Sorry this is so long. My husband and I have been married for six years. We have had our share of problems and struggles, but we have always been very close.

He deployed to Iraq for a year and in the midst of it we were buying our first home. We were both so excited.

At first the deployment seemed to bring us closer. We would call each other and email many times a day. I'd send care packages and he told me that he was going to make me his priority, which made me very happy because I had always felt like I wasn't on the top of his list.

Then, the day our home sale closed; I was so excited, then he emailed apologising for accidently sending me the email about the girl and said it was just guy talk. I read the email, it was between he and a friend stateside. He was talking about how he wanted to have sex and more with a woman he worked with here and how he loved women; except maybe for wives, and how I was little or no effort on his part. It hurt me a lot. I wrote back saying that I felt it wasn't just guy talk and it was hurtful. He became angry and sent me a bunch of mean emails saying it was no big deal and that I needed professional help because I was upset. I stopped reading the emails until the next day and his demeanor totally changed,he sent tons of emails saying he apologised, told me how much he loves me and that he didn't want any woman but me.

I forgave him but still felt very hurt and angry for a while. He had chested on me three years prior with his ex-wife on our Anniversary, so it was difficult to forgive again.

A few weeks later he came home for leave. Because I was still very upset and didn't want to have an angry outburst, and also because I wanted him to make an effort, I distanced myself a bit. I didn't spend all my time with him, I'd go to the spa with friends or take his daugther shopping. I was looking very good because I had been focusing more on caring for myself. He noticed and like it, but once he went back to Iraq all the guys there convinced him I was cheating because I looked so good. I wasn't and never have. I really love him so much.

It made me so sad that he thought I was cheating, I knew he was hurting and feeling very helpless over there. All my anger and hurt went away, and I decided to do whatever it took to repair our marriage. We began emailing each other much more and the emails were very sweet and loving. Then he was to come home for his next leave. I was so excited; so was my son, we welcomed him home. I was a bit sad though because he was only going to be home for two days and then was to fly to his hometown for an old childhood friend's wedding. During the two days we worked on installing insullation under our home; we had to because winter was coming, so there wasn't a whole lot of recreation time.

He went to the wedding and came back home, but the next day he had received a call saying his dad was in the hospital, so he made plans to fly back. He had also expressed his fears about going back to Iraq, he thought he was going to die. He felt he had to go back so that we could finish paying off our debts. He was angry because he wished I had paid the debts first. I tried to explain that there are many costs associated with purchasing the home and that I had indeed paid of many of our other debts, but he was still angry. I suggested that he not go back and that I get a job (I'm a full time student in my senior year). He thought that could be a solution, but hadn't made a decision.

He left to go see his dad for a week. He called me every day, at least at first. He told me he was staying at his mom's house. I called there on the third day and his stepdad said he had never stayed there and hadn't even seen him. I called to see if he was staying with his dad or brother, but he wasn't. When he called again I asked him where he was staying; at first he said his mom's, but then he admitted he was staying with his guy friend whose wedding he had gone to. He said he had lied because he thought I'd be upset. On the previous trip he hadn't seen any of his family and then felt guilty when his dad got sick, so I encouraged him to spend as much time with family as possible. I asked him if he could call me from his friends' house, but he said that his friend wouldn't let him use the phone. I found that kind of weird. I was beginning to panic. It seemed all he did was lie, which was weird because he had never lied before; even when he had cheated he came straight out and told me.

Still, I wanted to do all I could. Since I wasn't sure if he was going back to Iraq, and if he did he would miss Christmas, Thanksgiving, our Anniversary, and all our birthdays, I set up the Christmas tree, prepared Thanksgiving dinner, and got birthday and anniversary gifts ready so we could celebrate early.

The day came to pick him up from the airport, but I got a message saying he missed his flight and that all the tickets were really expensive. He said he'd stay in a hotel and the next day I could check online to try to find something cheaper. The next day I received a message saying that he got a ticket (weird because it never showed up on our bank account), that I didn't need to pick him up, that he wasn't going back to Iraq, and that we were getting a divorce. He was gone for about a week to who knows where, he made no purchses on our account, and I didn't hear anything from him for two weeks.

I got divorce papers on our anniversary. I hadn't seen him for two months (he said it would be too painful, he also said he was said but felt he had no choice). The other day I finally saw him at divorce mediation. He looked very sad, he kept staring at me and tears kept welling in his eyes. He is pretty much giving me everything and paying all my bills for a year so that I can finish school. The mediator said he had never seen two people in mediation respect and care for each other more.

This site is amazing and I've been doing all I can to follow the concepts. I have recognized things I had been doing wrong from reading the concepts, it's just so hard to implement them with no contact at all, except email and occasional phone. He had been totally shut down. He still doesn't want to talk about us really, but he's talking a little. He says he wants me to be happy, he said he tried but couldn't make me happy. He swears there is noone else, but I'm not sure about that. I'm pretty sure something happened the week he went MIA. I'll have to sign the papers in a week or two. I just feel so helpless. Our kids are hurting so much too. Any suggestions? Is there any hope at all?

Hang in there we are coming into the weekend and it can get slow on the boards here.

My thought is that he has had an A or maybe you put that he did, but any way he must have some serious guilt or some major PTSD.

The vets will be on here to help, so keep checking back in.

Thanks, I will!

I guess there isn't but I still can't give up until it's over!

I guess there isn't but I still can't give up until it's over!

Expects,

For me, my journey there is ALWAYS hope. You have to be willing to read, learn and work the plans. Go outside your comfort zone and do things that might scare you or be contradictory to what you know.

I would be searching for any clues to see if there WAS an A. All along learning about how to expose.

What state are you in that a D can move so fast? Can you stall the D? Do you have children?

Him being away, does he have emotional challenges from his tour of duties?

I'm glad there is hope, I'm so devastated. I'm in Cali, so it's a "no fault" state. I'm pretty sure he at least cheated because he told his daughter that she can't spy for me;I'd never ask, but she wouldn't speak to him for a month, she's so hurt and angry. She says that he is the person that "looks like her dad" but isn't. It's so sad.

I do think that his deployment messed him up; his recollection of prior events is skewed to say the least, if not outright false. For example, when he came home in the summer, we rented a SeaDoo and all went out to the lake. I was the first one on it; I went by myself, took each of our children out, and at one point could't figure out why it wouldn't go faster; it would only go 30 mph. So I looked in the compartment and found another key which made it go faster, so I think the key that was in it was a child key. I spent about 2 hours on the lake, but it was cold. So, I let my husband have a turn and tried to warm up on the beach. But the next time he came home he swore I never went on the SeaDoo at all. Weird?

Yes we have two kids; he has a daughter from his first marriage. It took so long for us to bond, but we love each other so much now. I have a son from a prior relationship; he never met his natural father, so my husband is the only dad he has even known, there was even talk of adoption.

My husband was supposed to come by tommorrow to get some things. But he came by unexpectedly this morning asking if my son could go with him to pick up a new bed for his new place. I woke my son up and told him what he wanted, my son got dressed and went outside; he's ten kinda going on thirty, I encouraged my son to spend time with him because he has missed him so much and also had waited anxiously for him while he was in Iraq. I thought he was going to go, but the last thing my son said before shutting the door was, "It'll take a lot more than that to get me back!". M<y husband said, "I'll keep trying". My husband came back to the door and asked me for a tool; I got it for him and was kind. My son cried for about an hour after that. This stinks!

Any advice would be helpful...

Expectsamiracle,

I am sorry you are in this situation. It truly stinks. however, there is plenty of good advice from lots of people who have been through the same experience.

Do you know much about your H's deployment? Is there a chance he could have PTSD or a TBI? My H came home from Iraq for R&R and we went on a 4 day ski trip that even now he cannot recall. My H also had other memory problems - forgetting what day he had a plane ticket and going to the airport on the wrong day, forgetting that he already had bought a plane ticket and purchased another one, etc.

Have you snooped (checked phone records, computer emails, etc) to see if he is currently involved in an affair?

Best wishes to you.

AM

He told me that when he was helo-ing out for his summer leave that he saw a rocket tracer barely miss the helo. He said he saw Iraqis get killed in front of him and it didn't bother him as much as he thought it should have.

My husband was enlisted in the Navy and the Marine Corps. and served in Desert Storm, and that didn't mess him up. This time he was over there as an Army civilian employee. He worked for environmental, but had to go out on the convoys to inspect the outposts and other bases. He usually went out about one week a month, but was scared to go back because a new commander was put in charge and she had ordered him out three weeks a month. He told me that they could only travel at night, because of the rocket attacks on the convoys. He was certain that he'd die if he went back. My friends' husband had gone before him in the same fashion, and actually enjoyed it, it made thier marriage stronger. Except his job allowed him to stay on base. Had I known this would happen, I'd had done all I could to deter his deployment.

He has a new cell phone, so I can't track his calls. He has changed all the password on our bank accounts, except for one which is the one I use and he doesn't use it.

I realize after reading the material on this site that I have made many fundamental mistakes that have contributed to ending our marriage, but I wonder if maybe...because he was so scared to go back, that he used me as an excuse, instead of telling his friends and coworkers he was afraid. He has said over and over that he is sad and doesn't really want to do this, but feels he has no choice.

He is coming by tomorrow morning to get our dog and some other things. I'm not sure how to handle it...Any suggestions?

Please, can someone help? Plan A? Or fill the love bank and work the basic concepts?

EaM, I am sorry you're going through this. I really am. It's late on a weekend night, so the veterans may not be here until later. The advice I'm going to give you is so basic that it may be next to worthless. Well, it's free, so you get what you pay for.

My suggestion, and this will only work if you're up for it, is to be the wife your husband fell in love with and wanted to marry. This means NOT bringing up the subject of his leaving, NOT begging, whining or crying, and NOT mentioning HIS behavior.

What you should do is be loving, but resolute. Tell him that you want to work on saving the marriage. That he is not walking out on you with your permission. Be kind, and do not "love bust." Do not issue disrespectful judgments (DJ), angry outbursts (AO) or selfish demands (SD). Instead, tell him that you love him, that you want the marriage to succeed and that you want the TWO OF YOU to work together on this.

But do not expect any of your words to have an effect. Expect your husband to belittle you, to tell you he does not love you any more, has never loved you, and all of the rest of the tripe that wayward spouses (WS) read from the same (very badly written) script. He will not want to hear what you say, because he would rather you be angry, cry and otherwise validate his expectation that he is doing the right thing.

If you can, click on the links to the right and read Love Busters, the EN Questionnaire, and if you haven't already, start with "Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts."

Good luck. Be strong. It will be horribly tough. Maybe the hardest thing you've ever done. But if you do it, you will be on your way to saving your marriage.

Thank you Fred! I will take your advice.

I think that his emotional needs that I wasn't satisfying were the recreation and the sexual; likely his two most important.

I always felt like he piled so much on me and that even if I'd do 1000 things in the day, he'd pick the one thing I missed and criticize me for it. I'd try harder and we'd both be more frustrated. He'd ask me to go do something with him, but I'd feel like if I did then he would be even more critical of the chores I missed.

I now realize that if I had just stopped and spent time with him doing recreation, then he'd have likely helped me more.

As for the sex; oh man! We had the best sex in the beginning, but it went downhill. He did a lot of things that resulted in feelings of inadequacy and inferiority on my part. He felt like i thought sex was a chore. It wasn't, but I always felt he was thinking of someone else. It's weird too because I've never had complaints before and have always been confident in my body and abilities.

Well, he came and got the dog and two of our cats. I packed him a big box of canned food and included a card and some candies.

My son told him he wanted to spend the day with him, so he is, but my husband griped at me about it saying that he wished he'd have known. I remained calm and kind.

My son got into his truck while my husband was in the back yeard getting the dog. My son found a hair tie laying on the seat. When my husband came back, my son asked him about it and he said it must be mine or his daughters and that no woman was in the truck. I had put some things in his truck a few weeks ago and there was no hair tie on the seat and it didn't look like one of ours. But, I didn't say anything.

It was at this point that my husband started getting really pissy and yelled at my son a number of times for little things.

I'm just feeling lost as to what to do next...

Okay, well obviously there is no hope for my marriage. I won't ask for help any longer.

Buy a copy of "Surviving An Affair" as soon as you can. Best $10 you can possibly spend right now. It will become clear what you should do if you wish to save your marriage. Realize, though, saving a marriage isn't entirely in your control. You can lead your spouse back, but they have to choose to engage at some point. You can't give and give without ever receiving.

Why are you saying this? Did something happen?

If you're saying that because you feel like no one is responding to you, most people don't come on during the weekends, as they're off doing family stuff.

So I read your thread, and my first question is, is he leaving you AND his daughter? He's leaving her with you? I'm confused.

As for your marriage, if you want to save it, you will have to hire a PI and track down his activities, to see who he has cheated with. Once you know that, you will have to expose his activities to his family, your friends, his friends, and the other woman's (women's) family, to try to get him to stop the affair(s).

His family is furious. They know he is with someone else. They know how long I waited for him. His daughter; last time I spoke with her at least, was furious; I'm not sure what happened with that, but he told her she can't speak to me.

I've just been trying my best to be he best wife possible. I think what was missing for him was the recreation and the sexual fulfillment, but with no contact and him likely with someone else, how do I improve on those things? He's almost totally closed off and if I even bring up "us" he totally shuts down.

I really just don't know what to do...I'm ordering the book now, but I only have a week or so until I have to sign divorce agreements; I'm really desperate. So if anyone can give me a hint as to what is the next move I would be forever grateful.

We are trying to tell you what to do. You find out who he is having an affair with, you get contact information for her family, and you sit down and make phone calls all in one afternoon - to HIS family members, his best friends, his pastor/priest, his work (if they are working together), HER family members. You tell ALL of them that they are having an affair, and you need their help stopping it so you can save your marriage.

You do this because affairs are only fun IF they are sneaky. Once you shine light on them, the affair will probably stop, and you may have a chance to restore your marriage.

I do appreciate your advice. I have been trying to find out who she is for two months now.

His family knows he's cheating and they are all furious with him. His mom told me that she thinks it someone from his hometown (which is in the Midwest). I'm on the west coast, so it makes it harder to find out. He has changed all our account passwords, he deleted his facebook account. I can't try to get on his email because it govt. and the passwords are complex and change often.

My husband did admit to me that he had lunch with an old friend while he was in the Midwest, he told me his brother wanted to beat him up for it.

His friends that know me are in shock and can't believe it. His friends that don't know me are supporting him; he must have said some really bad things about me to them. Most of the people at his work are supporting him; same thing he must've said some bad things.

I really think that he was afraid to admit to his guy friends, coworkers, and commanders that he was afraid to go back to Iraq, so he made up some bad stuff about me as an excuse. I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes in out marriage, but I think he probably made stuff up too. So, I think his friends are all feeling so sorry for him. I think they all encouraged him to geta divorce and probably to go cheat. It is hard because I really don't know anything for sure.

He already got a new place to rent. He told me yesterday that his friends have been donating furniture and other household items to him. He tells me in emails how all he eats is canned ravioli. We had a substantial savings which he transferred into a new bank account. I know that he traveled to the midwest the first two times, but believe he went two or three more times after(that makes 5 times in the last two months); just from what his family says. His family says they hardly saw him because the second they would bring up "us", he would walk out the door and leave. He probably really "lived it up" for a while and then used the rest of the money to hire his attorney

He also told me he is trying to get a job in the Midwest.He's on the west coast now. I could find him, but feel like the OW is not here, so it wouldn't help much to spy on him here.

Any avenues of spy work I'm missing?