My H and I have been married for 8 years. It hasn't always been great but it hasn't always been terrible either. He complained from time to time that we didn't have sex enough and that I wasn't good with money. I had no idea how badly this really bothered him. About two months ago while on a business trip, he had an affair. He came home saying he had found his soulmate and best friend in this woman. He wants to leave the kids and me and live the life with this woman who is also married with a 7 & 17 children of her own (from two marriages). I've tried to reason with my H. I've cried, begged, pleaded, cursed, even told him I understand how he can have feelings. I've even apologized to him for HIM having the affair. My kids are upset that their dad is leaving. He is about to be deployed to Iraq for a year but wants us to go ahead and move out of our house and go back home. He says he loves me (well, sometimes, anyway), he has no problem having sex with me whenever he wants, he is jealous if I even talk to my friends privately about what I will look for in the next guy. He says he doesn't feel a connection with me anymore but I know he does. I'm fighting harder than I've ever fought before and it isn't doing any good at all. I'm completely lost. I feel like I'm losing my husband, my family (his is all I have), my friends (because he wants us to leave), college, and my entire way of life for the past eight years. I'm trying to do all the love bank deposits but he even admitted to our therapist last week that he is capitalizing on my feelings. He did also say the other night that if we go home and he calls me in six months saying he made a big mistake, no big deal - we can just come back then. I told him that I don't know that I can come back after I leave. Is it just over? Should I just quit trying on get on with it? Am I just kidding myself that he will come around? Please, please, please help!

Welcome to marriagebuilders. It is a wonderful place to be under the circumstances.

Your husband has given you some clues of things you can work on - the sex, and not spending money. So that is where you can start in Plan A. Plan A is about making changes in yourself, and showing him what a great wife you can be.

Also try to find out the name and number of her husband and talk to him and let him know about the "soulmates". This is extremely important.

If your husband goes to Iraq and has no contact with the other woman, the affair will end, and you will have a good chance of saving your marriage. Are you sure there is no way she could be going too?

That's the thing... I realized when he left on his last trip in December that I needed to work on things in me. I've been working on the money and sex issue... in fact, since he got home March 18, we've had the best sex we've ever had. He feels though, that this is just a last ditch ploy to keep him here. I began these changes in December but he wasn't here to see them. So, he is seeing the changes now, he just doesn't believe in them. I've explained to him that they aren't temporary and I know this because I realized how I was and didn't like myself too much then. I've made the conscious decision to work on me and be a better person in every way. I don't know what else to do. I'm afraid that he isn't patient enough to stick around and see if these changes are genuine. I've never known him to be this stubborn!

As to the husband of the OW, he is also in the military. My H won't tell me his name and military being what it is, I can't go accusing some guy with the same last name because it really might not be the right guy. The other niggling thing about this is that this woman's husband is and has been apparently cheating on her. When I found out about the affair and was so upset, she actually had the nerve to send a message to me (and my H had the nerve to deliver it) that she knows what I'm going through and she feels bad for me. HA!!! My H says he has ceased all contact with her. He has changed his email password so I can't verify it for sure. I told him that I need to be able to believe him and trust what he is saying no matter what happens with us because we have two children. He swears he is not talking to her.

She will absolutely not be going to Iraq. She is an Army spouse who lives at Ft. Rucker, AL and we live in Hawaii. I asked him what the plan was for when he got back. He said she planned to go to stay with her family around Ft. Campbell, KY for the year my H is deployed. I'm not sure if he planned to move her and her kids here for his last year here or not.

The problem is that I feel so entirely stupid right now. I still love this man with everything that I am. I'm so very mad at him because it feels like he is choosing this woman over his kids and me. He says it has nothing to do with her but I just don't believe it. He says everything I tell him makes complete and perfect sense, he just doesn't feel the connection with me anymore. I've explained to him that he has EVERYTHING here. He doesn't care. I've tried to be nice and calm and let things play out as they will. But then I have days like yesterday where it just gets too much and I throw out those LB's. I know I shouldn't, but nothing else seems to work - not that LB's do either. I'm just so frustrated and I just don't understand.

I just want to shake him until he understands what he is giving up. What do I do???

Kelley