Hi everyone,
I have a post on here, "Wife still in fog or not..." and I've been following many of the other posts to keep trying to understand your situations and reference them to mine...

Most of the posts here I see a variety of ages but mainly those with kids trying to save their marriage. We don't have kids, were just getting ready to really start trying.

How many of you don't have kids and are trying to save your marriage even after everything you, the BS, has gone through? Is there maybe some different underlying reasonings of the WS when kids are not involved? Does no kids make it easier for an affair to happen. I feel like the odd man out here in a way.

I'm here my man. No kids. Wouldn't say I'm trying to "save" my mariage. W wants another chance and I'm willing to give her one...I'll leave it at that.

The compulsory "Dr. Harley says 'no kids, still young...get divorced'" quotes will arrive soon enough though...I'm afraid.

AWH,
In my situation, this is my 2nd M and we did not have kids together, but my 3 children live with us and his 2 children live with their mother. He has played an active role in my 3 children's lives and I admit that yes, that has made it harder to leave with his repeated offenses.

In hindsight, if I did NOT have children, I would have left after 1 or 2 false recoveries.

If you can have a TRUE Recovery, forgiveness is essential and there can be hope for your M. I wouldn't add children until you were well into your R period though.

And if you have false R, consider moving on. I don't know your whole story, just my humble opinion based on personal experience.

Most people here have kids. Not all, but most.

Part of the reason for that, is because most of the people here have been married for many years, 5 or more years. So the majority of marriages within that time frame have children.

the thing is - as the poster above mentioned - you are young, and you have only been married a short amount of time. I know that you have been together for several years, but you have only been married 1 1/2 years, and yet this woman has all ready cheated. that is a horrible thing. And she says she has tried for a couple of years? Thats it? How much trying, and what sort of trying could she possilby do to "save" your marriage, when you have only been married 1 1/2 years?

she is very similar to every other WW on these boards - she is trying to find a way to place her blame, for her cheating, onto you. Do not fall for that. Marriage is difficult. If she has all ready bailed out on you after such a short time, moved out, and slept with another man, what would she do after 5 years, 10 years, 15?? With sick kids, busy schedulues? Sick parents, good time, bad times? For better or worse??

I know you love her. I know it is breaking your heart.
But if you do save this marriage, and have children, you have a very high risk that she will do this again. It came too easy to her the first time - it would be easier for her to do it the next time. Only then, you would have children who would be hurt by her actions, as well as you. That is why so many of us come here - because we have seen how much it hurts our children to see their parents torn apart. it is a horrible thing to do to a child - to tear the family apart over an A. So we try to salvage the M, try to keep the family in tact.

For you, the reason so many people would adivse you to D, is because this woman has shown you that she will cheat on you, if she feels it is justified. It is hurting you right now. Can you imagine if she had a small child at home, watching all of this crap happen?

Ok, you know I've weighed in on this situation with you guys before.

It's hard to understand because we have different approaches to the situation.

You see, all you would have is a glorified breakup when you don't have kids.

You're heart's broken, you divorce, you divide your stuff, you move on. Plenty of fish in the sea and nothing to tie you to a woman who has no self dicipline or maturity to handle the very real responsibilities of marriage.

With kids? Now it's not just your heart you're breaking but that of your children as well, so there's motivation to try to save things for them and to preserve their home and their family.

I have personally come to the conclusion that marriage isn't much without children. Marriage exists as an institution to raise children.

We can write all the flowery romantic crap about love for life, etc, but the reality is that love doesn't exist for life, marriage is HARD, it's work, and it's a committment. Love comes and goes within the marriage for the life of the marriage. Whether it's a for the majority of the marriage or not depends.

You can try to save your marriage if you wish and people here will support your effort. But the view of "you don't have kids and you're young and should bail" is something you'll never understand until you have kids of your own.

You'll then be able to put your current marriage with your cheating wife into perspective.

You can't comprehend the incredible love that exists for children. That is the only unconditional love that truly exists.

Love between men and women comes and goes. Love between parent and child is eternal and unconditional.

That is the harsh, unromantic reality. That is why marriage is a commitment that involves love. Love between men and women needs to be nurtured to stay healthy.

There's lots of people out there of both sexes who feel that love must always exist in a marriage or the marriage isn't worth staying in.

So they cheat and they bail.

You'll understand once you have kids of your own.

Saving your marriage with a cheating woman that is too immature to handle the reality of marriage is a choice you have to make. But the odds are VERY high that you'll be back on these boards years after you have forgiven because adding children to a marriage doesn't make things easier. It makes them harder and your WWes have shown they can't hack it when things are just between the two of you. They're sure going to have a harder time when the midnight diaper changes and responsibilities of parenthood hit.

My therapist told me last night that some people are too immature and too young to have kids. You have wives that cheated. They'll likely do it again. But next time you'll have kids and will face the very real reality that you need to forgive her or be forced to live away from your kids.

Divorceland isn't the nice green place that waywards think it is. They may fool themselves for a little bit, but reality is very different and it strikes eventually.

Just my 2 cents.

Good luck in saving your marriages. But the prospects of suffering another heartbreak again are high for you.

So you have no kids. Bail and count your blessings.

My H and I do not have kids. I have unexplained infertility. We have been married since 1999 and my affair was 2 years ago. We are happily recovered today, we had our moments where we wondered if we would make it but here we are today.

Happy.

Loving.

Respectful.

Thoughtful.

All the wonderful things that I threw away, we were able to find again. More importantly, we have things that we didn't before. Wonderful things that have enhanced our relationship.

Due to my unexplained infertility, I'm always a little sensative when someone says your M is not worth saving without kids. I know that our M was worth saving.

At the end of the day, you have to be happy and comfortable with YOUR decision. (And without having read your thread, your wife needs to make ammends and make some positive changes.)

$0.02 for what its worth...some would say mine would be worth less. Take it for what its worth. My thoughts only.

I'm sort of in-between. My kids are all grown, but FWW and I are guardians over our grandson, age 3. So, I guess part of both my and FWW's decision to reconcile was the impact it would have on our grandson. If FWW had retained guardianship after a potential divorce, he would have grown up in a trailer park in OM's trailer. On the other hand, a divorce between us may cause our guardianship to be terminated, and custody returned to his parents, our S and soon to be xDIL. Again, he'd grow up in a trailer park.

So, our grandson is a factor. Another is the fact that its hard to hastily turn your back on 23 years of marriage.

Grandkids are also another great reason to stay married once the mid life hits.

It would have been great for my kids to know my parents when they were together and my mom was a little "softer" than she is now.

Although I respect your outlook...your logic is skewed.

If children create such a great family bond, then why did your spouse still cheat? And, if your spouse was willing to add hurt to not only your life, but your children's too...then doesn't that mean that your cheating spouse is even worse than a cheating spouse without children? I think so.

edit:

I would have a harder time forgiving my WW for infidelity if we had kids then now (without kids)...because of the reason I stated above. A WW is a selfish individual because of how they hurt their BH's...if she hurt my kids too...I would not forgive. And, I don't believe that kids need both their parents to stay together to be happy. I've said it before...it's a copout ("I'm staying for the kids") to justify BS's decision to recover...it's the easy thing to say.

double edit:

How is it that a cheating woman who has kids is somehow "more mature" than a cheating woman without kids? Once again...skewed logic.

Nuts!

Well your logic seems to be that a couple without kids is no different than "glorified dating"...and the general consencence(sp) here is that infidelity while only dating is not as bad as when married (which you feel people are really not even married...when the couple has no kids) then shouldn't moving on to recovery be easier (by your logic)?


It seems that this thread was for someone to get some comfort in the fact that there would be other members here to support his decision (maybe he started it so guys like you would lay off?


I don't underestimate the love for one's children...I DO HAVE PARENTS YOU KNOW !!!!!!!

Just don't get that you feel the need to [censored] on a members decision to go ahead with recovery? Can't you just say "good luck and God bless" without giving a page worth of reasons that YOU think he shouldn't do it? He's already stated that he wants to recover...why not support the guy without your lectures?

Thanks for your responses...everyone. Please, if anyone else can post your opinion that would be great!

I want to keep this post somewhat separate from my other post dealing with all the issues in my M. But would like to give a bit of backround for those wanting to post here and don't want to read my long other post.

I'd like to share with you the caracter/personality of my WW. Maybe this will allow you to understand why I'm fighting for my marriage even though it has no kids or a short history.

This is a compilation from how I know her, how she has described her past to me over the yrs, in talking with her parents, sisters, relatives and close girl friends that she has known for 10+ yrs.

My WW when she was in high school was very shy, almost anti-social, only dated a couple guys for a few weeks and it never went past "petting". She didn't have a BF for Prom even. The summer after highschool she had her first REAL BF and was with him for 6-7 months. Even in that relationship there was no talk of getting married, kids etc. I came into the picture, in which I was dating someone aswell and we both ended our relationships to be with eachother. She's been with me for 8.5yrs, she's had not real single party life/dating scene.

Life experience wise and relationship wise she is very immature. She has a hard time speaking up, bottles up her feelings and passes them off as just a bad day(these are her words to me). Everyone seems to agree that she doesn't like when others give her advice she doesn't want to hear, and usually when that is done she'll usually do the opposite in spite or stop listening. She has admitted to being dependent. She's never lived on her own. Parents to moving in with me. She doesn't like people mad at her or make them upset even at her own expense. She's never had any goals in life(with the exeption of getting married and having a family) and has really never achived anything on her own.

She does run away when things in life get hard. Tried going to College but quit. Only has worked retail jobs and when she doesn't get along with a mgr etc. she looks for something else. About 6-8 months ago she was again having a hard time at work as an assist. mgr and ended up stepping down to an easier job within the business(This is when we started having probs.)
She is a very caring person, sometimes taking things to heart too much. Overthinks and questions everything and herself.

At this point I think something clicked and she's trying to find herself. Maybe a bit of finding that lost youth. Seeing 4-5 of her friends all within the last year getting separated/divorced, and now going out lots as singles, having two deaths to deal with early this year (one family, one friend) seemingly started her questioning again.

OK, that said. Correct me if I'm wrong but I feel she is in a time of need. She's lost. She has no self direction right now because she's questioning her whole life, including me. She's making mistakes(affair), but making pos. choices (registered for college finally after we've talked about it for yrs.). I love her and feel I need to support her in finding herself, even if that means eventually letting her go. So, I'm not willing to give up on our marriage now! I'm hoping this can be a growing experience for both of us, become stronger and have a family when we're ready. I think God has not given us kids just yet for exactly this reason(no birth control for just over a year now)...
I will admit of myself too that I'm pretty immature in relationships/marriage aswell, ESPECAILLY after learning so much from this site!
Thanks so much everyone for sharing with me your life experiences!

Does any of this make sense? I would've never said any of this a month or two ago wehn everything was just happening but I feel clarity is coming through....

Thanks introvert for standing up for me.

Let me make this statement:

I truly feel, with or without kids, or how many years you have under your belt, or how many you had before, marriage is your deepest expression of love to your spouse. Gifts, kind words, a loving touch, will never mean as much to me as when I heard her say those words "I do" and in turn, I repeat them to her, "I do".

Do you remember what it felt like to look into those eyes accross from you? Melts my heart. THIS is why I stand up for my myself in wanting to keep my marriage, not divorce and move on.

Edit: Boy after reading what I just wrote, I wish I had been expressing myself this way to my WW a long time ago!

Everyone here makes valid points both ways and I'm sorry but we are ALL skewed in our thinking based on our own life experiences. I thank God this is happening to me NOW rather than with kids and I feel like I just dodged a bullet on that one since we WERE TRYING!

I don't feel like the length of a marriage matters, either. I don't care if it's 1 year or 50. I understand why people often tell others to cut their losses if they haven't been married long but it bothers me.

Likewise, I think that just because you've been married 50 years that you should stay for recovery. Length of time together is NOT a reason to try and save a marriage, IMO.

And that was a VERY HARD thing for me because I had to come to grips with our "young" marriage being over, we were married 15 years this past May and since Gray has been living with Slag for some time now I don't even know if the last "anniversary" should even be counted.

I would have stayed married for the kids, though, even though they aren't my natural children. Would have back then. Not now. I told them I wasn't divorcing them just because their father and I had to be divorced and we are still family. And I have a new sister, too, XW#1, LOL!

This last post you made was very moving, AWO.

Charlotte

Intro and Alone I just wanted to lend my support.

I just do not believe that a marriage without children is "glorified dating". Some of the strongest, longest marriages I've known don't have children in them. Sometimes by choice, more often by circumstances.

FWIW, even though my H and I do have children I always remember my sister in law saying that a marriage is a husband and wife and THEN the children. I know when kids are little it's SO easy to make them the focus of everything. Yes, they need love and care and a stable home (which ours had) but, believe me, they grow up and all that's left is a husband and a wife.

My kids are grown up. One of them marries next year, the other, unfortunately (lol) still lives at home at 30.

They have their own lives but we're all very close and I'm very proud of my kids. Now it's just "us" again. That's what happens and it's meant to happen that way. You give them wings to fly. (Except for my son lol but he has his own life)

I also do not have children and we have not been married for an extensive time. However I fight for my marriage with a passion. I do not believe marriage without children is "glorified dating". I also will agree that the love a parent feels for a child is something that can not be explained and is extremely powerfull. However we all have our own reasons why we fight for our marriages. In my opinion it is become too easy to get married and again to easy to divorce, almost as though it is an escape clause. I feel very strongly about the institution of marriage and waited until I was 35 to do so. I viewed it as one of the biggest decisions I could ever make...right up there with whether or not to have children. I believe that my vow is just as sacred and valid as anyone elses. Yes I am angry and dissapointed that I find myself here at MB where I never thought I would be. I never for a moment dreamed I would have a WH or be living on this roller coaster ride that I hope will end at some point. However I love this man and I chose to say "I DO". Yes he chose to betray me and currently he is also choosing to make us have a giant roadblock in our recovery. I still fight for us because it is what I believe in. I think it is great we all come here because we want to save our marriages. That would be like me saying you should give up because your spouse is an addict or because you had more than one D Day. Who am I to make that decision. Only we can decide what our own personal boundaries are. I don't think everyone gets married just because they want to have children. I think initially people get married because they love each other. For those that have children it is the icing on the cake. For those that don't whether by choice or by circumstance we just ice our cake with something different.

My XH and I had no children.

In my situation, I was married to a man who was quite immature. We had been a couple for about 6 years when he first cheated (married at this point for 1 1/2 years) and 9 years when he left me for another OW.

It took me a couple of months to let it all sink in. I asked myself why? Why would I want anything to do with someone who is so dishonest, hurtful, and deceitful? Would I let my family or friends treat me that way? Would they still remain friends if they did?

We are talking about the person who vowed to spend a lifetime as your mate, your best friend, your companion... and they hurt you in the most heartbreaking way imaginable. I wouldn't let anyone else in my life hurt me like that, so why would WH get away with it?

Once I was able to stand firm and walk away, I felt an enormous sense of relief. And, since then, I have met the most amazing man I have ever known. To put it lightly... I was happy with my XH, but not nearly as happy as I am now. I almost think I was naive in my relationship with XH, because I feel so much more love for this man... I dunno, that in itself may be another topic. lol

The idea that marriage without kids is glorified dating is ridiculous.

The level of pain caused by infidelity is not determined by a wedding ceremony.

It is determined by how much the BS loved the WS prior to d-day.

You guys don't seem to understand my point.

The decision to save a marriage is a personal one. You will do what you want to do and people here will support you in your efforts. But the advice to cut your losses is just that: advice.

Take it or leave it.

No one is telling you you're a fool for choosing to do so. But the same sad movie has been played over and over. You married women who cheat. There are no little ones to hurt right now.

The odds of them cheating again are very high. They're likely to break your heart again.

You can still leave this person, who is a cheater, and have many good years to find a person who won't, start a family, and live the rest of your life in happiness.

It may be offensive to hear that you've really lost nothing if you leave now. But it's just as offensive to hear that trying for the kids is a copout.

We have differing viewpoints. You don't know or understand the pain of being ripped away from your children and having parents doesn't qualify you to understand that. My love for my kids is very different and more intense than for my parents.

It is difficult to describe if you don't have that kind of love yourself.

Is marriage without kids glorified dating? No. But I don't think a marriage is truly whole until children enter into the picture.

My mother was cheated on before she married my dad. He cheated after they got married for a number of years. He then got his head out of his butt.

18 years or so later, he cheated again. This was after my mother invested the best years of her life and gave birth to 3 children.

He broke her heart again and devastated her. It was one of the most difficult moments of our lives and I, as a child of the marriage, would have loved nothing more than to see my parents work it out.

They could have made the decision to stay together and try "for the kids".

We the kids would have been happy with that decision. But we also understood that my father had/has a serious problem.

So those of us advising you are telling you to bail because there are no kids, you'll love again, and won't let her break your heart once more years from now when you have a family.

As a previous poster mentioned: she loved her WH, but is so glad she's not with him now because she has found so much better and is very happy now.

I see this very strong desire to save a young marriage in couples that have been together since their teen years. I feel that fear drives a lot of this desire. Fear of the unknown.

The devil you know is better than the one you don't.

But we who have had kids and are a little older can tell you that while what you've gone through is terribly painful and your desire to save your marriage is admirable, there are certainly many other fish in the sea. Nowhere in the vows does it say that you must tolerate infidelity as part of "for better or for worse".

I can also tell you that sometimes pride is a factor in wanting to save a marriage. There's a strong desire to get the WS back simply as a "reconquest". Once the chase is over and he/she does come back, then the BS deals with the real anger and heartbreak of the betrayal. You guys haven't gone through that anger yet. It's coming. Believe me, you think you've been angry, but just wait. The anger phaze is scary.

The amount of work you have to do to recover your marriage is so great that it is quite frankly not worth trying when there are no kids. But that decision is yours.

You want to save your marriage. Good on you. Go ahead and give it a shot. No one here is telling you not to. We're advising you to consider a different path because you will likely be heartbroken again, and the next time will involve innocent little minds who don't understand why mommy wants to have a boyfriend and why she doesn't love daddy.

You can't comprehend the pain of that confusion in their eyes.

One day, when you have kids of your own, you'll understand.

Wouldn't this only be true of a WS who has not earned the "F" (did you ever think getting an F would be a good thing? )

If a FWS and the BS have recovered, why would their odds be higher than anyone elses odds that infidelity would occur? If they truely recovered, wouldn't the odds be lower?

And by that standard, shouldn't you cut your losses when you have kids so they are not hurt twice and not even think about recovering the marriage?


Wow. So your saying only fertile beings should marry fertile being and unfertile beings should only marry another unfertile being? My DH, years ago, should have implemented Plan D because I couldn't have kids? He would have lost nothing? I'll be sure to mention that tonight.

IHMO, trying for the kids is not a copout. Kids bring something to your life that, your right, until you have one you can't understand completely. But give people a little credit, we know that there is a different bond between parent and child and parents would do ANYTHING to protect their child.


I'll be sure to start spreading this word to every couple who I come into contact with, whether thru their own choice or circumstances, without a child that what the H & W have together is not whole. That what they have is a sham. I'm sure it won't offend anyone who has made the choice not to have kids. I'm sure it won't send any couples to the bathroom crying who have things outside of their control that have not allowed a child into the picture.

The last time I checked, marriage was defined something like this:

The social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments.

This is a marriage building website.

Children are not part of the marriage, they are part of the family.


This I agree with 100%.


And now we disagree.

But what do I know?