Ok so this is my first time posting on any kind of website about this.

My wife and i have been together for a little shy of two years, married for a yr and four months, we have a 7 month old son.

after my son was born it was all we could do to not collapse into bed every night exhausted, our intimate life began to taper off. Eventually it became really stale and when we sat down to talk about we decided to try a limited arrangement where we could each find one partner and try out new things to bring back into our relationship. She found a partner and i didnt. after the arrangement ended, she kept in contact with him becuase he had become a friend to her, i told her my fears of him wanting more than just a friendship and she continued to assure me that if it became evident that she would end the friendship.

I have been battling depression and ill admit i had grown more and more distant from my wife as a result, i recently began taking anti-depressants and my wife and i started marriage counseling. i thought everything was going much better, we began to get closer than we had been in months.

but then i found out recently that he has told her that he loves her, and that she has said she loves him as well. and that it has been happening since shortly after our first marriage counseling appointment. She also says that she loves me. I want me marriage to work I love my wife with all of my heart. I told her that i would forgive and forget if she decided that she wanted to come home. but she told me that she doesnt know what she wants.

I just dont know what to do anymore.

You guys actually thought screwing around on each other would make your marriage better? Its called marital suicide. Did you think of talking to a counselor b4 you guys destroyed what you had? She has to decide. You have to out the affair to everyone. Don't think being a passive doormat will make her stop. You should separate finances and boot her out. She needs to feel the pressure of losing her family. Is the other guy married?

Sitting down and discussing that sleeping with other people might fix your "marriage" was probably the biggest mistake you made.

Now your wife is thinking that she can sleep with anyone and still be married with you.

You guy's haven't even been married for 2 years

Did she know this guy before you guys decided to sleep with other people?

It's possible that your wife started this affair before she brought up the "arrangement" I'm sorry that you fell for it.

Why did you even agree with this?

The only thing that can help you is expose this affair, that might be a little hard considering you gave her permission to do it.

Your situation is a little different then most here....actually IT IS DIFFERENT because you gave her the "OK" to sleep around.

Sorry man can't help you.

Maybe the vets can.

I don't understand what the problem is.. You told her she could find another partner............and she found another partner. You gave her permission to commit adultery.

You showed her that you don't give a DAMN about her by giving her permission to commit adultery, so perhaps she just wants to find someone who does care about her.

What is the problem?

You might want to change the title of your thread to..

"Gave wife permission to have an affair"

she is not have an emotional affair she is sleeping with him, that means it is physical

We agreed that we both could go out and find one partner for a limited time, and the arrangement ended, and she told me that she has not slept with him after the arragnement ended. I dont want to boot her out, i love my wife.

Apparently the arrangement did not end for her. It ended for you. You all but gave her over to this guy so I would quit whining about it and just face the consequences. There are CONSEQUENCES to swinging and this is it.

Please read again what MelodyLane has said to you. Did you think you would make your wife "happy" by telling her you didn't mind if she had sex with other men??

All you did was show your wife that you cared so little about her that you would just step back and do NOTHING while she slept with some other guy.

All that did was show your wife that you cared nothing about her. Women want men who will fight FOR them, not losers who will just hand them over to another man instead.

You could not have given your wife a worse message if you tried.

You could try the MB plans, but you will have a very long road. Start with Plan A - including the part about "no affairs".

So, you were both exhausted because you had a newborn and you actually thought that your relationship of a mere two years was stale. (!) Then you thought that spicing things up by bringing other people into the relationship would be a solution? PLEASE tell me that you realize how stupid that was. You didn't have time for each other, so you were going to spend time with other people and miraculously that was going to help your marriage!

Shawn, I am not trying to beat you up because I do realize you are hurting, but if you don't have a clear picture of what marriage means, then you will never recover, even if your wife is willing. Marriage = 2 people 4 life. Regardless if the sex is stale. Regardless if your wife is too tired from caring for the baby to show you attention. Regardless if you lose your job. etc. etc.

If you are truly willing to work at the marriage builders program, you can recover and have a marriage that is better than all that, but you are going to need to start at square one and redefine what a marriage is. You violated that once; make sure it won't happen again. Read everything on this website; get some counseling with a pro-marriage counselor. Make your wife establish no contact with the OM for life. Get to work!

Does that mean she did sleep with him and then the arrangement ended and hasn't done it since??

I am confused, sleeping with him is STILL sleeping with him!!

Do you not understand this?

What you guys have done will take years to fix.

I suggest you start reading up on marriage because you both are very immature. Then start reading everything on this site, read all of his books.

Whose idea was it to commit adultery?

Wow. This is definitely unusual especially with such a young marriage too. And there is an innocent baby in the mix as well.

Besides at wondering why the heck you two decided to do such a numbskull stunt like that, I am wondering what the actual vows meant to the both of you.

Forsaking all others till death do us part? Was that just not mentioned in your vows?

I suggest intensive counseling and with a MB counselor and maybe a MB weekend to begin with. You've got a lot brewing right now and it will take tons and tons of work to get thru this, but it doesn't mean you cannot.

Marriage is like math. One plus one equals two. Not three or four.

One of my favorite quotes was by the late Princess Diana who said of Charles' affair "There were 3 of us in the marriage, so it was a bit crowded".

Learn that and learn it well. Start and read thru ALL of the marriage builders lessons on this site and start over again from scratch and maybe there is a chance somehow. But you have to begin with a plan, and that would be A.

Who suggested this?

Sex gets stale when the two partners are not in love. Have you read the basic concepts here, yet?

I think ShawnM isn't too serious about this. I'm thinking Troll.

I can't begin to express how much this situation irks me. We have a forum full of devastated spouses who never expected their spouse to have an affair and this man did it on purpose just for kicks. A husband and father who threw his marriage away for what? For nothing but the prospect of a cheap thrill. Give me a break.

The problem is not an affair, but the lack of respect for marriage and the inability to face the consequences of one's actions.

My gut says this is a troll, but in case you�re not:

You invited this into your marriage. What would I do in your shoes? I would tell her that you made a horrible mistake to ever agree to this idea of finding others. I would fess up that error to my friends and family and tell them that your wife is now having an affair and that you need their help to end this.

Exposure will go a long way to ending this.

But the very fact that you made a deal with your wife to let her mess around with others is disgusting to most people. You sound shocked that we don�t think this �temporary� arrangement is ok. It�s not. You let invited a fox into the hen house and are now complaining that it ate some chickens.

bingo!!

Hi ShawnM,

Somtimes I read the most recent posts here. I must say however, that IF your story is indeed true, it reminds me of one the those dumbest criminal stories you hear about ocasionally - ya know, like the guy who goes into a bank, hands the teller a note to turn over all the cash in his/her cash drawer, skedaddles to his car only to disvover that he left his car keys on the counter!

What did you possibly expect? That she would come home with some terrific new techniques and approaches, and problem solved? From my experience and just viewing some of the other stories here Most couples build a decent history at the beginning of their M's, even if one or both of them fall into the habit of ignoring the others' EN's (emotional needs) down the road and an affair does occur. You, Sir, have managed to create negative history fairly early. I have to assume that both of you are still fairly young. The vast majority of couples have enough respect for each other and for the state or sacrament of marriage that they do not allow their intimate life to deteriorate that much and so soon by having to 'collapse' every night! That tells me there is more going on here, if this is real, than you are revealing, and that neither of you have any grasp of what it is. That is evidenced by that fact that your W took you up on your offer and found another mate so quickly. Of course, she is morally wrong for even taking this up, but it is telling that she has little regard for you.

I agree with the others here that your best shot now is to study and read the BASIC concepts of marriage presented on this site, ponder them against your understanding of why you married her, and THEN ask questions. The real victim as a result of your dumb scheme is NOT you or your wife, it is your very young son.

Good Luck,

Tom