Hi if you or your spouse had 2 or more affairs..
did you overcome whatever it is/was that drives the behaviour?

& How?

From what I've seen here, if you don't learn your lesson the first time, you never will.

A serial cheater can change with alot of very hard work and by taking EXTRAORDINARY PRECAUTIONS to avoid tempting situations. A person can change, but they have to WANT to change and be willing to take those steps.

A BS cannot change a serial cheater.

It is a little more difficult with spouses of serial cheaters, because some cannot overcome the resentment. It can be done, I guess it just depends on the personality.

IMHO, serial cheaters should be left at the curb with the rest of the garbage.

No.

You know, they do it because they like it. And they will keep doing it until such time as they no longer like it. And some keep on doing it even then, even as it destroys them and everyone around them.

But change? No. Like all addicts, they never actually change. An addict is who is who they really are. But, they might actually stop doing it, given enough negative incentive. They will always still want to do it more though. Which means you will always and for ever be waiting for the next shoe to drop.

Besides, what do you mean heal? Heal from what? Some childhood trauma that drives them to act this way? Nah. There is nothing to heal. The only reality is there are actions they should stop. Which some few might actually stop doing for a while. But they are who they are and always will be.

You best bet is to get away from them and stay away from them.

Fortunately, for many, this is pure nonsense. Tell this to the millions of recovering alcoholics in AA who haven't had a drink in years. To the millions of recovering drug addicts. To the thousands of FORMER wayward spouses.

Aphelion, spreading cynicism and doom has become sport to you. A very sick sport if you ask me.

I believe the my husband changed himself...I believe he finally 'got it'. He had (at least) 3 affairs over the course of our 32 yr marriage. Two of the affairs were in his mid-life crisis time. The last one ended 6 yrs ago the end of this month. I suppose time will tell. Most BS's won't hang in there long enough for a real recovery to happen.

It kinda seems like men and women may differ some in this regard, but I don't know that for sure...I think most of the WW's members here had one A.

Aphelion, "heal" for me personally, meant to stop living a life of self will run riot based on selfishness and to retrain my thinking.

I have met hundreds of people in my life who have changed their lives dramatically. There are so many examples to refute your assertion that people cannot change. They DO change, Aphelion.

NOBODY changes unless they WANT to. And nobody WANTS to until the price they pay for remaining the same becomes higher than the price of changing.

Witness the betrayed spouses here. When faced with our WS's infidelity, those of us who WANTED to recover our marriages turned ourselves around. Dropped long-term bad behaviors and implemented much better ways of behaving to put things right, for ourselves and for our marriages. And NONE of it was easy.

It's about motivation.

Mel, you should know better.

Go hang out in a bar with a recovered alcoholic. Or a rave with a meth addict. Or a strip club with an SA. Or have a one-on-one working lunch with a serial cheater member of the opposite sex.

Or simply marry a once and serial cheater.

Mel, you make no sense to me, either. But I am not going to make it a personal attack like you are. Blame it on me if you wish, but I think I finally have it figured out, and better than you have.

My H cheated on me with so many women that he says he can't even remember how many. I didn't know about any of them until he had what seemed like an exit affair and we filed for divorce and were separated for a few months.

I am not sure what caused the change, maybe he just finally grew up, but he did change. I do not think he will cheat again.

I feel nothing but sadness for you, Aphelion.

The statistics are very bleak. The best forecast of the future is past behavior.

Here is something I looked up about alcoholics -

"1. What proportion of treated alcoholics abstain completely following treatment?
At one extreme, Vaillant (1983) found a 95 percent relapse rate among a group of alcoholics followed for 8 years after treatment at a public hospital; and over a 4-year follow-up period, the Rand Corporation found that only 7 percent of a treated alcoholic population abstained completely (Polich, Armor, & Braiker, 1981). At the other extreme, Wallace et al. (1988) reported a 57 percent continuous abstinence rate for private clinic patients who were stably married and had successfully completed detoxification and treatment—but results in this study covered only a 6-month period.

In other studies of private treatment, Walsh et al. (1991) found that only 23 percent of alcohol-abusing workers reported abstaining throughout a 2-year follow-up, although the figure was 37 percent for those assigned to a hospital program. According to Finney and Moos (1991), 37 percent of patients reported they were abstinent at all follow-up years 4 through 10 after treatment. Clearly, most research agrees that most alcoholism patients drink at some point following treatment."

SA people have an even lower "cure" rate. It takes years of work to overcome.

Pedophiles usually never recover.

Serial cheaters will mostly continue their pattern to cheat.

Of course, many DO recover from these things, but I think it takes a lifelong recovery program.

Most alcoholics die that way. The most commonly touted statistic in treatment circles is 90% die drunk. That means that only 10% sober up.

THANK GOD PEOPLE CAN AND DO CHANGE!

Yes, people CAN change. But many don't. The poster that started this thread has a wife on her third affair. She "hates" everything about her husband and acts out in front of her children.

What are the chances that she will change?

So I guess since my H has a good history of winning the battle with addiction then maybe that is why he is able to stop cheating. He was addicted to drugs over 20 years and has never relapsed. He was a smoker for years and quit cold turkey when our daughter was born and has never gone back. So if cheating is an addiction that is actually encouraging to me, since my H is so good at overcoming additions.

Wait a minute. Let me read that again...

Do you realise what you just wrote?

So let me ask, what will be his next addiction?

That's not changing, Mel. That's managing.

Thank God that He changes people.

The most impressive conversions are of those found scraping the bottom of the barrel. For me the most amazing are those of "nice people" who tolerate Christian theology alongside with all other religions.

They seem so comfortable and impervious to change. Yet I have seen their renovation and marveled.

Miracles happen every day. Don't give up on prayer for the serial cheater either.

Probably SLIM, but certainly not impossible. Aphelion has said people NEVER CHANGE, but he has already been proven wrong TWICE on this thread alone [Trix's serial cheater husband my 23 yr sobriety] We have others here who are married to serial cheaters who have changed, starfish comes to mind. Dr. Harley says it is possible. And many others here who are not serial cheaters can and DO CHANGE.

It makes me SICK to see the unwarranted cynicism in the posts here in the midst of many people who HAVE changed. And in the midst of many people who come here for help and hope. We have many former waywards on this forum who have changed. We have many BSs here who are in fully recovered, happy marriages.

To be told that no one ever changes is MEAN and it is not true. It is a disservice to MISLEAD people in such a manner.

Believer, where do you think I would be today if I were met with someone like Aphelion at the door of AA 23 years ago? Do you think anyone would ever bother if told such a lie as "no one actually ever changes?" Millions of alcoholics across the world live sober lives and I bet none of them would ever bother if they saw this thread.