Newbie here looking for some help & sorry for the long read. First let me say this is a great site and it has really opened my eyes to the flaws in my relationship and it has given me good insights on how I have caused allot of those flaws.

My wife and I started dating almost 5 years ago to the day. When we started dating I was actually dating someone else but had been in an unhappy relationship for some time. We hit it off and instantly fell in love with each other; it took me no time to realize that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person. Three months into dating we were engaged, by March we were expecting and married in May.

In the first year there were a few problems with me not sticking up for her but instead trying to just avoid confrontation between an ex-friend and then an ex-one night stand as well. I pretty much ignored how she felt and just tried to avoiding the situation making the situation worse. Then about a year and a half into our marriage an ex g/f messaged me and asked me to stop by on our trip to California, I replied and made conversation without mentioning my wife was going to be going with me. I never had intentions of stopping by but my wife saw the emails and was understandably upset. She was able to let this go and we continued on with our relationship.

Then about two years ago we started having problems and she wanted to move out. We were able to work things out and she never did move out. We were still having problems but were working on things and we even decided to have another child. Here is where my problem starts, at that time I was taking night classes and started talking to a female classmate. At first it was just normal casual conversations but eventually it became a full blown emotional affair, we would flirt with each other mainly over chat & email, with the occasional text, we never actually hung out in a one on one setting, but were out together with the rest of our classmates after class a few times. Most of our conversations would just talk about the things going on in our everyday life (she was going through a divorce and dating three other guys & I would talk about my marriage problems) but an occasional perverted comment would be thrown in. This went on up until about 6 months ago when the emails died down to a couple a week or a couple every other week. At the same time I really thought my marriage was getting back to where it should be as my wife and I were finally getting along again and having a great time together.

Well two and a half weeks ago my wife downloaded a key logger and checked my work email thinking something was up. Now granted most of our emails lately were just the casual hey how's it going there were still some inappropriate comments and she did read some emails back as far as Feb. Needless to say she was devastated and I spent the next four nights at my parents. Before I went to my parents I did call the other lady in front of my wife and told her that the messages we sent to each other were wrong and that I would appreciate it if she never contacted me again, which she hasn't. I also changed my phone number, cancelled my facebook account and gave my wife the passwords to all of my emails, bank account and credit card accounts. My wife let me back into the house about a week and a half ago but has made it clear that it�s only for the kids. In this short amount of time I really had time to reflect on what was important in life such as my kids and family and not money and a perfectly clean house which I used to complain about daily.

I have been honest and told her everything about what happened between me and this other lady, but she insist that more must have happened and that I must have had a thing for this other girl based on the emails she read. I even went back and read some of the emails and it made me sick to my stomach to think I even wrote that to someone other than my wife. What makes things worse for me is the fact that we are still talking to each other as though we are still best friends on every day topics such as the kids, our day and what has to get done in the next few days. She still calls me first thing in the morning at work and a couple times throughout the day just telling me about what is going on (she is a stay at home mom), she has already called me three times today.

When it comes to talking about "us" though it�s a whole different story, she becomes very cold and states that beyond friends there is nothing there for us anymore and she really doesn't see us ever being an intimate couple again. She even told me last night that it wouldn't bother her one bit to see me with someone else. At the same time the thought of her with someone else tears me up inside and makes me sick to my stomach. She has also stated that she doesn�t believe that people ever change and that she thinks since I have had this emotional affair already I will just do it again in the future. Inside I really don�t believe I will as I have realized the important things in life and how self centered I had been. She also has said that she doesn�t believe I will ever have her trust again as she isn�t the type of person that you can earn trust with; yet she gives you her trust 100% at the beginning and it�s up to you what you do with it and I have clearly destroyed all of it at this time. Then last night she stated that maybe one of us needs to look at renting an apartment in town to see if the space between us would rekindle any feelings, although I am not really sure this is an option as we live on a very tight budget and I don�t see how we could swing any extra at the moment.

In the last few weeks I have tried to be understanding and calm to her needs but it�s getting harder as it feels like I really have no hope of salvaging my marriage. I have sent apologetic roses, given her hand written notes apologizing for everything and helped out more around the house with cleaning and the kids. None of this seems to matter though as she still is very unsure if there is even a chance of this marriage working. I have an appointment with a counselor next week to talk about why I couldn�t ever stand up for my wife and put her before everyone else , as well as why I felt the need to talk to this other girl. I tried to talk to my wife about how we were not meeting each other�s emotional needs and that I have realized how I should have been a better husband but she flat out told me that she won�t believe anything I say until I have met with a counselor and thought about what we talk about. She agreed that she would go to a couple of couples counseling session but still stated even then she doesn�t thing we could ever be more than just a friends.

There is nothing more important to me than getting my wife and family back and to be truly happy together again. I realize I have hurt her deeply and that kills me inside. So I guess I am just searching for some advice and if anything it was good to just type out my feelings and situation.

You should consult with Steve Harley. It is expensive but he is good at what he does and has a plan.

Other than that good luck.

You have to prove to your wife through actions not just words. Be consistent.

Also read up in the infidelity section of the website and watch the infidelity video.

Maybe also, try pointing your wife to MB so she can post here and the vets can help her.

Thanks for the reply, I should have stated I have read I believe almost all of the articles posted on MB and watched the infidelity video as well. It really has helped me come to the realization of what I had been doing wrong in our relationship.

I also tried pointing my wife to MB but she seemed to push that idea away and when I tried to speak to her about what I had read on the site and how it made me realize how my past actions took a toll on our marriage she just accused me of paraphrasing what I had read off the internet and tailoring it to my own situation and that she didn't feel I have actually learned anything.

You should pick up the books like Surviving an Affair, Love Busters and His Needs Her Needs. Read through them, maybe your wife will eventually pick one up to read.

Keep being consistent in your actions, keep your time accounted for. Be completely open and honest about everything. Put her first and try not to let your taker take control.

Ask what she needs from you? If she wants to do the counseling thing, do it but I think trying over the phone with Steve Harley would be your best bet.

Hello William - you found the right place.

Have you told your BW everything? Not just about the current situation, but what you mention during the first year of your M? I'm not exactly clear on what happened then - did you have a one night stand? Your marriage may never have fully healed from this earlier infidelity, and this new incident may have reopened that old wound.

If she's agreed to counseling, I'd highly recommend you doing your research. You want to find a counselor who uses the MB principles - your best bet is to use the coaching center here as WW27 suggested. It's not cheap, but they are experts at recovering marriages from infidelity.

Of course your BW doesn't believe you have told her everything. Waywards are liars. I know. Been there, done that. If you think you are lying to protect her from more pain, trust me, you are not. Take a polygraph.

Another thing - you need to figure out what her most important ENs are and try your best to meet them. Cards and flowers may not be cutting it. More actions are necessary. Cards and flowers are just things, they take little effort and anyone can write a card or buy some flowers. Your every action from this point forward needs to demonstrate your remorse, committment to your marriage, and extraordinary care and protection of her.

I would really recommend your first counseling session to be with the Harleys. It cost more per session but they dont go into your past and try to "fix" you. They will get right to the point and help your wife and you relise what you can do to "fix" your marriage instead. This will take far less sessions than most counselors do.

Here is a good article from Dr. Harley on how to pick a good counselor.
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/mb2.cfm?recno=9&sublink=59

"Not just about the current situation, but what you mention during the first year of your M? I'm not exactly clear on what happened then - did you have a one night stand?"

In the first year of our marriage I had a close friend that was a girl that felt like she knew me better than my wife should and thought she knew how I should be handling my life and I never stuck up for my wife and put the friend in her place. Eventually it came to the point where my wife dealt with the situation and I just quit talking to the friend. As with the ex one night stand as I called her. She was a girl I had had a one night stand with prior to meeting my wife but she would still try to call or message me after my wife and I started dating. I never gave her any advances in any way but she would show up with other friends whenever my wife wasn't around and me being the idiot I was didn't realize I should have relieved myself from her presence. I think I ignored doing this mainly because I had no feelings for this girl but I didn't see even me being around her without my wife made my wife uncomfortable.

I can honestly say that in the last 5 years I have never been in physical contact with any other female other than my wife. Emotionally is a different story though as I stated above, but even during that I never actually wanted it to be physical with this other women.

I appreciate the links and I will be checking those out as well.

So I am not even sure what to do right now, my wife has told me to go out tonight with friends, which I am doing and she is going out with our neighbor and her kids, but planning on staying at her mothers since she doesn't want to be in the same house without our kids present. Then tomorrow I am taking the kids trick or treating @ my parents while she goes halloween party hopping with her friends. Then Sunday we are suppose to hang out as a family again.

I asked her today if she had been asked on any dates yet because last week she made it clear that multiple people are trying to get her to go hang out with them. She asked why it even matter and I explained to her that I wanted our marriage to work and didn't want to be blind sided by her going on a date with someone else. Which she said multiple people were asking and by me asking is just pushing her towards accepting one of their offers. She did say she told them she didn't know what she was going to do, just as she has told me, as to whether she was going to give our marriage another try or if she was just going to move on and see what else is out there.

She is clearly on the fence of what to do as last night we were having just a friendly conversation after the kids went to bed and she kept talking in future tense that included living in our house and being a family, then she would catch herself and say if this works out.

What do I do, I really don't like these guys calling her and trying to pull her away from me. I know I have no say in what she does since I was the one that screwed up by having an EA, but this really sucks.

The betrayed spouse is never to blame for the wayward spouse's decision to have an affair.

Does she want to stay in the marriage or not? Why is she out running around with all of these 'friends'?

Can you find out where she is going and check on her to see who she is with?

She has told me she doesn't know if she wants to stay in the marriage or not. She seems to be honest in telling me everything about where she is going and who she is with, with the exception of the guys that are trying to get her to hang out wtih them. She has stated that she isn't going out tomorrow to hang out with any of these guys but has flipped flopped on weather she even wanted to go out or not. As of now she is and I am sure she will.

I have a couple of friends that will be going out that I plan on asking to just keep an eye on her for me to make sure what she tells me is the truth.

Tell her that she is a married woman, and she does not have your permission, or a "free pass" to date.

Also tell her that YOU also did not have a "free pass" to date. Whether or not you are legally separated, informally separated, or even "not feeling married" does NOT constitute a free pass for dating.

Period.

And that if she goes out on a date with anyone, she will be having an affair - plain and simple - and that two wrongs do not make a right.


And you will explain this to your children. And you will expose your own behavior to your family.......which you will do today.....and then if she goes out on a date, her behavior will also be explained.



Expose this mess NOW. To everyone.


Start following the MB plan. Move yourself into meeting her emotional needs. Do not worry about what needs she meets of yours.

Fight for your marriage. Her talk of dating is her way of having you fight for her. YOU NEED TO FIGHT FOR HER>

SB

Update - So last Friday I went and hung out with my friends and she went out with the neighbor and her kids while our kids were at my parents. Saturday the wife came home and we got into a heated argument as we discussed what I had done and when I tried correcting her errors in her story she wouldn't have any of it and swear she knew what she was talking about even though I am being 100% honest with her. She has it in her head that the EA went on for a year longer than it actually did.

So Saturday night she went out with two of her friends and their husbands to a couple Halloween parties before ending up at the bar. She ignored my text all night and when she came home the next morning she claimed she had a horrible night and had a panic attack and two pills to control it which made her tired and did not make the night any fun.

Sunday we took our kids on a picnic train ride and then out trick or treating and got along really well. Then I spent Monday and most of Tuesday out of town with my dad, aunt and friend. When I returned home she left to go to her friends and didn't come back until around 12.

Then yesterday I had my first one on one counseling session and it actually went allot better than I had planned. It was kind of nice to hear that I wasn't the only one an EA has happen to and know they can be avoided in the future and allot of times marriages can still be saved and that the counselor wanted to see the marriage work. The counselor also stated that it didn't sound like my emotional needs were being met in the marriage and thought that is probably what led to me talking to this other women which I was in agreement with. Afterwards my wife asked how it went and I told her it went pretty well and explained it was mainly just giving background on the situation and her only was question was if we talked about what would happen if this doesn't work out. She was then pretty cold with me the rest of the night and we really didn't talk about much and I went to bed when the kids did.

So this morning I text her that I really do love her and hope we can make things work and I know we can be happy again. About ten minutes later she called me and asked me what I wanted her to say in reply to that because I should know that she doesn't know what she wants. I flat out told her that I didn't expect anything in return and just wanted her to know how I felt. She then asked me to quit sending them to her or telling her that I love her. She also told me to quit leaving her notes around the house as they were creepy and made her sick, because that�s what her ex b/f that was abusive to her used to do when he was begging to get her back. She then said she would really be surprised if we make it through the end of the month because she just can't stand looking at me when I am around and she has no attraction to me at all anymore and that right now the grass is looking allot greener on the other side.

We pretty much ended the conversation there, so I text her to see if she was still open to going to counseling together and her reply was "We can I don't think it will change my mind but I will be open to it� I then asked "So then if you don't think it will change your mind then what is the point? It really seems like you have made up your mind." Probably the wrong the thing to say as I realize counseling is probably the only thing that will save our marriage.

Any tips?

Sure.
Respond to posters who have offered their advice.

Hello ???????

I would like to apologize for not continuing with my post over the last four months but I have been visiting the website almost every day reading other post picking out experts points from other situations and trying to implement them into my own. I am going to try my best to keep my thread active from here on out.

Recap of the last four months � My wife because emotionally attached to another man and was calling this guy every day and talking for hours pretty much all of November and December. We did go to a local counselor who has been great and follows principals very similar to marriage builders which I love. Every time we went to counseling and I brought up this other guy she would blow it off as just a friend, although at home she would tell me that she didn�t know if she wanted to be with this guy or try to work things out with me, as far as I know they never crossed any lines other than creating an emotional attachment, I even called the guy and talked to him about this.

Finally the week before Xmas I told her she had to choose whether it was going to be him or me and if that she wouldn�t quit talking to him I would be moving out after the holidays. She told me that she would quit calling the guy and the call decreased dramatically over the next few months with her only making a few calls.

During the last four months I have been Plan A�ing my [censored] off and I really think she see�s that I have changed. Instead of complaining about the house being a mess when I get home I start picking it up, I have realized that she likes receiving little things here and there so if I am at the store I always try to pick up just a little something for her to show that I was thinking about her. Essentially I have been trying to meet her emotional needs anyway I can because I realize I hadn�t been doing this for the last couple of years and that is what lead me to unknowingly end up in an emotional affair. Through counseling and reading many books I have realized loving someone is a choice that we make every day and every day I wake up I choose to love my wife in the way she should and wants to be loved.

The problem I have run into now is creating a romantic environment and transitioning from roommates back into husband and wife. This has been difficult because I just don�t think she is to that point yet, I believe she still feels like a divorce is inevitable (she told me a couple weeks ago, that she felt like we were just delaying it). She has no desire to meet any of my top emotional needs which makes some days difficult as my love bank gets depleted from time to time. At the same time I do notice the small things that she does now and that makes me love her that much more, but it�s not the way I want to be loved. I guess I long for admiration and touch, both of which I believe will be hard for her to ever show again.

I guess I am not even really sure why I am updating this, I know what I have to do and that is just to keep plan A�ing it, as I was the one that destroyed her world. We did go out together alone for my b-day a couple weeks ago which was the best night I have had in a very long time, but at the same time she never once told me happy birthday or had our kids tell me which really hurt a lot more than I thought it would, even though I knew it would probably happen. I did mention it to her a week later and she apologized and said that this year just wasn�t a good year and that maybe next year would be better.

Also we haven�t been back to our counselor in over a month because she has been busy starting up her workout classes which I have done nothing put support her on. She has stated that we will go back though once things slow down for her which should be within the next couple weeks. I just fear (which is the word I hate the most as it does no good in the world) that a large part of her doesn�t want to or as she tends to say can�t make things better between us and make our marriage better. We are still best friends and still can talk about everyday things no problem but the intimacy just isn�t there (by her choice), we are still sleeping in separate rooms because she says she isn�t ready for me to sleep in the same bed and being physically interment isn�t even on the table at this point, I tried to give her a kiss on the cheek goodnight a month ago and she would have none of it.

Are you asking for help or blogging?

There is plenty you can do to help your situation if you are willing to do it, but so far all your posts have consisted of is painting a picture of your life.

That's all well and good, but you need to take some action. What are you willing to do?

Good quetsion - I quess I am interested in what else there is I can do to keep my marriage on the path of getting better and I am willing to do anything to keep my wife in my life and my family together.

Okey Dokey.


Are you honest when you say you'll "do anything"?

We shall see.
Sincere waywards make the call.
Posturing waywards make an excuse.

I have offered this to my wife and she has stated she didn't want to call Dr. Harley and wouldn't do a phone session but she would rather continue with our local counselor. I will offer this up to her again but I would be shocked if her opionion has changed on it.