I am a 39 yr old FWW. My H(37)and I have been married for 15 years. We have 3 DD 15, 12, 7. I have had 3 affairs since we have been married. Two emotional lasting approximately 3 months a piece and one physical which was basically a one night stand with a co-worker. My H knew of the 1st emotional affair but he did not find out about the other two until a month ago.
On November 28th, 2011 I found out my husband has been having an affair with one of my best friends for 5 years. I found out about the affair from the OW's husband because he had caught them together. When i confronted my H he confessed that he had in fact been having an affair with her. Within the next few days by talking to my H and the OW's H I pretty much had all the facts. Actually way more facts than I ever wanted to know. I found out that my H had not only had a PA with her but an EA as well.Which I would think within 5 years it would become emotional.
From the begining my husband has taken full responsibility for his affair. He does not want out of our marriage and believe me I gave him an out. He has done nothing but appologize every minuite of every day and tells me all the time that it was a huge mistake and if he could take it all back he would. At this point I feel stupid for saying this but I do believe him. One of my problems is that I never thought he would do this, I did not think he was that type of person. I especially did not expect this to happen with my best friend. I never in a million years thought she would do this at all let alone do this to me.
This was the one friend in my life who knew everything about me. Anytime I had a problem or she had a problem we went to each other. Our familys have been close for 12 years. We have been neighbors, went on vacations together, our children have grown up together. You name it we were there for each other. In 2009 my husband went down south towork for a little over a year. During that time my bf and I started to drift apart. I was wrapped up in raising three kids alone and taking care of myself and my H from a distance. But I still considered her one of my BF.
WHen i found out about the affair I was like I said and still am in shock. When I think about what they did and what im sure they said to each other it just makes me sick. I feel better when my H is around me but i am always on the verge of breaking down. But when I think about what she did to me I have such anger! I have never in my life been this angry at anyone and to be honest it scares me.
I cannot at this point figure out how to deal with both sides of this. How do you deal with not only the emotional blow on my H part but just the raw anger at my former best friend.
Also do I have a right to even be mad when I have cheated in the past?
I am sorry if this a jumbled mess but it just came pouring out when i was typing and lately i am having a hard time with everything including even getting out of bed.
I have been reading off and on all the blogs and all of Dr Harley's concepts and I really do want my marriage to work more than anything. It just seems so hard trying to deal with both sides of the equation. Any help will be Greatly appreciated.

The conditions in your marriage should have been changed to make affairs impossible, when the marraige was being recovered from your infidelities.

did you recover the MB way? Is your h prepared to recover the MB way?

Lets start with exposure and NC.

1) Expose the truth to all the people who have influence over WH and OW - family, friends, parents etc. Ask them to help support the recovery of your marriage.

2) Is he willing to have NC with OW for life. Will he write her an NC letter ending all contact?

Oh and break up your text into paragraphs hon for easy reading

And you're going to have to expose your affairs to your family, friends, etc, and to the family of your previous APs (emotional and physical) as well. Their BWs deserve to know what their WHs did to dishonor their own marriages.

You need to expose/tell your parents and siblings, WH parents and siblings about all your and WH affairs and ask for support for you and WH to recover your marriage.

You need to expose OW parents and siblings.

Then you and your WH need to send NC letters to all of your affair partners. Along with exposing their spouses/boy/girl friend.

You must understand that NC is not just for the adults but the children as well. They must be exposed so they will know why they are to be NC with the other family and it's not their fault.

With them being neighbors recovery will not happen. Your house needs to be sold and you need to move far away. This will make NC easier. No meeting by accident. Kids different schools, sports, etc makes for NC.

As to being mad at your WH for being in an affair while you were a WW is normal. Many a WS had no intentions of leaving they were just after extra fun. But had know intentions of ever willing share their spouse.

Ok I knew I had forgotten alot of info when I originally posted but I had not realized how much.

The conditions or boundaries as I call them in our marriage up until I found out about his affair were simple: we had none.
We now have boundaries that we have put in place.

As for recovering the MB way at this point that is what we are trying to do. I have exposed my affairs and my H affair to everyone I want to expose it to including my closest friends and certain family members. My WH has also exposed his affair to certain people as well.

As far as the OW I am leaving that up to her Husband as to how he wants to handle it.

As far as NC I do know the last time they communicated was a couple days after they were caught for 2 days they txted each other. Which was a week before I found out. Once I found out I blocked her number from calling/ texting any of our phones. I now have access to his email accounts and and have thoroughly went through his computer. He also deleted his FB as did the OW.

I am not sure at this point if its even necessary for him to send her a NC letter when they have both said they never want to see each other again?

As far as the three affairs I had, all 3 were with former co-workers. I no longer have any contact with any of them as I quit working there 3 years ago.

In regards to the neighbor comment I should have clarified things better. We are former neighbors of theirs. We live an hour away from them at this point which does help. Believe me I would have had the house up for sale that day if we were still neighbors.

In regards to our children, their daughter is the same age as my oldest child. They have been friends for years and I do not feel right about cutting off ties between them. As far as I am concerned they do not deserve to be punished for their parents selfishness.

I do hope I cleared up a few questions. And thank you so much for everyones help. I so need it at this point.

Yes, he stills needs to write the NC letter.

Have you spoken to him about the affair yourself? You're dodging. Stop it. You and your H have destroyed many things in your lives. Part of your destructive acts has ruined your child's friendship.

Your post reeks of entitlement. It reeks of a desire to avoid taking responsibility for your actions. You need to change this attitude if you want to repair this mess.

I have spoken to the OW husband on several occasions in txt messages only. At the begining we were pretty much swapping stories to make sure we were getting all the info we needed and that each other was doing ok. At this point we have not been talking much other than giving each support. I am not sure we will stay in touch much longer since it just seems to drag out trying to heal our own relationships with our WS.

With my daughter and theirs the only contact they will have is their cell phones. They txt or call each other but it has not been often. I told my daughter she could remain friends with her because it seems to help both of them at this point.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by dodging in regards to the girls contact.

I also do not understand what you mean by "your post reeks of entitlement"?

I have taken full resposibility for what I have done wrong in my marriage. If you are speaking of the fact that I havent contacted the three coworkers I had affairs with, I have no way to get ahold of them. I am not sure where they work or where they are at this point.

If this wasnt what you were talking about could you please explain it to me?

Your DD's friendship has already been ruined.

For you, knowing there is still contact between the households, and that OW may be getting 3rd-hand info about your home and M will seriously impede, if not stall your own recovery.

For WH, knowing there is still contact between the households will keep him in a constant state of being triggered. A resumption of the A is more likely, and he will not heal or de-fog as he should.

When a previously strong marriage has a single affair to deal with, extreme precautions are a must. When the leftover shards of a marriage have been assailed again and again by adultery, the bar for both parties must be set even higher than for a "regular" affair.

You can heal from this, however it will take time and lots of work/extra precautions above and beyond the norm.

Being willing to have your whole family in NC is a start.

Were your own affairs ever exposed?

I wonder if your husband's affair came partly from the pain of your own. That pain you feel? You brought that down on your husband 3 times.

I come from the same situation. We were both unfaithful in our marriage. The only way to avoid blameshifting is to focus on your side of the street - make it right and keep it clean.

The first step is reveal your past affairs to people close to you, this is the first step to affair-proof your future marriage:

Do your kids know about your affairs?
Do OMWs know that you had affairs with their husbands?
Do your parents/friends know about your affairs?

You need to tell about your affairs and your H needs to do the same about his affair.

The next thing is to establish no contact for life with your affair partners by sending off the NC letter to them.

You also need to learn about MB and its BASIC CONCEPTS, and this:

How to survive infidelity - watch the video, too.

Welcome to MB

You are avoiding what has to be done.

NC letters

NC for the whole families. A call to OWH to check to verify where OW is because you need to verify she is not any where near WH is the only exception.

Avoiding you cleaning up your side of your street by not sending exposure letters to your victims/OMW's.

As to neighbor clear up, an hour apart has proven to still be 6" to close for the OW and WH. 30 minutes by each and it is hook up time.

You need to move not hours but days apart to ensure NC.

The affair ruined your childs friendship. It is entitled of you both to pretend it has not.

Contact between the households will damage recovery. Dr H makes a point of saying that the childrens friendships cannot be salvaged.

Your H is dodging the guilt of that truth. Or you are helping him

They cannot be friends any more and he must apologise to your child for that and take it on the chin.

It is terrible that BSs and particularly children have to pay costs but you cant unspill milk.

I woul also make a concerted effort to track and contact your OMWs and apologise to them for the hurt you inflicted in your As

A NC letter is essential. This is not just for your sake. It is also for the sake of your husband. NC letters make ending the relationship real. He MUST do this after a 5 year affair. Mine was 3. The NC letter I sent to the POSOM (even though at the time I didn't want to write it) was the best thing I could have done.

Your daughter should also write a letter to her friend ending the friendship. There is no way they can continue to be friends. This will allow the affair to start up again someday. I had to end my friendship with POSOM's sister and she was one of my best friends. It killed me but I had no choice.

Good luck.......

I understand what you mean by NC with the whole family. I blocked all their phone numbers from our phones and I am going to talk to my daughter tonight about not contacting their daughter and why it is necessary. I guess I just did not feel right about them losing each other as friends. But I do understand why it is necessary now.

myd: The only affair my husband knew about when he started his affair was the one EA which had happened 4 years prior. I did however confess to the other 2 affairs when I found out about his. I told him if we are going to try to rebuild our relationship we had to deal with what I had done also.

I do however think you are right about the pain from my A having a small part in his A.

With my affairs only 1 man was married and I did at the time talk to his wife and appologized for all the pain that I had caused her. I also told her and her H that I would never contact him again.

The second man had gotten married after our EA his wife had not been in the picture during that time. The reason I did not send a NC letter to him is it has been 11 years and we have not talked since then. I do not see how sending him a letter at this point will help anyone.

The third man I will be sending a NC letter to ASAP. He was also single at the time of our PA.

At this point we have exposed our A's to our closest friends and family, including our DD's. I am not the type to expose my WH and not expose myself also.