My spouse and I want to recover from his infidelity. The problem is is that he has a job that requires him to travel a lot. The woman he was involved with no longer works for his company so he will no longer see her. Can we work on trust even with him being gone so often?

I don't trust my wife to do much of anything at this point, 5 months post Dday.

Dr Harley says after infidelity you should never spend a night apart. He either needs to take you with him or get a new job.

What kind of travelling does your H do?

Tell us about the affair.

He is in retail and must travel about 6-14 days per month. Our son is about to go away to college and, therefore, we need his current salary. Also, with the economy the way it is finding a new job would be next to impossible. I can not go with him because I work full time and have to be with our children. His affair was emotional and ended after 4 months. She no longer works there. However, he has had other affairs that were sexual over 11 years ago. I chose to stay after much heartache. I am scared to try it again, especially because of the travel component.

Well, as others have written, Dr Harley says that travelling jobs are bad for marriages. They leave the doorway wide open for either spouse to get their emotional needs met by a third party.

It's pretty obvious, if you think about it.

You have every justification for being scared, without any evidence that action has been taken to change the conditions that made the affairs possible. Your H must change jobs if your marriage is to stand a chance of recovering. If you stick to the argument that he cannot change, and you cannot travel, then the prospects are next to nil. You have to find a way to make change happen.

My H's 3.5 year PA did not stop until he changed his job. He was lucky that he was able to stay with the same organisation, but I would have chosen his unemployment over my imminent nervous breakdown in a heartbeat, once I read Dr Harley and realised that there was no choice.

It's unlikely to have been an EA and not PA. Tell us more about it. How did you find out, and WHAT did you find out?

aim, was his OW in this most recent EA someone he spent time with on the road?

And what about his previous PA (11 yrs ago) - was that also with someone with whom he traveled?

The biggest problem with that amount of travel is probably not that he's out there with other women per se, but rather, it's the fact that it really squeezes you guys for time alone for undivided attention to one another. This time together is a cucial aspect of recovery.

Dr Harley does not talk about the amount of travel; he talks about nights apart. He implies that a single night at any time in the marriage is dangerous.

A couple could spend 6 evenings and nights together, thus getting their 15 hours a week, but one night apart, and that one night apart would open the door for an affair.

The "biggest" problem is he is out there screwing OW while he travely.

Spending every night together is a good precaution, but it guarantees nothing. People can arrange liaisons any time of day if they're so inclined. (Speaking from rotten experience, I managed to have a 10 & a half week affair -- which was PA for the last 5 & a half weeks of that time -- during which I never slept apart from my wife for even a single night.)

I agree that "no nights apart" is a very valuable protection, but it's inadequate protection if good boundaries aren't in place & needs aren't being met. How aim & her H can meet each others' needs & shore up his loose boundaries with him being consistently on the road away from his wife anywhere from 6 to 14 days per month is their biggest issue. Yeah, aim, I'd say your H needs to dial back that travel big-time, even if it means getting another job. Otherwise, the steep hill your marriage faces will be that much steeper.

But, Dr Harley suggests that spending nights apart guarantees an affair.

Neither Dr Harley nor I suggested that spending every night together is precaution against an affair. That was never said.

GO, I'm sorry but this is not a matter of either your or my agreement. I am telling this poster what Dr Harley recommends, and he is very clear that couples should not spend nights apart.

Dr Harley does not say "dial back"; he says "no nights apart".

GO, I think we should ALWAYS give Dr Harley's advice where it has been provided, and not alter it with our own views. Dr Harley is very clear about the narrow path to recovery, and no nights apart is essential, according to him.

Sensible people take precautions so that they don't get into bad situations (Lead us not into temptation) but you still need good boundaries to prevent an affait.

Her husband has no boundaries and I bet she only knows the tip of the iceberg.

Clearly there is much work to be done to affair-proof the marriage but unless he grows some boundaries nothing - not 15 hours - nothing will prevent him from straying. A wise precaution is for him to never travel without his wife.

"Anything that takes one spouse away from the other overnight is an invitation for an affair. But when an opposite-sex co-worker tends to join a spouse on business trips, red flags should be flying in all directions. Any evidence that this relationship is anything more than pure business is, from my perspective, a gigantic clue that an affair might be in progress. That's also the case if a spouse and opposite-sex co-worker spend a great deal of time working together."

Coping with Infidelity: Part 2: How Should Affairs End?

It seems next to impossible for a married couple to never spend a single night apart in their entire lives. When I was in the hospital for several days after our last baby was born, my H was at home with our other kids. There were no private rooms and no overnight guests allowed at the hospital, so what choice did we have? Sometimes, there's just nothing you can do.

That being said, spending a week or two apart every month is excessive and would be taxing on even a healthy M. If your H was involved in an A with someone from work, I think continuing in a position that requires him to spend so much time away from home is a recipe for disaster. Your H has had repeated A's, the last one at least with a co-worker. I think a sales job that takes him away so much and puts him in a position where he is traveling with members of the opposite sex is extremely dangerous.

Not only is it dangerous for the spouse that travels, it's also dangerous for the one who stays at home particularly with a predatory neighbour.

There will circumstances in which nights apart are unavoidable, and I'm sure Dr Harley is aware that these happen.

However, a travelling job is not unavoidable. It is not the same as the emergency stay in hospital, or the long-distance visit to ill parents. The latter are emergencies (which can go on a long time, I know, if a parent is dying) but a job is a way of life. It can be changed. That is not to say that the H should walk out of his job tomorrow and leave his family destitute, but it is to say that a new job should be sought as a matter or urgency.

This marriage has had a near-fatal attack and if the affair condition is not removed entirely, it will not recover. Cutting back the travel will not do, although it might help in the short term. I have read somewhere Dr Harley's advice that, until travel can be cut out completely, the travelling spouse must more or less lock himself in his hotel room, not socialise at all and phone his wife for at least an our per night from his room telephone. If a couple were to cut down the travel AND stay on the phone all evening, they could get through a difficult interim period, but it is only an interim. A lower rate of travel will not solve the basic issue of regular nights apart.

Dr Harley is adamant about job changes where necessary and I don't understand why this poster is being led away from his advice. I pointed out this advice because, until I read it in Dr Harley's writings, I could not see for myself that my H should change jobs. I thought that was an unreasonable thing to ask, and I also knew that he could have an affair in his office here in London without travelling, if he wanted to. I reasoned myself out of creating a boundary for me to stay in the marriage, and I reasoned myself into several false recoveries lasting over 3 years, as the affair just went deeper underground. I cannot let anybody in my position 7 years ago think that she can trust an H who WILL have affairs when he is away from her, by telling her that if travel is cut down, this will help.

All cutting down will do is reduce the number of times her H sleeps with OW. My H cut down his travel a lot after D Day 2, but he did not cut it out altogether and the sex, abroad where I could not track him, carried on, only less frequently. This nearly destroyed me as I went through gaslighting and D Day after D Day.

I think there is a danger here of ridiculing the argument by bringing up objections, instead of helping the poster to learn what Dr Harley has said, and helping her to achieve his recommendations. She raised the problem of trust, and she is in no position to trust her H, nor will be, until extraordinary measures become a way of life.

I've lived through this crap and I know of what I speak. Don't raise specious arguments, please. They are not helping the poster.

There may be times, such as childbirth, surgery, etc., that overnights apart are unavoidable, this is true.

However, if Dr. H in giving advice was to say, "I recommend never sleeping apart unless [fill in the blank]", think how quickly that would degenerate into people using that as an excuse to avoid making necessary changes in their situation.

Never spending a night apart is a good recommendation. Spending nights apart is a bad recommendation. Spending many nights apart is a ~very~ bad recommendation.

Sugar Cane: If you're referring to my post, I think you conveniently left out my entire second paragraph, where I specifically stated that this poster was walking a very dangerous line if her H continued in a position that included travel. I never in any way suggested that all he needed to do was cut down on the amount of time that he was away. This is referred to as selective quoting, and I really don't appreciate it.

My first paragraph was simply addressing the fact that, sometimes, under certain circumstances, husbands and wives must spend nights apart. I put this out there because the OP might look at extreme statements, such as married couples must never spend a single night apart ever, and think that there's no way to ever accomplish such a thing and simply give up all together. I wouldn't want her to be frustrated by extremism and leave this site because she doesn't feel as though she or her H could ever adhere to such rigidity.

I'm sure even Dr. Harley recognizes the need in certain cases (hospitalization, family emergency, etc.) for a H and W to occasionally endure periods of separation. That's all I was pointing out. I was in no way suggesting that the OP should trust her H, who has proven himself untrustworthy at this point, to put himself back into the situation that led to his A in the first place.

This is so unpleasant, and unnecessary. I don't see what is being accomplished by this.

Since you are accusing me of selective quoting, here is your second paragraph:

I did not include this paragraph in my post above but I did discuss what it seemed to be saying; that the problem was with the number of nights.

You say that you "never in any way suggested that all he needed to do was cut down on the amount of time that he was away", but actually, that is what you did do. You will see that I have highlighted the passages about amounts of time. You did not say raise any other measures, only cutting time.

You seemed in this paragraph to be saying that it was the number of nights that were the problem, and not the job itself. I made a response about that. I said:

I don't see that I was "conveniently" "selective" in not quoting the second paragraph. I did not select only those words that would fit my argument. I did not distort your argument.

You say that you raised extreme circumstances because "the OP might look at extreme statements, such as married couples must never spend a single night apart ever, and think that there's no way to ever accomplish such a thing and simply give up all together. I wouldn't want her to be frustrated by extremism and leave this site because she doesn't feel as though she or her H could ever adhere to such rigidity."

Dr Harley has written his advice for all and any poster dealing with an affair. He says that nights apart are to be avoided, and jobs must be changed if necessary. I was giving the OP Dr Harley's published advice. Only later did I raise my own experience in support of it.

Dr Harley does not give exceptions to his advice where he feels people might be frustrated by his extremism. His rules about immediate and complete NC, and changing jobs and moving house where necessary, surprised me when I first read them. I'm sure they surprise many people, but that is no reason for us to water them down for new posters. This poster needs Dr Harley's extremism to ensure that she does not find herself in the same position at some point in the future.

It definitely was not my intention to suggest that all her H needed to do was cut back on his time away. If his A occurred while he was traveling for business, then he definitely needs to find a new line of work. Of course, we don't actually know the circumstances of the A because the OP hasn't provided much information. She hasn't posted in some time, and from the sound of her last post, she did indeed seem to be having some difficulty digesting the suggestions she was being given.

I've seen on a number of occasions where new posters arrive here and present their situation and are suddenly inundated with advice that they may be having a difficult time processing. Many of them never return, for various reasons I'm sure. It bothers me when this happens, because I think many of these people could have benefited greatly from the advice given here. I simply didn't want to see another poster flee because they feel overwhelmed by the advice being given.

The fact of the matter is, the economy is very bad right now. It's easy to tell someone that their H will simply have to quit his job if he wants to save his M, but it's another matter entirely for a family to actually have to face the loss of some (or if the poster is a SAHM, all) of their income with no guarantees that new employment will be found anytime soon. I think the OP knows that her H needs to find a new job. I think she knows that continuing in the circumstances that led to his A is not ideal. But she brought up the concern that her H cannot just walk away from his employment. That is the reality that many families are facing right now.

I have no problem with Dr. H's rules. They make absolute and complete sense. But I have heard people come on this site and state that, in their circumstances, Dr. H advised something that seemed to contradict his own recommendations. The practice of exposure seems to be an area where this sometimes occurs. Considering the state of our current economy, it seems possible that Dr. H may make some exceptions for the immediate changing of a job as well, especially if the family would be left without a means of support if the WS quit the job. In the case of the OP, she stated that the OW was no longer with the company, so her H would not be working with the OW. The traveling is still an issue, of course, and yes, he should look for a new job. But it seems to me that she could benefit a great deal from some advice about how to deal with the situation until her H can find alternative employment that doesn't require travel.