Regarding MIM's sitch, whether he achieves R or D, his children are going to have some emotional baggage at this point. If he divorces, there will also be a custody battle. And a battle over visitation. And even after the court tells them how it's going to be, they will still have to coordinate pick-ups, drop offs, vacations, days off school, decide extracurricular activities, medical issues, dental issues, college choices - the list is endless - and the kids are in the middle of it the whole way. What I believe MIM is saying with that, and what many BS's including POM say, is that the road to D is no smoother than the road to R and since there are little ones involved, they do what they can to attempt recovery. Even then, they walk a narrow path they can easily fall off.

I do admire you for attempting recovery, whether you have kids or not. It says a lot about your character. At the same time, know that you have every right to choose the other path. You are not a failure - your WS is.

She didn't cheat on me while dating, but she had characteristics which I have learned through study, experience, and over the years, made her susceptible to cheating.

By no means do I support saving a marriage with a serial cheater. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice? Three times?

Kids in the picture might lead the WW back to the marriage to try to save it. It may be the reason she returns but it will fail again if the reasons that caused her to cheat in the first place aren't addressed.

So you certainly don't want your old wife back. You want a new and improved one.

So why do we advise to bail when there are no kids? Because there are good women out there who don't need fixing. The fixing your wives need are very deep. There's likely a ton of psychological issues that need to be addressed on why she strayed. It will take a conscious effort on her part to WANT to change and the odds are that she won't change and that you'll one day be dealing with affair number 2 and then affair number 3. If something is fundamentally broken inside it won't necessarily be fixed.

By no means do I advocate a marriage with a serial cheater to be saved.

But you're doomed to failure if the person who strayed won't work on their problems or even acknowledged they have problems.

I can't fault you for wanting to save your marriage. You love these women and have faith they can reform. You want to put in the work to bring them back and reform them.

You still hope they can change. So that's commendable. It shows you took your vows seriously and that is great.

But she did cheat. There's no excuse for her doing so and she needs to dig down and make radical changes.

Odds are if your WWes come back that they will want to sweep things under the rug and hope you forget it ever happened.

Some guys have done that, such as AW3, who forgave his wife's 2 previous affairs. But he's now on his third and final one and is finally moving on.

There's also the realization that there are very many good women out there indeed. Could they cheat? Certainly.

But they have a clean slate to start with. And the ones that I have met and have been interested in have been nothing like my ex. They've been mature women who stand on their own two feet, are mature, and value God. They aren't needy and don't crave that male attention that our wayward wives feel they need to have.

That is a weakness that is very hard to break and I will guess that many of you who have wayward wives have women who crave male attention and have very poor boundaries.

These are DEEP psychological issues and scars.

So therapy is in order for you and for them.

My therapist has told me over and over that needy people attract other needy people.

I don't want and you don't want a needy person.

I would have gladly taken back my WW if she changed who she was/is. But she can't and is unwilling to address the very deep scars and traits which led her to stray and cheat. The flimsy justifications of "I'm not happy" aren't reason enough to destroy a family.

So you ask me why the advice from others is for you to bail when you have no kids and the answer is simple: The committment to change is huge and has to come from your WW and not from your desire for her to change. The odds of the WW truly changing and reforming are very low.

You have no real ties to this woman, who is clearly broken and immature, other than your love for her. Well, love can be found with someone else and you can avoid being with a woman who has the characteristics that led your wife to stray.

You're too close to the situation to see the picture.

It's like a wayward who marries the man she cheats with and is then surprised when that same man cheats on her years later.

The traits that led them to stray in their first marriages were never addressed.

Odds are your wayward wives will not want to address the problems that led them to stray since doing so means they have to take ownership of what they did to you. It's easier to lay blame on you for the problems in your marriage and use justifications such as "I had already decided the marriage was over, so I wasn't cheating" than to take ownership of their failings.

Recovery is a massive committment both for the betrayed and the wayward. BOTH have to make changes and address what led to the affair.

But all you can truly control is your own behavior and your own characteristics and the journey is ultimately just yours to take.

Your WWes have to climb Mount Everest to return to your marriages. They have to make committments to address their shortcomings and traumas that led them to stray.

You as the BS have to address the issues that led to your failures in the marriage and have to overcome the betrayal as well.

So the mountain to climb is huge.

Kids give an incentive to try to climb that mountain. They're a reason to embark on the journey of recovery, which is extremely difficult.

But you have no kids. You can climb your own mountain, which is good to do so since you want to learn what your own weaknesses and failures that led to your marriage falling apart. You can climb that mountain, come out the other side with lessons learned, and then embark on a new journey with someone new who has no major internal problems that will make them more susceptible to stray.

You're asking your WWes to return and climb this mountain and they don't want to. So how long are you willing to keep your life on hold waiting for her to come back when there is nothing that ties you to her other than feelings and a piece of paper?

There are no kids to give you the incentive to do so.

And ultimately this is a question only you can answer. The answers given so far have been:

"We've been together X years" (So you wish to invest X more years?)
"She's normally not like this" (she is and the characteristics that led her down this path will still be there unless SHE chooses to change)
"I love her" (Not reason enough. You must love with your head as well as your heart)
"I believe she can change" (Again, you can believe it every day. This is being in love with the potential and not who your WW truly is. She can't change unless she chooses to do so.)

"I made a commitment and don't want to just quit." (Commendable. Admirable. But again, SHE chose differently. Can't have a commitment or agreement when only one party is true to the words. SHE quit on you.)

These are questions and issues that all betrayed spouses have to wrestle with. All, without exception.

Children provide an incentive to climb the mountain and forgive the horrible betrayal and actually fix the marriage and address the issues which led to the affair. This doesn't guarantee success, but the incentive to try is certainly there.

You have some other incentive to try since you don't have kids, whether it be love, time invested, or a belief that the WW can change.

But in the end it doesn't matter what you want. Our waywards chose a different path. Mine did too. The question we're asking of them is to come back. The children provide an incentive, but I screwed up how i handled things and certainly didn't protect my rights as a father initially.

My ex had no incentive to return. She kept all our stuff and our kids so what could possibly motivate her to return? I messed up Plan A, Plan B, the 180 and didn't follow the advice on this forum.

2 years later I find myself wishing I had handled things differently in order to preserve my family. My children were my incentive to try, but I would have had to address my own failings and she would have had to address hers.

I know I've worked on me. She still has all the same faults and failings that led her to stray in the first place. Odds are she'll continue to marry and fail unless she makes the choice to change and address the issues that led to straying.

I have climbed my own mountain and am still on the climb and still learning. Looking back I see how I made poor choices. The biggest mistake was being afraid of being alone and settling.

You guys have a fear of the unknown and are hanging on to the "potential" of your wives or the memories of what you had when things were good.

But THEY have to change for themselves and that's something that will take a conscious effort and years of therapy.

So those of us with kids see you without them and see that you have your entire lives ahead of you and that you don't have to settle for being with a woman that is fundamentally broken. We don't want you to suffer the same heartache we have suffered of seeing our families ripped apart.

All you see is us saying to you "bail!"

What you're not seeing is that there is a very real desire on our parts that you don't experience the pain of having your children ripped from your lives and that you don't need to put in the effort to fix a broken soul who will break your heart again. We know, from experience, that that is ultimately a decision only your WWes can make for themselves and the odds are very high they won't.

We know, from being divorced, dating again, and taking that personal journey that love can be found again and it can be much better than what we had. But we have the added complication of continuing to deal with an entitled wayward ex who you HAVE to interact with because you had children with them.

So there is a very real desire, on our parts, to see people like you kick these waywards to the curb to flounder through marriage after marriage while you go on a journey of personal recovery and find true love that you can have a family with and a true lifelong committment with.

Take that for what it's worth.

We don't doubt you love your wives and want them back. But the odds of recovery and successfully staying married are very long UNLESS your WWes have a very unlikely epiphany, come to their senses, and fundamentally change who they are. A very unlikely scenario and you will put your life on hold waiting for it to happen when there is no reason for you to do so.

pom,

Every single point that you make about why you feel someone should cut and run when they don't have kids could just as easily be a point to cut and run with kids...and you're only using kids as a crutch. Every point you make to try to save the marriage (with kids) could just as easily be a point to save a marriage without kids...if you don't use kids as a crutch.



Whenever this topic comes up there seems to be one significant factor in which members here always say "no kids, young marriage...cut and run". Take a look at this thread, and some other threads regarding this topic, and you will clearly see people with no kids, in young marriages saying "I'm willing to try recovery"...you will see (in this thread) people with children who are in recovery saying "no kids, young marriages...you can still recover if your WS is on board and does what he/she needs to do in the future"...then there is your group...(BS's who have children who tried to recover and failed in the attempt)..."cut and run." Coincidence? Hardly.

This is obviously not how it is 100% of the time in these convos, but if you look back you will see that I am pretty close with my observations.

People in your group (in my opinion) are very easily pulled in to the "cut and run" category at MB, because there are people trying to succeed in something that you could not do. It's a trait that most people have actually..."if I couldn't do it, I'll do my best to make sure others can't either...so I feel better about myself."

I'm sure you will come up with a million reasons to disagree....but, it's no coincidence that there seems to be 3 different groups at MB when this topic arises, and your group is the "cut and run" group...when you obviously have really NO MORE REASON to be in this group than any other BS that is a member here.

edit:

Take a look at your last sentence in your last post...

"You have no reason to do so."

It shoud read "You have no reason to do so....BUT I DID".

Because, we know this is actually what you are thinking.

Just a point of clarification: My FWW is NOT on her 3rd A.

Also...

1. She's had 1 A since we've been M'd (going on 17 years now).

2. She cheated on me while we were a couple (but not M'd yet), just over 20 years ago.

We were going through a LOT about a year or so before her A started up. I can't get into the details here, but there was some tragedy involved, including attempted rape. I suspect that may have something to do with her state of mind at the time OM made his "move".

So what your saying is there where other factors?

When I say that I am told I am making excuses.

Also, If my wife ever cheats on me again, I walk, kids or no kids.

I stand corrected, and I'm sorry MIM. I didn't mean to drag your story into this thread, and quite frankly haven't ever posted to you (but have followed both your thread and Tangled's... but haven't had much to contribute other than what's already been said...).

I guess I brought up your story because yours was the first that popped into my head of a story where I thought the BS should bail-- probably because it is the "freshest" in my mind since your thread has been hot recently.

Regardless of when she cheated, etc, and even regardless of what was going on prior to her cheating-- I still think that you might be best off cutting your losses-- but to me that is more because of her attitude from reading her thread and also looking at her past history (even if you weren't M'd) than it is because whether or not you were M'd when she cheated/how long ago it was. I can give you my thoughts on your thread, if you want... but really they aren't that much different than what others have already said.

Sorry for that I really didn't mean to be a downer. It is just how I feel, but I'm sure I don't know everything, etc etc. I've learned its hard to get a real handle on a sitch on the boards here. I do wish you the best MIM, though. I hope your wife pulls her head out of her butt and does something about the current sitch, and also about her overall attitude. Take care of yourself and your kids :), and again, truly sorry for bringing your name up here. I shouldn't have done that and dragged you in here. It was sorta like talking behind your back... if you'd like me to go back and edit my comments, I will do so.

Regards,
E.

Good for you. I think this should be everyone's policy.

E.

Gack, I'm with you. I will/want to give my WW one chance to prove herself. If it EVER happens again I will then consider it a character flaw and will move on no matter what. Over the last 8.5 yrs of our lives there has never been one occurance of cheating.

No apology necessary, Eeyoree. We only know of each other here by what we share on this forum, and what you've read about my situation led you to say what you did.

My only suggestion should be that we should try to keep an open mind about the situations we read about here - there might be quite a lot going on that we're not really privy too because it's not shared here, sometimes deliberately.

And FWIW, I'm one of those who more often than not advises to cut the losses if it's a young M with no children involved, and particularly if the situation involved cheating before tying the knot. That's usually just too much emotional baggage for the M to handle, particularly if the cheating happens again. It's quite possible if there was someone back then 20 years ago when I had my first heartbreak that advised me to do walk away, my FWW and I might be happier now - in different lives.

introvert,

You couldn't be more wrong. I root for every single bs on this board. I would love nothing more than for the WS to have an epiphany and return to you, a reformed woman.

I have been very happy for the few men I have helped on these boards. Some have been able to keep their marriages. Others haven't.

Every single point you make is valide except for the fact that you feel I have some inner motive to encourage those without kids to bail.

It's really very simple: you will be hurt again. There's a small percentage who wont be. But the odds are high that a woman who strayed without kids and so quickly after saying I do is likely to stray again and has deep issues.

So I'm trying to be a warning sign to you and others like you. I married a woman just like yours. I married someone who cheated and has no conscience about doing so.

You've been lucky enough to see this before having children with these women.

In a way I envy your position because you have learned of this lack of character before having children with these women. So I would be happy to see you kick these cheating women to the curb and find yourself a real woman.

At the same time I would be clapping for you and slapping you in the back if she returned reformed. I just don't see that happening.

You see, a woman that's been married for such a short period of time really has very little marital history to rewrite. You say, "well, we've lived together 8 years without cheating" but if you read all the studies about living together, then you see that the longer you live together and court and date before getting married then the likelier you are to fail once you say I do. Saying "I do" doesn't fix problems. But lots of people think it does.

So you couldn't be more wrong about us wanting to see you succeed. If anything, we with kids and that have been burnt by cheating spouses envy you who have no kids and are young and could have the fresh start and chance to rewind that is impossible for us.

Few of us that have healed and truly moved forward would want the cheating immature woman we married back into our lives.

I don't encourage you to bail because of some desire to have you join the ranks of the divorced.

I encourage you to bail because you're getting a golden chance to leave someone who will likely break your heart again if you have the courage to let her go and understand that there are many women out there who won't cheat on you and who have the maturity to be married and not cheat.

But good luck with your attempt to get your wives back.

All I ask is that you don't become like many men I've seen on these boards that hold on and hold on for years and years hoping their WWes return and they watch as she goes from OM1, to OM2, to OM3 while still legally married to you.

I've seen that here and I feel sorry for the poor souls who are too afraid to let go and realize that there are good women out there and that they don't need to hold on to someone that takes their love for granted.

Finally, my point is that children give the bs incentive. That's the incentive I had. I had no other reasons to want to stay with ww other than my kids. They were my motivation to try and save things. But I screwed it all up because I did it all wrong.

My H stayed for me, not our kids. Our kids were grown up. We had been married 28 years when I had my A. If my HS b/f hadn't shown up when he did I would not have had an A.

You are very certain that I will get cheated on again, but every single BS here has a high % of being cheated on again, and I've yet to see any concrete evidence (in the way of professional research) that backs up your claim that a cheater without kids has a higher chance of re-offending than a cheater with kids. Let's see the proof.

Nuts!

If I didn't have my son who was around 2 at the time of my wife's A, I would have congratulated her on her first baby and then asked where my lawyer could send the paperwork to.

her A started a few weeks before our second anniversary.

but we DID have a son who was suffering mightily because he didnt understand what was going on.

I would have taken a completely different direction if i had no children at the time.

Actually there is every possibility that will happen.


Where is there any evidence that this happens?


That is not what happened in my case, but I have seen it. I had always worked, I wasn't in a "rut", I didn't flirt with anybody at work. I was "prickly" in my dealings with men. I had a shell that said "keep away". Always did.


The length of time I had been married had no bearing on my desire to reconcile with my H. We were starting our 28 year old marriage on "day one" the day after d-day.



I doubt you will find them. Most marriages really do hit a sticky point at 7 years, then again at about 25-28 years. I don't have the statistics either but I could probably find them.


Again, there is every chance this will happen, especially with Intro.



Serial cheating is not as prevalent as you may think. There is a certain type of man or woman who are "players". You can see them a mile off.


Again, why shouldn't he try? At least he can say he tried.


I agree with this but I think people can change.



I think you are making things personal to you based on your experience. FWIW, I think taking your WW back "for the children" was the biggest mistake you made. You should have taken her back "for you". When you have young children you don't understand how they grow up and it really is just a husband and wife left. Yes, you're a family and always will be and you always provide support and worry about them even when they're adults, but you are not, and shouldn't be, the be all and end all of their lives.



He does have ties to her. Good grief, he's married to her. Why is she likely to do it again? Based on what? Empirical evidence?


My H never called me an "abuser". It's that mindset that will never amount to a recovery.


The children were important to us and our recovery. They were both convinced we would divorce. They were extremely relieved we went on to recover so well. But the reason we recovered is because "we" as a couple wanted to.


Love. Something I don't think you recognise.


It was because of my H's willingness to forgive and commitment to me that we recovered. The depth of his love overwhelmed me.



YOU married a broken woman with no morals. My H didn't.


Again, your personal experience. Not mine, not Intros.


Again, YOUR experience. A very narrow experience. No one ever "warned" my H about me because I was very loved by his family and I was an extremely good wife for the 28 years until my A. Now it's 34 years tomorrow.


Again, YOUR experience. My marriage was never doomed from the get go. It was a wonderful marriage and still is.

Excellent post POM. Many good points and obviously straight from the heart of experience.

I really hope Intro does well in his decision to recover as I wish that for everyone who chooses.

****EDIT****

Kiwi,

You cheated on your H twice? Then count yourself lucky he's forgiven you.

As far as "not knowing what love is":

I did love my wife very much, flaws and all. She killed that when she made false allegations against me about the nature of my relationship with my daughter. When she did that she killed what little good feelings I had left and very quickly pushed me into the next phaze of grief.

Finally, I'd prefer to not be lectured about love by a woman who has mentally raped her husband twice.

I understand a slip up. We're all human. But to do it two times? That makes you a serial cheater. Serial = more than one time.

So you consciously chose to mentally rape him twice.

Count your blessings he's forgiven you twice. He obviously does love you.

But love is not enough.

Like I have said before, introvert and awh have every right to try and to forgive and attempt to reconcile.

I'll root for them in their efforts.

But they do deserve better and can do better and are young enough to be able to let this cheating woman go, learn from the experience, and start a family with a woman who deserves it.

I think, if anything, you proved my point that after your H forgave OM1 you did eventually move on to OM2.

Sorry, intro and awh and I deserve better than to be with women with very poor boundaries and morals.

OK-- I wanted to clarify something, and add a few comments myself again...

First off, the clarification. POM, I think I got the sense above that you think I am a BH. Actually, I am a FWW- cheated once. I am also a BS, my H had a RA, as well as 2 EAs prior to my A. So, that's my clarification.

In terms of adding a few comments...

1. I think that one instance of infidelity can be forgiven. Two, and you've got someone with a serious character flaw-- that obviously didn't learn and correct from the first instance. I say cut and run there. With my history-- I didn't learn of my H's two EAs until after my A, and although it seems he is a "repeat offender", since I am not innocent myself, I've decided to write us a clean slate in terms of cheating-- and if he ever did it again, he'd be given the boot.

2. Contrary to POM-- I think that people that have been cheated on ONCE in SOME instances can be LESS likely than the general public to be cheated on again. IN SOME INSTANCES, being the key words. I feel like if the WS goes to great lengths to learn about their own character flaws that led to the A, takes extraordinary EPs to ensure that it never happens again... and truly CHANGES their own attitudes and behaviors... well, that M would be MORE protected than most against another A.

I guess my point is that if you take the opportunity to truly learn and change and grow... well, I disagree that you will be cheated on again for sure. POM seems to assert that if you do it once, you'll do it agian and again. And in some cases, I think that's true.

But I also think that you can pick out the FWWs that are on board, are doing their job, and are using the opportunity to learn.

Yeah, this was a crappy way to learn all of this for me and my H. It is optimal that you learn it all another way. But, that's not what happened. And, I have stepped up to do the hard work, and scrutinized myself and my own character flaws (which was not easy) and truly figured out why I DID WHAT I DID. No, my M was not great prior to my A-- it had problems. But it was MY CHARACTER FLAWS that made me deal with the problems the way that I did. Mine. 100% my flaws. And I've dug into those-- as painful as it was-- and fixed my attitude and behaviors-- and have put EPs in place with the KNOWLEDGE of my weaknesses to ensure that I am never presented with the same situation that led to my A.

And that is for life. A crappy way to learn this-- but these are things I didn't know about myself before, or hadn't contemplated.

So, I disagree that every BS will be cheated on again (and this is separate from the kids/no kids argument... this is with or without kids... as I think it makes no difference in the CHANCE of recovery if you have kids or not... what I think dictates recovery is the above CHANGES in attitude and deep looking at character flaws. You can do that with or without kids).

In my case, whether my M survives or not, I KNOW that I will NEVER EVER cheat again, period. I've seen the destruction, I've learned the consequences, its not worth it. And I feel better about myself dealing with my own character flaws, being more aware of myself. No one is perfect, its what you do about those imperfections that matters.

E.

**EDIT**

email me for explanation

Revera

Wile I would not argue the statisticle facts of this. Every situation is diferant. My wife and I where engaged after our second year. Our delay in an actual ceremony was economical, not a lack of commetment. Take that as you wish.

Been back for 2 months. Granted she is still pulling some fogged out wayward crap, but don’t they all?
(that’s why I am still in plan A and not R)

I certainly won’t guarantee we will recover. But until she either strays again, or my love for her is exhausted, I will try.

But all I have heard is bail, bail, bail.