GH

You would not believe (well, OK, maybe now you would) the number of BS who are here because of A number 2, or 3… or N, or a years and years long LTA all of which started with A number 1 soon after first getting married. Adultery so soon after getting married is a very strong marker of future adultery, even if years later. The best predictor of the future is the past. And you have no untainted past at all.

This is a marriage builder’s site. Saving your marriage is the goal. But even the expert who sponsors MB says you are in one of the worst, with a very poor long-term positive outcome, situations.

And, you also say she is still lying, even in her recent posts…..

Not good.

Can you afford to call the MB counseling number and speak to a Harley? I think this is the best way to start to understand your options in the near term.

With prayers,

Added: Does W still work at the bank with OM? Did you ever expose?

If I understand this right you said your wife has been having unprotected sex with this guy only a few months into the marriage with you? You have got to be kidding. You go on a vacation with her and the night before she screws this guy again. The fact that it was only a few months into the marriage, the fact that she did not even have decency to have protected sex and put your health at risk for STD's and she continues to lie to you suggests you made a terrible mistake. Clearly she has a broken moral compass and has no concept of a committment. Why in the world did she get married in the first place? Someone else said this and I agree in that you should seek an annulment. She has made a complete farce and mockery of your marriage. You should never settle for something like this. Why does she have such distain for you? When your screwing another man with unprotected sex behind your husband's back during the honeymoon period - well really what is the point in being married to somebody like this? Enough is enough.

First, I will not tell you wht I think you should do regarding your marriage. You do what you think is best for you.

I did NOT get back with my EX wife because of my children. I got back with her because I love her. So you need to decide if you love her enough to give her a chance.

Look at my story, multiple bouts of "the truth"..stupid ...little lies...and all this from a woman in her 30's....

You do what is best for you....

She has only lied about her past. She has been honest about everything else since D-day. The posts she was lying in were right after D-day. She only posted a couple of times.


Thats a good idea. I think I will do that.


No. She no longer works there. I did not expose to here work because I didnt see the benefit in it. I feel like it would have only humiliated her. It would have had no bad affect on him. His family owns the bank and he is the vice - president. The owner and CEO (his dad,i think) has had 3 or 4 affairs himself. I did expose to her family and mine, and also my close friends.

Send me:
Thanks for the advice. I looking forward to reading your story as soon as I get chance.

gearhead

Hi. I'm a FWW and I posted to your wife's thread in the Recovery forum. I'm so sorry that you have to go through this. You have come to the right place to get help.

I am 28 and my A happened 3 yrs into our marriage when I was 24. We don't have kids and it could have been very easy for us to go our separate ways. We are now 2-years past d-day.

I guess I am not of the opinion that you should just get divorced right away. My advice would be to give it some time, maybe a couple or few months before making a decision like that. You mentioned earlier about trusting your instincts - do that and see how you feel.

I don't think this has to be the end of your marriage. If your wife is true and sincere about changing she needs to show you and prove it to you every day. She needs to do a lot of self-discovery into why she had an A so that it doesn't happen again. If you choose to stay in the relationship, I believe there is an opportunity to rebuild your marriage on a stronger foundation than what it started on.

Take care.

You have to sit down and figure out why you SHOULDN'T get a divorce. Then compare that to why you SHOULD. Also, go with your gut feeling. After reading your posts, you don't really say what your gut feeling is. It seems you want to stay and work it out.

I can tell you it will not be easy. It is going to be the hardest thing you will ever have to get through (working it out). Is she worth it? Only you know. Nobody here knows your whole story.

I know to this day I wish I would have just went through with the divorce right after d-day (my gut feeling). I decided to hold off because everyone told me to. I wish I would have listened to my gut...I already setup the appt. for the divorce to get started. I know me. I know I'll never get over it, but now I feel stuck since I've stayed for this long.

Definitely follow your gut, whatever that may be.

God bless you in whatever decision you make.

-CO

Well, I have to weigh in on this one. I don't know who stated the above opinion regarding this as a "gift" that your wife gave you....but I could not agree more.

NO KIDS, NO major time/life invested....no lifetime of debt yet racked up.....she cheated with a married man with children and did it in his bed in his childrens home? Are you kidding me?

The rate of divorce is about 55% in the US today....AND THAT IS NOT COUNTING THE COUNTLESS OTHERS WHO WANT TO DIVORCE BUT STAY FOR THE KIDS OR OTHER ISSUES....no one wants to divorce....BUT man, your getting a look into your future here. Your getting a peak at the "test" the night before....eseentially free of charge (i.e NO innoncent children who have to shoulder the brunt of growing up in a divorced home)

I agree about not making any decisions today (or even tomorrow), but you should look at this one very closely. Why in the [email]he@@[/email] would you bring children (in the future)into a relationship that has so quickly went awry?

You think you have some problems now? This is the frigging honeymoon of marriage my friend....no kids, no mounting debt, limited responsibilities.....put all that other "life stuff" on and then you WILL REALLY see what you are looking at in terms of "problems".

Now, you are gonna need to do what you need to do. I am all about giving "second chances".....just not third and fourht and fifth and sixths....etc. I think this is more than 6 months of "NC"...It is about truth and honesty and integrity.

You want to save your marriage...go ahead, and I wish you sincere luck....everyone does....but please realize that those of us who are opining that you should "cut your losses" do so with a heavy heart and not on a whim. Your devestated and your hurt and your image and honor as a man has been crushed. We get that. Divorce does NOT solve that and it does NOT suddenly make things better....it actually amkes things worse...at first...but in your case, given your situation, I know what I would do. But it doesn't matter what I would do or what anyone else would do. You have to live with the consequences of your deicisons, not us..so take what we say with a grain if salt. We can be wrong and not suffer any fall out. Unfortunately your not in such an enviable position. I'd be very selfish with this decision and do WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU. Your WW has lost that decision making power on your life (at least for now in my opinion).

Please do what you need to do based on WHAT YOU WANT (recovered marriage) and NOT on WHAT YOU DON'T WANT (being a divorcee).

Understand?

Gear,

I have debated with myself all day about saying the following. But I think I will. As kindly and non-judgmentally as possible, for both you and your W.

I think you have more truth to hear. You need the whole unadulterated truth before you can make valid decisions that will affect the rest of your life.

You wrote that you were together for a few years before you married. I think you should look into, as much as you can, what the situation with your wife was before you married. That your new wife could commit adultery so easily, basically on a whim and so quickly, leads me to believe there is quite a bit more to the story here. Maybe it isn’t a whim.

I hope I am wrong. But she did this terrible thing without even a pause for the change in status of your relationship. It is as if getting married didn’t change a thing for her. I’m not saying this OM is an old one from before. Maybe there were others. Maybe not. But there appears to be a certain momentum operating here. This could help explain some otherwise incomprehensible things. In any case, it is important for both of you to have the entire truth out in the open.

JMO.

I wish you and your W all the best. And call the MB counseling center like you intended to yesterday. I highly recommend it.

With prayers,

My instincts/gut feelings are to get a divorce. To me, there is nothing really left of our marraige. BUT, when I spend time with her and can forget about the past (for a little while, at least) and forget about all the lies and deception, I love spending time with her and everything is great. That is, until I come back to reality.

lemonman: Yeah, I understand. Thanks for the advice.

Aphelion: My God. You couldnt have been more right. You hit the nail on the head. The story I gave you at the beginning of this post was only half of the story. It was a FULL blown A for 2 1/2 to 3 months.
At the start of our relationship and pretty much up until we got engaged, I would say she was very insecure. She was always afraid of me leaving her or finding someone else. I have no doubt in my mind that nothing happened before we got married, BUT I never would have thought what did happen, would have happened.

Also, I called OM's wife to let her know. She said that he only told her it happened once. We talked for a minute or two but then kinda sounded like she was getting irritated at me and said something to the effect of "well, you really have to decide to move on or not - it did happen 8 months ago" and then politely asked me not to call her anymore. I dont even know what to think about that.

Gearhead,

IMO, adultery is ONE CHANCE TOO MANY because it totally changes everything about the M.


You will know...everybody has their breaking point, once you get to yours, you will know what you need to do.

Gear,

“How many chances can I give her?”

“My instincts/gut feelings are to get a divorce.”

And so on.

OK, there is trust your gut. And there is trust but verify your gut.

You have lots of time, you know.

I suggest the first thing you should do is pull inward a little bit and examine your issues. You seem to agree with the MB approach to recovering from adultery and building a great marriage. So, take some time and examine your contributions to your M. Identify behaviors that result in LBs, DJs, poorly met ENs and the like.

You need to understand your side of the equation no matter what you decide wrt your current M. Otherwise you will just carry less than stellar personal performance into your next R.

And just think, you might even be able to pull this M out of the fire by working with MB methods before you decide anything. And you have this place to help you.

This is no way mitigates what your W has done. She must agree to fully implement all MB methods too. In fact, she has most of the heavy lifting to do for the foreseeable future. She also must figure out why she did this. And that is very hard for most people to do. But if she can, and if she changes, she should be a pretty good life partner in the long run. So, the ball really is in her court and will be for a long time. She must prove beyond the shadow of a doubt she is no longer nor ever will be again a WW. And she has this place to help her, too.

I was told many times here all I have to do is to agree to try to recover. I may decide at almost any time I cannot stay married to my FWW. I would guess you have at least two years to make any irrevocable decisions. So take your time. Watch and wait. Work your contributions to your M while your W works both her issues and her contributions. It can actually be a wonderfully intimate experience once you get past the hurt and mistrust.

With prayers,

Oh, and please call the MB counseling center like you agreed. You really do get what you pay for, even around here.

GH,
this has been about a week now, but hopefully you're still checking it.
I think it's great that both you and your W are talking about ths, but you really should be talking to eachother tool.
About seperating.....my H told me about his A nearly a year ago. One of my friends tol dme to kick him out, another said that if I even thought about saving my M, kicking him out was the wrong thing to do. I had to focus on what I wanted, my M. Seperating wasnt a way to get there. furthermore, by seperating the BS will onyl wonder what the other is doing that much more....are they being faithful, too much distance to have that constant contact and security that needs to be there to begin to rebuild.

I think the big thing that is failing to be seen is that even though you were only married for 4.5 months, you've known eachother for 5 years. My H and I married after knowing eachother for 12 days. Why should our relationship count for all 9 years and yours only count for 4.5 months. There's a bigger investment than just 4.5 months here. In the end, I think the only time to call it quits and get the big D, is when you can honestly say that you have lost all loving feelings for your WS and have given the M everything you have to make it work. These are questions only you answer.

1,
I still check it. Im on this forum every day. Its a support system for me. We do talk to each other. She has been open and honest, as far as I can tell anyway (I've felt she was open and honest in the past - but only to find myself wrong). We aren't separating. After talking to people on forum here and really thinking it thru, there would be no benefit unless I was sure of D. Im not too sure of anything right now.



Absolutely! I've been there twice before. On D-day 1 & 2. My emotions got the best of me and I thought it was the best thing at the time, only later to find out it was the absolute worst thing I could have done.

Its just really weird. I dont understand my own feelings. The same thoughts go thru my head throughout the day but when I wake up in the morning, my resentment is strong towards my wife and I'm very "cold" towards her. But we talk thru the day and she answers any questions I have. When I get home things are kinda akward at first, but then we kinda go back to being just us and things are great. That is until I wake up the next morning and the cycle starts over again. It is getting better as days pass. I was wondering if anybody else experienced anything like this?

And since the truth came out, I have been trying my best not to LB. It seems a lot harder now than it ever was in the past. Partly because she lied to me, partly because I have the details now, and because now "she" is working so hard to keep our marriage together - because in the past it was I that was carrying the load.

Hi Gearhead,

I don't post much, but I have read both you and your WW's threads. From what I see she truly seems remorseful and willing to work on R, however, past behaviour is probably a better indication of future expectations than just mere words.

I don't want to sound condescending as I not much older than you and do not feel any more mature than when I was 22, however, most people haven't met their significant other at your age, and you could both exit this relationship at this point without any major issues or regrets.

As others have pointed out, whats really worrying is the fact that this happened within months of your marriage during the "honeymoon" period. This indicates to me that your wife does not have the emotional maturity or the resolve for marriage. It's almost as if she feels that she is too young to be married and would prefer to be doing what all of her unmarried friends are doing.

This may be a little harsh, but I almost regard the "honeymoon" period at the beginning of a marriage like a warranty. If something breaks during the warranty, you would definately trade it in for a new one instead of sending it in for repairs right? Obviously, this is different due to the emotional attachment but my logic would be along those lines.

I hope I don't offend you with my stupid comparison, just trying to offer another point of view.

Hi Gearhead,

I've posted to your W on Recovery a time or two and thought I would drop you a line, as well.

I've read what people have said to you about warranties and such. I know a lot of folks here have advised you to exit your marriage. They all have some good points.

I just wanted to tell you that I took a different path - a much different path, actually.

My fiance and I lived together for about 3 years. Our wedding day was set for December 11, 2004. D-Day happened November 12, 2004 - yeah, a month BEFORE our wedding.

It sounds crazy, I know. It is crazy, and it has been a hard, hard road. I wish I had some great success story to tell you, an "Infidelity despite being newly, or pre-married" wonderful success story, but our journey isn't over yet.

What I do know is that, for me, this man I married is worth it. He's worth the chance I am taking. If it ends up that it all comes crashing down around me - well, I will have to take responsibility for the decision I made to take this chance even though he was definitely high-risk and surrounded by red flags.

No one can tell you what decision to make. I know it certainly isn't an easy one. I just wanted to tell you that you both CAN have a rewarding and successful marriage if you both choose it, despite what the odds are, what anyone else - even the Harley's - recommends. You two are the ones who hold the power to make your M whatever you want it to be, as a TEAM.

I see her taking some very positive and difficult steps towards this, which gives me a lot of hope for your M.

People may have a point when they say that you are both so young and have no children yet, therefore it might be easier to start new lives apart.

But, there is also the point that you are both young, and to have the opportunity for growth that you have laid out before you, even if it is a very painful thing that brought you here, can also be a pretty remarkable thing.

As for your post:



I think it is wise of you not to make a decision when you are overwhelmed with emotion.



Welcome to the much-mentioned Rollercoaster. We've all been there, and I know it sucks. I'm so sorry for you that you are living it right now. It does get better. Things start to even out a bit after time.



Good job! This is also a wise thing to do. Even if what you decide is to end your M, what possible benefit can come of LB'ing? Learning to be responsible for your own actions, despite how you have been or are being treated in a situation is a positive thing. If what you choose is Recovery, this will serve you well.



Let her carry the load for a bit. You can still do your part, of course, but let her show you she is willing to take responsibility for her actions and lead your marital Recovery.

Best wishes to you.

Im having a horrible time dealing with some things today. The fact that she took my life and health in her hands and dangled it over a cliff by not using protection. For God's sake, I could have contracted a VD or even worse HIV. It sickens me to think she made this decision seven times without any regard to me.
<feeling down>
:-(

Hi GH,

Well, from my perspective there is good news and bad news when marrying so young. The bad news first. You and obviously your W don't fully appreciate the vows of marriage, nor the pain failing them can bring. This is NOT like going steady as I am sure you are aware of.

Given you two are so young, then splitting is relatively easy, no kids, little in the way of assets, etc. Hence the recommendation to consider ending the marriage.

Now for the good news, neither of you are the people you will become in the next decade. You both are still growing emotionally and actually developing physically (yes your and your W's brains are still developing) it is true.

What you and she can become could be something very wonderful IF you both learn lessons from this and really take the time to look inside yourselves. It is often said by people here that once the recover they feel that somehow the A made their marriage better, and it bothers them that is the case.

My response is that the A did not make the marriage better but how each of the partners responded to it, and the messages it was sending do make for much better marriages.

You have much to overcome given that this A occured so early in the marriage, and yet the first year of marriage is KNOWN to be one of the roughest. It is two people adjusting living and being responsible for another person. It is where reality clashes with fantasy. So my thoughts are that you need to give your very best effort to recover this marriage.

If you do and it does not work, you will have learned invaluable information about yourself and relationships that will truely help you in any future relationships. If it does work, then you will very likely be married to a woman you love deeply, who knows your strength and respects you for giving her another chance. She should not be subservient to you, but she will know your strength. Further, with the openness that recovery requires you two are more likely to set your marriage on a stronger foundation than it was before.

So it seems to me you really have one choice and that is to go for recovery KNOWING you will learn alot about yourself, your W, and relationships. In that sense you cannot fail, no matter how the marriage turns out.

Give it 6 months, and then evaluate. If things seem to be progressing give it another 6 months and evaluate. Give yourself wholy to the recovery, put it all out there. You will never regret doing this, trust me on that.

God Bless,

JL

I dont necesarily agree with that. But thats your opinion and your entitled to it. I think you can be young and fully committed to a life long marriage. It is very uncommon, especially now a days, but there are a few people that have married young and lived happily ever after without an A.



I kinda feel that I have already given our marriage six months only to find out I was being lied to for those six months.

I hate this roller coaster...

GH,

The problem you have is that you don't know what you don't know. This is NOT a put down. This is coming from someone that has been your age and has children older than you two. Trust me on this at 30 you will look at life considerable different than you do now, and so will your W.

The bad news is that clearly your W did not appreciate the vows, even if you did. But, more importantly you probably did not realize how many hazards, roadblocks, bad breaks, etc. will occur in your life and your marriage. Those vows say "for better or worse". And the reason they do, is that life offers many challenges.

You clearly are free to decide to do as you wish with regard to your marriage. You have the biblical right to divorce her. But, having the right is not the same thing as NEEDING to. You see she may have the potential to become the W of your dreams in REALITY, not just in your imagination.

Yup, she lied to you or at least misled you with regard to the last 6 months. You may well be right that this tells you things you need to know and seals the deal. But, give it time, you have plenty.

Only you can decide and while it seems to me I am picking on you because you are young, that is not really the case. Because you are young you have many options and a whole life ahead of you...that is a very good thing and something you should savor.

GH, it is your call just remember people do learn and they do change. And like flowers they bloom with care and attention.

Must go.

God Bless,

JL

Morning GH,

You are experiencing what the vast majority of us BH have experienced, and pretty much right on schedule. I could even predict for you the next year’s worth of rollercoaster highs and lows.

But let me just say, one of the pain amplifiers you are experiencing is that right around six months after DDay is a very normal, necessary and predictable peak in your anger. But, instead of having the time and space to process this anger normally, you got yet another series of DDays. Kind of messes up the process, huh. This not only restarts everything for you, it restarts everything even deeper in the hole than were you were when you originally found yourself in this wasteland.

I don’t think there are very many WW’s who understand this. But when the truth finally dribbles out months or even years after DDay, things are a lot worse than if they had been completely honest about the entire A in the first place. This adds hugely to the pain and the distrust of them, as you know.

My point being, you still have the time and the resources to process things yet again. You have even more resources this time. Your decision may or may not be to D. But you have time to get to approach that decision coolly, logically, from various angles and with certainty.

Both you and your W can grow from this. You really can.

Perhaps, think of your W at bat with a full count. Score is tied in the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, you are on third, and the count is 3 and 2. All you have to do is calm down, focus and wait for it.

Added: And listen to the third base coach...

With prayers,