I just found out that my husband had a brief affair with his best friends wife. It has been over for a couple of months but now she is pregnant. I love this man with every ounce of my heart and I believe he is a good loving man. I believe people make bad decisions and mistakes. I also believe that situations influence those decisions. I am not saying I was a perfect wife, but I tried so hard to make him happy. He keeps saying he doesnt know why he did it. How do I make my marriage survive?

Smiling,
Feel lucky you have found this site in time to use it to its fullest. Read everything you can here and keep posting your questions. I for one found it too late to help my marriage and I wish it were different. There are many, many people here who have been thru this and heard and seen everything you are going to hear and see. Use them to help guide you on how to respond and to reconnect to you husband before you end up like me - divorced and not liking it.
At first you are going to think " my spouse could never do this to me" or "he's just not like that". Well I'm here to tell you that someone in an affair can and will become a different and totally uncaring person to the betrayed spouse. Start your reading and never be afraid of asking stupid questions. The only stupid question is one that is never asked. I would first start on learning about Love Busters. There has been emotional damage already to you and how you cope with it will be critical it restoring your relationship. Making disrespecful judgements of your husbands actions is a big love buster and his love bank must have been pretty low already to allow this to happen. I know you are in need of the most care right now but he is hurting just as much. A marriage counselor would be a real plus also. Make sure this person is pro-marriage, not all are.
Most of all I would urge you to be patient. Nothing in what has happened will fix itself in a hurry. I know because I tried and crashed and burned because of it.
Good luck and don't give up. Good people do make bad decisions and giving up on them too soon is a bad decision in itself.

Dukhuntr

Update: I have since found out that she is not pregnant and was using that as a ploy to maybe get my husband to leave me. We both have cried, talked, yelled (mostly me),questioned things in our marriage and have come to the conclusion that we are in love with each other. I know the process will be long and we both will have bad days, but thru our Marriage counseler (which we both went to as soon as we could) and a lot of give and take we are going to make it. I know my husband is a good man, father and at one time a perfect husband. Somewhere along our journey we took different paths and depleated our love bank. We have set down and have a list of 5 goals in our marriage that we need to obtain in a set time frame. We both are wanting this to work out. Dont get me wrong, I can never forget the pain he caused me, but with time, love and understanding the pain I hope will dull and in time will be a distant memory. I would be kidding myself if I thought that I would just forgive and forget, that will never happen. Forgiveness is something that will take time and Trust is something he has to build back inside of me. I am putting my trust in my God and the love that my husband and I share and hoping that when the dustsettles we will be on the same path,going the same direction together. It can be done, I have witnessed it .... but every marriage, every crisis and every person are different. So now we are taking it day by day. We will get up every morning to a new day, a new oppertunity to heal the wounds and strighten the love we have. God bless you all!

Do you know, I was just going to write and say "How do you know she is pregnant...maybe she isn't!!"
Glad to know she really isn't!!

There is a lot of good to learn here, I haven't put a whole lot into practice yet, due to not trusting my H yet, but I know I am learning quite a bit.

Hoping the best for you and your marriage,

Love, Lady

Thank you Lady! He is really trying. His job takes him away from home 5-6 days aweek. So he found another job. He says we cant work on our marriage if hes never home. He is showing me that he really wants to try and I love hime and believe in him enough to try. Soooooooo here we go. Trust... I trust him as far as I could pick up his 6'3 300lb self and throw him, but I did before and I know with time and love I may again. NOT 100% but maybe 98%. Only time will tell! Good luck in your marriage!

Stillsmiling,
I am also glad to hear you have two sides working towards the same goal. Beleive me it is a much better situation than it could have been. We will all be looking for updates and we will also be pulling for your recovery.

Dukhuntr

StillSmiling...

It's great to hear the hope you have for your future M.

In talking about trust, you said that you are "putting trust in my God". That is exactly what needs to be done. Nobody can guarantee that painful situations like an A will not happen or not happen again. If we put our total trust in another human, then there is a good chance that we will be disappointed... we all make mistakes and bad choices. By putting your trust in God, you will not be disappointed. That is not to say that bad situations won't happen... but God will carry you through.

I spoke with my MC the other night... went for a session alone... and we talked about my "snooping" into my W's emails and cell phone, etc.. She said that she would probably do the same in my situation, but how is it improving the situation? I said that I am trying to protect myself and my M. She asked me if I had permission to check her emails and phone... did my W know... which she did not. By me doing this, I may be "protecting" myself but am building a bigger wall around our M. My W has to come back to me on her own... not because I caught her or because I insist on things. If I insist on a NC letter and she does it to appease me, is it as powerful a message as her writing the NC letter because she wants to?
Yes, there is the fog to get through, but risking trust to rebuild self-esteem, to rebuild your M, to show that your M can be a positive thing in your lives, I believe is a good step. It is difficult, because your trust may be broken again, but if it isn't, then you have grown together much stronger because it is of your own free will... both of you.

I am sure others will disagree with this, but I believe the risk is worth it... to show trust again while maintaining your trust in God.

Shaden

Here I am again and glad to say things are going great. My husband is working really hard to keep our marriage together. We have started counseling and are spending time trying to figure out where things went wrong. We know we love each other and the trust will come back in time,I hope. But for now we are on the right track. To all of you out there who's spouse has had an affair. Don't give up. Good people make mistakes, but better people make up and learn from them. I still hurt but it is getting easier everyday. I see him trying and all I can do is try too. Keep smiling!

Hi Kathy,
I'm so glad to hear things are going better for you and H. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Love, Lady

Well here it is almost 2 weeks since I found out about the affair. Everyday things get better and I am dealing with the painful thoughts. My husband is trying so hard and I can see the regret in his face. That, however still doesnt change the fact that he betrayed our marriage and me. We are in counceling and it seems to be working. We talk alot and have agreeded on goals in our future. I love this man with all of my heart and I know this will work out. To all of you out there going thru the pain of an affair, dont give up and keep smiling.

I found my husband had been talking with another woman about a year ago, I didn't know who until this summer. At first I found his cell phone with phone calls and text messages from her (at that point in time I only had a cell number). When I found out who she was I took off my wedding ring and have not put it back on. Two months before I found out about her I gave birth to our 3rd child. I felt stupid at first because everyone around me seemed to know what was going on but no one ever bothered to tell me. Now I on some days I feel numb and other days I don't know how I feel. There are days I want to give up on my marriage and there are other days where I want to hang on to everything. On July 30 he moved out and has not moved back in yet, although he is suspended from work because of this woman and is over every morning to watch our 5 month old. I try to talk to him to see if we can work through this all but our communication skills aren't that great. He does not want to go to counseling because he thinks they point fingers. I have also tried to tell him to look at this website to see if anything hits him but I don't think he has even done that yet. Anyone with suggestions please advise me. Thanks.

Luckly for me my husband wanted our marriage to work as badly as I did. I know there will be days that I will remember what he did and then I think of how he is trying to fix it. My husband also thought that at counceling they pointed fingers but if you find good Christian counceling, they dont. However he must remember HE not you was the one that did this and to some extent fingers should point his way. Communication is the best way to work thru this kind of problem. My husband and I spend at least 30 minutes talking before we go to sleep each night and we have this thing where we tell the other to stop and listen. During this the other person listens to what is being said and doesnt take it personally.This way if there is a problem we can discuss it before it gets to far gone. Good luck and God Bless!

Hello,

I hope you contacted the OW's husband and that he is well-informed about the affair. If you did not say anything then you are sending a message to the OW that there are no consequences to her actions now and in the future. It is essential that the other spouse knows exactly what has happened and what is going on. I wish you luck.

Hi Bryanp!

She told him along the same time I found out. They are also in counseling. We use to be great friends and now because of their decision not only did it almost distroy my marriage but I lost 2 friends also. But as I have said one day at a time and only time can tell.

Ladysheep-- Just wanted to check and see how you're holding up? Things getting better for you or not?

Anyways, just wanted to see how things are goin for you?