Reposting this in this forum instead of the emotional neads forum as i did before.

here is the quick story.
My first marriage was a bitter, vicious affair that scarred me for life, my daughter payed heavily for my wives multiple infidelities until she left me for another man and booted me out. I swore i would never marry again, 6 years later after a 5 year relationship i married the most wonderful woman in the world. we have been married 6 years and never once in our 11 year relationship did i question her about what she was doing or even think she might be lying to me. I put my old marriage behind me and i was the happies man in the world with someone i thought was the perfect wife.

we have 2 boys and what i thought was a wonderful marriage with no problems that i can see or she admits to.

2 months ago i found out she has been calling back and forth alot to an old boyfriend and I busted her lying to me to have me baby sit our kids so that she could run to him and throw herself at him. He denied her so they didn't have sex at all, in fact he rebuffed multiple advances from her over 6 months. at least thats the story i am getting.

I was crushed like i had been shot. She spent a subsequent month denying it all and giving me excuses and lying to me to my face and jeopardizing our family and marriage. She lied about 20 times to my face over and over again denying every little thing i would find that pointed to them having a relationship. We made up about 5 times over that month and each time i would dig up more info and confront her until finally she spilt the beans after about 8 hours of fighting and pleading for my family.

She had pounced on this guy as soon as she found out he was getting divorced, she called him 4-5 times a week (70 times over 5 months and never once when i was around). She had been flirting with him the whole time and giving all sorts of invitiations to him which he declined. Then she finally set up a dinner date with him down near his house and threw herself at him after dinner and asked him to take her to his place and he declined.

Even after i hgad busted her she tried to maintain it was only freindship and still kept calling.


Bottom line is i now longer can trust a word she says to me, if we were the soulmates we were supposed to be she could never have done this, i certainly couldn't. I am now back to being the crazy jealous husband checking phone bills and credit card statements and i hate myself for it.
I feel like my last 11 years has been a lie and that i loved another person that i saw in her that didn't exists.

She is apologetic and wants to make things work for the kids but i am 40 and not willing to waste another year being faihtful to a woman who can't give me the same respect. I have spent 20 years married and been faithful to both my wives without exception, even after i busted the first one cheating, now i just feel like an idiot wasting my respect on women who just can't give me the same respect back.
I have always beleived that turst is the first ingredient to a good relationship and marriage, without it we have nothing to make our marriage work.

i am despondant, i can't sleep , i cry all the time and i feel like the woman i loved is dead and i am expected to love a clone of her. All i can see is her lying to my face.

I feel like we need some emotional distance now , i can't take the pain, i have already tried to hurt myself(nothing suicadal just self destructive) and had top be restrained by friends. I have been drinking heavily to get through everything, i can't work, i am useless to my kids and my life is now a nightmare. Everything in my life i was so proud of building, my family and perfect marriage is all destroyed.

I don't feel that i have anything to work with, if everything was perfect then she could easily do this to me again, i can't live with someone i can't trust. i can't take being played with like this i would much rather learn not to care for her like i did with my ex-wife.

Is there any hope for me to change the way i am feeling, right now i never want to touch or love her again, certainly not trust her with my heart again.

My honest feeling is for us to sepertae emotionally and stay together for the kids and see other people.

Any advice appreciated.

Has she ended contact with this guy? Who is he and what does he do? How did she meet him? How do you know he is getting divorced?

Sorry you are here, but you are in the right place. There is a strong chance you can save your marriage if you let us help you set up an effective strategy to save your marriage.

Please read the link in my signature about Plan A and try to get the book Surviving an Affair by Willard Harley.

yes she ended contact once i contacted him and told him if i ever see his number again i was going to .... well you know <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

She is apologetic and says she is willing to work it through but i have always felt that stuff like this required a weakness of character and i'm not sure i can love someone with a flawed character that will just do it again to me, offering up my heart for sacrifice again.

Incidently i went through 2 years of trench warefare giving the ex-wife chances to mend her ways, all it got me was more time in pain when i should have walked away immediatly.
Now i am faced with the same dilemna? but i can't because of the kids.

i think given my history on this it was a potentially catastrophic mistake on her part. with no trust i feel we have nothing.

Dear Verc,
It seems like you do want to save your marriage because you are reaching out to us.
If your wife has been faithful up until this time, and this is not something she has done before, it sounds like your marriage has hope.
Like Melody said read up on Plan A.
By the way don't take anything your w/w says personally. W/W lie, lie, and lie. It comes as natural as breathing. They will rewrite history, come up with hurtful things to say and will act totally different than they did prior to affair.
First of all anything that comes out of w/w mouth should be eyed suspiciously.
Plan A is based on the big club and carrot.
The club is exposing w/w and o/m affair to family and friends and omw. This is done to help end the affair by exposing the sleazy affair to the light of day. Then you introduce no contact and the carrot part of Plan A is to attract your wife to you and your marriage by being the best you can be, or improving yourself and making yourself irressitible to w/w.
Keep on posting, there are a lot of experienced posters here with great advice, Melody has helped me immensley.

verc, I understand your reticence completely and think that the key here will be to find out exactly what happened. You will have to know that and have a clear plan of recovery in order for your marriage to recover and trust to be rebuilt. I know it sounds crazy, but it is possible to trust her again if she is willing to work hard to earn it.

Yes, affairs are usually the result of a weakness of character, however, often they are an aberration of character in most wayward spouses. If they are an aberration, it is very possible to correct the problem that led to the affair and essentially "affair proof" the marriage. Now, if it is NOT an aberration of character, but simply a matter of her not knowing right from wrong, then you have good reason to give up your hope.

Will you please get the book I recommended above and in addition, get His Needs, Her Needs by Harley? I think that book will be invaluable to you.

What is your W's explanation for the affair? What does she say caused it? Will your W come here and talk to us?

p.s. Can I ask you to consider something before you throw in the towel? I have seen much worse situations than yours heal and recover into great marriages built on trust and mutual respect. Harley teaches us how to affair proof marriages. While there are no guarantees, could you commit to trying Marriage Builders principles before you give up? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I don't understand this concept of the affair proof marriage, from what i have read it means not letting them do things which might tempt them. I have let me wife have lunch with ex boyfrinds, and to talk to this guy as friends.
I have no deires to run a mulsim type marriage where i watch everything she does and need to keep her busy so she won't stray. Thats just ridiculous really. A marriage is based upon mutual devotion, respect and love and these qualities present should innoculate the marriage from outside forces period.

The way i look at it you marry your soulmate, when you are that much in love as i beleived we were in love then you can't do this sort of thing. I certainly couldn't.
This really makes me question not only my relationsahip with her but my romanticized notion of marriage.

Its already been exposed to friends and family.
we have the family priest involved and i have read lots of stuff online most of which i think is total crap.
I cannot even see a problem in our relationship to fix, we were the model marriage, totally devoted to one another and involved in our lives and family.
Sex was terrific, supposedly best friends the only thing was that with the kids we were not as able to spend as much time with each other devoted to one another.

now i feel like i have lost my best friend, partner and everything and all i have to cling to is whats right for my kids. Maybe whats right for me for a change too.

This way i look at it she terminated our relationship the minute the had designes on this guy and followed through with great effort. I was just informed of it late and now we have to decide if we can start a new relationship but she is not the person i thought i was with at all.

I never thought her capable of lying to me in such a extended and planned out way, with possible dozens of direct lies to my face. She cast our family to the trash the minute she thought she could get something she wanted more thats all. Thats not who i thought i married.

we spent a month getting all this out in the open piece by piece she never came clean until i cornered her. Covered her [censored] all the way so how am i supposed to beleive she is still not lying about them having sex or about not having done this before over our relationship?
I don't even beleive her when she says she loves me anymore.

V, when I say "affair proof" I am suggesting a mutual committment to affair proof the marriage, not a hostage situation. Clearly, her lunches with old boyfriends is not conducive to protecting the marriage from harm or rebuilding trust.[you can see the result] Continuing to see old boyfriends is disrespectful to you and dangerous to your marriage. That is just asking for trouble.

And I hope you aren't saying that she still talks to this guy as a "friend?" He is not her "friend" but her lover and there should be NEVER EVER be any contact again if your marriage is to ever survive. In fact, her first step in recovering your marriage should be to send him a letter, written by you both and mailed by YOU, telling him to never ever contact her again, that the affair was a huge mistake.

I think if you use the term "soulmate" you may have a romanticized idea of marriage that is not realistic. Feelings of love are based on many things, but none of them are contingent upon some cosmic connection, but rather practical things like meeting the other's needs. People fall in love and stay in love with people who meet their needs and to whom they are attracted.


Did you read the article I suggested? The one in my signature?

I know how you feel about the trust. My WW lied to me till the bitter end, and then lied some more. Its been a month since D-day, and Im just now getting to think that its all out. So now, everything she says I question not only the validity of it, but also her motive for saying it, even when she says she loves me. Especially since she never says it first. But I am with the rest of these guys, in that I have FAITH!! Its been slow, but we are getting out of the fog, and thats when the real rebuilding begins.