I think you all AGAIN missed the point. I am sorry for what I have done. I have repented and THE LORD has forgiven me. I do not need your forgiveness and I do not need to prove my commitment to the Lord to YOU.

My original post is titled "My story..how I wrecked my marriage." I have taken responsibility for some very bad decisions. But I have gone on to EXPLAIN why I made some of those decisions in the first place. It doesn't change that they were bad decisions..just WHY I made them. ... I did what I knew at the time, and when I knew better, I did better.

As for him being separated and the possiblity of repairing his marriage with #3 (if it weren't for me).. I did not make him meet me on an adult site and I was not the only one he met. His marriage was definetly over....again, something I do not have to prove to you.

As for my first marriage...yes, I cheated. Yes, I ended the marriage..could it have been saved??? As I stated in the first post, we had been to therapy (off and on for several years) and I had done what I thought I could. Could I have stayed, keeping things the way they were? Yes. Did I want to? NO. BUT I AM NOT HERE TRYING TO SAVE MY FIRST MARRIAGE. I AM NOT ASKING ADVICE ON MY FIRST MARRIAGE. And it is just ridiculous for anyone to say that I am now cheating on my first husband with my current husband.. I am married to my current husband and divorced from my first. Get a grip.

I certainly hope you feel better beating up on an already EXTREMELY fragile woman who feels like she is about to lose her whole life. (You do not have to agree with this... it is MY feeling.. NOT YOURS)

I am starting to remember why I left the church long ago.. PEOPLE LIKE YOU that use God as wrath and fear rather than love and hope. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

you don't have anything to prove to anyone

however

if you wish to learn the lessons of your past errors ... you may wish to consider the fact that

separated = STILL married

all I am asking is this:

do you recognize that separated = STILL married ....

do you recognize this NOW so you can use this in the future?

if you are so fragile that a discussion board disagreement bothers you ... get IN REAL LIFE help instead

of course

OK...leaving the past out of the picture as much as possible...which isn't much really. The past ALWAYS impacts the present.

Read up on plan A, and plan B here on this site. Seriously give some thought to calling the Harley's and setting up some professional counseling. I think given the 'past', your marriage faces more obstacles than most do in the recovery area.

I think that's a large part of why you're hearing all of this about what happened. It's difficult enough for a 'normal' marriage to recover. Your marriage has been based on completely different dynamics from the beginning...which makes recovery a lot more problematical.

The odds of getting good advice for recovery of your present marriage on this forum are very very low...for a couple of reasons. The 'tools' that we are used to using here are for dealing with marriages that aren't facing the same obstacles created in the beginning as yours is. The concepts AREN'T compatible with a swinging lifestyle. The damage caused by the lifestyle remains outside the scope of the MB principles for dealing with infidelity. And bluntly, the vast majority of the posters aren't going to have the patience or sympathy that you came here hoping to find. For us, cheating is cheating. Its very simple and clear cut...you don't have the same definition of cheating, or the same definition for several baseline concepts in a marriage. Without that same baseline, the help you get here is going to be minimal at best.

Seriously, contact a PROFESSIONAL marriage counselor. One who not only knows how to recover a marriage from infidelity, but knows how to deal with recovering a marriage from a swinging lifestyle. I don't believe that this board can provide you with what you need.

Same old story here on MB these days... and the usual group seems to be at play here.

You really should be ashamed of yourselves. Who died and made you GOD???

PS - great post Owl. Just tell it like it is w/o all the "looking down their nose" comments that others seem to have to hurl around.

pragmatic discernment

Another point I think you all are missing... You seem to be using our past swinging lifestyle as a justification for him cheating on me.. that I enabled him to cheat on my by allowing or introducing the swinging.. Like "I created a monster"... Well, what about the FACT that WH pattern of cheating on his wives goes back long before he met me. He was cheating when he was married to someone who wouldn't even "allow" him to go to strip clubs. He has always done this. I did not create it by introducing or ending the swinging. I introduced the swinging so that he wouldn't cheat on me... Why would he need to cheat if he gets other women with me??

Again..not a good idea. But hind sight is 20/20.

I am not "getting what I deserve". I deserve to be happy in a committed relationship with the man I love and if we all gave up because we made some bad choices...what would be the point??

Typical secularist argument. Since none of us is God, we can't speak about what is right or wrong. That pretty much does away with all morality. Who am I to tell anyone that swinging is wrong? Or cheating? Or murder? Where does it stop. I guess everything is grey so no one can judge anyone else's actions as wrong.

I never claimed to be God. However, God pretty much spelled it out as to how you should live your life. I will call out anyone who perverts his message to fit their current lifestyle.

When does an affair become legitimate in God's eyes? After you divorce? Once you remarry that person? Ten years later? I would just like to know that magic point where cheating on your first husband with this man suddenly became okay in God's eyes.

Thank you OWL for an intelligent post! I couldn't agree more about not quite having all the tools here to fix a marriage after a swinging lifestyle. Professional help is required.

Finding a MC or IC that has experience with couples that have entered the lifestyle can be challenging. PN needs to choose wisely. Most all use the same cookie cutter approach and treat this likes its just an affair. It more complicated, involves co-dependency issues, it requires strength, and it requires belief in a higher power.

It would be great to have a safe place where we could all share our stories about the lifestyle without the fire and brimstone. Maybe others could learn from the walking dead of the marriage graveyard and not make the same mistakes.

I'm not talking about "getting what you deserve". What I AM saying is that a swinging lifestyle creates a whole DIFFERENT set of issues in a marriage.

Look at your definition of cheating...note that it doesn't match anyone else's (as far as I know) that's posting here? That's just a symptom of what I'm talking about.

I'd also agree with your observation...he's got a long time pattern of cheating. That too drives your odds of true marital recovery even further against you.

I'm not one telling you to 'give him up'. But I do agree with everyone that your own PERSONAL recovery from all that's gone on is going to be delayed for as long as he's in your life. So to me, you've got the choice of healing yourself, or healing your marriage. What you're hearing from everyone else here is the same thing...the odds of healing this marriage (at least with the tools that WE have) are very very slim...so perhaps you're best served by healing yourself first, and THEN seeing what becomes of your relationship with him?

I want to re-emphasize...this board probably cannot help you. You REALLY should consider getting professional help...for yourself AND your marriage if that's what you choose.

I'm not judging...I'm telling you what I see based on my own past and experiences.

so, you are telling us you think that now all of a sudden there can be a magical transformation and you and this man who has a long history of cheating is going to become a one woman man?

Let's look at that rationally. Let's not even bring into the discusssion the swinging issue.

Here is a man who is married to wife number 4- he is cheating on her and has probably cheated on the other wives as well. He really sounds like a good catch to me.

I asked you earlier if your husband is a believer. You didn't respond. What about the fact that God says to be not unequally yoked. Here you are, a woman who says she has her heart fixed on God, but is willing to settle for crumbs instead of the wonderful, fabulous relationship you could have with a man who is also following God.

He is a serial cheater and I'm sorry to say I very much doubt you can change him. You married him knowing this. Eyes open to the complete picture.

But the good news is you can change yourself. And thats where you should be focusing.

I'm sorry you hurt. Divorce him so you can heal and make a better life for yourself.

You won't see it happen here. Personally, I'm VERY against 'the lifestyle'...I'm of the same mold of everyone else here...it's just cheating with a spiffy name.

Given how horribly most of us have been affected by cheating, it should be no surprise that most people find the concept extremely offensive, and therefore come at it with both barrels.

You might try looking online to see if you can find a website with the tools needed to recover a marriage from swinging. I'm not aware of anything.

She did to respond moveforward, she said he's a believer but he's not acting much like it. Please reread.

And I also saw that she asked jmcw... to not respond to her posts... I guess he missed that too?

Owl wrote:


Cosigned.

Excuse me, FCF. It is very hard trying to keep up with both of her threads at the same time.

I suppose I have wasted my day trying to do that. My thought was that I was trying to help someone-but instead I have just been a senseless basher.

Instead of continuing to whistle into the wind, I'll go be constructive.

[color:"red"] He has always done this [/color]

So...

What's the question again?

committed

OK...please mark the date...Resilient and I actually agreed on something today!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

This can't bode well...LOL!