Marriage is based on some moral standards. You and your WW have both lowered those standards. MB is a great plan for salvaging a M. Problem is you don't have a M to salvage. At the very least you and preferrably your WW as well need to relearn what marriage is and what it requires.

Until you can raise the bar. I don't think MB principles will do you much good. If you feel you can continue to derive nourishment from what few crumbs fall off the table, try to make the best of it.

You cannot control what your WW did/does. You can control what you do about it. Why are you doing this to yourself? Don't you love or respect yourself? Your youthful bride is long since dead. Bury her already. Your WW is not that woman. Can you create a successful marriage with this new woman? Maybe. But not the way you are going about it. If you can't respect yourself, there is no way WW ever will.

I realize that biblically, I am released from the marriage, but I also believe that God hates divorce. I believe his heart is always for restoration and reconciliation if possible. How many times does he forgive us for our screw ups? I am to love my wife as Christ loved the church. That is definitely a majority of my position. I'm sure there is some unhealthy-ness on my part too. Codependence.

BDTD?

Hard words. I need to process.

He also hates adultery. She does this repeatedly.

Some people play the God card as support for their desire to save the M and I support that. Others play the God card as an excuse to inaction. You are the latter. Don't hide behind God on this.

You will look at any excuse to justify your blind acceptance of your WW's behavior and, if that isn't enough, you'll start quoting scripture. I believe in the Bible. I know the Bible's stance on divorce. I also now its opinion of adultery. Stop making excuses for yourself.

Hopefully, you know better now and will stop using God as an excuse to avoid conflict and keep you and your children yoked to evil.

But if you don't, then you really should just accept the cheating as a way of life and hold yourself accountable for your choices.

No. You need to get off your [censored] and start being a man.

Forgiveness does not mean making yourself available for more abuse. You can forgive her, if she repents, but that doesn't mean you have to make yourself available for more abuse.

Pio and Melody,
You both seem very firm and clear on your stance. I find these to be hard words. Uncomfortable. I will examine this. I don't know what else to say.

That should have been BTDT - Been There, Done That.

If only I could jump in a time machine and go back all those years to the first time my W showed what she was really capable of doing. Going through this twice has been hard enough. But four times? I can't imagine handling a situation like that.

I am firm with you because I know for a fact you are heading toward destruction. I say these things to you because I want you to stop and save what remains of your life. I have not said anywhere to divorce your WW. Think about that. My advice has been to you - not what to do with your WW. I don't think you are yet in a position to even think about the M. First you need to work on you.

I've been thinking some about your other thread. Your WW sounds like she was pretty much the hign school bicycle. I used to date a girl who behaved like that. She was, in fact, my first love. I still miss her 30 years later. She was abused by both her parents. I believe that is why she was the way she was. I realized that I could not fix her and I broke off my engagement to her so she would not ruin my life as well. That was a tough decision.

It also appears that you have never been with anyone but your wife. You have never had other girlfriends (since childhood). She is the only thing you know. So I am wondering if you are suffering from the fear that makes us reason "better the devil that you know...".

In the past three affairs, WW came running back to you so it was all hugs and kisses. You forgive her and life goes on. This time she is leaving you and is about to move in with OM and you are pissed off about it. Difference is this time you don't see WW running back into your arms. Without your permission, your WW has now suddenly changed the rules of this little game you two have been playing and you are angry about it.

All I am suggesting is that you get serious IC. The one you have sounds like a wimp. Get someone tough and get to the root of what is causing you to behave this way. WW has her own problems and I bet she had them long before she married you. Can she be "fixed"? Only if she wants to be fixed. You have been enabling her adulterous behavior. You may not have created the monster but you have been refining it.

I am just so amazed that the majority of her affairs revolve around church. Something is going on you are not aware of. You say BIL is/was your best friend. Has he ever shed any light on WW? It is not our place to analyze her. Please just recognize that she is seriously twisted and needs far more help than just your love.

howmuch, as i told you on the divorce boards a while ago, i was married to a serial cheater. it does NOT get any better usually. i ALLOWED it to continue to by believing God can do anything, etc. BUT, God grants free will as well and would never force my ex to stop. my ex had to want to stop and as long as he was with me he didn't want to.

i left and it is the best thing i could have done for me and my children. i would NEVER tolerate that again.
i have a wonderful man in my life now and am happier than i have been... EVER!

mlhb

How,

I am divorced from my Ex WW (first and only affair) who chose to be with a man 23 years her senior and a serial cheater (12 documented affairs on two wives). In fact he was in an affair just 6 months before entering this affair with my ex WW. I have become friends with the OM's wife. She is a good woman (much like you must be a good man) who took him back time after time. AND, said just what you said about him being a good husband and father between affairs. AND, yet here it is finally leading to divorce because I helped her rid herself of his dumb, cheating azz. I gave her the encouragement and support to no longer be a doormat for this man. He will marry my ex WW as soon as his divorce is over and he will be cheating on her within a matter of a year, wait and watch. It has cost my ex WW custody of her son and will have him working until he is 80 years old to pay his debts.

See, he can't/won't help it. Does it really matter if the outcome is the same each time, cheating. Do yourself a favor and protect yourself and your children from this self destructive woman before its too late and before your children lose respect for you and learn terrible lessons about living life, having boundaries, not being a doormat, etc. I miss my WIFE (not the EX WW) but I would never take her back short of bloodied knees and her getting the help she needs for some sickness she has (as does yours) in her mind.

Help yourself and your kids!

hommuch,
I read your thread because I know how it feels to have anger eat me alive. When you are angry, what you are trying to convey is righeous indignation -- how dare you cheat on me, you, the bride of my youth, the woman who vowed to forsake all others.

You can be angry all you want. You can feel justified in your anger. Bottom line: it is ineffective because it doesn't convince her to change her ways, and it is counterproductive because it drains love bank balances.

I was angry and on this board for years, with people telling me I was a volunteer, not a victim. Go read posts by someone called Lemonman. To me, he was the expert at addressing what I came to think of as BS fog.

Here is what I finally concluded. I'd had enough. You ask, How much more? Only you can get to the point of saying you had had enough.

This has nothing to do with your wife. It's a matter of the limits of your tolerance.

What I had to wrestle with were two ideals promoted by Catholic teaching -- the idea of selfless love, which is to love without expecting a return; and the idea of the permanence of marriage. What I came to believe is that marriage is meant to be permanent. I have vowed to care for my husband for life, and I choose to do that. I choose to care for him. Selfless love, I had come to believe, means tolerating any sort of behavior from the other person.

What I have now come to believe is that selfless love means caring for your spouse to the best of your ability. I can continue to care for him and not tolerate bad behavior by removing myself from his presence until and unless he changes his behavior. I cannot force him to change his behavior, only let him know that I have had enough. I expect care in return for care.

I reached my limit at the end of March. In our case, the one affair was over, and he had not been physically abusive in five years, except when we got into an argument about the affair in December. He had cut down considerably on swearing, although what tipped me over the edge into "I've had enough" was his standing over me and yelling "I hate your f*cking guts" in early March. I was done.

What I proposed, and he accepted, was that we tell each other one positive and one negative per day and then each month try to work on a change in habit that will reduce the negatives or increase the positives for the other person. These are really small changes. I expect it to be a long time until we have a good marriage, but I am looking at monthly improvement.

Here is an example in my case. Skip this paragraph if you don't want an example. My 13 year old daughter was downstairs making lots of noise with her siblings, we called her upstairs, and my husband said, "Stop being obnoxious." She went downstairs to tell the others to stop being obnoxious. We both laughed. She had not had any idea that she was the one who had been doing something we didn't like! A few weeks later, I overheard him telling her, "You left this paper on the floor. Please pick it up because it's difficult for people to step over." During the last several weeks, I have been giving positives and negatives on how my husband talks. I see a change. Sure, he's going to resort to "Sit properly" and "You don't care about anyone but yourself", but he's also starting to say things like "I'd like a butter dish".

In other words, I got specific on what I liked and didn't like, and he's gotten specific in what he likes and doesn't like.

In your situation, your wife has now had several affairs. You can sit her down and let her know that you have had it. And then you can give her a choice -- live together as a couple where you are together virtually 24 X 7, making another affair impossible; or live where you are never together, separated, divorced, whatever, it doesn't matter.

When you get to the point where you have had it, your anger will dissapate. Anger is a strategy to get the other person to change. The other person likes the situation the way it is and can use your anger to justify her selfish behavior. Instead, calmly and firmly, tell her that you are done living this way and then tell her under what conditions you will continue living with her.

I read a book back in March that is a business book. Before I finished reading it, I realized it was going to have a huge impact on my life. It's called "The Power of a Positive No."

In my opinion, you are close to the end of this anguish. You just need to look at the point of "I have had it" as not a failure on your part but rather the start of your reclaiming your dignity.

Cherished

PS. In my case, our marriage has been painful for me nearly every day from our wedding night on, when I was so upset by how he treated me that I considered sleeping in the car. In all those years, there were perhaps 10 days that were enjoyable, then there were 3 weeks one July about 3 years ago, and now I am looking at most of the last month and a half as being neutral to good. In other words, if I had to relive any time of our marriage, I would relive the last month and a half. When you get to the point of "I have had it", you may be surprised. If she leaves, you can move on with your life. If she accepts the condition of you two being together virtually all the time, you can create an intimate relationship without fear of an affair.

Just as an aside, I remember hearing Harley on the radio talk about hugging and how there was a man from their church who hugged women all the time. Harley confronted the guy and said that he was not to hug Joyce. It turned out later Dr. Harley and Joyce learned that this man had had lots of affairs. Church seems like a safe place -- might be a place where people think they can let down their guard, and it's not.

Have hope. Your life will improve with or without your wife once you say, "I have had it".

Dear Brother,

I'm a Pastor and I love marriage. I will try my best for people to stay in marriages and make them work. But there comes a point of futility that you have far surpassed.

You love her. You will continue to love her. And frankly, you can love her right out the door. This has nothing to do with love. It has to do with the fact that you are married to a serial cheater who will continue to be a serial cheater until she realizes there are serious....and I mean serious consquences to her actions.

God commands us to forgive. However there is a reason that God gave an out when it came to marriage for divorce. It is because adultery is the ultimate betrayal of your wedding vows.

When you two were married, you became one flesh. Your wife has repeatedly showed you that she has seperated her self from you and became one flesh with 4 other men. And let me point out that there is probably a chance that it is more than 4 but that is all you found out about.

This woman does not respect you. She does not care about you. Because this is now how a person who loves or cares about another person treats one they supposedly love and care about.

And it's because she has no respect for you that she continuously goes out and sleeps around on you over and over again.

She will "repent" this time too. I put quotes around repent because to actually repent means to turn away from a certain behavior, not to ask for forgiveness when you get caught only to go right back to doing what you have always done.

She will act the wife for a while. Meet your needs out of GUILT. And believe me when I tell you that any needs she is meeting after 4 affairs at this point is strictly out of guilt and not because she loves you. And then, when she gets tired of doing that AGAIN, she will have another afair....AGAIN.

Forgive her. Love her. Want the best for her. Then show her the door and don't give her the option to do this to you again.

I pray God will give you wisdom and discernment during this time of your life.

I went back and read your original thread. I try to stay away from people's religious convictions; and I completely understand that lots of people think that marriage is sanctified ..... but having read all the instances where you "put things in God's hands" I gotta tell you, you need to stop delegating all this stuff to God and stand up for yourself.

To answer your question: I would feel horrible because I'd been suckered again. It's not like this should have been unexpected. Seems to me that you have two choices. Choice one: Continue to be periodically cheated on by a woman who needs a little on the side every so often. Choice two: get rid of her and move your life forward.

HMM -

I've read your story. I have few thoughts to share with you, and you probably won't like any of them.

First, I don't think your marriage has ever recovered from the previous affairs. Why do I say that? Well - because the affairs keep happening. If you look at the recovered couples here on MB, you'll see a common theme - both partners are 100% committed to their marriage, and place their marriage above their needs and wants. Both partners will take extradinorary precautions to protect their marriage.

Your wife clearly hasn't done this, and I don't see in your posts what measures you've put in place to protect your marriage.

Forgiveness is all well and good - it's a key component of recovery. But with foregiveness should also come a sincere desire, on the part of the forgiven, to not repeat their past mistakes, and take whatever steps they need to to make sure they are not in a position to repeat them.


Well, yes, there's definately something wrong with her. But this is also her way of simply ducking her responsibilities to your marriage and family. It's not that she can't risk hurting you or the kids again - it's really that she is unwilling to choose to not hurt you again. She would rather take the easy way out and claim that it is in everyone's best interest. This is utter bull crap.


Then tell her to go ahead and divorce you. You don't have to initiate the divorce. You can even drag it out as long as you want and as long as the courts will allow you. If she wants the divorce, let her get it. The onus is on her.
I think 1 Corinthians 7:15 applies in your case. Your wife may be saved, but she is definately not acting like it.


Ah yes...the old "Well, God didn't give me what I wanted, so I'm not going to give Him what He wants."

Let me tell you, HMM, as someone who's played that game with God, it don't work. When we don't get what we want from God, we need to ask ourselves if what we want is something that we truly need, or if it will be harmful to us. God denies us nothing, if we are following His will. Indeed, He has a tendency to bless us with more than we could imagine - as long as we are following His will.

Look at it as a parent-child relationship. The kid wants candy. The parent says no. All the kid sees is that they didn't get what they wanted. The parent realizes there are many viable reasons for saying no.

If the kid complies with the parent's ruling, they will have an easier time of it. If the kid rebels, they have a tougher time of it.


Do you really know who she is? Is the real person the good wife, or the adulterous wife? Even if her "current" self is not the real her, who's responsibility is it to get back to her "real" self? Yours? Or hers?


It means that you love her unconditionally. It means you pray for her. It means that you do all that you can to help her.

It does not mean that you stay married to her if she continues to cheat. It does not mean that you tolerate her sin, condone it, give the appearance of condoning it, or enable her to continue it.

It means that you do the exact same thing that God does with believers in rebellion - if they do not turn aside from their sin, you turn them over to the world.

Read Matthew 18:15-17. Read 1 and 2nd Corinthians. The first outlines discipline within the body. The second (IMO) are a great example of how to handle believers fallen in sin - both the disciplining, and the restoration.

Look at Israel. They rebelled against God (numerous times)...at one point it was so bad that they got a free, expense paid trip to Babylon. As slaves. For 400 years.

Sin has consequences. Even when your forgiven of sin, the consequences may remain. I'm experiencing the consequences of some of my sin from earlier in my marriage. I know that God has forgiven me of those sins. I also realize that the consequence of those sins might be my marriage. The same applies to my wife and her sins.

All your doing right now is sheltering your wife from the consequences of her actions and choices. People tend to change their ways and behaviors only when the pain of the current behavior (in terms of consequences) becomes too great to bear.

Do not mistake trusting in God to mean doing nothing. You are released from your marriage. Your marriage was shattered every time your wife chose to have an A.

Bottom line. You cannot change your wife. Only she can choose to change herself. All you're doing is killing yourself emotionally in the face of an active affair. Take a stand for yourself and your kids. She's made her choice - now you need to step back and let the full consequences of her choice fall squarely on her.

Honestly, HMM - what do you stand to lose? You've already lost your wife. You have been unable to keep her in your marriage so far - why do you think doing the same thing as before will result in a different outcome this time? (I'm not criticizing you as a person here - I'm simply saying that you've given her your best, and she still strayed).

You have a choice to make. A choice very similar to the one I made. You can slowly but surely slip into a life filled with bitterness and anger, and poisoning yourself and everyone around you, or you can choose to release your anger and bitterness.

If you choose to release the anger and bitterness, you have another choice to make. You can either actively work to protect yourself and your family, or you can choose to remain where you are. If you choose to remain where you are, then, as ML put it, you really no longer have the right to complain because you know the score and are volunteering to stay.

In the end, only you can decide how much you are willing to put up with. But I can tell you this - based on what I've seen here, and the experiences I've had, being the patient, willing, supportive husband is very unlikely to get you the wife you want and deserve.

Step back and get out of God's way. Chances are real good that right now you're most likely getting in His way. Cut yourself off from your wife. Let her know what is required from her for you to continue in this marriage, and then step away.

You don't have to divorce her. You would do well, however, to protect yourself financially, and to clearly stipulate exactly what she needs to do to re-enter the marriage - and what she needs to do once she decides to re-enter the marriage.

Being the patient nice guy has gotten you no where. Time to take a tougher stand.

Your wife needs to show you that she wants this marriage as well. So open the door and let her decide if she really wants to be free.

MelodyLane - Oops...I did it again - wrote a novel <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I really appreciate the thoughts from everyone. They are all so much in line with each other, how can I not consider them?

Today my wife left a message in her agravated voice and said she was going to the house to get a book that she needed that I wouldn't know what to look for. She said,"It is my house too."

I had asked her nicely about a month after she left to not go to the house when I was not there. I said,"You have chosen to leave, I don't have access to your apartment (nor did I want it), so I don't want you to go to the house when I am not there." I said," You can have anything of yours that you want from the house, but I should be there when you get it."

Today she went and got the book with my daughter. The house is not in pristine condition, which bothers me, but mostly I'm angry because she invaded my personal space. She shouldn't have access to my life.

How to stop it?

change the locks.

mlhb

It's not that simple. We have four kids. Today she went with my two daughters. Do I tell them mommy's not allowed in the house and put them in the middle of it?