[Note to readers: When i wrote this post I was confused and shocked and since english is my second language I mixed up som crucial terms and defenitions; wedding/mariage and partner/girlfriend/wife for example which made it very difficult to interpret correctly. To clear out the confusion I have changed the wording and cleaned up most of the irellevant ramblings]


Hi,
First just let me say english is not my first language, and I probably should have tried to find a decent european site that deal with these kind of things, but right now I don't have the strength to continue searching... Anyway, here goes (just trying to make some sense out of my thoughts...):

This sunday my wife since about a year returns home from a trip to her best friend, allmost immediately burst into tears, breaks down and confess she's not been at her friends but that she has developed feelings for another man, and she had gone to see him to figure out if the feelings where real or not. She said it had started less than a month ago with a few emails (he work at the same company but at another location in another town), and somehow she had gotten so strong feelings for him that she just had to go see him.

This confession came as a complete shock to me. In fact I could not even feel any feelings at all. I just could not grasp what she just had confessed to me. I was actually in such a confused state that I asked her to stay (we happen to have a condo down town as well as one in the suburbs), and she did. She was just shattered with guilt over what she had done, and she seemed genuinely confused about the whole thing, told me that she had to think things through. Since then she has moved home to our down town condo. I've spent several nights trying to figure out what is going on here, but I just can't. Why am I not angry on her? What happened to "us"? Is it just some sort of temporary insanity, or is it some wierd way of breaking up with me?

So what is your question? I am confused, you are not married and your so called "girlfriend" just failed the interview to be your "wife" it actually sounds like she failed the interview TWICE, most people do not give a second chance. You, my friend, are better off finding someone else who will respect you.

On another note I suggest you stop drinking if you think you are becoming addicted.

Do not feel confused or scared, you two are not married.

So, are you saying that since I am not married, I can't possibly be affected in the same way as a married couple when my partner has an affair, and shoudn't be here in the first place?

That since we're not legally married we're somehow unable to feel the same level of devestation a married couple feels, and are not allowed to try to save our relationship the same way married couples are?

You are absolutely feeling the devastation that people feel when someone "cheats" on them. By definition, it is not an affair because the two of you are not married. Marriage builders programs are designed for marriages and do not work for "dating" relationships as they are not as committed as marriages.

As Saph has stated, dating is like an interview for marriage, your gf failed her interview. I know this is hard to take, but you should move on.

You didn't marry this woman, and she has shown that you had good reason.

You most definitely CAN build a truly spectacular marriage and use MB to do it, it should just be with someone else.

Many times, even if someone is married, but they have no children, or they are young, they are told to D and move on.

When a couple has been together for 13 years but never bothered to get married, it's obvious that the level of committment found in marriage just wasn't important to them.

Sure, you can try the MB plans and see if they help - but you are starting with a very weak committment in the first place. That's why we are skeptical.

The two of you were together for a long time. Why did you never marry?

I see and I respect your view on the matter. It may also be the language that plays tricks on me here. The meaning of "marriage" is purely religious to me. I've googled around for the defenition of "marriage" and I think the correct defenition of the partnership I have with my partner is "civil marriage".

We did however never marry in church since we -as most people in the Netherlands- have a more atheistic than religious upraise. Since we're not deeply religious a church wedding would most likly not create significantly more committment between us.

theforreginer,

I do agree with what has been said to you, BUT... I also think you have come to the right place. I say this because you like many others here in the US and clearly other places need to understand relationships and what makes them good and want starts to erode them. Will it help your current situation? It might.

However, even if you forgave your girl friend/wife, are you two in a healthy relationship? It would seem from the data that you are not. Your focus on financial stability is honorable, but what you miss that often the strongest marriages are those where the couple builds their future together and shares the ups and downs of doing this. In your endeavor to wait for the "right" time, you may well have missed the "right" time and she is trying to move on.

It is for you to figure out if your decisions where good ones with the ability of being able to look back in time. It is for you to learn from this experience and develop tools for handling any future situations.

My guess is that you two have been operating on different time tables, with different goals, and different view of what is important and it has hurt your relationship deeply.

The information here will help you figure that out, and also develop a plan for dealing with your current relationship IF you chose to continue it.

Please ask lots of questions. By the way your English is very good and reads as well as mine especially with all of my typos.

JL

I would direct you back to your post where you indicated that your gf wanted a 'big wedding,' so evidently that meant something to her.

You are not married, sir. Your gf stepped out on you and your mental version of your relationship, but she didn't have an affair.

I think what the foreigner is saying is that they are M by law in the Netherlands, meaning they went thru a M in the city hall so they are legally M, they did not do the religious cerimony.
If there was no commitment whatsoever, meaning the 2 of you were simply living together then yes, it is hard to recover your relationship because it was an uncommitted one anyway.
It was sort of like a taciturn agreement between the 2 of you that went like: "I will be with you till I find something better..."
And your GF found someone, that for now, seems better.
You GF wanted more commitment from you and you were not willing to give it to her.
You claim that in the Netherlands you view M in a different way, however your GF seemed to lean towards a more traditional approach where she envisioned herself M to a man and having children with him. A totally reasonable desire.
Blessing

Atena, the way I understand what he is saying is that he is what we call here, common law. It means that they would gets rights as a married couple but they would NOT need a divorce to go their separate ways. My WH and his OW will become "common law" on December 18th as they have been living together for 1 year, as a couple. It doesn't matter that he is still legally married to ME. I think that's the way I understood what he said. Not that they got married in a civil ceremony. Even if they did, they would be legally married.

TF, I have had this discussion with some of my "common law" friends and I have tried to explain to them that there really IS a difference. It may not seem to you that there is, but knowing BOTH sides(having lived with my WH first, and becoming "common law" and then marrying him) I can tell you that the level of commitment IS something more, that is as long as marriage vows actually mean something to you.

Doesn't mean that you wouldn't get any good from this site. What people are trying to impress on you is the fact that you GF FAILED the test. Why would you want to be with someone who "cheats" on you when they were supposed to be committed? I would hate for you to get married and then come back in a couple of years because she was having an affair. It would turn into a case of "I told you so."

There is a lot to learn in these pages, I would hope that you not waste it on this GF and find someone who has more respect for you, and herself that she would take a commitment more seriously.

Good luck.

This was the point I was making. Meanwhile, the poster viewed achieving financial stability as more important than the religious ceremony that his gf wanted. Their goals were at odds.

I'm not sure where you got that out of what Sapphire said. Certainly it affects you, and I am sorry that you are having to face this disappointment.

What is being said to you (by me at least) is that since you are not married, you do not have to stay with her, and you might want to count yourself fortunate.

You can stay with her if you want to, and we can give you some advice to try to make that work. Is that what you want? I think most of us would advise that you count yourself lucky you are not trapped with someone who did this.

I may be misunderstanding. Can you clarify for me? Are you legally married according to the law but not religiously married? Or are you not legally married according to the law and not married in any sense?

I may have missed it, but I don't see where his girlfriend wanted a religious ceremony; I just read that she wanted a "big wedding." I've had lots of friends have a big wedding that was not religious.

I'm now confused and would like the poster to clarify: did you guys get civil/legal married, like with a judge or something? Or did you just live together?

Actually, we had a ceremony, however it was not a religious ceremony in a church, but in the city hall. I realize my first post was way to incoherent to make enough sense. I also realise that the use of "girlfriend" is completely wrong. The language barrier... I should have used wife (right?).


Yes, she failed, but so has a cheeting husband or wife. In our case, we did make woves to eachoter.


Thank you.

Hehe, sorry my confusion creates so much confusion. We had a civil ceremony in the city hall. I guess you could argue a religious ceremony adds yet another dimension of comittment for many people, but for us a civil ceremony is not something you take lightly.

I'm was just way to stressed out to make any sense at all in my first post. I'm still just trying to gather my thoughts but they keep running away from me, but I'm starting to collect myself now.

Sorry for the TJ but I just have to say....

I thought that is what you meant, you are legally married.
Have you read thru the website?
You should tell everyone about your wife's affair (A). you also should start meeting her needs.
You can read about Plan A on this site. You try to meet her needs and be the husband (H) she always wanted. You spend 15 hours of quality time with her a week.
Find out who this other man (OM) is.
blessing

Yes I've red through the website (perhaps not everything but most of it). Not sure I'm in a state where I can grasp all of it, but that's why I ask you for advice.

Right now she's staying at our downtown apartment "out of respect for me" (I guess having the luxury of two homes isn't allways a good thing...). We've been talking over the phone every day, she checks on me and I on her.

I beleave the first step for me is to make sure she is not turning to him for comfort because she feels that I have alienated her? I'll explaint to her that I would appriciate if she would not have have any contact with the other guy until we've had a chanse to sort things out, because it would be unbarable for me to handle right now (which is true), and I'll try to convince her to move back in with me, right?

She needs to come home and be with you, not away from you. It would be very easy for the A to escalate if she's not with you. I suspect it already has.

OK. For a short moment I got this really disgusting thought of her beeing with the other guy in our apartment, but I've just talked to her on the phone and I'll pick her up at work in a couple hours.

It's kind of redicilous the way I think about this mess right now, because at the moment it feels like I'm involved in a poker game with our marriage in the pot, and I've been delt a pretty bad hand. Whish me luck I play my cards right tonigt and get through to her.