negative adjective you can think of. I also have been suicidal and have a lot of rage towards my friend who betrayed me. My wife says that she will never do it again and is not exactly sure why she did it, besides the fantasy and the alchohol.

My questions for the group are:

-Can a woman really love her spouse and disrespect him in such a way while he is right there in the room. She was not even on the pill ( lickily she is not pregnant, and she said he did not you know, god this is hard to write about )
-For Men to answer, can I ever get these visions of what happened that night out of my head and see my wife as the same pure lovely woman. I do not see her the same.
-Can I ever trust her again. If she could do this while I was right there in the room, what else is she capable of.
-Can a marriage ever recover from something like this.

Please help.

I have no real advise for you, just experience. My H and I had this same thing happen. Too much alcohol and couriosity. however we both engaged in everything BUT SF with the other spouse. Neither one of us was comfortable with it however we let it continue everytime we saw this couple for months. My H grew resentment towards me because he thought I wanted to do it and he hated that. WE never talked about it, and he continued to look elsewhere- until he landed himself in a A. I thought that I was doing something that pleased him, only to find what I was doing was pushing him farther and farther away. My only advise is to really sit down and have a heart to heart. Our days of not discussing things almost cost us our marriage- who knows it may still have. Please be careful.

I am so sorry for you. I do not know how I would react. Give yourself time and get into counseling. Your wife was very upset I do not think she will do this again. I would not visit with the other couple again. You were both wrong to get involved in this and are both responsible in a way. You two can mend if you work together on this.

first... I am sorry you are going through this and that you had to re-post. I sometimes wish more people would respond more to things I post, but then again I am pretty new as well and I don't post much. Enough on that.

Yes, you can do anything. That is a fact. It is all about what you will do. You can forgive her. You can rebuild.

Is she repentant? Does she wish to turn away from this sin and this lifestyle(error or whatever else you wish to call it). That will be important. People make mistakes. People do horrible things to other people. Even to people they love.

I believe in god. God can forgive anything if you truly repent and turn away from the sin. I believe this. She must repent and turn away. She must recognize that she hurt you and explore what led her to this so that she is able to deter it from ever happening again.

I can not say I agree with the entire event you participated in. I will not condone it. It could probably be argued that in your situation, you truly helped fuel the fire on this one. That being said, she is responsible for her actions.

Take the time to read the information here and possibly get a book or two by Dr. Harley. He has a fountain of help here and this forum is an incarnation of that help.

In the simplest terms I am the male eqivalent of your wife, which is to say I am the wayward spouse(formerly, of course). You are the betrayed spouse. I tell you this to destinctly define what you are dealing with and to inform you about me so you can make a decision on whether or not to give credence to anything I say. That choice is yours. I am sure someone more aware of what it is like to walk in your shoes will post as well.

You have things to work through, obviously. You are an adult. On one side you must deal with feelings of abandonment, betrayal and hate. And on the other side you must make absolutely sure you are thinking clearly about the simplest, yet most complex of decisions you will make. Do you stay or do you go. Simple in that it is a boolean equation, really. This or that. No real gray there. Complex because of the emotions crowded in the room now screaming at the top of their lungs trying to deafen your judgement.

Insight from the WS side of it(my side). It can be a very confusing time for the WS. They may ponder why they did it and you can never be sure what road that will lead them down. They will certainly feel remorse about it, if they are good people. They will hurt too. Not that this is a statement to keep you from your feelings of being destroyed. Just to make you aware of what a WS goes through. You should have all the information possible.

I pray that, in time, you are able to heal, move on and lead a happy life with your spouse. No one should have to deal with murder, robbery, infidelity or any other nasty business. Simply said, I pray that you are able to regain a happy life again.

On the suicidal thoughts, I would say they are natural. They are also extremely dangerous and must be dealt with seriously. If you are truly considering it, please seek help. Call a hotline. See a chaplain. Talk to a friend. Anything. There are people in this world that you will destroy if you commit suicide. Infidelity does not have to end a relationship, although emotion may try to convince you otherwise. Suicide is game over. There is no coming back. There is no healing. You will find support here. Good luck to you.

patriot

Thank you both for your replies.

KMEJ, what is SF. Can I also ask why you liked doing the couple stuff?

Thank you Patriot. I think I invested too much of myself in my wife. I left no room for her being human. I thought of her in an almost fairytale way, like she was never capable of this type of terrible act.

Now, I am trying to hold on everyday. Thank you.

destroyed man, you asked for my perspective.

Gosh, I'm so sorry for you and your wife. And yet, compared to some posters here, your situation is so simple. Painful and heartbreaking, but simple.

The other couple are not your friends. The swinging lifestyle may work for them, and it may have tittilated you and your wife, but fortunately all it took was one experience at this for you to realize it is not going to support your marriage.

Naturally you were curious about swinging, about sex with other people, about spicing up your own sex life. Had you both enjoyed it, you wouldn't have posted here. It would have been your own private choice. But you both feel ashamed for your actions. And you're asking the men posters if you can ever escape the images that flash before your eyes. Doesn't sound like it was good for you.

Do I believe swinging is inherently evil? No, I don't. It's not for me, and if others want to go that way, I just don't want to know about it, sort of like I don't want to know any details of their sex lives. Keep it to yourselves, it's not all that riveting to the rest of the world and so forth.

New years eve could be the turning point in your marriage. It could be the jumping off point to deepening your love, to re-committing to each other. Are you religious? Could you go to a Marriage Encounter weekend, or a Retrovaille weekend? Both of those groups support strengthening marriages that have been eroded or threatened.

Like everyone else here who has experienced extra marital affairs, if you are going to recover, you have to stand together to your "friends" and tell them you are rebuilding your marriage and that you will cut all contact in future with them, off permanently. That it isn't a matter of blame on them, rather it is a matter of not wanting to lose the most precous thing in the world to both of you.

Good luck.

PS - no more drinking. It gives permission to do what we want to do when we are sober but what our better judgment tells us we shouldn't do.

<small>[ February 11, 2005, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Bellevue ]</small>

Thank you Bellevue.

I appreciate what you have said. Being a woman, do you think that my wife can love me and do what she did. To have sex with a couple while I am sleeping on the floor only feet away from her.

It goes against everything I have ever beleived in about women and their emotions. I always thought that an emotional connection or love would be needed for my wife to ever have sex with another man.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by destroyed man:
<strong> Thank you Bellevue.

I appreciate what you have said. Being a woman, do you think that my wife can love me and do what she did. To have sex with a couple while I am sleeping on the floor only feet away from her.

It goes against everything I have ever beleived in about women and their emotions. I always thought that an emotional connection or love would be needed for my wife to ever have sex with another man. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Good lord, not at all. Hard to believe, yes I am a woman, long hair, small feet, big boobs and poor depth perception, can't read a map or figure out a 15% tip, completely female, and yet I can separate out love and sex. Had lots of sex while single simply for sex, not out of love. Usually it is the men who can separate this out, but a lot of women go for fillng their sex needs with no emotional involvement. Just curiosity, lust, boredom, who knows.

She may have been enjoying an exhibitionistic fantasy when she had sex with the other couple. Toying with the idea that you were faking being asleep and she was performing a "porn performance" for you. If you were all that drunk, she probably didn't even enjoy it. Booze lowers your inhibitions AND your response.

Besides, you both had performed with the other couple in the room. Wsn't there an element of exhibitionism in that little act?

I know you are in pain. But from my vantage point, that of a wife whose husband told her he was in love with another woman but was not having sex with her, I could have handled him paying a hooker to perform sex with much more balance than his schoolboy crush which has destroyed our marriage. We sleep in separate rooms, and the rest of the details I won't go into right now.

I'm not trying to minimize what you are feeling. But first, it is a one time event. It's not an ongoing emotional involvement but a bad experience that will test and maybe strengthen your marriage. And second, she didn't hide what she did from you. She told you about it.

Have you read the rest of the site? About the 15 hours a week of time spent talking to each other, doing things together, meeting emotional needs? Would your wife come here and post together with you? There is so much support here for rebuilding marriages.

Bellevue, yeah, she probably was living out a fantasy.

I am sorry about your situation. In love with another woman but not having sex with her? In some ways, I would rather have your situation, because that would allow me to end the relationship.

In my position I am torn because I feel strongly that I should leave her, but I love her very much. I don't think that I will ever be able to forgive her. I do not see her as the same person. In fact, I see her as a slut. That may seem harsh, but it's true. When I make love to her, I feel like I am the other man making love to her. I cry and feel pleasure at the same time. When I think about our son, and see her kiss him, I imagine what she was doing with her mouth that night and now kissing my son. When I kiss her intimately ( you know where )I see the other man's penis going inside of my wife. This is hell and torture.

At least your husband is not having sex with the OW. And you know what, my wife said the same thing that " at least it is not an emotional involvement", but that would have hurt me less than what she did. I think that is a difference between men and women. To men, the acts of his wife are more damaging than the emotional stuff. I guess to women it is just the opposite.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I don't think that I will ever be able to forgive her. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This specifically a statement made given the proximity in time. I understand it, but you must understand that. Of course you can't fathom it. You have not healed.

Forgive me if what I say is blunt. My wife taught me honesty is the best policy(thank god for her and too bad she got stuck with me). I deal in logic. I always have. Yes, I have emotions, but when they get to a level that most people explode, I detach. I will still detach. In a healthy way. Instead of running away and finding destructive things to do and not thinking about my relationship, I will simply detach and recharge, get under control again and then get back in the fight. Why? Because I made the completely cognitive decision that my relationship with my wife was the most important thing to me. And I am committed to it.

How does this apply to you? You are experiencing huge emotions and although you will need to deal with that remember a few things. Maybe it is a good idea for you to pull yourself out of the fight for a short bit and then jump back in when you have gotten yourself under control. Maybe not. I'm talking for a short time. Go to a park and sit on a bench for an hour... that kind of thing. A sad fact is that sometimes, people make decisions at the height of emotional turmoil, that later when they have had time to really consider it, that's not what they want to do. And, sadly, sometimes they still go through with the "bad" decision because it is a matter of pride or something. Not unlike alcohol, emotion can erode cognitive thought processes. Make something seem ok or reasonable when cooler, clearer heads would not think as such. From your story I think you could relate to that analogy.

Healing takes time. Demons don't exorcise over night, you know. Be strong bud.

Hi, destroyed man.

You asked some hard questions, and I am going to give you some hard answers.

I will tell you that long ago, I had a lot of experience in situations you have described, but not with my wife. I won't give details. You can decide if you like what I have to say or not.

You and your wife found yourself in this situation because of a lack of boundaries in your marriage. Those boundaries could have been moral, religious or just in a form of agreement between the two of you. As is, they were either non-existent, or ignored. Either way, it spells trouble.

First thing you and your wife must realize is that the alcohol, while a factor, did NOT cause the bad choices that were made. You are both guilty to a degree, but your wife needs to acknowledge that she did what she did because she wanted to. Then the two of you need to decide what you are going to do about it.

I am not going to preach to you. I am going to tell you the hard-core truth. I have known NO ONE whose marriage or relationship survived the 'swinging scene'. I am sure there are a few, but I would bet the farm that percentile is in the sub one half of one percent category.

You and your wife are simply playing with fire. Better yet, make that high explosives. If you two have any desire to see your relationship prosper, you will deal with this issue now, and with complete honesty. You both will need to agree to never do this again. There are no fairy tale endings in the swinging scene.

Oh, and both of you will need to abstain from sex for at least the next 6 weeks while your STD testing is done. You will need to include AIDS testing.

All the best,
Gimble