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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. The only reason your H doesn't have a problem with it is because you have lied to him about who you are. He does not understand your dangerously poor judgement because you are living a LIE. You have profoundly poor judgement when it comes to members of the opposite sex and apparently learned nothing from your previous mistakes. So here you are again on the precipice of yet another affair. You are a dangerous person. And of course your children should know what you have done. Your vile actions have affected them in every way. They will find out one way or another soon enough. How many of these men you shagged were married? How many other families have you wrecked in addition to your own?
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Violette,
I would not compare myself to a rapist.
But you indirectly forced your H to risk exposure to STDs without his consent, and non-consensual sex is rape.
Let me ask you how you would feel if your H did this to You?
God Bless
Gamma
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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..." I do know it hurt the whole family. 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. So I deal with his garbage for 20 years and I am suppose to through myself under the bus for 6 weeks of being a complete dirtbag. I may sound like a loser but I am the better parent. He will not have full custody of my kids. 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. By 100%, do you tell all the details. That would not be good.
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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. The only reason your H doesn't have a problem with it is because you have lied to him about who you are. He does not understand your dangerously poor judgement because you are living a LIE. You have profoundly poor judgement when it comes to members of the opposite sex and apparently learned nothing from your previous mistakes. So here you are again on the precipice of yet another affair. You are a dangerous person. And of course your children should know what you have done. Your vile actions have affected them in every way. They will find out one way or another soon enough. How many of these men you shagged were married? How many other families have you wrecked in addition to your own? 1
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I would not compare myself to a rapist. That is because you are in denial. Adultery is worse than rape. Most rapists don't know their victims. You not only know your victim, but you made a vow before GOD to be true to your husband in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. A rapist has no such vows before God. Here are some quotes from the founder of Marriage Builders, clinical psychologist, Dr Bill Harley: "Since you've had an affair, I would imagine that your wife is very emotionally defensive about the subject. It's the worst experience of her life -- worse than the loss of her son five years ago. Can you imagine anything being that bad? Well, you did it to her, and she is suffering as a result. It's all she can do to remain rational. If she were to express herself emotionally at this point, she would probably be expressing deep feelings of hopelessness and catastrophic loss. By trying to be rational, she is able to focus on the practical side of the issue." "We regard infidelity as the worst offense in marriage. More damaging than physical abuse.And when a couple goes through a period of time when their relationship is broken, and they are not meeting each other's emotional needs, infidelity is very common. Granted, we can even patch these marriages together when the incentive to reconcile (children) is present. But it would be much easier and much less painful if you and your husband never had to go through it."
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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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. The only reason your H doesn't have a problem with it is because you have lied to him about who you are. He does not understand your dangerously poor judgement because you are living a LIE. You have profoundly poor judgement when it comes to members of the opposite sex and apparently learned nothing from your previous mistakes. So here you are again on the precipice of yet another affair. You are a dangerous person. And of course your children should know what you have done. Your vile actions have affected them in every way. They will find out one way or another soon enough. How many of these men you shagged were married? How many other families have you wrecked in addition to your own? 1 Does that married man and his wife have any children?
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Violette,
I would not compare myself to a rapist.
But you indirectly forced your H to risk exposure to STDs without his consent, and non-consensual sex is rape.
Let me ask you how you would feel if your H did this to You?
God Bless
Gamma I not sure I would care. I just don't have any feelings for him. I know that is awful which is why I posted here. I want to get to the point where I am not afraid of my marriage working. It is hard to explain but I just want to disappear. I really struggle with this and the kids are what make me at least try to be good.
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"After having counseled thousands of couples with hundreds of marital conflicts, I am completely convinced that a spouse's unfaithfulness is the most painful experience that can be inflicted in marriage. Those I've counseled who have had the tragic misfortune of having experienced rape, physical abuse, sexual abuse of their children, and infidelity have consistently reported to me that their spouse's unfaithfulness was their very worst experience. To be convinced of the devastating impact of infidelity, you only need to go through it once."
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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If your kids find out from you, then you control the information. If they find out because some other man's wife tells them........____________
you fill in the blank.
Same thing goes for your husband.
And, you need to consider how selfish your lying is. Your husband has a right to know the truth of his life. My husband decided FOR ME that I had no right to know he was sleeping with another woman. IN MY HOME.
He had no right to have an affair, let alone decide that I had no right to that information.
He decided FOR ME that "what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me". Really? Meanwhile, his deceit resulted in his complete separation of desire for sex with me. He did not want to spend any time with me. I asked him what was wrong, and he said he didn't see any problem - but I did! Yet, he spent hours away from me, and started arguments over the smallest things, such as me simply asking if the air conditioner was on or off. I was not introduced to others when we met people in public, it was though I was someone he just dragged around as an anchor or something.
He said he saw "no need" to buy 30th anniversary gifts, or even to celebrate for that matter. Wasn't that a waste of money?, he asked....after all, we'd been together long enough, did we need to go to the trouble, we knew each other well enough...
hmmmm
Wasn't I being hurt? His affair lasted "only" four months.
You are currently in an emotional affair, you have stated that this is FINE. You plan to continue this for at least five more YEARS. And your husband is not going to be hurt?
Do you believe your daughter will never notice?
PUH-LEASE. Unless she is blind, she will notice. Teenagers are very astute.
She will not take your side, because there is a thing with teens that makes them understand that cheating is wrong.
Kids her age are not dumb.
My guess is that you are worried that she will hate you.
Violette,
The TRUTH is that your expectation that you can live the rest of your life under this cloud of lies is self-delusional. Do you really expect this to be a success? Even if you were to divorce tomorrow, the lies would hang in the air!!!!!!
So, let's anticipate for fun, okay? What's your long-term plan?
Let's say you hang in there for five years.
You are now in an affair. Most last roughly two years. So this current guy will be GONE, and you will replace him, two more years, and you are then on....
OTHER MAN NUMBER SEVEN, if you count your first FOUR!!!!!!
Is that the plan?
Because emotional affairs ARE affairs, Violette. So five years from now, you are covering at least FOUR sexual affairs, this ONE emotional affair, and possibly TWO MORE EAs.
So you decide to divorce at that time. Okay. Your "reason" for divorce, assuming you continue your lie.
Pick one:
1. I love my husband but I'm not "in love" with him.
2. My husband and I have not connected for "years".
3. I tried, but it just hasn't worked out.
4. We "grew apart".
5. My husband just wasn't there for me.
6. I had at least four sexual and one emotional affairs, and this resulted in my lying for years to my husband, and I just could never be honest with him or anyone else after that. Lying became a way of life for me, and the guilt and shame of what I have done, as well as loss of comprehension of what the truth actually looks like, has changed me as a person to the point where I have no moral compass whatsoever. Now I just cannot begin to accept the consequences of my own behavior, so I choose to blame my husband for our marriage, and would rather divorce him than make a real attempt to face the destruction I have caused and to begin to look for ways to repair our relationship and recover the marriage, which might have been possible - five years ago - had I simply told the truth back then.
My guess is you are leaning towards number 1 right now. By then, you will tell everyone else something between all of them, except the truth....which is the last one.
Violette, the fact is that most marriages can recover from affairs. What damages marriages more than infidelity????
LIES, and the lying behavior that the cheaters do after the affair to try to gaslight and cover up their sins.
Don't make that mistake. You CAN recover your marriage. You need to make the choice as soon as possible to expose your own affair, in the most loving way possible, to accept that the affairs were your choice (not the result of depression or any other excuse), and you need to accept that there will be negative consequences of your affair.
You also need to accept that you need to make changes to yourself - and you need to be very hard and factual about yourself in this regard.
Finally, you need to read here and learn everything you can, and FAST, because when you tell your husband about your affairs you need to stand ready to offer him this website as a resource to help him, and your marriage, as a place to come to help recover from your damaging behavior.
You CAN recover your marriage. All is not lost. YOU CAN RECOVER your love, your passion, and your husband.
The very first step? You MUST STOP ALL CONTACT with your current affair partner. Your emotional attachment to your current other man must be cut off immediately.
Today.
Now.
No. Excuses. RIGHT NOW>......NOW.
SB
Lucky to be where I am, in a safe place to get marriage-related support.
Recovered.
Happy.
Most recent D-day Fall 2005
Our new marriage began that day. Not easily, but it did happen.
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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. The only reason your H doesn't have a problem with it is because you have lied to him about who you are. He does not understand your dangerously poor judgement because you are living a LIE. You have profoundly poor judgement when it comes to members of the opposite sex and apparently learned nothing from your previous mistakes. So here you are again on the precipice of yet another affair. You are a dangerous person. And of course your children should know what you have done. Your vile actions have affected them in every way. They will find out one way or another soon enough. How many of these men you shagged were married? How many other families have you wrecked in addition to your own? 1 Does that married man and his wife have any children? 3 - all grown up. I think the youngest was 19 years old. I was his third affair.
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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. My husband and I do not fight. So the kids are not going to think there is a problem between us. I think it is one thing to tell my husband but my kids? That's crazy. They will not run into any of the men I have slept with. They don't live in the area and they don't know my real name.
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What do you need, Violet?
Are you here to waste our time again tonight?
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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If your kids find out from you, then you control the information. If they find out because some other man's wife tells them........____________
you fill in the blank. It was only one married man and when I stopped seeing him, he moved onto another woman. So chances are she would find out about her but not me. He decided FOR ME that "what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me". Really? Meanwhile, his deceit resulted in his complete separation of desire for sex with me. He did not want to spend any time with me. I asked him what was wrong, and he said he didn't see any problem - but I did! Yet, he spent hours away from me, and started arguments over the smallest things, such as me simply asking if the air conditioner was on or off. I was not introduced to others when we met people in public, it was though I was someone he just dragged around as an anchor or something. We don't fight. We just don't communicate. We have a very good sex life. I have a slight sex addiction problem so we have sex often. He said he saw "no need" to buy 30th anniversary gifts, or even to celebrate for that matter. Wasn't that a waste of money?, he asked....after all, we'd been together long enough, did we need to go to the trouble, we knew each other well enough... That was cruel. Wasn't I being hurt? His affair lasted "only" four months. I can see your point but I was still attentive and taking care of my husband during the affairs. You are currently in an emotional affair, you have stated that this is FINE. You plan to continue this for at least five more YEARS. And your husband is not going to be hurt?
Do you believe your daughter will never notice? My daughter likes him and it is not sexual. It is just a friend. She will not take your side, because there is a thing with teens that makes them understand that cheating is wrong. Yes - she would side with my husband. She is close to him. My guess is that you are worried that she will hate you. More worried that it will cause her to act out and get in trouble with boys. Right now she is very religious, a tom boy and a straight a student. I don't want that to change. Violette,
The TRUTH is that your expectation that you can live the rest of your life under this cloud of lies is self-delusional. Do you really expect this to be a success? Even if you were to divorce tomorrow, the lies would hang in the air!!!!!! I am just not ready to tell the truth. So, let's anticipate for fun, okay? What's your long-term plan?
Let's say you hang in there for five years.
You are now in an affair. Most last roughly two years. So this current guy will be GONE, and you will replace him, two more years, and you are then on....
OTHER MAN NUMBER SEVEN, if you count your first FOUR!!!!!!
Is that the plan?
Because emotional affairs ARE affairs, Violette. So five years from now, you are covering at least FOUR sexual affairs, this ONE emotional affair, and possibly TWO MORE EAs.
So you decide to divorce at that time. Okay. Your "reason" for divorce, assuming you continue your lie.
Pick one:
1. I love my husband but I'm not "in love" with him.
2. My husband and I have not connected for "years".
3. I tried, but it just hasn't worked out.
4. We "grew apart".
5. My husband just wasn't there for me.
6. I had at least four sexual and one emotional affairs, and this resulted in my lying for years to my husband, and I just could never be honest with him or anyone else after that. Lying became a way of life for me, and the guilt and shame of what I have done, as well as loss of comprehension of what the truth actually looks like, has changed me as a person to the point where I have no moral compass whatsoever. Now I just cannot begin to accept the consequences of my own behavior, so I choose to blame my husband for our marriage, and would rather divorce him than make a real attempt to face the destruction I have caused and to begin to look for ways to repair our relationship and recover the marriage, which might have been possible - five years ago - had I simply told the truth back then.
My guess is you are leaning towards number 1 right now. By then, you will tell everyone else something between all of them, except the truth....which is the last one. It is definitely not 1. I don;t love my husband. I would probably tell people that it is none of their business. You also need to accept that you need to make changes to yourself - and you need to be very hard and factual about yourself in this regard.
Finally, you need to read here and learn everything you can, and FAST, because when you tell your husband about your affairs you need to stand ready to offer him this website as a resource to help him, and your marriage, as a place to come to help recover from your damaging behavior.
You CAN recover your marriage. All is not lost. YOU CAN RECOVER your love, your passion, and your husband.
The very first step? You MUST STOP ALL CONTACT with your current affair partner. Your emotional attachment to your current other man must be cut off immediately.
Today.
Now.
No. Excuses. RIGHT NOW>......NOW.
SB I will read everything on the site. Thank you for sharing you experience and taking the time to try and help me/
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What do you need, Violet?
Are you here to waste our time again tonight? I think I need time to read through the website and think things through. I have family visiting from another state right and have busy but I really want to read the articles and suggestions. I am feel the situation is hopeless and just am unsure what I will do.
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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. In the beginning it was very tough to live with myself. I have not met with the priest since I started the emotional affair.
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[[color:#000099]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.
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I had a hard time with female friends before the affairs. I think it is more my personality.
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What do you need, Violet?
Are you here to waste our time again tonight? I think I need time to read through the website and think things through. I have family visiting from another state right and have busy but I really want to read the articles and suggestions. I am feel the situation is hopeless and just am unsure what I will do. There is nothing more to read and you don't need more "time." That is just a delaying tactic. Yes, it is hopeless if you continue to lie to your husband. You know the right answer and are wasting valuable board time that could be devoted to someone who is serious about saving their marriage. The board has nothing to offer you if you refuse to get honest.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Truer words could not be spoken. Violette, you need to do some MAJOR reading here.
Start with the Basic Concepts. Maybe take 3 days or a week, and get yourself acclimated to MB.
Once you've done that, come and ask questions. I don't want to discourage you from asking questions now, but you'll do yourself a huge favor by reading here. The help that you'll get is invaluable. Know this.
Stick around, OK? But, read the Basic Concepts at a minimum.
Last edited by Surfer88; 08/04/11 09:39 PM.
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What do you need, Violet?
Are you here to waste our time again tonight? I think I need time to read through the website and think things through. I have family visiting from another state right and have busy but I really want to read the articles and suggestions. I am feel the situation is hopeless and just am unsure what I will do. There is nothing more to read and you don't need more "time." That is just a delaying tactic. Yes, it is hopeless if you continue to lie to your husband. You know the right answer and are wasting valuable board time that could be devoted to someone who is serious about saving their marriage. The board has nothing to offer you if you refuse to get honest. I just can't do it.
Last edited by violette; 08/04/11 09:42 PM.
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Let's not get distracted here. There is only ONE thing to read and anything else is a waste of time until you tell your husband the truth. Reading the basic concepts or anything else is a waste of valuable time until that happens: Should an affair be revealed?
I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.
From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.
Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.
But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.
It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.
It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.
It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.
After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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