When I read about all these other people going through this same thing, it makes me have some hope. It is so nice to know that someone is in the same boat as myself. This whole situation can make a person feel so alone and singled out.

I am 27 years old, mother of two small children, and have had two affairs in my five year marriage. The first one was about three years ago and my second daughter may be from that affair. I then left my husband several months ago and fell for a wonderful christian man who was also going through an ugly seperation. We became involved and, a few months later, my husband finally gave his life to the Lord. WOW!

Now, everything about both men has come out into the open, including the truth about his daughter and I feel like throwing in the towel. I know I was in the wrong, but the fact that I was in a verbally abusive, physically abusive, and emotionally barren marriage for so long has me hardened. I don't feel like I want to try. He is going through ****** and it is all my fault. But I am not able to give him the reasurance and comfort that he is so desperately begging me for. It's not fair to him. I want the past to just go away and let us start over but I don't know if he will ever be able to cope with this mess. And, at this point, I don't know that I am able to cope with his inability to cope. Am I making any sense? Wouldn't it be easier for both of us to just start over? Help me!

Emotionally barren M of 5 years duration with TWO separate men? Please explain as I have underwear older than your "emotionally barren M for so long"

As for starting over, I am reminded of a quote from Dr Laura Schlesinger that I will paraphrase... The problem with a woman wanting a new pair of pants in her home is that the same dress is still there.

My advice is to make the children's future paramount and no decision will be bad. Children need emotionally and psycholigically mature mothers and fathers

Cy - sending you $ for new chonies.

Sherri - you know full well that doing what is "easy" has little or nothing to do with doing what is "right".

You KNOW what is right. I suggest you begin the WORK for it - especially if you want to pass on the value of "RIGHT" over "easy" to your children.

- Kimmy

Sherri,
You can make this happen. But much of it will come from you. You will probably never really understand how much pain your H is in. He needs your help.

Of course your marriage was emotionally barren, you were giving your emotions to two other men in your 5 year marriage. There wasn't any to give your H then and he knew it. He may have known something was wrong, but not what it was.........maybe some of the verbal abuse your refer to stems from that. Being lied to for long periods of time and you see that things don't add up makes you question everything, including yourself.

There are lots of people who recover their marriages, but it is hard work. It is worth it, especially for your children, but hard. And it takes both people wanting the marriage and wanting to work on it. Starting over isn't an option because you can 't take it all away. It happened. And you have living proof of the adultery in your house.

This is a great place for help. Be a little thick skinned at first and read everything about affairs and recovery. Consider marriage counseling and individual counseling to help you discover why you had two affairs.

Sherri, LBelle is right. It is no surprise that your marriage was emotionally barren if you were busy having affairs. That is a DIRECT result of an affair. It is no surprise there was "abuse" since multiple affairs are the greatest form of abuse a spouse can inflict on the other. Dr. Harley likens adultery to a RAPE and it has happened TWICE here.

I think your marriage CAN recover, though, if you are willing to do some very hard work and take EXTRAORDINARY PRECAUTIONS to stop your serial cheating. That is the only way your marriage can recover. And that is all contingent upon your husband's ability to overcome the resentment from your affairs. It is extremely hard to forgive ONE incident of adultery, even harder to forgive MULTIPLE affairs. And this is compounded wtih the fact that you got pregnant by another man and decieved him. That is a horrendous blow.

So, if you are serious about doing some hard work to change your behavior and reestablish some trust in your marriage, this can probably be saved. Counseling would probably be helpful too.

Will your H come here and talk to us? Is he interested in saving the marriage?

My husband won't read anything or talk to anybody. He is in a state of self-pity and he refuses to try.

However, he does want the marriage to work, although I do feel sometimes that it's not that he wants to be with me but more so that he doesn't want anybody else to be with me.

I am still bitter about everything that happened in the past on his end and it makes it doubly hard for me to show him the compassion and empathy that he so desperately needs.

I was not cheating on him until almost two years into the marriage. This was after I had the police to the house on numerous occassions and also after I had been dealing with his porn addiction and cybersex episodes for well over two years. I went back to my ex-boyfriend who gave me the emotional needs that my husband did not. He made me feel like I wasn't just a piece of meat whereas my husband always made me feel degraded and objectified.

I am not justifying what I did but I can't help but feel that perhaps my husband should take some responsibility in the demise of the marriage. Am I completely wrong in thinking that he also had his own type of "affairs"?

I am sorry that I hurt him. I feel like a complete jerk. I want to do what's best for the kids - I love them more than life itself. And nobody knows for sure at this point if my youngest daughter is his or not. I pray to God that she is my husbands. We will be doing a paternity test shortly and we will know within the next week or so. The results of that test may very well make or break this marriage.

Thank you to everyone who has responded to me. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Here is the plain simple truth, are you ready?

Your husband may have a laundry list of poor marriage practices but it was you who opened your legs for the sex of another man. That simple truth will be the one that will forever define who you are until such time that you accept it as a separate and distinct choice that belongs SOLELY to you. You are not there yet.

Presently your self-interests are at the expense of your husband and this will deny you any chance at a healthy recovery. While your husband was looking at naked pictures on the Internet you were doing the “real thing”. While his actions may well be inappropriate they appear to be nowhere near as damaging as your act of infidelity.

In your post you slam him in one paragraph and then proclaim your remorse in the next. Marriage is an “all or nothing” proposition. I suspect that that simple fact has eluded you and perhaps him as well.

There is no justification for your actions and your husband has NO responsibility for the choices that you made regardless if he was a good husband or not.

Once you accept the truth of who you are and what you did new doors of opportunity will open but not until then.

Mr. G

It sounds like a bad situation before you started cheating. Pornography addiction is a serious problem and DOES feel degrading to the wife! He can get beyond feeling where sex is concerned. It needs special help.

Your H does need to own his share of the responsibility for the problems in the marriage. Both of you have a hand in that. But the affairs were 100% your doing and that's were the responsibility lies.

There were other options you could have taken to deal with the problems in your marriage, counseling, separation, divorce, etc. But the affairs were just and escape for you and impacted the marriage in a lethal way. And is more painful than the pornography addicition.........my H did both, porn addiction and affair. The affair was WAY worse than the porn.

It grated against my nerves when you said H was is the state of self-pity. That is so belittling, uncaring and judgmental of you to say. It doesn't make it seem like you have any real feelings of simpathy for H (yet?). Self-pity sounds like feeling bad about something you shouldn't feel bad about. What he is going through is devastating and more like post traumatic shock than self pity.

Look into yourself and see if you have anything to give to H. If you want to stay married and have a relationship with him that is worth having, great changes need to come from you. Him as well. But the greater burden to fix this needs to come from you. The injuries are huge, bleeding wounds in his heart and soul. Can you see that?

With all that is involved here, it seems that counseling is a must! You may have to insist with your H that it is necessary. You may need to start going by yourself first to show him you are serious and get help for yourself whatever happens to the marriage.

Take care! Everyone here wants to see you succeed in repairing your marriage.

IMVHO you both need help.

I am of the belief that nothing in the M justifies an A.

I believe that things in an M can lead to a D. You gave yourself permission to stay with this man. Why? Then you give yourself permission to have not one but two A's.

Until you drop the justificaitons and deal with what you did then there will always be problems. He needs your support etc which you don't feel you can give because of your past.

The cyber, the abuse etc. Well why didn't you bring them up before and walk out the door. Nothing he did gave you permission to forsake your vows. You could have left.

If it is your idea that he did bad and I did bad can't we just call it even then this isn't going to work.

MC can help deal with those issues but right now you need to help him through the A.


This is still the honeymoon period. Don't pat yourself on the back for this. You said after dealing with it for two years. So you married an abuser, porn addicted, cyber abuser and he didn't change?

BTW in my state there is a no tolerance law on abuse. Was he arrested. If a complaint is lodged and there is enough evidence the offending party is taken away. How many times was he arrested?

So to answer your question. Yes there are cases wehn starting over would be easier.

OK ... so from now on, your kids' welfare is more important than having your ENs met. This is how I take your comment. Is this correct?

What is best for your kids' welfare is for you to DROP your resentment, today.

Just drop your resentment like a bag of poop. And don't go back & open the bag of poop to check if it still stinks.

If you insist on looking into the bag of resentment poop to take a whiff every now & then, do not claim to put your kids' needs above your own.

The question is not ~~~> do you love your kids more than life itself .... the question is ~~~> do you love your kids enough to stop dwelling on your past resentments & start looking for real solutions rather than trying to find easy ways to get your ENs met.

Call the Harleys. YOU need a pro. YOU are important and YOU do matter ... but so far, your way of handling this has increased the likelyhood your children will suffer more pain in their lives.

Good luck.

Pep