YOU think I should be doing what you would have me do...thanks...but I will post as I see fit.

Although, I agree that they haven't been married that long, they were together for 8 YEARS !

If a couple had dated for 50 years, and someone had an affair, would you not be able to institute MB principles to save their relationship?...just because they didn't sign a piece of paper?

Judging by your sign on date to MB...about 6 weeks ago...I think you should be very careful about having children with your wife. No matter what she is showing NOW...I think you will need a period of at least two years to make sure her changes are for real.

As for your sarcastic comment about leaving here...I suggest you take your sarcasm to Dr. H and ask him why he gives the same advice to young/no kids couples.

Shouldn't you be able to answer that for him? You are the one who is saying tha he advises this...you aren't quoting him without knowing why he says this are you? I'll ask Jenniffer in our next phone session why the MB principles ignore any/ALL history before the wedding date...I'm sure she'll be happy to refund my money when I question why she is counselling me when she should be using Dr. Harley's advice, and just telling me to go to plan D.

...and, yes I've only been here for 6 weeks...sorry I'm not a "VET" like you. *edit*

I've always appreciated your "straight talk" attitude, but I feel you are always quick to say "plan D"...to quickly. Knee jerk reactions are NEVER good in these situations, and he needs to take his time to figure out what he wants to do...IMO.

I agee with your take on me waiting on the decision to have kids...that's what I plan to do. And, Alonewithouther has that same option as well...no matter how young his marriage is.

As for being bitter...my life is great. I wouldn't trade places with you for a million dollars right now.

I am quick to suggest divorce in some cases....no doubt. In some cases it is clearly the best option imo. The poster is free to take my advice or someone elses. As I said, I am grateful for similar advice being given in the past.

As for kids...don't wait too long. Years have a way of disappearing in a bad relationship...and you wake up one day and that train has passed.

Don't want to get into the debate here other than to say this:

Intro, I've counseled with Jennifer too. I, too am "young"-- I am 27. H is 28. We have no children. We have TWO AFFAIRS to recover from (both of us). Been married 3 years. And yet, Jennifer also did not say to me "you should divorce". In fact, she advocated plan A (and my H is not on-board, currently).

So, I agree with you, not cut and dry. And if dating history doesn't matter-- then why did Jennifer ask how long we'd been together? I told her-- (its 8 years, lived together 4 of those years).

So, I agree that sometimes people are a little too quick to throw in the towel around here when there's no kids and younger people-- truthfully that's why I didn't post around here for quite a bit. A marriage is a marriage.

And, BTW, I've been on these boards since October 2007. My registration date is not correct because my H found my posts on this board, and I re-registered in order to avoid him reading my threads- it was not constructive for him to read them. I couldn't just change my name because then it would have changed my name on my old posts too, and it would be easy for him to track me down again, ya know?

Intro, I'm with you. Its harder to recover, it makes the odds stacked more against you, but I think you have just as much to gain by attempting to recover. Plus, I still am adamant that no kids can sometimes be a GOOD thing in recovery.... no soccer practices, homework, crying kids, etc to get in the way of your 15 hours! You can FOCUS on each other. Not saying that it is BETTER to not have kids, but I can see advantages to it! And being young, well, that just means that you have more life to enjoy your better, recovered marriage. That you got the hard lessons out of the way EARLY (that's assuming you both take the lessons within to heart). Sadly, I think a lot of these are overlooked here. There CAN be advantages to being young and without kids.

E.

E.

I can agree with every word in this post....finally. lol

I do need to discuss your last paragraph....huge questions on this subject. I'll do it in another thread.

Sorry for the T/J.

Good grief, you two! In two pages of posts, 1.3 of them are just an argument between medc and intro. Take it to another thread, use the ignore function, or exercise some self control.

Galoot had some excellent advice, as did the person who advised exposing and the advice to learn about love busters - especially selfish demands.

I'd recommend:
Strong Plan A, especially avoiding SDs
Expose!!


Is the OM married? If so, expose to his wife. Expose to his parents, your parents, WW's parents, friends you have in common, her best girlfriends.

The purpose of exposure is not revenge. It's to put the light of day on the affair and get it to end. All you need to do is send a short message:
WW is having an affair with OM. As you can imagine, the pain this causes me is practically unbearable. Nevertheless, I wish to save my marriage and I would really appreciate your support of WW and me during this difficult time.

Plan B can come later, but now - Plan A and exposure.

There's a big debate by members here on whether or not to try to recover a young marriage with no kids. I fall into the "bail without kids" category. But I'm not going to fault someone for trying to save their marriage, and I feel that most here will do what they can to help someone save their marriage if they choose to do so.

The problem is that people without kids don't have the same perspective as those that have them. No offense to you, but you simply don't get the big picture.

Right now love is fun and great and beatyful and all is dandy when things were wonderful and why would I throw away X amount of time we've been dating.

Those of us that have gone through this with kids have experienced very real loss in the sense that a family has been torn apart and there are little ones who are confused and hurt and caught in the middle. So we see young people with no kids and want to yell, "Run! You've lost nothing! It's a glorified breakup at this point! You have no idea how easy you have it!"

This is true, to many degrees, but it also diminishes the very real pain you feel and hurt over. You may not have a family that you've lost, but you have had dreams that have been shattered and in many respects a loss of innocense. Love and marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be and the person you committed to just stabbed you in the back.

But you really didn't lose anything other than time and you learned some big life lessons. This is why we, posters who have kids and have divorced or are in recovery, tell you, those who dont, that you have it much easier and should count your losses and learn from them and bail.

You see, saying "we dated x amount of years" means nothing to us. So what. People break up all the time.

But look into the eyes of a toddler who doesn't understand why mommy and daddy don't like each other and why they have to go back and forth in a home and it puts your situation into perspective. You don't have to deal with that very painful impact of divorce. You have your own pain and that's it.

So when you're young, have everything ahead of you, and have lost nothing other than time, we with kids say to count your blessings and run.

Yes, you're hurt. But nothing connects you to this other person. They could disappear tomorrow and you've lost nothing. But with kids you have to interact with the ex all the time. It's like a divorce that never ends. Something is always happening and has you connected to that other person, which you would love nothing more than to be free of and move on from your life. But you have to get along and deal with them for the sake of the children because not learning to get along damages them.

So you have a giant hill to climb right now. That hill is recovery of a marriage after infidelity. And you have no incentive to try to climb it since there's plenty of fish in the sea and many who won't stray or cheat.

You have a free ticket to divorce on solid grounds both legally and religiously and don't have a signle thing that ties you to this cheating adulterous person with no morals or self control. So why climb Mount Everest? Just to say you did it?

I understand you love your spouse and you're hurt and you want to not let all those years go to waste. But how will you feel when this person who cheated and broke your heart cheats again and you have invested 10 more years of time only to have them stab you in the back again?

You asked for advice. You don't have to agree with the advice given. But it's also a perspective you don't want to hear. Sometimes, however, it's the advice we don't wish to hear that is the best one to get.

We have a perspective that is simply very different than yours. Many of us would love to be in your shoes so we could kick to the curb this cheating, immoral, adulterous person that stabbed us in the back and let them flounder on their own in life while we carry on with our own lives. But we can't because we have little ones and we must get past those feelings and still get along with this other person either in divorce or in the hopes that they turn their back on that disgusting creature called a wayward and embrace their marriage and repent for their wrong doing to you.

Don't get me wrong. There are many former waywards here that I have respect for. It's the actively wayward that are disgusting to deal with. Former waywards are a treasure of their own.

So you asked for advice and are getting it. Take it or leave it, but you have lost nothing when you're so young and have no kids. It's a glorified breakup.

You're young enough to learn from it and start over with someone who is worth it. Why you would possibly want to abuse yourself by being with someone that has cheated on you so quickly into a marriage is tough to understand.

ok everyone, not to be self centered but you guys are arguing about your opinions. Can someone help me?


I'm at the point of giving up, and trying to move on as my wife has done nothing to save this marriage. She has done all the wrong things and now slept with another guy. She says she will not come home. She still shows and says that she is scared that this will end. I think I have to show her that this will end with her actions.
I talked to her Dad yesterday. Told him that we are at the brink of no return. Her parents had no idea that it was this serious. He was going to try to talk to her. He, knowledgable in depression as he has suffered it himself, told me he felt that she has been mildly depressed for about 6 months. he said he was going to try to talk to her last night. BUT...I have not heard any news. I don't think that is a good sign. I don't know if she is suffering or not but I can definately tell you that she is not the same person now as she was 6 months-1 yr. ago. She has given up on everything that was important in our relationship. Made so may bad choices saying that she is trying to find herself and needs to be an individual, needs to be on her own.
I do love her. Yes, we've been together for a long time and it's hard to throw that much history and memories down the tubes. I want this marriage to work as I can still picutre a beautiful future with her once we get past this. I don't want to move on and divorce her if she is truly not herself and in a wrong mindset.

great post Myrev.

her not being the same is because she is screwing around with another man.

She is not doing this because of illness...it is by choice.

IF you want to save the M, then follow the plan here...exposure, Plan A followed by Plan B. Plan on spending years getting recovered and be prepared that you could easily find yourself in this spot down the raod...but have it complicated by children.

The only thing worse than throwing away all these years is to waste two more on something that isn't working. Only you can make that call.

"So you can WISH for the perfect world in one hand and [censored] in the other and see which ones fills up the quickest. THIS IS REALITY and it SUCKS ... I'm sorry if REALITY is that difficult of a concept for you to grasp.

If you insist on basing your decisions for the rest of your life on your FEELINGS of LOVE, then you have a very long and painful row to hoe, BECAUSE misplaced FEELINGS of LOVE is what got you to this point to begin with. "

It's seems funny that his was posted (not sure who did it), but there is no such thing as "misplaced feelings of love". And, (whoever posted this) show yourself, so i too can bash every lame [censored] reason that you are trying to recover...you have some nerve (whoever the coward is that posted this).

Alonewithouther,

First ... pay attention to this ongoing "argument" ... there is a lot of content for you to consider and gleen for your own use.

Introvert thinks that he has something worth saving ... others may disagree, but he does have one important thing that you don't ... apparently he has a repentent WW ... YOU DON'T by your own admission.

Given that fact ... I really think Plan D is in your best interests. Don't even attempt to go through this if you don't have to ... AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!!

I have a question other then time in the relationship what are you fighting for? Do you really know?

Because reading through this thread I don't see what you are wanting to fight for.

I agree. Without NC, and a WW that is committed to recovery...you either need to go to plan B or D. I would not rule out plan B, because really what do you have to lose at this point with B?

*edit*... it's obvious to everyone here (except you) that those are my words and experiences ... just because you don't understand the concept doesn't invalidate the message for those who can seperate "feelings" from "reason".

Do you have anything to say that may help in this thread?

Maybe you can help out with your past experiences to help the person in need instead of insulting me? That would be nice. Maybe you could share with him what your "reasons" are for trying to save your marriage...nothing to do with "feelings" I'm sure....lol.

Yes, 8 years of time, memories, investment maybe a logical reason to stay married and it maybe a reason that someone would be motivated enough after an A to recover from it.

I would argue that children can and are probably the most logical reason for a couple to be motivated after an A to put the necessary time and effort into rebuilding a marriage.

I agree with you that you can be successful in applying MB principles and recover your marriage if you do not have children. The key item that I am trying to point out is that one needs to be motivated. When you want to give up, what keeps you in the game. If I am a BS with no kids, I would want to understand what are the things that motivate this person to recover the marriage and create passion in this marriage. It is clearly not easy. It takes work and you will likely want to give up at some point.