My story�my husband and I have been together for 10 rocky years and married for 3. We met when we were teenagers and I always said �I�m going to marry him someday� � truly love at first sight for me. It was very rapid and I moved in after just 5 months of dating when he got a DUI. Fast forward another 2 years (2003) and I got pregnant with our DS. Throughout our time together, with the exception of the last 3 years, he was a very heavy drinker/alcoholic. I cheated on him twice prior to marriage, once before our DS (2002?) was born and a few months after DS�s birth (2004) with my former roommate and FWB who was married at the time. My BH and I were engaged shortly after. Fast forward another 3 years and my former step father exposed that I cheated on him with POSOM; my BH said that he�d always had his suspicions based on our interactions and how frequently we spoke to each other as well as the fact that POSOM was one of the first people to visit after the birth of our DS. Our engagement was broken off, but we continued to live together and raise our DS as a family. I had NC with the POSOM as part of my agreement with my BH. I exposed to the POSOM�s sister because we were very good friends and I was no longer able to b e her friend. Besides that, only my xSF�s xW, my close friends, one of his friends and my SIL knew/were exposed to. I did what all waywards do � I blamed him, I blamed all of our problems and I didn�t accept full responsibility. I know that we did not receive adequate help so we never started recovery. AO on both our parts and his escalating drinking were very difficult. The winter after he stopped drinking (2008) due to health issues (he had very serious and life threatening staph infection), he surprised me with a wedding on Christmas Eve. During the summer of 2009, our family began to experience some very difficult times with my MIL�s new husband and severed our contact with them. During the peak of those times BH had lots of AO when we would try to talk and I would also in return, I reached out to the POSOM who was newly D�d via phone. I did tell my BH that I wanted out, I wanted a D. From reading here, I know that this was the fantasy talking. My SIL knew the details and advised my BH of such but it was not exposed to anyone else. Since that time, I have had NC with the POSOM other than to tell him that BH knew and that I could not do this anymore. We have never started recovery because we have never started working on marriage. We very recently had a huge AO where I said many, many hateful awful things as my BH did. We both retaliated with we are not sure that we even want to be in this M together. I have so many questions from reading others posts and stories. Whatever you have to say, I can take it. I want my M to work. He is the only person who has ever stood by me, the only person I can honestly say that I�ve ever loved but neither of us can continue living like this any more. I�m so lost and I don�t know if we can even begin to repair the damage I�ve done.

Paragraphs would be welcome.

bmxmama,

Welcome to Marriage Builders, I'm sorry you are here. You have come to the best place to rebuild your marriage.

The Vets will be here soon. Listen to their advice, they are here to give you the steps you needs to rebuild your marriage.

Here is what they will want to know....

Ages, how long married ( together ), kids and ages, # of PA and EA's....

Keep posting.

Are you BOTH willing to do the work? Then, of course there is hope.

Get the MB home study course and work it.

**** LINK ****

Hi BMX,
I, too, am a WW. There will be many veterans on here that will whip you into shape and tell you what to do. First off, you have to read Dr. Harley's SA book.
What concerns me is that you contradicted yourself. You first said "we are not sure that we even want ot be in this M together" then you said "I want my M to work". You have to be comitted to the MB principles or it won't work.
Is your husband still drinking? I don't see how you can ever work on your marriage if he's still an addict.
Keep posting and help will come!
CT

PB - Thank you for the feedback, I will make sure I use paragraphs going forward. In response to the other question..I don't know. I did find this site a long time ago and he was not interested in any of it; this was also during the time when he was still drinking though. He may be more open to it now.

TTS - Thank you. I see all of the wonderful and very wise advise given here. I so wish we would've done this years ago

C/T - we were in the throes of a horrible A/O and no, I did not mean that I don't want to be married to him. On the contrary, I do very, very much and want to have a good relationship with him. He is no longer drinking - has been in recovery for just over 3 years.

I will update my signature so that it's clear but here's the quick rundown:

Me: WW 33
Him: BH 34
Married: 3 years 12/24 together 10 years
DS: 7
PA1: 2/2002
PA2: 5/2004
DDay1: 7/2007
NC: 7/2007
EA: 7/2009-8/2009
DDay2: 8/2009
NC: 8/2009

Hi bmxmama, welcome to Marriage Builders. I would get the book Surviving an Affair and follow the program in there. If your husband is an alcoholic, he needs to address and arrest his drinking problem first.

I would also change your history and remove any "affairs" before you were married. Those are not affairs. Just list the ones that ocurred when you were married.

Thanks.

Oh, I see he has stopped drinking. Therefore I would get SAA and follow the program outlined in it.

Thank you ML. I removed the premarital affairs. I will be looking to get SAA on Amazon this evening.

Melody,

I would also change your history and remove any "affairs" before you were married. Those are not affairs. Just list the ones that ocurred when you were married.

Then what are they? They are clearly relevant to the current state of the marriage.

In my case while my W's affair with OM2 started before we were married and continued into our marriage the before part is still relevant. From a standpoint of pain there is no difference.

God Bless
Gamma

I agree it is relevant to the marriage as far as the dishonesty, but it is not an affair. They weren't married and technically she was a free agent. Listing things she did outside of the marriage muddies the waters. What is relevant is her history of affairs, not what she did pr-marriage.

In other words, dating history is not what we need in her "marriage" history.

bmx,

I get the impression that you have very poor boundaries around other men. I get the vibe that you think it is ok to have male friends and occasionally engage in "harmless" flirting.

Is this correct?

That would be a big place to make some changes.

BMX,

Where did you go?

No Post = No Advice