Hello all,

My wife and I have been married a little over a year, but we've been together for 10, living together for 8 of those 10 years.

This past week or so, I gave in to an emotional affair I should've ended and cheated on my wife. We were never going to see each other again, so I assumed it was going to be okay. Of course, she calls me a couple of days after, and my wife catches me talking to her. Now everything is out.

My wife is staying with a friend right now, but she is inconsolable and just refuses to think about anything. She's saying so many horrible things to me, which I deserve. But she keeps insisting that this is it, that she wants to leave me.

How do I get her to see that it's only been a couple of days? That we have to settle down and think about this? I don't want to leave her at all. I want to figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening, but it's like she's forgotten the past 10 years of love we've shared. Help.

She has a decision to make. She is perfectly within reasonable behavior if she chooses to leave you.

If you want to re-build your marriage, you need to take complete ownership of the affair. You are both fifty percent responsible for the state of your marriage. You are one hundred percent responsible for deciding to have an affair. So you thought that because your wife would never find out that everything would be okay. Well there is a starting point for you to figure out how you will make sure that you will never betray a wife again.

You need to write a "no contact" letter to the other woman. If your wife is willing to look at it, she should approve of it and then you can both send it together. I suggest you write that brief no contact letter now, and then, follow up with no contact with this other woman. You need to be completely open and honest with your wife and answer any question she has of you. Do not blame her in any way for the affair. You made that decision on your own.

Do you have any children?

Does your wife know the other woman?

You need to take a look at your boundaries and figure out how to prevent yourself from establishing contact with a woman and developing an emotional affair.

We don't have any kids. We're still so young.

I've sworn I would never see her again. Even if I write that no contact letter, my wife can't even be talked to right now.

I have not tried to blame the affair on her. I know it was my decision.

I'm willing to do all the work, counseling, everything, but my wife is immovable. is this it? did i really destroy our marriage? god help me.

Is that supposed to be helpful? What about advice for those of us who really did fall once? There is really no mercy for the ones who cheat, is there?

Are we all lumped together as husbands who never cared for their wives at all? Is one mistake supposed to erase years and years of work?

She is thinking just the same thing about you.


Yes. It did.


You may well be able to save your marriage, once you have a more humble attitude. This was not one little slip-up that ought to be forgiven easily. This was you doing something SO BAD to your wife, that she would likely recover faster from being raped.

For you to get that, really get that, is a crucial step toward the hope of a recovery.

Unfortunately, you can do things in this life that are irrevocable. Its a bitter pill to swallow to find out that you can ruin something forever. Whether or not your wife gives you a second chance is entirely up to her. Some people just cannot get over the immense amount of pain and betrayal that results from infidelity.



Your wife may end up forgiving you and seeing you as someone who just made a mistake, but that does not mean she will give you a second chance. She may find herself unable to ever trust you again. Thats just one of the consequences of your choice to betray her.

The only thing you can do is try to communicate how remorseful you are. If she won't talk to you, write her a letter and try and get her friend to pass it to her. Tell her how sorry you are and beg for her forgiveness. But do not expect ANYTHING from her. The work you do to fix yourself should not be contingent on an agreement from her to give you another chance.

That means, check yourself into individual and marriage counseling immediately! Your words probably mean very little to her right now, so do what you can to show her through action that you want to fix whatever allowed you to cheat on her. Divorce takes time, so you have a bit of an opening here to show her that you can change for the better. You need to take immediate action though.

You can also buy her copies of the books that you are reading (His Needs Her Needs, Surviving and Affair, Not Just Friends, ...) just in case she is interested in seeing the information that you are using to change yourself. She may very well need those books too to help her process the grief and pain.

Whaaaaaaa??? If thinking you weren't going to see the OW again was the "logic" behind your affair, I don't know what to say. If your wife didn't find out, your actions would have been "okay?" Sounds like you are only sorry because you got caught.


Like you said...it's only been a couple days. Give her a break! You have totally destroyed her life as she knew it and now you expect her to settle down and think about things. Sorry but she will probably feel like a basket case for quite some time and now has a wound that will remain with her forever. Since there are no children to consider, it may be easier for her to leave you and cut her loses so to speak. Your wife's emotions are all over the place and you telling her to think about things doesn't help matters because you didn't think about her at all. You have a long road ahead of you should she give you another chance. Don't expect much from her at this point.

Hi forlife22,

Still out there?

What's been going on since your last posts?

Yes, still here.

Man, I've had just about the worse 2 weeks of my life. We've cried and yelled and said so many awful things.

All of you are right. I was denying just how awful I was, and just how grave my conduct has been. My wife has made me see that. I've fully disclosed everything, after much difficulty, and I admit fully what I've done, regardless of any reason.

The thing is, our marriage was going pretty well. I thought it was because I was feeling neglected, and maybe that may still be true, but what if I just did all these awful things because I was greedy, selfish, unthinking? That's what my wife can't reconcile. How can she love me again if I did all these things without reason?

I read somewhere that sometimes when a marriage is feeling secure and safe, you enter a rebellion stage. I just didn't see this coming. It was all so innocent in the beginning and before I knew it, I was lying, and sneaking around, and having feelings for this girl that's half the woman my wife is. What happened?

We are seeing a counselor, and we bought some books together. Some days are good, some days are just horrendous. I hate that this thing I've done is continuing to cause her pain.

I'm sorry to tell you, but you didn't do all those things without reason.
You did all those awful things because, yes, you were greedy, selfish, and unthinking about your wife. You felt entitled to do whatever you wanted to do regardless of anyone else's feelings. It's true!
What you do now, is what will determine the course of your marriage.

Please make a link to this thread and post a new thread on General Questions 11 board. You are going to get a lot of feedback over there. If you have problems making a link, let me know, I'll help.

Title your new thread something like - "New wayward seeking help"

I've been where you are and will help you when I can. This board helped save my marriage which also saved my life.