My husband and I have been married for 3 years...I just recently found out by complete accident that my husband cheated on me several times with a woman he works with while we were engaged. He says he ended it 3 weeks before the wedding and even though the two of them have seen each other the past 3 years every single work day he has never touched her or even discussed the fair since the day we got married. He says there were absoluetly no feelings between the two of them and that he just did it because "it was there" and because he was scared to get married at time but knew he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. He swears nothing has happened since and he has left that job and hasn't spoken with her since I found out. Everything I read on these forums and the letters are from people who realize they may have been doing something wrong with my have led the spouse to cheat or not showing their spouse enough attention (he says I was not neglecting him in anyway...emotionally or sexually) and most of the affairs I read about, the cheating spouse has or did have feelings for the person that they had the affair with. Is it possible for a man to have an affair without anything wrong in the relationship and with absoluetly no feelings for the other woman? I am so confused and don't know what to think...he is trying his best to fix our marriage but I still don't know if I believe that nothing has happened since we've been married if he could lie to me for that long with seemingly no remorse until he actually got caught. He has been wonderful to me lately and making sure that I'm happy and truly does seem sorry and wanting our marriage to work but I just don't know what to do...he also has admitted that he believes he has a "porn addiction" He will no longer get on the computer or watch anything but certain channels because he says this is what he believes that lead him to cheat while we were engaged. Anyone else ever been in this situation? Any advice would help...I'm so lost....

Welcome to MB, Laura.

Arrange for him to take a polygraph test and make sure he goes through with it, no matter what additional information he gives you before the test date.

ITA with Sugar. LostLaura, tell him you want him to sit for a polygraph. I suspect that you don't know the whole story of this affair.

Concerning the question you raised in the subject of your thread, the answer is YES, as my FWW found out.

Men have the ability to have emotionless sex. It's why they are more likely to return to their marriage after an affair then woman are.

Men in good marriages can still cheat. There are plenty of reasons (selfish reasons) that have nothing to do with you or your relationship:

• A sense of challenge in their infidelity
• It is an ego boost for them
• A boost to low self esteem
• pride in the ability to attract women

You should both still begin reading 'Surviving An Affair' and 'His Needs/ Her Needs'. It will help any relationship.

And you definitely don't have all the information about the affair that you need. I'm sure it was both an EA and a PA. It may have continued while they were working together. A polygraph is a very good idea.

Yes, I believe men can have affairs for just for sex. Especially if it's a one night stand.

Your H's affair was far more than a one night stand. And I would suspect that he has strong feelings for her.

Sorry. In my opinion, he's probably lying.

I totally agree with Trying. But I'm hoping that you may be one of the lucky BS's.

no BS is lucky when there wh/ww cheats regardless of lack of emotion, my case lack of emotion case multiple senarios, whats worse 1 or 10? to each his/her own as to which is worse.

laura- i hate to say it but read my thread....serial cheater, no real emotion for any of them, lies lies lies..... i struggle to think i am better off than the people here putting up with the fog, may be i am???? still doesnt make it feel any better.... promise.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...=showflat&Number=2485742#Post2485742

sorry it a d- rate drama, we are workin on recovery, do the poly and read everything here. then call the harleys

It is possible, of course, which is why prostitution has existed since forever.

It is, however not the norm.

And if the cry of the caught EA-participant is "But we're just friends....", the scream of innocence(?) from the (usually) male PA partaker is "But it was just sex...." Usually there is some element of emotional/psychological need that the WS was looking to satisfy outside of his union.

And to prove my point, if you could step back from the turmoil you're struggling with right now, you'll see that your husband gave you (and you gave us) the reason he cheated right before your wedding:

...because he was scared to get married at time...

Scared of......? Scared of the responsibility of being a husband......scared of his ability to have chosen the right spouse.....scared of making a lifetime commitment.....scared of the expectation that he would no longer tap another available skirt....scared of you....fear of "performance"....

Take your pick. Any one (two, three) of these could be enough to permit a fiance with insufficient moral rigor (aka "boundaries") to engage in a sojourn with a partner willing to play with his little tension reliever.

So some time passes, married life is not all that terrible, and hubby decides to come clean. (For this he gets kudos, btw.) However, he's not willing to engage in the introspection to root out why he did so (unless he already knows, and hasn't the guts to tell you) and for this he gets catcalls.

You see in his mind "she" was just sex, because "she" could have been any woman at that time - co-worker, coffee-shop barista, meter-maid. What he doen't yet understand is that the pursuit of "sex" was only the effect, the cause of which was likely one of the "fears" I listed above, or one I haven't listed.

If he just wanted orgasmic relief, unless you and he were one of those couples who are part of the 0.00001% of the population who had remained chaste until marriage, you were there for him.

As for his "porn addiction" - well, obviously he still has issues (more "fears"?) that must be addressed. He might need assistance in working through that, but at least he admits it is a problem, so he's halfway there to getting it solved. Your role is now to support him, assure him that you want to see him happy, that the cure will be less painful to him than continuing to fight the "disease" alone.

Yes men can cheat for just sex. But as you have been told its not the norm.
I would get SAA and HNHN from the book store and demand that you two take time to read them together.
I would also demand Extraordinary Precautions and complete transparency.
Your Husbands boundaries suck. Engagement is also a commitment not just a date. I would have him examine them in great detail. Boundaries let us justify how far we will take something. It seems his boundaries needs some attention.

What is your reaction to what has been said to you so far?

I can absolutely tell you that men can have s*x with a woman and not develop feelings. My DH developed a disassociation during his A with the OW and he treated her like garbage. He felt so low. Our M wasn't bad and our s*x life, communication and quality time with each other has always been good. We had a good M prior to his A. We counseled with the Harley's and after several sessions and years of communicating we found out that my DH had his A because of his deep-seeded issues within himself. Contrary to popular opinion, sometimes ppl in good M have affairs and it has absolutely nothing to do with their spouse.

However, after D-Day I didn't feel like trying because I felt an even greater betrayal than a spouse who hadn't met their spouse's top emotional and physical needs. I had used MB principles throughout our M and so had my DH (pre-A), but after D-Day, I could care less about him or using MB. But guess what, my DH used MB and Plan A'd me to save our M even when I was ready to throw him out on his [censored]. MB worked for us but it was my FWH who worked MB like magic to get me to fall in love with him again.

I do think you should make your DH take a ploygraph to find out the entire truth. Lukily my DH told me every single, terrible detail although I still cringe when I think about some things.

Good luck and God bless you.

Well imho, my xwh felt that sex = a relationship and like your fwh's ow, he treated the ow (two of them) pretty bad. And when one got pregnant and he married her days after our divorce was final (she got a lawyer and her family pressured him to marry her), he began treating her like crap and cheating on her too.

So, my thoughts are like this. do they have the MAIN EN's of a good relationshp? Well some. If there is hero worship goin' on that is one EN, and if there's sex that's the physical EN.

But as far as the other gamut of EN's out there, they do not provide that in an affair. Thus, imho why they all die out within 2 years. Even IN THE CASE OF A STUPID AFFAIRAGE.

If it does survive past a divorce, the affair dies b/c there is no honor, no real mutual respect, and there is the disgust and shame that they feel from the rest of family and friends if their little "secret" gets out of the bag.

It's really the only "relationship bonding" that goes on in an affair. Sad really. Funny part was, we had that type of so called "bonding" in the M too and it was fine.

Comparing me to his ow skank is like comparing a fine bottle of wine to a cheap boxed wine variety commonly found in the refrigerators of these skanks.

Maybe in a "loose" way it's a relationship. lmao. The skanks seem to get it in their mind that sex REALLY EQUALS a relationship.

Po dumb skanks.

Just my 2p

I think men are better at recreational sex than women.

My Stupid stupid WH was in an EA for 6 years with occasional sex with the skanky ginge. His need for the EA was bigger than his need for a quickie, but in order to keep her he did give way to his baser instincts!!

It nearly destroyed him and damn near destroyed all we had built together.

He lives each day knowing what a lucky man he is that I am still here!!

I can absolutely tell you that men can have s*x with a woman and not develop feelings

Based on your VAST personal experience as a man having illicit sex, no doubt!

Sorry had to get that in! (Yeah, I know: xWH is GUARANTEED to be telling you the truth now! )

YES, men can have sex without feelings. We got it. All of us males here on the site fully acknowledge that it is physically and physiologically possible for men to ejaculate into a vagina (mouth, whatever) about which they have no feelings of affinity or affection. Men can have sex with vacuum cleaner hoses if available. (And they don't have to buy them dinner later!)

Okay, good. Do you all feel better now? Well, you shouldn't, because there aren't THAT many vacuum hoses waiting for those dogs to call back.

I have no idea about percentages or ratios, but let's consider the fact that most cheating husbands do NOT fall into the nearest predatory OW's open crotch, by accident, and then say, "Oh, cool, that was fun, let's do it again, and set up hidden e-mail accounts, private phone numbers, and illicit trips just to keep this our little secret!"

But, if it comforts you to believe that your WH's really had their minds and hearts on you while their other parts were otherwise occupied with the OW, I will not dispute your belief!

I do think you should make your DH take a ploygraph(sic) to find out the entire truth. Lukily(sic) my DH told me every single, terrible detail...
So when you asked him during the polygraph session if he ever felt love or affection for his affair partner, what was the answer, and the result?

Sorry for the weary, but I always tend to agree with NG. He's grossly spot on.

My husband has had several affairs. He had two ONS, and a longer sex-for-the-sake-of-sex affair.


Oddly enough, a very long time ago he left me for a brief period of time for another woman, he was very infatuated with her. Turned out that after he and I separated, he never had sex with that OW......never worked out for them. So his leaving me for his fantasy woman was a complete blow-out for him.


Can people have emotion-free sex? Certainly. Can it be repeated over a period of time? IMHO it is less common, mainly because women would be more apt to develop emotional connections after repeated sexual contact with a given man. But, in all, it is certainly possible and certainly happened in the case of my H.


The final question you have is, "Can two people who have slept together stop having sex, continue to work together every day, and not continue to have any sexual contact?"


I will not be liked for this response. The answer is "Yes". It is possible.


The question you SHOULD be asking????


"What is the PROBABILITY of two people who have had a sexual affair stopping that sexual contact, continuing to work together, and not resuming sexual relations?"


The PROBABILITY is really your question here.


It is "possible" they haven't. It is less PROBABLE that they haven't.

The only way it would be likely they didn't continue their relationship would be if he REALLY pi$$ed her off when he married you instead of her, and she carries a grudge.


Other than that, I would pursue some means of making sure he is telling the truth, such as looking through old emails, checking old cell phone records, looking at making a visit to her (with other people with you of course, and NOT warning him in advance), hiring a Private Investigator to help out, asking for a polygraph, and searching through some of his stuff because he might have kept things on his computer or in his files that would surprise you.


Good luck. And, welcome, and sorry you have to be here.


SB

If you think I get some kind of "joy" out of my DH having an A just because he didn't develop feelings for the x-other-skank you are dead wrong. As a matter of fact, I was appalled at the way my DH treated the XOW and I was also shocked that he could have s*x with a woman six times and not develop feelings. FYI, I don't need my DH to take a poly. I didn't care a hill of beans whether my DH developed feelings for some skanky woman who would allow a MM to boink her the first time they met personally and only see him every other month and drop her pants for him begging him for more time. The entire thing disgusted me and my DH's behavior and hers disgusted me as well. If it makes you feel better to take cheap shots at ppl who have gone through the tragedy of finding out their spouse had an A, more power to you because you obviously are suffering deep down yourself.

I am not naive in any shape or form and I never thought it was better that my DH was able to have a PA without emotions. Even when I talked to the XOW and she told me that my DH treated her like garbage and he told her how much he loved me it was an insult that he didn't think about me while he was having s*x with her and I scolded him for being so cruel to her.

Absolutely NOTHING about my DH's A brings me comfort. It was a disgusting assault against our M and me and I never said I felt better because he didn't have feelings for the skank-ho. Who in the world could feel good about their spouse having an A whether it be PA or EA? That's a ridiculous assumption.

Also fyi my DH did take a poly and I do know every disgusting detail (unfortunately). My DH actually admitted everything on D-Day before the poly and then it was confirmed by the poly. If you are so skeptical that waywards can change and you think that betrayed spouses are so naive why are you on a marriage rebuilding site? It seems that you would want to take your cynicism and cheap shots to a more appropriate forum like haters are us or something; but you wouldn�t have anything to build your self-worth if you did that now would you.

In general, my thoughts about the idea that my H had sex without emotional bonding were that it wasn't "more redeeming" in the sense of his affair and its ranking on the invisible scale of badness.

In fact, it made me feel as though he was willing to trade our marriage for something less important than an emotional bond.


In a way, this made things WORSE for me, not better.


He was willing to risk 30 years of marriage for what he said meant NOTHING to him, nothing but "sex for the sake of sex". So he was willing to trade our entire life together, our love, our relationship, everything we had and worked for......


for something of absolutely no value to him.


Which meant that *I* was of less value to him


than NOTHING.



That was what hit him right upside the head. When I couched it in those terms to him, that he placed the value of me BELOW the value of "nothing"

he finally understood that his sex-for-the-sake-of-sex affair was really the bottom of the barrel and NOT the "minor infraction because it wasn't emotionally charged" affair.


Everything has a cost. Everything has a value, and we all see things differently.

This is why an Emotional Affair is so burdensome, and so costly to a marriage. Because the betrayed person understands where they were placed in terms of the "value scale" of the wayward spouse.

That's why it does not matter if it is an EA, PA, or sex-for-the-sake-of-sex. All are betrayals. They are all rooted in the same dastardly self-centered egotistical self-serving blame-shifting decision-making process.

And in the end, somebody gets hurt.


SB