Actually, I found out last week to what extent she cheated on me. I knew she had met him one night back in August. I didn't find out until last week that she had been "oral" with him.

And that hurts.

Rather than rehash my entire story, I'm leaving a link to my blog. I've been keeping track of my thoughts since the beginning of September. In fact, someone from this forum found it, and left a comment leading me here.

My wife and I are determined to make our marriage work. I have honestly forgiven her. But I've been devastated by this. And she's suffering, knowing the pain she's caused me. I'm not sure what I'm looking for - maybe just advice. I will say though, that reading the stories of others really hits close to home - the feelings that other people in my position are having, and so forth.

It's truly heartbreaking. But I do believe that in time, the pain will subside.

Anyway, here's a link to my blog. You'll have to start at the bottom, and work your way up. The first entry is from Friday, September 7th.


MY STORY

Your blog could be my journal in many respects!

I think you'll find the Marriage Builder's program useful. I'd suggest you and your wife start by going over the basic concepts and filling out the Emotional Needs survey.

Good luck! It sounds like you two have a good chance at recovery. Try not to let your own head get in the way too much.

Welcome to marriagebuilders. Glad you found us.

I think the two of you need to read and take the emotional needs questionairre. It will help. Another thing is to be sure you are spending 15 hours a week doing fun things together.

I still believe that you might want to get some counseling together. My question to Mrs. Midwesthusband is what has changed to keep her from cheating again. And I don't believe it is the way you dress, or that you don't help enough around the home. That stuff is important to work on, but I don't see those as the reason she behaved in such a sleazy manner.

Also, your wife's friend, Miss Do Whatever Makes You Happy would be OFF of my list of people to spend time with in my life. Married partners need friends who are also friends of the marriage.

The best friend is just as culpable as your wife.

She is an enabler and cheerleader, living out her fantasy through your wife.

Mine has a one. In fact mine's cheerleading, enabler is involved with a married man herself, AT CHURCH of all places.

Your wife must ditch the firend permanantly.

Thanks for the responses. I have already printed up two copies of the emotional needs questionnaire. Assuming we have time tonight, my wife and I will sit down and take it - then discuss them.

I think I need to go on the defensive a bit regarding my wife's friend. I wouldn't label her as a cheerleader. However, I do think she may have "lived out her own fantasy" through my wife - to a certain degree. She's not an evil person by any means. In fact, she's very nice.

My wife was going through some personal issues regarding her own happiness. And as a friend, she of course wanted her to be happy. I guess my issue with her is that she didn't push her more to discuss everything with me. She did in fact urger her to not rule out any options - and that included an option with me, AND perhaps with someone else.

I just wanted to be clear on that. She never championed the cause of "Leave him and go have fun!" She was more of a "Do what you have to do for YOU."

I just think she made a mistake by not pushing my wife to come to me with her problems. And because of that, I now feel very awkward around her. (I've seen her once since all this happened).

Your wife needs to experience the consequences of her actions. One may be that you are not comfortable around her friend. And your comfort needs to be considered.

The way your wife will win back your trust is by making you feel safe and PROVING that she is trustworthy. She needs to be an open book and account for all of her time.

Maybe she feels stifled being a SAHM. Anyway, it sounds like she has too much time on her hands.

We're telling you that if it ain't nipped in the bud, you wife WILL go out and do it again because she has had zero consequences to deal with.


It will become a hobby, if she hasn't started the fog talk yet, she will soon.

We may still get some counseling. That remains to be seen.

As to what will keep her from cheating again, I believe that it all comes down to communication. There were things that I was doing (or not doing) in our marriage that contributed to her unhappiness. I have accpeted responsibility for that. And now that I know about those things, I have worked on fixing those areas of our relationship. And things are much better now. I was at fault for some things. And I agreed with her that I wasn't doing everything I could.

My issue was that prior to all of this, I had absolutely no idea that there were any problems. This is because she never told me. She kept it all bottled up inside of her. Had she been open and honest with me from the beginning, we could have fixed our marriage problems before any of this happened.

She is now being open and honest about everything. And I have to trust her that she will continue to be that way. She has to work on that. And I believe she will be successful.

I guess I'm not familiar with all of the terms.

"Fog talk?"

For the record, I guess it depends on your definition of "consequences." Have I done anything to hurt her? Have I told her I need to know her whereabouts at all times? Have I told her I need to know the passwords to her E-mail addresses?

Absolutely not! I believe that for our marriage to survive, there has to be trust. And I have to trust that she won't go down this road again. If I live in constant paranoia, what kind of life is that? It's not for me.

My wife has offered to tell me where she is at all waking moments. She has offered to let me go through her E-mail accounts. She has given me free reign in that regard, if I so desire to take it. But I've told her no. I've told her I don't want to put those types of restrictions on her.

My wife does have consequences. Guilt. She has a lot of it. And she feels horrible knowing that her actions have devastated me so much.

Lastly, I've told my wife that if she EVER feels the need to be with someone else (and thus end our marriage) to just tell me about it up front. I'd rather know it's over right away, then find out about it months later.

Boy do I hear ya!

My wife felt like she couldn't talk to me, blamed that on me, then let a ton of resentment towards me build up about everything under the sun then used all that miserableness to justify having an affair.

As soon as I became clued into the problem and kicked the communication block in, she's saying "oh, I CAN talk to you!? I never knew that."

No sh1t.

But for my wife the other man's way in was through talking to her and making her feel special. (she gave him the opportunity to do that while denying it to me) What was it that allowed your wife to drop her boundaries like that so quickly? I think you need to be trying to get her to really examine that because its probably not the case that there was something incredibly special about this other man. He simply provided an opportunity. What was she looking for?

Trust is earned MWH. You should not trust her until she deserves to be trusted, and even then you probably shouldn't trust her. :P You've seen what blind trust gets you now, haven't you? Why persist with a plan that didn't work?

I would take all those passwords and account information she's offering now willingly. In a healthy marriage, there's no reason for secrets, is there?

My wife never thought she couldn't talk to me. She just chose not to. Sometimes she's just uncomfortable sharing her feelings like that. I can understand that. However, for us to have a healthy marriage, she has no choice but to get past that uncomfortable feeling and open up. She must. It's as simple as that.

And yes, you are 100% correct. Without getting into too many details, we have openly discussed what it is that each of us are seeking. And we have taken the necessary steps to fulfill those needs on both of our parts.

There will be hurt on my part for awhile, no doubt. But I know that today, our marriage is much stronger than it has ever been.

No, there is no reason for secrets. But there is still reasons for privacy.

I do trust her not to cheat. And although this may sound naive, I do know that things have changed for the better.

I'm sorry, but most of us appear to think that you are being VERY naive, and will likely be facing this same situation again, BECAUSE you don't appear to be holding your wife accountable for her actions and simply gave her a free pass, which she WILL use.

There really do appear to be two distinct types of BH's here at MB ... those who take decisive action to stop the A and either rebuild their M or D ... and those that are too afraid of their WW to do much of anything and just continue to EXIST in limbo.

Keep in mind that most of us BH's know what we're talking about from the school of hard knocks, and NOTHING seems to be more unattractive to a W than a H she doesn't respect, and I bet your W has little respect for you, because you don't seem to have much respect for yourself or you wouldn't be letting her run over you like this.

I know its tough to hear, because it was tough to hear when it was told to me. Not trying to beat you down ... I've been there ... but it gives me great pleasure to see a BH take back their self-respect after being done SOOOOO wrong by their WW.

You are in for a ruuuuuuuuude awakening.

My sweet little wifey was a good little "christian" that sang in the choir and NOBODY would have expected her to be untrustworthy, until I caught her on tape trying to have me killed.

NEVER trust what a cheater says. They ARE lying about EVERYTHING.

But alas, you will have to see for yourself.

Welcome to the cesspool.

I'm shocked at all this doom and gloom. Every situation is different.

My wife and I don't hate each other. There is no animosity. There is deep love AND respect.

Yeah, that's why she cheated.

...and lied to your face!

LOL, this is almost comical. Will my wife cheat again? Sure, anything is possible. Do I believe she will? No. Is it a given that a person who cheats will cheat again? Of course not.

Each situation is unique.

I appreciate the comments. But man, some of you seem to take an absolutely negative view. I accept your opinions. You should accept mine. We don't have to agree. But we should at least be respectful.