Many posts I read involved family with children. Can you share your experience / opinions whether WS deserves a second chance when there are no kids involved.

My situation: I caught my husband cheating on me 4 months ago. He agreed to stop seeing the OW. We have no children. I recently found out they are still talking and seeing each other. I confronted him 2 days ago. He claims that he no longer has the emotionally feelings for her, and that they are just friends. I told him that is still cheating. Since it bothers me so much, he will stop all communications with her.

I read the Basic Concepts and many topics in Marriage Builder's site. The liklihood is that he is still lying about.

Can you share your experience and thoughts? Thank you!

It's easy for an outsider to say, "I'd do _____ or _____ if I was in that situation".

The few people who know about my situation in real life think I should've immediately divorced her, and they don't know any details. They just know she cheated. It's like any other extraordinary, extremely stressful situation...you never know how you'll react until you experience it.

With that said, I don't think a lack of children makes a WS undeserving of a second chance by itself...I'm not giving my W a second chance just because we have kids.

What may make your WH undeserving of a second chance is that he continued contact with OW even after being busted. Kids or no kids, I'd put a foot in his [censored] ankle-deep, and I wouldn't pull it out until he's back in his mommy's basement.

Whatever you decide, even if you attempt to R, DO NOT get pregnant anytime soon...like in the next 2 or 3 years. It will not help heal your marriage or bring you two closer together. A new baby in a weak M will very nearly tear you apart all by itself. Ask me how I know!

e2008

Sorry you find yourself hear, but glad you are looking for help. Can you provided a little more info. Age, how long married is this the first time he cheated?

Merlin2

I was in a childless marriage of less than 3 years when my betrayal happened. I fought for my marriage with everything I had in me. I don't regret it for a minute. It's 18 years later and I have a 15 year old son. We are all very happy, although we've had some very rough spots.

Having said all that, your situation is different. I didn't "catch" my wife. She confessed. And after that there were only a couple of instances of "goodbye" contact (at least that's what I like to believe).

Yes, in my opinion a yound and/or childless marriage is worth saving. But only if you're both really committed. In my situation, I wasn't willing to tolerate any hint of the OM being in our lives. As long as that was maintained, I was willing to Plan A all over the place, before I even knew what Plan A was (18 years ago). If there had been any real hesitation or back-sliding beyond the initial few days of confusion, however, I would have been gone.

Being in a childless marriage (why does that sound pejorative by the way) shouldn't make an ounce of difference as to whether you want to attempt to save the marriage or not... if u truly love this person and are willing to accept that people make mistakes and that relationships can be salvaged that is when you give the WS a chance.

I am 45 and he is 44. We have been married for 5 years and I'm unable to have kids. Children are very important to us. I saw a response that says we should not try to have kids anytime soon like 2-3 years. All is very true, however, timing is against me.

As far as I know, this is his first time cheating on me.

E2008

What do you want? You have every right to leave the marriage. Your husband made a choice to break the marriage vows and you now have the choice whether to stay or leave. If you choose to stay and work on the marriage you have found a very good resource (Marriage Builders) to help re-build a new and perhaps better relationship. I myself do not subscribe to the idea that every marriage should “or can” be saved.

You ask since you don’t have children should that make a difference whether to choose to stay married or not. Children do add an additional degree of responsibility when making the decision to divorce or not. But that should not be the only deciding factor.

Did you and your husband have a good marriage before the affair started? What do you want to happen? Your choice!! If you want to re-build the marriage many here including myself will help.

Merlin2

e2008, it is entirely up to you whether or not to save this marriage. MB does not advocate saving marriages at all cost. Sometimes the definition of success IS divorce.

That being said, I sure would not get pregnant and bring an innocent child into this mess for the next couple of years. That would not be fair to the child and I think the child's best interest has to come before every other consideration, don't you?

Having a child now would probably put the nail in the coffin of your marriage because child bearing is extremely stressful to marriages. Your marriage could not survive that and you would more likely be facing a life as a single mom. No matter what happens, you are looking at 2 to 5 years and that is just a fact of life.

Is the OW married? Who is she? Do they work together?

I am confused. Are you unable to have kids? If you are unable to have kids, then what would you be trying to do in the next 2-3 yrs?

My daughter was and is a huge motivation for my desire to attempt to recover my marriage. Had we not had her, I am pretty sure that attempting recovery would not have been as important to me. That lack of motivation on my part would have probably led our M to fail.

By the same token, my daughter is very important to my W, and she was probably motivated as much by her as I was.

Honestly, I don't think our marriage would have survived if we were childless.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to recover your marriage because you don't have kids, it just means that ALL the motivation has to come from the two of you. That could be all your situation needs, in my case, I don't think it would have been sufficient.

Amen to that. WW and I gained guardianship of our grandson, now 2-1/2 y.o., when he was about 4 mo. old. Though we had raised 4 children, now, in our middle age, it just seemed so much harder. We both agree that the stress from raising a "Dennis the Menace" was a significant factor in WW's affair (though not an excuse). After the A lasted 2-1/2 months, the OM ended it (from the best I can tell) when WW made clear she wasn't interested in ending our marriage. We're now in R, but a lot of damage was done. And we're still trying to get our son and daughter-in-law to help more with the grandson, but it looks like their marriage is even in worse shape.

To be clear, I am not advocating HAVING a child post-A to provide motivation for recovery. I think that is a VERY bad idea with a high chance of failure! I'm just saying that for me HAVING a child at the time the infidelity occurred was a motivating factor for desiring recovery!

I do find MB the right place for me. My heart tells me to work on the M and I wanted to. I have given him a chance as he promised to never see or talk to the OW. He told me just a few days ago that they were just friends since they got caught. He will stop all communication since it hurt me. At this moment, I've found it difficult to accept if that is the truth. We are planning to devote a lot of time the end of the week to discuss our problems, and evaluate all the options.


I thought we have a good marriage. We had a communication breakdown, started 2 years ago. We stopped speaking our minds, and stopped talking about things that are most important for us. For instance, how important kids are for him and me. I do agree that this is not the right time to bring in children to our weak marriage. But it is a major deciding factor. I am very torn about the idea of leaving H.

E2008,
You will become very familiar with the term (roller coaster). You will experience many ups and downs during the recovery process it is perfectly normal to feel this way.

What do you know about the other woman? Is she married do they work together? You will have to get the answers to these questions for yourself. You will not be able to trust anything your husband tells you.

If they work together one will need to leave the job. Your husband will need to write a No Contact letter that you approve of and you send. I will try and find a good letter that can serve as an example. The affair will not end until No contact is established and no recovery is possible until you are sure that NC is in place.

Get as much information as you can about OW. You may need to put pressure on the affair by exposing it to others. I or others will go more into it later once you have provided some more information.

I have experienced many ups and downs. The WSs worked together and developed the affection for each other. The OW is married with 3 kids. This is her second marriage. Her husband also found out and confronted her. They are staying in their marriage mainly because the other H believes she is willing to work on the marriage, and partially because of the children. The OW also agreed to never contact my husband.

I just realized they were just getting smarter of hiding their tracks. I found evidence few days ago that they are still talking and seeing each other. I confronted my husband. He told me he does not have the same emotional feeling for her. He wanted to check on her and see how she's doing. My husband has been giving me very specific details of their conversations. Most of their conversations is about her still unhappy with her marriage.

I told my husband that if he wants our marriage to work, he needs to cut all contacts with her and he agrees. I just found myself not able to trust him 100% at this moment.

He should write and you should send a NC letter from your H to OW. This should not be negotiated. You should also tell OWH about the renewed contact.

Your H should change his email and phone numbers and tell you IMMEDIATELY if she tried to contact him again. If they work together, he needs to quit.

No Contact, it is essential. As long as there is contact between them, your marriage will not recover.

This is how I feel. I did give him a chance but he continued to lie and cheat.

I suggest also informing the OWH about the continued contact. He can be a useful ally for ensuring that NC is truely established.

e2008

How are you today. There are some very good people posting good advice to you. What are your thoughts about contacting the OW husband?

Merling

You are going to have to contact OWH and both of you need to watch your spouses like hawks right now. Your WH will continue to contact OW as long as he thinks he can't get caught. Make sure all avenues for continuing contact are closed including destroying all contact info and switching email, phone number, etc. Something sneaky that I might do is just switch SIM cards with your WH so you swap phone numbers. You don't have to pay anything, and if OW tries contacting your WH, she will get YOU! Then you can pass that info along to OWH. Also, block email addresses, and make sure you get rid of cell phone bills or access to the cell phone account so he can't just look up her number and call her. Right now they are addicts. She is addicted to talking to your WH about all her problems, and he is addicted to the admiration she shows him. If left unchecked, they most certainly would wind up in bed together again. Your WH will need to EARN trust back. Right now, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.