Look at this article:



Infidelity: The Lessons Children Learn

My WH knew his mother had a male friend, suspecting an affair, during his adolecense. He told me about it early in our relationship and how much it bothered him and how wrong he thought it was. Well, he himself has turned out to have several affairs and have a severe problem with lying, because he learned it from his mother.

Of course you are dangerous to your children.

Is your husband aware that you look at this friendship as an "emotional affair"?

AND your victim.

Would you honestly accept a rapist who said "My sins are between God and me," while ignoring the plight of his victim? That is exactly what you are doing.

Any priest who would encourage you not to make amends to your victim will have to answer to God someday. And so will you.

"It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Hebrews 10:31

Does your husband know of your attraction and emotional attachment to this current OM? Does he know that OM is what you "would want in a husband"?

Does your husband know that you share secrets with this man that your husband is not even allowed to know about?

You are a coward. And, as such, you want to run from the truth rather than face the consequences of your sins.

"Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." John 3:20

Ask any abuser and they would answer the same way. "I'm not mean, I'm not abusive, what I did shouldn't hurt anyone else..."

It depends on how you end the marriage. If you have an affair, don't tell him about it, and try to take the kids and half or more of the marital property, then yeah, that's pretty selfish.

Should you come clean and say you broke your vows and would understand if he no longer wants to be married and you will give him whatever terms he desires because you recognize the hurtful nature of what you did to him and your children, than that wouldn't be mean at all.

It would be most unselfish.

Being honest and giving him the choice are never selfish. Keeping secrets and trying to gain the best for you with him lacking key facts is ALWAYS selfish.

Until you are honest, you are not serious about actually fixing the marriage. As long as you keep a secret from your husband, you don't have a marriage, you have a lie.

I doubt you will find the lie to be fulfilling. You might, it would be disrespectful for me to assume a lie would eat away at you. It's possible you can live with lying to your husband every day. As long as your husband doesn't know, you are lying to him that day.

The wayward, the cheating mindset is not about sex, it's not about emotion, it's about not being 100% open and honest with your spouse. So the cheating does not end when you stop the affair. The cheating ends when you have completed both making contact of any sort with affair partners and telling the betrayed spouse 100% of what you've done.

So you are still to be considered wayward as long as your husband is unaware of what you've done.

violette,

You realize Dr Harley has counseled thousands. Included in those thousands are those who've suffered the death of a loved one as well as those who've been raped.

Those who've suffered those things as well as being betrayed by their spouse will tell you the most hurtful thing they've dealt with is the betrayal by a spouse.

It's not the telling them that is hurtful. It's the betrayal. So don't even try to use what I've said as justification for not telling him.

He cannot even begin to heal from the emotional rape you've inflicted upon him until he's fully aware of the damage you've done with your choices.

To withhold this from him is added cruelty, because he's been wounded and doesn't even know his attacker or the full nature of his injuries.

So if you really mean what you say by telling us you are not mean, prove it with your actions by coming clean and letting him begin healing from a wound worse than rape or the loss of a loved one.

Until you actually tell him, your actions don't match the words you would have us believe.

There have been many stories here where the BS found out about the affair years after. From 1 to 20 years. This has left the BS at loss not because the WS had an affair it's that the BS felt that there whole life for all those years has been a lie since the affair went down.

Even when the affair ended and the WS became the perfect spouse.

They way you found the courage to do the OM. You will find a way to get the courage to tell your BH.

As to the priest and most people that give advice is that they have been trained the wrong way to handle affairs.

I bet your priest feels that the best way now is for you to be a good wife and never tell your BH as would cause the least further harm. Thing is affairs have a way of being found out by the BS.

Of course you don't have a close female friend that you can trust -- because you've been investing your spare time & energy in cultivating relationships with other men. Most women can sense this, and are extremely wary of being around such a woman, because she is a potential threat to their own relationships. As long as you're in your current mindset, the only women who won't keep you at arm's length are women either who approve of your conduct, or who get off vicariously on hearing your drama.

And there is no excuse for cultivating an intimate emotional relationship with another man, where you share confidences. That's exactly what my other woman began doing with me, and I was such an idiot that I listened to all of her BS, and here's what happened: Because I found that I liked being her go-to guy for emotional support, because I enjoyed feeling so needed by her, I quickly shifted from being an objective "advisor" into someone who started reciprocating her compliments & flattery, because I sensed that it would get me more flattery. I listened to her sob stories about how her husband was inattentive, and how she'd reconnected with & slept with an ex-boyfriend from out-of-state on occasion. But she was doing what you're doing: She was subtly letting me know that she was a woman who "would", that she had flexible boundaries. My motives shifted & became impure. His will too, if they aren't already. Keep up with this improper relationship & you'll just end up in a bed with this "just a friend" guy, too, I guarantee it.

Violette, how do you expect to get a return in your marriage, if you invest in this relationship instead of in your marriage? How can you be available to your husband if you're spending your extra time with this other guy? Answer: You can't.

You say you "Ideally would love to be happily married" and that you "have been trying for months and have not made much progress". Can I ask you: How have you been trying? How is meeting up with other men "trying"? How is investing your time in other relationships going to improve your marriage? You haven't been trying, you've been giving up; and rather than having the courage to give up in the honorable way, you've dishonored your marriage vows by being unfaithful to and lying to your husband.

When you're on fire, the first thing to do is to stop spraying gasoline onto yourself. Then you can worry about healing the burns, for you & for your husband.

Look: If you came here expecting a pat on the back & someone who'd say it's OK to (1) continue deceiving your husband and (2) remain emotionally attached to another man who's not your husband, none of us here can tell you those things in good conscience. That's because this site is about saving marriages, and doing those two things will do nothing to save & improve your marriage, and instead will only make things worse for you as well as your husband.

But there's a way out. No, it's not an easy way -- but nothing worth having ever comes easy. Here's what you need to do to start:

(1) Get the book "Surviving An Affair" and read it, cover to cover. It's a book that may well have saved my marriage (and I don't get paid a cent for saying so, and I'm here typing to you for free on my vacation time).
(2) End your current emotional affair. Tell this man you can't see him or talk with him any more, because you want to focus on saving your marriage.
(3) Come clean to your husband & tell him you want to rekindle your love for him & have the kind of marriage you wanted on the day you got married.
(4) If you can't bring yourself to do the above, then the next least-dishonorable course of action is for you to divorce your husband.

That there is all the advice you need to get started.

Isn't that his choice? You are tricking your husband into not leaving?

Is that honest?

It would be HONEST.....and 100% Honesty is one of the cornerstones of a real Marriage!!!


NO IT'S NOT!!! Go read Dr. Harley's books!!!! You are WRONG!!!


You AND your Husband need to read ALL of the MARRIAGE BUILDERS books!.......and get the Home Course and WORK on your Marriage!!

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE MARRIAGE!!!!!

I couldn't agree MORE!!

My Wife is depressed now EXACTLY for those reasons!!!!!

I had to wait at work all day before I could get in my thoughts here.

I just want to know Violette how it is you plan to look at yourself in the mirror anymore, because I think you aren't being in any way at all honest about what the priest told you.

Let me put your quandry in another perspective for you. Because of the nature of my profession, I'm comfortable w/medical analogies.

You are in a very bad car accident, but you get up, get out of the smashed up vehicle and walk away. Needless to say, you are taken to the emergency room, where a doctor orders different types of exams on you. You get a ct, mri, and alot of xrays. The doctor comes in and does alot of smiling and nodding but you still are so shaken up by what has happened to you, that you feel something is odd. In fact you FEEL off yourself still.

The doctor analyzes your test data, and determines in fact, that while you might be sore, and feel "off" that you're really seriously ill. You have suffered internal injuries and are internally bleeding. But you don't know it.

What if your doctor REFUSED to tell you the status of your health? What if the doctor or nurse didn't treat you for the injuries you were suffering from? What if you didn't get the right therapy at all? What IF the doctor thought you DID NOT DESERVE TO KNOW the extent of your own injuries.

Would you be mad at the doctor or nurse for DELIBERATELY NOT TELLING YOU HOW BAD THINGS WERE? Would you be mad you WERE NOT GIVEN A CHANCE TO SAY WHAT YOU WANTED TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE AND HEALTH?

This is like what you're doing to your husband each and every second of each day. You're twisting the knife in his back a little deeper and further in each day. Each day you're carrying a dirty secret and you're also ACTIVELY ENGAGING IN AN AFFAIR with another man (the emotional one you think is "harmless"). A man probably your husband thinks IS A FRIEND. Twist more, dig the knife deeper.

Doesn't your marriage deserve the only chance it has to survive this? Doesn't your husband DESERVE to know the truth about his life, how he has been PUT AT RISK as a husband and have his health put at risk by your reckless and selfish affairs?

How EXACTLY would GOD approve of you lying to your husbanf NOW and forevermore, and mostly how would GOD approve of you carrying on this crazy and beyond stupid affair with a friend? I am SURE you definitely did not tell your priest about that part did you???

You have one option only and if it is to save your marriage and family it is to follow the MB path. It works.

If you don't just know this. In time, your betrayed husband WILL KNOW that you were unfaithful to him and he will find out. We all find out somehow. And HE IS A MAN DESERVING OF THE TRUTH and he deserves to be able to decide if he wants to stay married to you or not and if he wants to work on the marriage or not.

Unless you post back I will not post to you again. You have a slim and narrow shot at success though. If you choose to follow the path of truth, love, and forgiveness using MB there's a good chance your M could survive this and recover. But it won't be easy. It WILL take work...and HONESTY.

Are you going to woman up? BE a good mother and wife? Regain your dignity and honor? For now, sorry to say this, there is nothing separating you from a common woman workin' the streetcorner. YOU are STEALING from your betrayed husband right now and lying to him and skanking around behind his back right now with this "emotional" affair dude who is also masquarading as your husbands' friend.

THIS IS NOT PART OF GODS' WAY.

what i dont get is how anybody can invoke the word of god and forgivness, and try to justify these thngs to themselves...

i could have sworn on some rock tablets somewhere there were these things called commandments...and one of them was

THOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY

is that not the word of god.

then you go to seek forgiveness from a human priest and think all is well and that its okay?

i just dont get that.

im not religeous by no means, but it baffels my mind.

Violette,

Your instinct is to run from the website, because you have been told to tell your husband the truth.


I think that is interesting, don't you?


You are so afraid of dealing with your life on the level of the truth that you would rather live the rest of it filled with lies.

What will you do if your husband just happens to find out on his own? This happens, you know. Tooooo often to count.

What happens if your daughter (or one of the other children) happens to be the person who discovers your other men?


What happens if the WIFE of one of your other men finds out about your affairs? AND SHE CALLS YOUR HUSBAND?


Have you considered any of this?


Because any of these scenarios can, and do, play out, Violette. Daily, right here on MB.


In my own situation, my husband and his OW so dearly planned on nobody ever finding out. This was their little plan. What they did not plan on?

That I would find out. I just discovered it by accident one day, purely accidental. I never suspected.


It only takes one big mouth, Violette. And if one other person alive knows about your affairs, then your husband will find out, sooner or later. GUARANTEED.


Now, you can control the exposure, or someone can nuclear bomb your house.


Your choice. But your affair behavior WILL be exposed. And between now and d-day, your nerves will only grow more and more frazzled.



And your marriage will grow more and more disintegrated.



Living outside of the truth simply destroys your life. There is no hope for your marriage.


Make no mistake about this: If you choose not to tell your husband about your affairs, you have no future with this husband. Furthermore, any marriage you walk into after this one is similarly doomed. Why? Because YOU will carry the same issue straight into every relationship you enter - that is, you have no ability to understand that a foundation of truth and honesty is essential to building a healthy and mutually respectful and loving relationship.


SB

4

That is one of the scariest things for me is my kids finding out.

He knows that we spend time together and talk on the phone. I have never referred to it as an emotional affair. It is not romantic. We go to mass together, say the rosary and discuss religion. He is a lot older than me. He is helping me through some of my issues due to abuse. I really am a mess and just need a safe friend. I have gone to my husband with my problems and he has an attitude get over it and stop being so negative.

There was one man that my husband did not want me to be around and I did cut off contact.

Darn. Perhaps that is the first clue that you have made a bad decision- when you are scared your kids will find out.

Let's get serious. Your kids already know something is wrong. And right now? They think they are the problem. And if they don't think that , then they probably have a good idea of what you've been up to.

You made it necessary to tell your children the day you decided to start breaking your vows.

The decision is already made. You made it long ago. Ovary up, and fight for your family.

I would not compare myself to a rapist.


He told me that I caused a lot of damage to my marriage and I need to work on my marriage and gave me advice on what to do.


No


No


I am definitely a coward when it comes to facing problems.

Violette,

We go to mass together, say the rosary and discuss religion. He is a lot older than me.

And does this man knows about your affairs while your H does not? Please bring your H up to the level of awareness this person he does not know has about his marriage.

At the very least your have to tell your H about your affairs so he can monitor himself for Cancer caused by an HPV infection. From your timing 4 men in 6 weeks you may have found them on some adult dating site, and people who frequent those sites are a in dangerous demographic, besides being liars.

God Bless
Gamma