Hi I found out on Sunday that my husband was cheating on me. I am hurting right now. He is not have an affair at work or long term relationship. he went on Craigslist and responded to random women. He said he slept five times with three different women. One of them he met at Atlanta airport and slept with while traveling for work.He travels quite frequently. He is guilty and ashamed of what he did. I have done the yelling, the crying and now grieving and in constant pain. Having hard time keeping myself together. Cant focus on work. We have been married for 15 years and we have a nine year old son together. Our relationship was very strong for 12 years or so. When my son turned 7 and we recently relocated to another state, I asked my husband if we should have another child because my son was feeling lonely. Hubby refused. There is a lot that went wrong in the past couple of years, in short i made some typical mistakes of constantly making him feel like he is a failure, nothing is enough, complained all the time, even suspected him of having an affair at work, lot of fights took place. I was home sick, he was busy climbing corporate ladder, he refused to give family time, was bored of routine, also be noted, we married very young when we were 18 and 19 years of age. My needs were not met, his needs in sense of his worth were not met. Sex was never an issue but I used to make all the effort like initiating. He became emotionally distant and resentful. I started chatting online with bunch of people. I added one guy to msn from far off place. He was much younger then me. I guess i am guilty of emotional cheating. The guy was decent and never talked rubbish. We were more like friends. I would vent out whatever I was going through. He helped me understand lot of my flaws and mistakes i was making in my relationship with my hubby. I was getting better at handling things, I even told my hubby about my talking to the guy. He did not react in anyway, just gave me you are an adult and I don't stop anyone lecture.I was hurt by that. I thought he would be possessive and would want me to stop talking to the guy. I decided on my own to work on my marriage and stop the chat. I come from a background and culture where talking to guys outside of marriage is considered not a very appropriate act.Just in time when I decided to stop talking to the guy which is like few weeks back and stopped, I found out that my husband was sleeping with random whores since he said he paid them, they needed help. We have been talking about it since I found out and want to move forward, The thing is I still have feelings for my husband, I love him very much, he says he cares for me and worries for me since I tried to kill myself when I found out.He says he has lot of resentment so it will take him time to find the love back in our lives and also that I will never see him the same way ever again so he is worried about that. In his perspective, the great relationship is over, it will be mediocre even if we move on. I am willing to forgive and work on our marriage. He is ready too, he did not bail out of marriage, he feels sorry for me also note he did suspect that if I was sleeping around with guys too since i was chatting for 9 months. He had doubts.How come i would be sleep with a guy who is thousand of miles away? it did not make any sense to me. Now I am afraid that what if he would never find that love again in his heart for me? Where should I start? what should I do? I am a mess right now

Welcome to MB, although sorry that you are here! I would suggest you start reading about plan A and Plan B, order surviving an affair book.

Also, don't be so quick to forgive your WH, he should earn this through his actions.

I hate to say this, but it is unlikely that your WH just started this behavior, it has been going on for quite some time. Remember, waywards always lie. I can't recall seeing a wayward on here that gave all the truth the first time.

Lastly, I would advise you expose to both sides of your family and friends that would assist you in saving your marriage.

ba

Hello universe,

Sorry for your pain. I know what you are going through. I just found out about my husband's online affairs on Monday and I never thought it would hurt so much. It truly does make one a complete mess.

First of all, like beginagain said, you should get the book, "surviving an affair" and I would also suggest "His Needs Her Needs," if you haven't read it already. While you are waiting for them to arrive you can find the basic information that the books contain on the marriage builders website. There is a section called "surviving an affair," here is a link to it:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8001_affair.html

It gives great basics and will give you hope for recovery and out of this mess.

I hope this helps. Please write back with more questions, everyone here has been so helpful to me during my difficult time and I'm sure you will have a similar experience.

thnx Beginagain and Hoping for your support and help. Hoping i am so sorry to hear about your WH. It truly sucks to be in this situation. And the worst thing is that I blame myself so much for my husbands actions. If I would have done things differently, he would not have taken these steps. I am crying and my heart is bleeding. I have spoken to my sister and brother and a close mutual friend about his cheating. They are being supportive and helping me get through this painful time.Should i get professional help through marriage builder coaching? Right now my husband says he is remorseful and he has stopped all of his activities.

he is flying out to NY this weekend for business trip and coming back next week. How would I know what exactly is going on if he is going to see someone over the weekend..How should I communicate with him regarding this concern?

looked at some articles on this website. They are helpful and also getting some professional help by making an appointment with the counselor.What is the Plan B ? can anyone forward me the link. I have been trying the Plan A and it is helping understand his point of view and how unhappy he was in the marriage for the past four years. We were both not meeting each others needs. I have started reading the book his needs her needs. what else can I do plz respond!!

universe, the biggest issue in your marriage right now are his affairs. If that is not addressed and corrected, you won't have a marriage to save. I would put aside the book, His Needs, Her Needs, and get Surviving an Affair. That is where ALL your focus should be until he cleans up his life and stops having affairs. All the need meeting in the world will not compensate for his affairs.

It sounds to me like you are focusing on the WRONG thing. Please focus on the right thing if you want to turn this around.

One of the best tools you will have in recovery is to EXPOSE his affair. Please read Melody's link (above) on exposure 101 thoroughly and come back to ask questions before you do it.

This is very important. I am currently preparing to expose my WH's affairs and believe me, it is not easy. HOwever, the folks on here have explained the importance -- how it will bring accountability to WH, bring you and your marriage support, and overall be the biggest force in getting him to stop the affair, which is imperative to recovery.

HI universe,

My specialty is Plan B and you are not ready just yet.

A proper plan A includes exposure and standing up to his As. You do not allow him to travel and you do not accept blame for his As.

You badly need exposure. Read the link in Melody Lane's signature about how to do it right.

You need everyone to help you in urging him to stop his hurtful behaviour, such as abandoning you for the weekend with no idea of what he is up to.

You look good in Plan A yes, you meet needs, yes. But it is not plan nice or plan doormat.

It is carrot and stick. You attract him with the carrot and you kill the A with the stick of exposure.

melody yes the affairs are hurtful but I also hurt him by cheating on him emotionally talking to a guy online, yes i am guilty of emotional cheating but my husband suspected that probably i was sleeping with some guys too from online and he says that led him to the path of self destruction as he words it.

right now i have made appointments with the doctors to check for stds and HIV etc since he was sleeping with women who take money.

I have told my brother sister and one of our mutual family member about his cheating. NOT the parents yet. His mother hates me, we married very young and I was not his parents choice. WE always had problem with his side of the family. MY parents are sick and they wont be able to bear the pain although i could expose him to them. That leaves his uncles whom he is close to and his aunts. My siblings know his siblings are two younger sisters.

Now I don't have any evidence he destroyed everything almost immediately. He is really fast being IT guy he cleaned his laptop/ phones of all the evidence even he cleaned one of the email I sent to myself from his phone since he knew my password.

I am reading surviving the affair. He is in NY for business until Friday. He says that we should make appointment with the counsel and he is willing to work on our marriage. he is in depression, slept all day yesterday. called me right now once he got to the hotel in NY. how often he should call me and what should we talk about? I don't even feel like talking to him at the moment.

Its all your fault in other words. Yes your EA was wrong but it is highly abusive to have a RA to hurt a remorseful spouse and somehow blame it on the initial betrayal. How does that work? Did he think banging a skank would make it better? Very weak story.



You NEED.exposure. This is not exposure. This is ineffective and will not work. Your parents are sick, not incapable - don't patronoise them. His mother still needs to know. You don't have to engage with her. Exposure puts pressure on the A. Read Melodys link and do it right.

The people you have told - are they prepared to pressure WH when you do a full exposure?

As for evidence - you saw everything and have his confession! That's enough. People know wives don't lie about being cheated on.

If you want a counsellor, have Steve H speak to him. A regular MC is a waste of time.

If he calls up tell him you feel sad he left you this weekend and that you'd rather not talk until he gets back.

Universe, You aren't far out from DDay, and we all understand the pain you are experiencing.

You need to expose.

Your EA is something that you will need to address, and you can do that, after you expose his affairs.

His affairs are NOT your fault. He could have chosen to divorce you after he found out about your EA. He chose differently.

As ML said, you need to get the affairs taken care of before you can even start to rebuild your marriage. One thing that is going to need to change is no overnights without the other person. The conditions which made the affairs possible needs to be changed.

I know it can be overwhelming, but you need to strike now, while the iron is hot.

Is your WH showing any remorse for his affairs, or his he saying that it is your fault?

its definitely not my fault. I did speak to Steve and he is wonderful and will talk to my husband too. I am reading a lot about infidelity and sticking with plan A. I did tell one of his relative on his side of the family. Now our marriage was not a normal one. There was a lot of opposition from both sides of the family. I fought for him and his family never really accepted me. Even the relative i spoke too was saying that just ride it and stay calm and if he is saying that he is sorry then that's the end of it.There is no sympathy nor his family will put any pressure on him. They say if he did not listen to his parents/sisters etc at that time when he married you. He wont listen to us even now! no point telling his parents! in fact they will create more mess.

its over whelming! The mind is still numb with shock! I am still hurting and he is not in town.

Scotland he is showing remorse and taking responsibility for his action. he is saying he is depressed. what he is not doing is still being not fully honest with me. I asked him for all his passwords and IM passwords etc. He resisted it by saying that I have a problem with sharing because of the identity issues. dunno what kind of crap is that! we used to share everything!I told him that if we are going to move forward and work on our marriage we need to be transparent to each other. I have provided him with all my passwords/ chat logs everything. He finally did give me one of his real accounts password he has many accounts like on google, yahoo, meebo etc God knows what other accounts! The account password and yahoo Msger he gave me is all clean there were so many contacts in his IM it shows only two persons and this account is with him since he was 18. I am really not in a right frame of mind! I am exhausted.

its been two week since I found out about his cheating on me. I am very much depressed. How do I get out of depression?

So far we both agreed that we want to rebuild the marriage. Both of us spoke to Steve Hurley. Steve has given us hope for rebuilding happy marriage. Hubby is coming back from New York tonight from his business trip. I feel like crap! where do I start? I am reading the articles on infidelity. Mostly I am crying uncontrollably. I have lost weight, my health is definitely affected. How do I get back on track? Family is supportive but they are far not in the same state.

I cant seem to get rid of the images and the mind is playing all kinds of tricks on me. It makes the pain worst. Help plz

You're in Plan A correct?

Look marvelous and Plan A like a rockstar. Be the wife he fell in love with. I know it's hard but try and not cry when he's home.

How long will he be home?

What have you done to eliminate the nights apart?
Can you get into your doctor to get some AD?

You've exposed these affairs far and wide?

Three of the best things you can do for yourself right now:

1. Sleep (even if you have to take an Excedrin PM or something else)

2. Eat healthy as possible (it's hard but essential)

3. Exercise.

Time will help as you focus on rebuilding. I remember the 1st two weels. I literally thought I was dying.

Thnx celticvoyager, I have been exercising and eating healthy although i do have trouble falling asleep I am trying to keep peace at home and trying my best to act on plan A. keeping the home environment peaceful and welcoming.Today was not that great! i started the pre judgement again.It almost seems like I want guarantees that any such thing wont take place and that he will love me etc. He cares for me, is dong his best to stay positive and basically doing what Steve has told him to do.

He does not want to revisit the past. I kind of bring that up since I am still curious why did he do that to me! my self esteem has been affected greatly. He becomes extremely defensive when he feels the negative tone in my voice. I think i am having hard time communicating in a peaceful and non judgmental manner.
I don't know if it happens to anyone else but with me I have always been wanting things get back to normal as soon as possible which is not going to happen in this case. The self healing, trust and rebuilding will take time. Did any of you got back to those feelings of love and mutual respect again once started rebuilding?

Marriage Builders is plan. The plan is step-by-step.

For recovery of marriage:

1.) NC letter to AP
2.) Complete transparency: shared email passwords, bank and credit card passwords, etc.
3.) Integrated healthy lifestyle: no nights apart, no going out without each other
4.) Building a romantic passionate marriage, using MB principles

The WH must return to the marriage showing remorse for his hurtful actions. Mine literally came to his knees asking for the chance to prove himself a better husband.

It takes about 2 - 5 years to recover from infidelity. The first year was terrible for me, even with a H fully onboard and remorseful.

Personally, I wouldn't have considered staying with my FWH if he not agreed to all four of the above.

And please, I know it's common for adultery to affect the BS's self-esteem, but it's not correct. Most people affair down, not upward. The whole self-esteem thing hit me for maybe a day, but when I came to my senses, I knew I was a good and decent, reasonably attractive, reasonably intelligent woman who took pleasure in being a good partner/wife to my H. If my H had left me for that OW, it would have been to his loss. And the same goes for your H.

Keep up the good work exercising and eating right. Eventually, your healthy sleep habits will return. I started sleeping better a couple of months post D-Day.

You cannot skip steps along the way. It takes awhile to get to good feelings and a healthy marriage.

MB will give you the tools to do that.

But if you are focused on feeling good right now, or even very soon from now- it's more like a bandaid over a bullet wound. You need to get an action plan, and make choices that will lead to a new and healthy marriage.

We are at two years post DDay. We have far more good days than bad days- but it took time and hard work to get here, and there is no fast forward button.

OK the UPDATE!! he told me that he deleted his yahoo account (the fake one he was using for chatting with women and calling for sex) I signed into that account last week and changed the password.(that was pure luck I knew his answers to his secret questions) (apparently he did not delete the account.

This morning I went to drop off my son to school and he has signed into the account. I do not know why!! for half an hour or so he was signing on and off.

I NEED HELP!! I need a website recommendation where I can find some key logging spyware for his phone (he uses nexus galaxy, iPhone and blackberry) since he mostly use phone and work PC. I will install something on home PC too that he uses! Also I need recommendation for something to put in his car to record the live conversation if he is going out with someone in office time. is it called VAR??

He has not given me any of his fake ID accounts, he has many and also has profiles on city sex, match.com etc never showed me anything just said he has deleted it all!!what do I do now very disappointed.. I can not talk to him anymore or else he will go deeper and deeper into hiding. I need proofs now before I talk to him. Plz Reply!!!