I'd really like a womans view point here, idealy from a woman who's husband cheated on them. My question is at the end of this intro

Well i've been with my wife for almost 12 years, 3 kids, 9, 6, and 6 months. I lost may way with our marriage and . looking back i dont understand why i did it, and why i thought it was worth loosing everything thats important to me, over sex with another woman. But for some crazy reason i did and now i live with those consequences.My wife and i have been adopting a baby which took about 2 years, and it was the most stressfull 2 years of our lives (adopting is nothing like having bialogical kids, yes we have 2 of them also), yet i dealt with it in the worst way possible, and had an affair. I lost my mind litrally and for what. She of course kicked me out, she always said i could do anything but cheat on her. So yes I'm the scum of the earth. Now we are getting on as best as can be expected, and i'm seeing the kids, I'm also buying her a new house to live in and giving them lots of money to live off, I'm giving her everything she could possibly want to get on with here life without me, and a divorce of course.

Seeing what this did to her, and those kids, changed my life completely, i see things so clearly now, its like i've been blind for the last 3 months and now i can see again, i dont know why i had to wait for this to happen for me to change but it did. Now i want to best father i can be, and be there for my ex wife in every way possible.

Right now she she's me as the biggest aresole on earth, and she said our marriage is completely 100% non-reversible, and she could never have any feelings for me ever again, and i know i will never be forgiven nor do i deserve to be. However i feel i cannot cannot give up on her, even if it takes years, i need her in my life again. I didnt end the affair until she found out, i guess i needed a big event to force me to quit it, as i was too weak to do it before. She was an amazing wife, and amazing mother, i screwed up but i feel if i can proove myself to be a good father and be supportive of her, then is it possible she could think fondly of me again?

so for those people out there who have been through this, am i talking out of my [censored], am i pipe dreaming, is such devastating affects to her reversible after a long time apart? or will she really never ever like or trust me again? is it really over ?

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Robbie

No - It doesn't have to be over. My WH cheated on me many times, and with many women. If he had an ounce of remorse like you are saying you have, I'd put this past us and build a new life together.

It can be done, read all you can about infidelity and work on Plan A and getting back the wife and family that you want so badly.

HUGS

robbielee-

All I can tell you is that knowing your H cheated on you is a huge blow to a woman's identity. It takes away our "specialness". You will have to "win" her back with your actions-because those will speak the loudest.

Read everything you can on this site. Start with the summary of basic concepts and keep going.

I would advise you to go to individual counseling as well to figure out why you made the choices you did, and be willing to share these with your wife.

You really will have to make life with you so wonderful she knows that you mean business.

Hang in there! You are in good company here.

There's a really good Apology Format that a leading marriage coach suggests. The idea is that an apology means nothing unless you can show that you really, truly understand what feelings you caused, how it felt to be treated as you treated her. In this Apology, you make sure it is IN WRITING, and you try not to use the words "sorry," "apology," or anything else like them. The idea is to show from your heart how deeply you now understand the pain you caused, so deeply that YOU feel it, too. Absolutely stay away from any form of explanation of WHY you did what you did, as this comes off as an excuse. It doesn't matter why; you shouldn't have done it, so don't insult her feelings by explaining your reasons. Just try to put yourself in her position and explain how it must have felt, and how much it grieves you to finally understand.

When you can prove that you actually feel her pain, that it hurts you so badly to cause her pain that you would never dream of causing you both so much pain again, then it qualifies as a decent Apology, and it is likely to be felt and accepted. Then, of course, you need to stay that tuned in to her so that you couldn't hurt her so badly ever again.

I hope this is helpful. If done correctly, with deep thought and feeling, IN WRITING (which she gets to keep), and without any form of explanation or excuse, without words like "sorry" that often mean so little, it has the potential to reconnect you to her heart and soul.

Hi robbie,

Well,in my opinion,if she just recently found out about the affair(A),then you do have to give her time to process it all.In my case I didn't immediately kick my ex out when I found out,I was in terrible shock,then 2-3 days later came the horrible,suicidal type pain.I did want to work things out very much despite what he did to me but I was on that proverbial "rollercoaster" we all talk about here.One day up,the next down.

I believe most spouses who are cheated on DO want to work things out after the dust settles a bit.I know what I wanted more than anything was for my then WH to tell me he had made a huge mistake(he did) and then end it forever
(he did not).What struck down any chance was his refusal to really end the A and we kept going through false recoveries.I finally had enough of his cheating and lies.

What you need to do is SHOW your W that you are serious about being there for her NOW,since you essentially left her to be with another woman in the most hurtful way.ACTIONS speak louder than words.And it will take a long time to regain some trust.It's very delicate and it has to be gradually built up again through you showing her you will be there.

Check out the MB bookstore here for some great reads and consider counseling,even if your W won't go with you just yet.You can go alone and that can be seen as a positive step in the right direction.Don't make any hasty decisions right now.This will all take a good amount of time to sort through.And you have children to consider too, that is very important.

Also,I would go to your W and tell her that you do not really want a divorce and will do whatever it takes to make things better for both of you and for the children.If that's what you want.Don't give in to the D option yet.She has to have some idea that you do want to be with her even though she might not be showing you a way home right now.She is hurt and angry,scared and confused.If you want a second chance you have to fight like a warrior,now.

Ask her if she would like to come here and talk with other's who have been though what she has.We can help.

robbie,

please post this over on GQII. Many more people there and you are far from over with your wife. You can change this and it can get better.

As a BS, I can tell you that I have never in my life experienced the amount of pain I have had from my H's affair. I found out about 4 months ago.

If you want to keep your marriage, you need to fight for it. You need to fight for both of you because she probably can't right now.

Please read the articles regarding "His Needs, Her Needs" and "Love Busters" if you haven't already, then read everything else.

Do let her get things off her chest as much as possible unless it turns physically abusive. If that's the case, just back off til she calms down enough to talk. If it's verbal abuse in the "affair" conversations, try to see her pain and overlook some of the lovebusters if you can. It's really hard to not be overwhelmed with anger the fist few months after first finding out. I don't advocate love busters, but come on, give us a break the first few months.

Give her whatever she emotionally needs.

Direct her here. Write it down and leave it for her.

Good luck

Thank you all for your comments and help, it really does help me out in this situation. My wife has decided to stay with me, and I am doing everything i can to be there for her, she has good days and bad days, as confirmed by this site. I find it hard to believe i still did this, and that as a result she will probably never trust me again, but thats completely understandable. I have also read many times on this site that peope do try to work it out and get back together but only to find that they cannot get past it and eventually do divorce, so i guess that is my next fear. All i can do is give it 100%, read up as much as i can on what to do and hang in there. Thank you everyone.

I suspect that what causes these reconciliations to fail is not so much that the BS cannot move past it--it is that the underlying marital problems that existed and may have contributed to the A were not adequately addressed.

These problems can be hard to fix when there is no A. I would imagine that superimposing the tauma associated with the A can make it even more difficult.

I think that is where we are...we want to move past things. We do love each other. But we are not adequately addressing the problems we have had for years. I am so scared! I dont want to loose him...but I dont want to hurt anymore either. We did start this program and did the EN questionnarie. I have by his own admission been doing better on his EN, but he seems to be doing worse. He says he will come here and do more....but we have yet to come here together to read. I dont think I can save our marriage alone. I am so empty and feel so powerless right now also fearing that we are not going to make it.

Hi Robbielee,

As a woman, what I can say that I lost as a result of my ex's affair are a few things and understanding these may help you understand what your wife is going through.

Losing that blind trust in your spouse is like losing a loved one, a person. I know I went through life not realizing how having that one other person in life I thought was 'watching my back', so to speak, strengthened me from moment to moment, situation to situation, decision to decision. Losing that puts your whole world on a tilt - I used to call it losing my true magnetic north and without that my world spun out of control. I had to think through the smallest things with such utter deliberate effort after I found out about my ex's affair. Nothing meant what it meant before. The landscape of my entire life changed and it took a long long time to feel secure again. My intuition was destroyed (something we women rely on heavily for survival in this world) and it took a long time to rebuild it - I don't think I'm done yet.

Many women marry to a large extent because we feel safe with our mate. When our mate no longer represents safety, we feel like we've been abandoned to fend for ourselves. Perhaps a lifetime of experience and love would ideally teach us that our husbands aren't necessarily the perfect protection and provision we've been idealizing and that is a graceful introduction to reality. When we lose it suddenly in the circumstance of an affair, there is no graceful growing in understanding. Add children and we find that the cold harsh world has tentacles wrapped through and around our hearts and it easily pulls and jerks us in directions we can't go gracefully. We count very much on our husband's provision and protection when we are placed in that very vulnerable position of mother. When we lose it, our entire balance is gone. The largest part of a mother's strength is her husband.

As another responder put it, when a woman is betrayed through an affair, it strikes at her very identity. A man's identity is more often tied to his place in the world, such as his career. He sees his wife as only one pie shape out of the whole pie. A woman's world, her husband, her children, is the whole pie. If your wife had cheated on you, you might ask yourself if you should make an improvement in your appearance, your income, the time you spend with her, the quality of that time, what's wrong with 'her', etc. When a man cheats on a woman (particularly a mother), every part of her is affected, because you make all the other things in her life possible.

Another point someone else made is that every woman longs to be cherished. It puts that sparkle in our eye. I believe that's why other women have relationships with married men also. It makes them feel especially valued - above, even, a man's own wife and children. That's intoxicating to a woman. By evidence I found this to be true with my ex's girlfriend - she has waited 4+ long years, missed many holidays and special times with her boyfriend (my ex) and continues to idealize him, despite much evidence to the contrary that he is a great guy (he's a deadbeat dad (children before me), financially destructive, not successful career-wise, and has had multiple affairs, you could say even on her... he is a narcissist). Yet she adores him utterly, because she believes he chose her over me, which makes her feel special.

Marriage is a huge responsibility, but our culture pounds the idea into our subconscious constantly that we 'get' certain things 'out' of it. Our perspective on marriage should be that we are taking on the responsibility of tenderly and carefully caring for another as well as we want to be cared for ourselves and that men and women are different. If both people come to the marriage from this perspective, it seems to me that meeting each other's needs becomes a natural consequence.

As un-gentle as it sounds... your wife has been permanently changed by how you've hurt her. You seem to be looking for the old wife to come back around, but the old wife doesn't exist anymore - she may not know it yet, though. You have also been permanently changed by your choice, because you now no longer have the wife you used to have and there is no going back. You both now have a new marriage to two different people. I know how harsh this sounds, because I know this is not what you thought you were creating when you chose your affair. But, that's the reality of adultery and that is why it is in the top ten, dear soul.

But, thank God for repentance and forgiveness... just know that your old marriage has passed away and you are now courting your wife anew, with a new flaw in your character that she must consider as part of the new deal. Please don't be dismayed by that... "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". I am a sinner and I condemn you not. Just try to see your situation as being a whole new ballgame. You found this wonderful woman who's been betrayed and is very very cautious not to get burned again and you are a new potential suitor who unfortunately has done some burning. She will truly need to learn how to forgive in the most difficult of circumstances and you will truly need to learn how to forgive her for continually bringing your past to light, albeit unintentionally. You both carry a tremendous burden. What will come out of all your efforts will be a whole new marriage, because you are different people to each other now.

Perhaps this perspective will help you understand how to relate to the woman who will be your new wife.

I wish for you the very best. May truth and wisdom guide and bless you.

I, too, recommend that you ask these same questions over on the General Questions II board.