Wife's just had a second fling with co-worker. She says she still loves me very much and doesn't want to break up with me. Should I forgive her?

Hi! I posted a similar thread on another forum but all I got were extremely negative replies/feedback. In the meantime I did more research on the internet and found this website and forum... I must say everyone here seems way more helpful.

So here's the story:

We've been together 12 years now, married for 7 years. We're both in our early 30's.

Everything was extremely fine in the first 8 years - we had a wonderful, very close relationship, in which we truly felt like the other one's half. However, 4 years ago, she suddenly felt in love with a co-worker (who worked on a different floor). She started by saying they are just friends, but eventually admitted to having feelings for him. We talked and decided to stay together, but quickly (within one week) I found out they are still talking/seeing each other. We had again a serious talk, this time she became nuts - almost like in a trance sometimes. She even begged me to let her sleep with this guy, of course I said no. She became very mean towards me, she even started to insult me. In the meantime, I had a talk with the other guy as well. He denied having any feelings for her, promised solemnly that he will stay away. He was in fact seeing other women at the same time - my wife found out about it and seemed to come a bit to her senses, realizing it might not be the great love she sort of expected it to be. Slowly, slowly, working hard, we fought back for our relationship and seemed to regain our trust back. I made her promise she wouldn't see the guy again - and she kept her promise for 4 years. I told her I would divorce her even if she so much as talk to him. By the way, no sex has happened between them and I'm absolutely sure it was true - one of the reasons I decided to take her back at that time. She seemed to get over him 100%. (in retrospect, after reading a lot on this site, I realize I've made many mistakes then).

The next 4 years seemed fine - it felt very much like we love each other. We seemed to have gotten over this major bump in our marriage. A few weeks ago, everything collapsed around me. It turns out my wife wrote him 7 months ago - a goodbye letter since she was changing jobs. He replied back and slowly they started seeing each other again. My wife felt in love again - she says he seduced her with nice words etc. Moreover, they started having sex this time. They slept around 30 times in the last 6 months. They had oral sex together (both ways), and they always had unprotected sex (I'm very angry). She also confessed to having orgasms with him - but she insists they didn't compare with the ones she has with me every time we sleep together (seems like a ridiculous statement). Sorry - I know it is pretty graphic - but I'm laying down all the details that she confessed to eventually.

She mostly slept with him when I was away from home (short one-week job trips etc). In fact she stayed at his place almost every night I was away (about 25 of the 30 times). A few times (4-5) she even slept with him when I was home, waiting for her - she said she is at her job, but in fact she was at his place.

She didn't confess anything initially (she said she didn't want to hurt me) - I found out everything when I started to become suspicious. When I confronted her with hard evidence (SMS texts, skype messages etc) she eventually confessed to everything and literally broke down.

She says she still loves me very much and doesn't want to end up the marriage. She says she is aware she did a horrible thing, she cries all day long and says she doesn't want to live without me. She also says she doesn't recognize herself in her actions, and is willing to find out why she did it and fix things up. She says sex is not the problem, as it was better with me (she says the other guy is not so good). She did see the other guy and told him everything is over, she doesn't want to see him anymore even if our marriage collapses. She says she hates him now, and wishes to turn back the time etc etc. She really is a wreck now.

However, the problem is that after the emotional affair 4 years ago, I just can't take the same thing (plus sex!) all over again. The trust, as you can imagine, is pretty much gone. She says she didn't handle the situation properly 4 years ago, but now she learned her lesson and will only do the right thing. I don't know whether to give her another chance or not - I am more inclined to a definitive separation, because of the long-term affair (6-7 months) and all the planning, lying etc that she had to employ to keep the other relationship ongoing.

What do you think? Thanks!
Mike

P.S. Reading all the other stories here, I can clearly see all the patterns in my own story as well. I take responsibility for my part (not meeting her emotional needs and so on). On one hand, I am truly inclined to work on our marriage, fix things up, try to move on together. After all, we spent 12 years together, most of them wonderful years. She doesn't blame me or try to place the blame on the state of our marriage or our sexual relationship - she cries all day long and blames herself, says she doesn't deserve to live and that she is a horrible person.

On the other hand, I truly don't know if she's worth it. After all, she didn't take advantage of the second chance I gave her 4 years ago, and this would be the third chance - how many chances should someone give? I don't want to feel stupid. Plus, I'm having a terrible time thinking of all the things she's done over the last few months.

Med, it is up to you if you save it or not. We can't make that decision for you. With multiple affairs, there is much more to resent and most people can't get over that. But again, you are not most people, you are Medavoy and only you know what you can overcome.

The reason you are here in this situation today is because the appropriate steps to recover your marriage were never taken. For example, she should have left that job 4 years ago. With them working together like this, she has pretty much stayed triggered for 4 years and never really sobered up. She has been in a low level fog for 4 years so it was just a matter of time.

With her leaving the job, she now has a chance to really sober up and move forward. Of course, she would also have to change her email addresses and phone #s so he can't ever get to her again. Additionally, she should just delete her facebook page. Facebook is a disaster for marriages and it will be a weak opening for the OM. He can get to her and she can look up his page on FB. So that needs to go.

Addionally, she has very poor boundaries around men in the workplace and has a long history of very unprofessional behavior. She will have to change that in order to affair proof your marriage.

If she does all that AND commits to the Marriage Builders program, which is designed to RESTORE THE ROMANTIC LOVE, then you have a great chance of overcoming this.

Personally, if I were you and I didn't have kids, I would call it quits because that would be easier than overcoming 2 affairs. Do you have kids?

And again, what I might do is not what you might do.

p.s. whatever you decide to do, I would urge you to expose her affair to your family members. That will give you the support you need and they can help keep her accountable. Exposing to the family will help her enormously in seeing the gravity of her poor choices. It is a real wake up call.

Is this bum married?

Your traveling is a HUGE PROBLEM for your marriage. I would do something about that, too, if you intend on staying. Traveling jobs like yours are a disaster to marriages and are an invitation to affairs. As you have discovered the hard way.

Another thing to change would be going out without each other and having friends of the opposite sex. Your lives should become so integrated that it would be impossible to carry on a secret second life.

In total agreement with Mel. The decision is yours. *IF* you decide to work on it though, it can be made better with hard hard work.

CV

Well she is a serial cheater. She would not have stopped unless you found out. Before she went nuts begging you to let her sleep with him. Now she just went and had the affair. What's to say she won't go nuts again? Also, you did say that if she ever talked to him again, you would divorce her. I guess her shacking up with him every time you leave town for work would constitute talking to him. I can guarantee you this. If she wasn't scared off by you threatening divorce if she as so much talked to him. Exactly which threat do you think would work now that you haven't backed up what you said before? Dump her.

The affair has been exposed immediately to her family members. In fact, she did it herself. Now she is looking for support from her mother and sister on a daily basis... who, by the way, are quite shocked by what she has done.

We don't have kids and we are both quite young. That would be indeed a good reason to call it quits, and I am frankly leaning towards this outcome. But as most of you know, it is still tough to accept it, after 12 years together.

It would have been much easier to separate if she would have resisted the end of affair in any way (and she did, 4 years ago, when it ended before becoming physical). But now she has had absolutely no contact with the OM ever since she told him it's completely over, the day after I found out... she doesn't blame me for the affair... she says she loves me very much and wants to do everything to stay together with me (true - the affair is already consummated by now, she got what she wanted in a way). She says there is something wrong with her, and she wants to figure out what so she could fix it. She constantly says she can't live without me.

I'm obviously still in shock and every minute I take another final decision. Best would be to give it a bit of time and see how she reacts as well, as time passes. See if she is sincere or these are just words. It is indeed hard (impossible) to imagine someone loving and doing these kinds of things at the same time.

P.S. The OM is not married. I don't think my wife meant a great deal to him, as he already is dating someone else now (and he might have been dating other women at the same time). That kind of guy.

By no contact do you mean they no longer work together?

This really is scene one, act one of recovery.

You cant stop being an alcoholic if you have to go work in a bar every day.

If you are at all unsure of what you want to do long term (nd on here people say no big decisions for six months) Iwould do the plans and just see how hard she works at being repentent.

It is possible to recover, but get your drunk wife out of the bar first thing!

You also need to expose to the workplace.

I'm sorry if I missed it - did she quit that job? Her words mean squat if she's still working there.

I can tell her what is wrong with her. She has poor boundaries around men and behaves unprofessionally at work. That is how her affair happened. And since she never ended contact with him, her feelings just did a slow simmer all those years. This is why it is so important to never work with an affair partner for life.

Unless she tightens up her boundaries around men she is headed towards another affair. Will she do that?

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You will be able to see pretty quickly if she is sincere. If she commits to affair proofing your marriage by giving you all her passwords to her voicemails, emails, etc, becomes completely transparent, deletes facebook, quietly walks away from any opposite sex friendships, agrees to stop acting inappropriate with male coworkers and commits to the Marriage Builders program.

Will she do those things? If she will affair proof your marriage by following those guidelines, then you have a chance. If not, you are just wasting your time.

She changed jobs - they no longer work at the same place now.

BUT -- the irony is, she never talked to him after the first affair, while they still worked in the same building. She wrote him and reinitiated contact on the very last day of her previous job, before moving on to her next job. The second affair happened while they worked in different places.

Still, there is NC between them at this point, after the second affair has been exposed.

By working in the same place she remained in a perpetual state of withdrawal for years. That is like the "recovering" alcoholic going into the bar every day and staring at the beer on the counter. The beer stays TOP OF MIND and eventually opportunity collides with temptation.

Working at the same place is why the affair resumed.

Where does he live? How far away is he?

The addicts get their fix just by looking at their addiction. The idea of going cold turkey at the new job was scary so she tried to 'take him with her'.



How have you ascertained this? What snooping methods are you using?

She gave me the password to her personal e-mail account (which was used during the affair), she removed the passcode from her cell etc. She says I can check everything, anytime.

She only behaved inappropriately with one co-worker. If she had behaved like that with several men, I wouldn't even consider giving it a 1% chance.

I agree with everything else (poor boundaries, committing to the guidelines etc). I really need to figure out if the marriage is worth that 1% chance. It's very tough to accept that 4 years ago she made so many promises, and now she just threw them in my face. She says she loves me very much, but actions speak louder than words...

Med-
IMO as our sitches are almost identical, cut her loose. I kind of wish I did earlier and it's taken me months to finally realize it and still I hold out hope...for what? To give her another chance....man I don't know.
Now this doesn't mean you two can't get back together.
But an affair that was supposedly over 4 years ago and she wrote him a good-bye letter 7 months ago......
That says it all.
She never left the fog.
Time for her to realize OM isn't all that and you deserve better.
And time will show her that, I assure you.

Your call either way.

Oh, dear, this is the kind of dramatic crap my STBX would say.

It's basically a way to divert the attention away from the things that REALLY need to be done....like how to protect you and the M from OM & do what is needed to provide just compensation and affair proof the M into the future.

You would be wise to write down your requirements to stay in the M, for example:
~ Write NC letter
~ Take steps to prevent further contact, ie, change phone number & email addy and close FB
~ complete transparency, giving you access to all of her passwords and accounting for all of her time
~ give up opposite sex friendships
~ coach with the Harleys, etc

And redirect her to it when she starts trying to distract you. Hang in there!

This is something people who have workplace affairs try to tell their BS all the time (my STBX included) and it is a flatout lie most of the time.

I do NOT buy this...not for one second. The affair continued the entire time that they worked together on some level.

If she is still lying to you AT ALL about ANY details of this affair, she will stay wayward.

It would be wise for you to have her take a polygraph.

A poly would reveal a lot about her actions while working together I suspect

And also her current sincerity in having cut all contact.

Did you see this letter and mail it yourself?