Thanks for everyone who came here and responded to my post. My thanks go especially to those who are sincere and try to help.

I need time to bring this up to my H. One of the concerns (still selfish) is because I am living in a foreign coutry, and most likely I am going to spend at least several years here. I don't want to be alone. Without the support of family and friends, I would possible commit suicide if my H left me. I am not sure whether I can survive this. I need time to be strong.

Another reason is perhaps I couldn't understand myself. I feel I must understand myself better, I must understand why this happens on me? Why, considering that I have a basically nice husband, I would still commit A? I need to sort all these out before I make any radical decision on revealing it to two families. (I think I might reveal this to my husband but I don't want to hurt my OM's family. At least I may not tell this personally to his wife. I think I still love him although I cut off all the contact with him now.)

My god, how selfish can you be? What gives you the right to keep him like a pet? If you feel you will be suicidal, call a suicide hotline and join a group that will give you support. Who knows, even your husband may support you after you done him so, so wrong.



This didn't happen to you. You are not a victim in this. You perpetrated this act willingly and with premeditation. It happened because you didn't enforce any boundaries to protect your husband and your marriage. You need to understand that YOU are accountable for this. And as mediocre as you seem to think your husband is, he is 100 times the person you are. He quit his job and moved countries to be with you and this is the thanks he gets. If you don't understand this and realize that YOU are the deficient one in this marriage, not him, you are going to take your same problems to your next relationship.



Pathetic. You want to protect the OM's family instead of helping your husband to heal. You need to tell him so he can decide for himself whether he wants to stay married to such a deceitful, coward. The right thing to do is accept the consequences of your infidelity, tell your husband, tell the OM's wife, and start living a life of integrity.

Josephine, (((hug))). I've been in your shoes. I'm very early into recovery as a FWW, and am in a rough, tired place right now. But I still want to chime in.

My OM...oh my. He swept me right off my feet. Charming, loving, said things that moved me as well. I just SWOONED at some of the things he told me. Those butterflies in your tummy, your heart skipping a beat? That crazy anticipation of "Only three more hours, then we'll have some time together!" Yeah...I know.

But honey...it's not real. I'm sorry. I don't say that to hurt you, but because I've been there. Even though my recovery is SO HARD right now, I can look back at the one I thought was my Mr. Right and know that it wasn't real, and not even be a little tempted to go back to that charming guy.

Because the moment I ended things, his true colors started showing. I made the mistake of checking up on him a few weeks afterwards and got a nasty shock, seeing truer things about him than I had before. It was horrible, but I'm kind of grateful for it now - I needed to see who he really was.

Let me give you some things I've written, said, and been told during my very short recovery time.

"Someone who knows you are married, and wants to break that up, is someone with NO respect for you." (Said by our marriage counselor)

"To have one you can trust for life, to KNOW will be yours forever, a trust and love that's proven over years, is invaluable." (Said by me about my husband.)

"I like sweet talk as much as the next girl - "I love you, you're all I think of, soulmate, etc.". But true love, the good stuff, the stuff you can count on...whoo." (Said by me about my husband after he spent the entire night with me all sick and unattractive in the hospital.)

Keep in mind that your husband has been there through better or for worse, just like he vowed. His love is proven, solid, there for you, and the real thing. Don't throw that away to chase a fantasy, please.

I've gotta see this quote where Dr Harley says the unfaithful spouse is also a victim.

Even if this is true, being a victim is never an excuse to cheat on your spouse. Dr Harley repeatedly says in his radio broadcast that there is NEVER an excuse for cheating.

Saying the unfaithful spouse is also a victim doesn't seem consistent with Dr Harley teaches.

They may be unfulfilled, but not a victim.

Well I am sorry you are here but glad you are at least trying to get some help. When I read your post it just made me sad all over again. I just don’t see myself every marrying again because of my ex-wife. You remind me of her.

When we were dating she thought I walked on water. She couldn’t wait to see me. I got all the sex I wanted and she made me so happy. She also wanted to make me happy. She thought I was smart, charming and witty. She seemed to wait on every word and could not wait to see me again.

Marriage has a way of beating people down. After a few years she couldn’t stand to see me. I got very little sex and she was always unhappy. She never wanted to make me happy it was all about her. She thought I was an idiot, boring and stale. You see I was the same person but she wanted more.

Then she had an affair with another guy. She couldn’t wait to see him. He got all the sex he wanted and she made him so happy. She also wanted to make him happy. She thought he was smart, charming and witty. She seemed to wait on his every word and could not wait to see him again. Oh and the sex with him was great so I saw no need for us anymore.

When I filed for divorce she no longer saw the other man as her great savior. I had assumed that she really loved him but I guess not. When I gave her the freedom to pursue him she stopped seeing him. She has told me how sorry she is now.

Your other man is not a good husband nor is he a good family man. As a matter of fact he is a cruel husband and a mean person. There are some men out there that will say and do anything to get into a woman’s pants. It appears that is exactly what he did with you. Now you knew he was married so he is not the bad guy as far as your husband is concerned. You are the one that your husband married and had vows with and gosh you are so cruel to him.

But you said your husband sacrificed for you and repaid him by taking up with another man. You have disdain for him and I feel so bad for your husband. Gosh it sure is horrible to be married to a woman who can’t stand to have sex with you. So I am sure your husband is in hell right now because he has a wife that has sex with other men and not him.

Why don’t you start to do the right thing? Tell your husband and try to fix things. Sure he might divorce you but so what. You have nothing but disdain for him anyway so is it really a loss at all? The nicest thing your husband could do would be to let you go so you can be with your married man.

Your other man will then run for the hills. He already has a wife and kids. He got what he wanted from you so he probably moved on already.

Now if you are wondering if there is sarcasm in this post then you are correct. It is filled with it but your husband must really be a piece of crap of a human being if you think it is ok to treat him like that. I want to cry for him and I don’t even know him.

I hope you see the light and do the right thing. I have seen way to man guys divorced who had wives that cheated on them. I think the worst part is the caliber of the men they cheated with.

Here is what your life would be with the other man. You would have a lonley life. You even said he has had previous affairs so you are obviously nothing special to him. He would grow tired of you and find another woman. She would get his attention and be his new soul mate. And so what if he was cheating on you since you did the same thing to his first wife.

Josephine - I'll make this "short and and sweet" (not my "normal" posting style of lengthy attempts to help).


Here's the answer to your questions.

You don't BELIEVE God and you won't surrender your life to OBEYING God's commands. YOU want to be your own god and do whatever you FEEL LIKE doing.

With that orientation, nothing anyone says is going to help you.

It's a fact. You won't accept it as a fact. You prefer to do and get whatever you want, as long as it's all about "what's in it for ME!?!"

"Thou shalt NOT commit Adultery." Period. No discussion. It is a COMMAND to protect YOU and those you truly love.

A man who has had an affair, let alone SEVERAL affairs, IS NOT a "good man." PERIOD. It does not matter how well he plays the "appearance game" "most of the time." When he wants to and when he thinks he can get away with it, he resorts to rape, murder, theft, and destruction of other people's lives.

Josephine, YOU chose to divorce your husband when you CHOSE adultery. You have already "left" your husband and now all you are doing is more of the same that your (barf) Other Man does...you are USING your husband for your own selfish purposes.

He has a RIGHT to know about your Adultery. The Other Man's WIFE has a RIGHT to know about her husband's Adultery.

The CHOICE to "stay or divorce" BELONGS to the Betrayed Spouse, NOT to the ones who already CHOSE to LEAVE.

Selfish? It doesn't begin to describe it. "Self-preeminence" would be a closer fit.

Victim? Just like the murderer or murderess is a "victim" of THEIR CHOICES? Poor baby...if only we could just do away with laws and morality there would be no "victims," right?

I hope you wake up soon.

One last piece of advice...get yourself tested for AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases. You had sex not only with the OM, but with everyone else he ever had sex with. You are potentially "playing with" giving your husband a DEATH sentence for your "daliance."

I hope you "wake up" soon.

ForeverHers, please note I've sent you a post on my thread yesterday (for in case you haven't seen it).

Sorry for the temporary threadjack Josephine.

Temporary TJ - Suzet, I have not seen it. I will go and check it out now.

Now back to the regularly scheduled entitlement program.

JF, you have no right to keep your husband in a marriage based on a LIE for your own selfish purposes. He is not your PET, dear. He is a human being who has a right to make his OWN decisions about his OWN LIFE. To trick him into staying in this marriage, when you know he might want to leave, is cruel and manipulative. AND MEAN.

He has a RIGHT to decide if he wants to live with a cheating wife. That is his choice. He needs to know the truth so he can protect himself from you.

Do the right thing and tell this man the truth, Josephine.

1. I believe that to some extent, religion can really help people to control desires and maintain the level of moralities. But sorry, I don't have religious belief. I believe in modern science. I believe there's a scientific and rational solution to the ethic, emotional, psychological and social problem I am facing now. I guess that's why I come to this website to seek for sensible advice, analysis, and perhaps counselling. I might become a religious person in future but now, I need to figure out what is right and do the right thing.

2. I live in a big city, under the influence of popular culture that commericializes sex and desires. In a way, I feel I am contaminated by it. For example, I somehow buy the feminine sexual indepence and freedom preached in "Sex and City" that comes from your culture. For the first few days when my OM left me, I watched this TV series over again in order to make myself strong, although it in no way reduced my sense of guilt or confusion. But pathetically, I do see myself in a confusing state of mind now, not knowing whether there's a larger proportion of sexual addiction or emotional addiction to him. I am wondering whether these two addictions should be treated separately with different counselling or medication.

3. I have a personal history that makes me me. I have been married for 5 years. My husband has been working hard to suppor the family yet he failed to support the family financially. In other words, I have been undertaken the financial responsibility of the family. I was exhauted and I complained but there's no comforting change. That's partially the reason why I choose to come to this country so that I can develop my own career further to gain more financial security. Constantly, during the past 5 years, I lost faith in my H, but I tried very hard to persuade myself that money is very secondary in a marriage. When he chose to come to this country with me, I was literally moved and I felt that I should never consider this financial factor as a problem in my marriage again. I was determined to restore my confidence for him as a return to his devotion. I really thought that way. But I am afraid I didn't have chance to invest enough time to consolidate that idea before I met my OM. I guess the change of external enviornment is also a triggering factor in my betrayal. When I try to operate in a different language and culture, I feel I am acting, not living a real life as in my country. I feel liking performing under a mask. That feeling made me lose myelf temporarily. I have been expecting a larger scale of freedom under a new environment.

And then this OM's sweet talk comes. I used not to be a fool, although I am perhaps so now. But he is not really a bad man. He was on his biz trip here. In oder to save more money, he chose to stay in a small room. I met his family once in the past 5 months. They are all very nice people. From their interaction, I can understand he is a responsible and caring father. His daughter claims that he never loses temper at home although her mother is always angry. I still hold that he is a good husband expect that he feels his wife is negligent and cannot meet his sexual demands. (Sorry, he doesn't have any religous belief too.)

At the very beginning, when a woman like me hearing a man talking about his obviously overflowing sexual demands, I was scared. Then little by little, I begin to show my sympathy on him. Among the many motives of my implusive A, there is one idea of saving this man from his imprisonment of sex. (sound pretty self-scrificing, isn't it? Perhaps this is also a self-deceptive mechanism that prompts me to conduct A, perhaps my own desires are the real thing to blame here.)

Until now, I still have problem in identifying the reality betwen me and my OM? Isn't there any real feeling between us? Isn't that fantacy bubble purely imaginary? Is all his tenderness fake? Is the past 5 months of my life purely a dream? Is his inability to leave his family a proof to show he is purely a liar and cheater? One reason that I fail to face the fantasy bubble is that I feel it hard to face that I have been cheated. I feel it hard to recognize that nothing is gonna happen between me and my OM?

I know my words above will stir more attack and blame. But please give me some time and some space here to dissect myself. Please give me some help to understand the TRUTH, if there's any, before I can really become an honest person in my marriage and in my life.

I am not a bad woman. I am not an immoral woman. I just buy the romantic love in Madison County, English Patient and want so much to grasp that beauty of love in my life before I go to hell. The aethetic experience of an individual is always at conflict with moral choices, isn't it? Think about Piccaso, Hemingway, think about those notoriously famous people who crossed the mundane morality to get grip of that artistic beauty. I am just a vulnerable soul, lost so much in a poetic pursuit of romance and love. I am just a pathetic sentimentalist who believes that there is a man out there who shares all my feeling of beauty and love. Now I think I really dont understand man. Are men merely animals of sex? Isn't there anything real besides physical pleasure?

I didn't want to hurt anyone and I don't now.

Josephine, there is nothing to "dissect." You don't have to dissect yourself to know the truth. The truth is that you are having a sleazy, filthy affair and your husband needs to know the truth so he can protect himself. That is the truth, there is nothing more you need to understand to know the truth and be an honest person. You don't have to examine anything to be honest. It matters not WHY you did it, only that you stop.

You can choose to be an honest person TODAY, RIGHT NOW, or you can continue to be a liar and cheater who harms your H behind his back. If you want to restore honor and integrity to yourself, this is the first step: telling your husband the truth.


Adultery and lying is immoral. Sorry, but that is just truth. How else do we define a person if not by his actions?


There is nothing "romantic" or beautiful about affair sex. It is not based on love, but on fraud, deceit, and thoughtlessness. Nothing pretty about that. It is about as romantic as 2 pigs rutting in the pig pen. OINK! It is fool's gold, a MIRAGE!

REAL romance is what comes from relationships that are based on honesty and integrity and respect and love, versus fraud, deceit, personal debasement, degradation, disrespect, fleeting infatuation.

Do you know why 95% of affairs FAIL within 2 years? It is because they are based on deceit and thoughtlessness. So when the infatuation and the thrill of humping in the pig pen wear off, there is nothing there. NOTHING. So the affair crumbles.

So, if you want romance, you are going about it the wrong way. You are really kissing a FROG, not a prince. You are deceiving yourself terribly. WAKE UP!

This is not a true statement. Your intentions are reflected by your ACTIONS and your actions tell the true story.

The bottom line, Josephine, is that you have to right to hump whomever you choose and watch silly, mindless affair movies all day long, but you don' have a right to destroy your H behind his back in pursuit of your silly fantasies. That IS immoral. He has a right to know the truth about his own life.

Oh, nooo, I'm gonnaaaaaaa

Josephine,
Are you that far gone that you don't see the hypocrisy and the juxtaposition here? You talk about wanting some sublime version of love and how you wonder if men just want sex, yet you abandon the man who gave up everything he had to follow you to a foreign country in favor of the man who just wanted to sate his sexual desire with you. You abandoned what you say you want in favor of what you say you don't want. You are truly in "the fog".

And please don't even mention your lack of religious faith here as a potential factor in your infidelity. Non-believers such as myself take offense to the idea that morality outside of faith is somehow lacking.

Ummm...Picasso and Hemingway were both mentally ill...

Mrs. W

Very condescending of you, Josephine, but understandable since you think "religion" is "religion" and not a real relationship with the living God.




Wonderful. I believe in modern science too, and have a degree in Biology, for what it can discover about how things work the way God designed them to work. But science does not "give" morals or ethics. Those things come from outside of science.




And I personally hope you have enough "future" to avoid having to make a decision for Christ until you think you are ready. But none of us knows if we will be alive tomorrow. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!" must be your life philosophy.

By the way, what exactly is it that keeps you from accepting Jesus Christ anyway and receiving true forgiveness for your sins?

When you "figure out what is right," would you let the rest of us know? I'm going to be very interested in hearing what YOU think is "right" and why you think it is right not just for you but right for everyone. You know, the sort of truth that is an "absolute truth," and not just "relative truth that can be changed by personal whim."




"if there's any." What IS "truth," Josephine? How do you know what truth is? You CAN sincerely believe something to be "true" AND be just as certainly WRONG in what you are thinking is true unless it is founded upon facts and evidence.

You CAN, for example, sincerely believe that the truth is that gravity does not apply to you, though it might apply to others. You can then step off the roof of a very tall skyscraper building, sincerely believing that gravity is "suspended" for you. You can continue believing that all the way to the ground, at which time the REAL TRUTH WILL "impose itself on you regardless of what you believe." You, in this example, would have believed a falsehood, believed a "lie" was the truth.




A word to the wise, Josephine. DON'T look to the offerings of Hollywood to tout what is right or what is true. You have to be kidding, I hope, that you are turning to the products of an overwhelmingly immoral and self-centered "Hollywood" for "advice" in how to be a good, honest, moral person.





Yep, he's the model of how a father AND a husband should behave. I can't wait until his daughter finds out just what he thinks about her mother and how he uses women for his selfish sexual gratification. What a model! Perhaps she'll even wind up marrying someone "just like Dad!" Wouldn't that be just wonderful for her? I wonder what your husband would say about how "good" this man is? I KNOW what I think about him and am pretty certain I know how the other members of MB think about him too.




THIS is supposed to surprise me? And guess what, he doesn't have any belief in the sanctity of marriage either. He certainly doesn't believe in respecting women but believes in using them for his own sexual gratification while whispering sweet sounding lies for them so they'll "feel sorry for him and be willing to "spread 'em" for him." Makes it a lot easier for him that to just rape the women. He'd rather rape their marriages and the UNWILLING husbands of the easily deceived women he preys upon.




Nope. He could get a divorce and still be a liar and a cheater.

What PROVES that he IS a liar and a cheater is that he CHOOSES to commit adultery. He has proven it with you and with all the other women he has "boinked." He USES women for HIS purposes. He walks and talks with "snake oil smoothness" to disarm gullable women into also becoming liars and cheaters and to NOT honor their own marriages. He's such a "good guy!"




Here's perhaps the first piece of truth you need to understand:

If you are NOT a "bad woman" or an "immoral woman," you sure are behaving like one. But I suspect the "problem" is very simply that you don't have a set of Standards and Boundaries that you live your life by. How can you have them with the way you think and behave?

The "morals" you seem to want are the "morals du jour" that your FEELINGS tell you are "okay" for you. That just about let's you "off the hook" of TRUTH but allowing yourself to define "truth," "honesty," "right and wrong" according to anything that "suits you" as a way to rationalize doing whatever you want to do, including LYING to your husband about being "only his, until death do you part."

You want to know what is truth? For you, it's whatever you want it to be and you reject anyone else's concept of truth if you want to. And I strongly suspect that is why you reject religion in general, and Christianity in particular....the "rules" for how to live your life with honor, truth, and RIGHT morals would "interfere" with what you want to do.




There is. And you are married to him. Too bad you are to blind and too wrapped up in yourself to see that truth too.

And that IS the truth!

Josephine, if you want to be a woman of integrity, you will end the affair, tell your husband, and never ever ever have contact with the other man.

"The Bridges of Madison County" and "The English Patient" and "Sex in the City" are a bunch of made up stories. Made up by people who want to sell us a product. They exist only as a means to get us to part with our time and our money so that other people can make money off of us. They are fantasy and fiction. They are not real.

Even I knew Hemingway was a sick man. I knew Fitzgerald was a sick man. I knew that when I was 19 years old. I knew that in my gut before anyone told me about it.

So, if you don't want help rebuilding your marriage, why are you here?

ForeverHers,

You know good and well that waywards do NOT need a relationship with God to change their ways because I'm still here and I'm still NC after about a year. By telling people that you are just discouraging nonreligious people from getting help. If you want to be in a God-believing only club, go to church. This is a site for building everyone's marriages, not just God-believer marriages.

Josephine,

Reality check #1 - Your OM never had any intention of leaving his wife. Serial adulterers never have any intention of leaving their wives or husbands and I should know because I was one. I know it's hard to be angry at your OM for making the same horrible, stupid mistakes you were making - but, he also did one thing you did not. He deliberately mislead you about his intentions and the nature of your affair in order to continue it. He never had any intention of marrying you ever. Understand this - he never had any intention of leaving his wife. Forget all his complaints about her - if she was so bad, he would have left her. He doesn't need a girlfriend in order to get a divorce. He was simply telling you what you wanted to hear. Get this through your head - he was NEVER going to leave her! (And even if he had, he would have cheated on you within a year.)

Reality check #2 - Hollywood notions of romance have NOTHING to do with real love. What you describe is the feelings you get when you first "fall in love" but that is just infatuation. Real love is when you still want to be together even after the initial excitement has worn off. You can still get that feeling back, it just takes some work. But almost any two people who first start a romantic relationship are going to have those feelings - that doesn't make them soul mates. It's just a chemical-driven fantasy doomed to end unless it's based on something real. You mentioned science earlier - you might want to look up information on the chemical basis of infatuation. And because affairs are based on fantasy and real love necessarily has to be based on reality (and therefore honesty), you really do have to tell your husband everything if you want to work things out with him.

You do have a valid complaint about your husband not contributing financially. Financial support is usually one of the top 5 emotional needs that wives have. However, your having an affair didn't help that problem. It distracted you from it, kept you from finding a solution to it, and created its own set of problems for you. It's like if your husband gives you a headache and to take your mind off it, you shoot both him and you in the foot. There might indeed be a solution to your original problem of lack of financial support, but unfortunately you have a very different mess to clean up first.

WOW Aph - you have come a long way! Listen to yourself!