A serial cheater will break your heart again and again and drive you crazy.

My heart broke for you reading your story. You have no easy choices. I'm assuming your kids are all grown?

If they are, then get rid of this man. He's a cancer.

Fool me once, shame on your. Fool me twice, shame on me. Keep that in mind. This man won't change and will keep breaking your heart.

I'm all for saving marriages, but unless this man suddenly has a life altering experience and changes completely, then it's not going to happen and he will keep breaking you to the point where you will end up in a mental ward.

Jane,

I know where you are. I have been M for 35 years - almost as long as you have been. Last year I found out the my WH was leading a secret 2nd life in another state. I'm sure if he were able to tell the truth about anything, I would find out many additional shockers as you have found. Luckily for me, I went into Plan B before I found out anything else that could destroy me. Did I love him (do I love him?), of course, you can't be with someone 35 years and not love them, but I realized that he had not one ounce of respect for me. How could he and do what he did?

Just my opinion, but if you go to Plan B, you will find the peace that you need to heal both physically and emotionally. I look back and wish that I had done it sooner. I know now that he would have continued to abuse me because he knew that I was willing to take it. Stand up for yourself and recapture your dignity. He will continue down this path if you allow it.

(((Jane)))) The hardest thing to accept is that your spouse of three decades or more has continually betrayed you. Ask me, I know.

Everyday I come home and know that I am happier alone in this little condo than I was back in my big house with a lying and cheating H.

Hello all from soooo long, I wanted to update you and I am so sorry that it has taken me so long. I started a new thread in recovery, something about bestfriend or something, that will tell you all about my latest life and I won't bore you to pieces.

Suffice it to say that I did end up in the hospital, in the psych ward, and that is why I just stopped responding, then I forgot. Good ole MS. My work on myself, what to do, etc., just overtook everything. I did not necessarily want to go in, I knew what to expect, but my rage and anger was so out of control. I needed help and a break. When I started looking, there were no private facilities for anything except substance abuse, and that would not help me. The local hospitals (2) had psych wards but lord almighty, they were horrible. I knew that they would be but I decided to make the best of it. I did not want to do an out patient thing, I needed to get out of my environment totally.

I signed myself in for 72 hours. The "day" room consisted of a bank of chairs, like worn out sitting room chairs, all in a row in front of a wall that had a wooden shelving unit built into it. THe row of chairs was maybe 12 or so feet long, maybe longer and the wall was similar. THe chairs were about 6 ft from the wall and there was one tv in the shelving about 27" in size. All the nurses put the patients in those chairs and left them there all day long, as they slid out on the floor over and over with food all over them.

There was not a structured counseling program, they would announce something or the other over a weak loud speaker system, and maybe you heard it or maybe not. Most of the ppl suffered from hearing voices, the food was intensely terrible. I cannot tell you how awful. A different doctor came into my room everyday, with a gaggle of med students of different sorts, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, etc, and would ask me the same questions which had nothing to do with my reason for being there. It would be about my medication.

Then they would stand in the hall and review my reactions until I would scream "I can hear you". It was horrible.

Needless to say, I received no help but it was a break and would make a great book. My room mate and I would hide and wait for one of the visiting families to explode when they would show up unannounced and find uncle John in the same clothes as the previous week. That was our entertainment.

As for my marriage, it is getting better, I am not quite as angry and some developments have occured which are outlined in the other post I mentioned under recovery.

I just wanted to get back to you all and tell you how much your posts from before had meant to me and see how all of you are. I was reading some of Dr. Harley's literature and one of my stumbling blocks had been could I ever really trust my husband again and he said something that helped me a lot.

He said that you never completely trust each other. You always stay on the alert whether you have a reason or not, he and his wife had that as one of their successes for years. And that is true. I have never said I would not have an affair because I know that I am human, I have said that it is my intention to never have one and to look for the possibilies and get out of Dodge.

So, I can live with him and not totally trust him. That helped.

Love to you all, my sisters and brothers fighting the tough fight....Insane Jane....really Jan