Well, I really don't know where to begin here. I have joined other forums and been blasted with negative comments right from the start. And I've posted on one forum where I received both negative responses and some constructive advice. But I found this site and feel like it has truly changed the way we are approaching our issues.
Ok, here's the short version. I am 45, my wife is 44. We've been together for 28 years, married 26. We have one child, a son, age 17. About 5 years ago my wife had back to back major shockers in her life. She was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease which resulted in major surgery and her mother passed away after a long battle with cancer.
Shortly after this, about three years ago, she started acting differently. Drinking more than she normally did and flirting very heavily with both casual friends and, to a lesser extent, strangers. I confronted her on this and she became very angry, accusing me of not letting her have fun anymore. So I backed off and let her �have fun�. I didn�t see any signs of this behavior getting really out of control until about a year later when she got very drunk at a party and got pretty handsy with a friend right in front of everyone. She was confronted again with the same result of �no one let�s me have any fun�. At that time I thought it was ok for her to be acting the way she was to a certain extent because she was depressed and not feeling very good about herself. The attention she was getting was boosting her self esteem and I thought it was ok because I never thought she would do anything beyond flirting.
Fast forward to last summer. We had become friends with another couple through mutual friends and started doing things with them. The guy was tall, good looking and played music on the side. She became infatuated with him almost immediately. They sent texts every day, talked over Facebook and called each other fairly often. As couples we joked around and there were plenty of sexual innuendos tossed around as well. By the end of last year I began to suspect something more than flirting was going on and again I confronted her. She once again became angry and we ended up having a falling out with the other couple when his wife began to suspect something as well.
During this time I created an online persona through a website my wife and I frequented and became a virtual friend to her. As I slowly gained her confidence I was able to get her to agree to meeting me for sex and she then confessed to being with the two guys I had suspected her of for the past 2 � 3 years. This time when I confronted her she admitted to me about guy #2 but swore that guy #1 was nothing. That she made that up for the online guy. I did not tell her that I was actually guy #3 and carried on the online relationship long enough to get her to finally confess to me about guy #1 about two months ago. I still didn�t end the online persona although I should have some clean when she did. She found out that I was guy #3 about three weeks ago when she found evidence on my cell phone.
It has been a tough three weeks with both of us coming to terms with what we did. I accept my share of the blame for what I did. I should have never deceived and manipulated her but I felt at the time that it was the only way I was going to get the truth. I�m not proud of what I did but I am glad that everything is out in the open now. I have read many posts here and we have both read the articles and taken the questionnaires. All this material has led us to really sit down and talk about our marriage on a level that we never have. Even after the first of the year when I was reeling from the infidelity confession we talked a lot but never really got to the heart of the issue.
We are seeing a marriage counselor and working daily on our emotional needs and our expectations within the marriage. I have forgiven her for her actions and she has forgiven me for mine. It�s not easy to get past everything though and we realize it�s going to be a long road. But we�ve come so far in three weeks that I have to believe we will make it. I know ours is a very untypical story and may be hard for some people to understand, hence the comments on other forums. We both made mistakes but we both want to see our marriage rebuilt and stronger than ever. This is absolutely the best site I have found for this and I�m so thankful that we were able to use this material to save our marriage.

D

Welcome to MB! I'm glad you came here- it's no doubt the best place you could find to help restore your marriage and I'm sorry you had to go through some other negative experiences before you got here!

Please stop beating yourself up over what you did to find the truth out about your marriage!!! Your wife was lying to you and you KNEW there was a problem...so you did whatever you could to find out what you needed to know. Snooping and doing whatever (almost) it takes to get to the truth in your marriage are highly condoned around here! It's absolutely essential to know the truth before you can know what steps to take next!

Please keep reading on here as much as you can and doing everything that is recommended- you have a great shot at restoring your marriage!

Oh, and I hope you have ended the 'friendship' with this other couple. Your wife should never speak to him again.

doubletap, Is your wife still drinking? MB principles will not help someone who has an addiction and/or is an alcoholic. If she has a drinking problem, that will have to be addressed immediately.

I am still reading but wanted to comment on how relaxing boundaries leads to more and more problems. I hope you see this now. If you had stopped her inappropriate behavior back when it started, it might not have escalated to this point.

back to reading..........

Does the OMW know about the affair? If not you need to let her know.

Is there still contact with any of the 2 OM?

Have you exposed this affair?

doubletap, I just got to the end. WElcome to Marriage Builders! This is one of the best programs around in recovering a marriage after an affair. However, the road to recovery after an affair is very, very narrow. Marital recovery is completely contingent upon affair proofing the marriage and changing the environment that made the affair possible.

For example, your wife's flirting and carrying on with other men, opposite sex friendships, was dangerous to your marriage and should be eliminated. Dr Harley outlines this in his newsletter titled Requirements for Recovery:

SidneyT - Thanks for the words. We have distanced ourselves from guy #2 seeing him only recently for the first time in 10 months. We were all at a motorcycle rally and could not avoid seeing each other. They have had zero contact other than that since this all came out and we will not be seeing them again anytime soon. However, guy #1 is a diferent story. We are in the same circle of friends and see each other regularly. By the way, I have sat down and talked to both guys.

Mulan - We have both quit drinking to excess. Only beer for me, only wine for her, and neither of us will drink much at all if we're not at home alone together.

MedodyLane - You are absolutely right about boundaries. We thought we could handle it. I thought I could handle it. But it was a bad decision that we both regret. We know now that this marriage is between TWO people and no more. We played with fire and we got burned.

Welcome to Marriage Builders, Doubletap. I see you're already getting some good advice for rebuilding your M. Allow me to throw my two cents in here on a couple of things:

Flirting is never healthy for a marriage and is a dangerous pastime! It is never innocent. Flirting is a form of courtship. Your WW wouldn't flirt with her father, would she? Or her grandfather, her pastor, etc? Nope. Because flirting is a form of courtship. Going forward in your M, make it an absolute rule that there will never be flirting or any other forms of inappropriate communication with members of the opposite sex.

Also, do not feel guilty about snooping. There should be no secrets in a marriage. No secret email accounts, facebook accounts, cell phone passwords, etc. Any form of communication should be a form that you both have access to at any time. Does she have a facebook account? You should have the password to it and be able to access it at any time. Same with email accounts, etc.

Stick around here and you'll be learning a lot.

No, yes and yes.

The OMW knows about many, many others and I see no reason at this point to add to that. I may be wrong in that assumption but for now at least I feel like it would serve no purpose.

As I responded above, guy #2 is out of the picture but guy #1 remains as part of a larger group of friends and we do see him fairly regularly but there is no direct contact between the two, period. And I say that with 100% certainty.

OMW more than likely suspects. You are doing her no favors by keeping her in the dark. She needs to know what she is married to so she can protect herself.

The other OM needs to be surgically excised from your lives. There should never be a time when he and your WW even see each other across a crowded room. Even a chance sighting is a form of contact that can trigger either one of them, and then, next thing you know, the affair is back on.

One thing I would like to clarify here, not that it matters all that much within the defintion of infedility, is that both encounters resulted in oral sex only. I don't want this to sound worse than it is.....

ouch, these are huge red flags, DT. She should never see her OM again, EVER. "Seeing" him is contact. This will prevent your marriage from recovering because she will be triggered every time she sees him. I would do everything in your power to prevent that from happening. Additionally, if his wife does not know about the affair, she should be told. She has a right to know and if your wife is sincerely remorseful, she will want to make sure she knows.

Also, all of the spouses of the affair partners should be informed. That is a critical part of recovery. This is so they can protect their marriages from your wife. This is information they have a right and a need to know. Your wife and their spouses cannot be trusted, so it is imperative they know so they can watch their backs.

It is not in your wife's best interest to help her hide her crimes from her victims. That is part and parcel of her recovery. Her amends should come in the form of making sure those spouses know what she did to them.

It doesn't make any difference. I have my doubts that is all it was, but, sex is sex.

Let's say you stole money from your neighbor. Could a person say they were recovered if they never confessed and gave the money back? All they did was say "oh Lord, forgive me" but never made amends to their victim? No, that is not recovery because a recovery is a demontration of repentance; turning away from your crime. A truly remorseful person will want to make this right. Continued deceit about the crime does not demonstrate remorse, it reflects the exact opposite.

Honesty is the solution to adultery, not more lies and cover ups.

I have observed over the years that the WS' that DON'T make amends to their victims are really not recovered. They are often as entitled and foggy as an active wayward. And that is because they are still in a lesser state of waywardness by virtue of their continued lies.

DT, welcome to marriage builders. Sorry you are here.

Firstly, I want to say that as I was reading your first post I was saying, "WOW, I never thought about doing that. That should be something that we recommend on here if WSs are on RPG, chat, etc." You are not going to be condemned for doing what was right to save your marriage. You kept your snooping technique intact until she found out. I think that whatever avenue she had to continue a relationship, although it was you, should be cut off. She has very weak boundaries and she will need to shore them up before any real recovery can be done. You don't need her to just find someone else.

Next, I know that many of the things that the people are saying here seems counter-intuitive. Funny thing happens after you have been around for a while, it becomes COMPLETELY intuitive. As MelodyLane has said, the road to recovery is a very narrow path and must be walked exactly. Otherwise, you are never truly recovered.

So, you need to expose to the spouses of these low life dirtbags. Then you need to ensure NC for LIFE between them and your wife. That is a start.

Please listen to the advice you are getting here.

See, Dt, you're getting it already! The type of sex has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. Your WW HAD AFFAIRS.

You need to actually need to keep your snooping up, not apolgize for it. Do you have a keylogger on your computers?

It should be part of your EPs and foundation for R that your W agrees to be O&H, living life as an "open book" allowing you to inspect any part of her life.

I really hope you will listen to the advice you are getting regarding NC & exposing to OMW. These two things come back to haunt posters again and again and again....... Usually those two corners being cut are the WS's idea and the BS is afraid to rock the boat. Don't enable anymore wayward behavior, double!

My wife's "infidelity", by the definition of most waywards, only included a kiss and OM rubbing her butt.

No mention of the eight months of hellish deterioration of boundaries, loss of love, increases in fights, painful conversations, dishonesty, and backsliding prior to that almost-a-consummation.

It's the Independent Behavior and Dishonesty, combined with demands, disrespect, and anger that hurt much more than the actual sexual acts. If my wife had a one-night stand, it would have been much easier to deal with than an eight-month dishonest "romance" that led to the OM proposing to her.

Have you asked for a poly? Her response to this request would be telling... You know waywards only admit a part of what actually happened, right?

A lot of betrayed spouses come to this site, desperate to do whatever it takes to repair their M. And a lot of them put the brakes on when it comes to sharing the affair info with the person who most deserves to know it: the betrayed spouse who is bumbling along, in the dark, knowing that something is wrong in their M but they don't know what. You are keeping a huge part of their reality from them. Do you think that's fair to them? No. It is not.

Thank God the other woman's husband in my sitch made sure that I knew what my husband was up to. I was stupidly going along, banging my head and trying to figure out why nothing I did made my H happy. Then it was all revealed to me - and of course he wasn't happy! But it wasn't my fault - it was because he was having an affair, duh! That's when things starting making sense. And that's when we began to recover our marriage.

Do her the same favor.