I guess I have been waiting/expecting the pastor to realize what is going on, and that whith his help I could manage to get her to se a professional.

I think you are right, I need to let the pastor know a bit of her history.

When she is in the middle of it all she says that it is ok for a partner to have affairs like this, saying she needs the soul-mate relationship.


Early in our marriage she told me that she grew up in a repressive home, and that she often would fantasize or live in a fantasy world to get away from it all. I draw the conclusion that for her this is a bit like a fantasy world, she does not connect it to the real world. It´s like she is living in two worlds at the same time.


She usually has no explanation, or defence, she just becomes very queit when I expose her. During one of the more serious affairs in 2002 (where the object was an employee of mine, and co-worker to my wife, and a very old friend of mine, and where the other man actually responded in some way) she wanted to leave me an live with the other man, and then she blamed me for working to much, and said our relationship was bad, so she had the right to relate to someone else.



With regards to her attitude to me and the women I meet she was very jealous the first ten years. Not so much nowadays. Even though she usually jokes about me rather wanting someone who is more professional, intellectual than she is (which I deny!)

When I was abroad this fall for a few weeks I mentioned meeting a swedish woman at a conference, and that she had studied at that University where I was. Here reaction when I came home: "I hate her!" This is even though I hardly spoke more than a few minutes with this woman, and never alone.

So I think she would not accept me to have any "soul-mate" relationship of any depth, (and neither do I think it natural or Ok to have one, I have never tried either).

I have read through all the replies again, this morning, and it is helping me sort out my thoughts.

I think (as someone suggested) that living with my wife with her behaviour for so long has clouded my senses to what is normal.

The first three affairs shocked me (in our first year of marriage, and our 10th anniversary). I was angry, I accused her, I shouted, I stamped out of the house, I acted out all my feelings.

But I also blamed myself for studying and working to much, and for neglecting her. The affairs in the 90-ties were "mild", short intensive passions lasting only a few weeks, and when they died out I was so relieved (comparing them with the biggest serious affair on our 10th anniversary), that I relaxed and thought that it might just have been my (jealous) imagination playing me a trick.

The second half of the 90-ties there were not any real affairs (that I know) but it started again, and more regularly in 2000.

I realized that there was a pattern: Signs that I could see before and during an affair: She starts to take longs walks, she loses weight, she does not eat enough, she stays up late at night (with our oldest boys watching movies (she and they love it!), she starts buying things without restrictions, she becomes sexually active (with me). So I suspected that there is some need inside her, a craving for an experience of passion, a longing for a fantisy.

2001 2002, 2003/2004 where three more serious affairs, and I demanded she (and me) go to see a psychotherapist, which she did.

And I did.

Anyway, the realization that she probably has some kind of mental disorder (however mild) helped me survive, and helped me with my decision to stay, even though I contemplated divorce.

I do not think that her therapist really spoke to her about her passions. When I ask her she says they spoke mostly about her sense of low esteem and low worth of value, and connects this with her upbringing with the alcholic mother.

With the decision to move to our current town I got new hope, and have thought that "maybe it is all over now, maybe the therapy has helped her realize it is wrong to enter an affair". And I have hoped that all is well.

But as you have said: I have been "acclimatized" into accepting something that is not normal. And I have failed in helping her to professional help.

I realize that I do accept today what is not normal in a relationship. I do it from a position of understanding that she is mentally disturbed (in some fashion). So the solution must start with that she gets treatment of some kind.

1. I need to give the pastor a notion of what is going on.

2. I need to adress the mental disorder issue.

I actually yesterday received a book I ordered: "Loving someone with bipolar disorder". By Julie A. Fast

The second chapter is: "Treat Bipolar Disorder First"!

I think I'd give the pastor a lot more than a notion.

You know, I have a WW, but I can sort of look at it as an abberation in an otherwise extremely moral and ethical life.

Your WW, mental issues aside, just seems to have no respect for the institution of marriage.

That's a problem.

How old are your children?

She hasn't even the basic concept of personal boundaries or boundaries in a marriage. She actually seems to have philosophical beliefs contrary to fidelity...at least for her in her entitled state.

Treat or rule out the bi polar. At the very least she is a love addict. The high of the infatuation.

Our youngest child is 13, and our oldest is 24 (and has left home to study and work).

I think that she doesn´t have a concept of personal boundaries because she lacks an inner "notion of self". She has no solid, inner self. This is probably connected to her mental problems, and her upbringing.

She IS a love addict, and gets high on the infatuations, which is (from what I have read) part of the bipolar disorder (when in hypomania the infatuations act like a drug).