My story in a nutshell is that 2 months ago I found out that my H had been having affairs with 2 different women, both long-term, one of them occuring the entire length of our relationship. I asked for NC, which he initially agreed to, but last week I found out that he was still seeing both of them. I wrote an email to the women, letting them know what was going on and they were both shocked. They had no idea that he was married and they thought they had monogamous relationships with him (though one of them had "broken up" with him months ago).

For practical as well as emotional reasons, my H is still living at home. We've been using the evenings for self-therapy, talking for a couple of hours about everything that has happened. This will start dwindling down, I'm sure, once the carcass of our relationship has been more or less fully dissected. For the time being though, these conversations have been helpful to me.

My question is, how quickly should I be making new plans? I had only been living in this city because of my H, so now that this marriage is over, I have no reason to stay here. The plan is that I will sell the house and use the proceeds to start a new life in the UK. My neighbour wants to buy my house, so if we can agree on a price I could realistically be out of here in a month or so. Is that too soon, or should I take more time to heal, with or without my H around?

On one hand, I don't want to be too hasty, on the other, I don't want this to drag out too much.

If it were me, if I were certain I wanted to move on, I would make the change as quickly as possible. The sooner you are removed from him, the sooner you start the recovery and healing process. Staying with him only delays that stage and makes it harder to move on.

Do you want the marriage to be over?

Is there a possiblity of reconcilliation?

bronwyn, why not give it time to see if the M can be salvaged?

In my heart of hearts I do not want this marriage to be over. I still love him and I'm not looking forward to a life without him. However, he cannot offer me anything right now and I don't want to waste what are left of my "good years" (I'm 36) on a relationship that will always be troubled.

What about the two of you counseling with the Harley a couple times to get a true temperature of the potential of your M? After that you will feel like you truly did all you could do.

nothing says it has to always be troubled.

Read this site.

Read surviving an affair.

Consider counseling.

I assume from what you have written here that you don't have children?

No, no children. We'd actually been trying for a baby ever since our first was stillborn a year and a half ago. It haunts me that perhaps if our daughter had survived that things might be different.

Bronwyn, Don't let this haunt you. Most of the people on these boards have children, some are pregnant. It does not stop a spouse from cheating. You would probably be in the same sitch you are now, but forever attached to this man because of your daughter.

I wish you the best at this difficult time in your life.

Am I mad? After reading a bit more around here and thinking about what I really want, I'm actually considering at least trying to stay and work things out (if that's in any way possible). My H keeps saying that he is completely numb right now and all he can focus on is keeping his job (we'd been in rather deep financial trouble until he got this job in September). If I wait out the full withdrawal from the OW, do we really have any kind of chance of reconciling? Or am I just grasping at straws?

Despite everything, there's a part of me that believes that we have something special together that is worth saving. But I'm worried that this is just wishful thinking on my part and that I'll never be able to trust him again, no matter how hard we try. I just don't know what to do...

Go with that part of you that believes you have something special.

Read, go to counseling, work on rekindling that something special.

Trust doesn't come back easily or right away, but it does slowly as it is earned.

Don't give up yet.

Well, we had a little talk last night about the state of things. I told him that I didn't want to unilaterally give up on our marriage and make any rash decisions to split up right away. He agreed, but added that he could not make any promises (not that I expected any). So, we've decided to just wait things out for a month or so. He's still in withdrawal, so it's hard to make any real progress one way or another. I have no idea how long this withdrawal phase is going to last, but I'm hoping that in a month some of the fog will have lifted for him.

In the meantime, I'm just trying to be as strong and positive about my life as I can be. Not to show him what a dynamic woman I am, but just so that no matter what happens I have as much confidence as possible to take the next step. So, I'm going to start exercising again and go on outings with friends and put a lot of energy into building professional contacts. I'm hoping that the better I feel about my life in general, the easier it will be to cope with whatever happens with this marriage. Onwards and upwards...