I need help. I recently had a flirty relationship with a woman I met at a convention. There was no sex involved and she lives across the country from me. Still, the flirty text messages were clearly a violation of trust. My wife found them and told me our marriage was over. I moved out a week ago because I had no excuse, and am deeply ashamed. I did get my wife, who I love deeply, to not rush into anything. We are now in a cooling off period where we decided to give each other some space. We are not contacting each other and the ball is in her court. After finding this site I discovered I've been making every mistake I could and have driven her love bank severely negative. I'm going crazy, because all I want is for her to agree to save our marriage. I do not blame her for the way she feels, it Was I who violated the trust, and I who have neglected her emotional needs - if only because I am not great at that kind of thing. But I want to be better at it, I want to fix this marriage. I am desperate for her - what can I say to convince her Im serious, that it's worth a try? We've been married 12 years and together 17 - what words will help me keep from just throwing it all away? Help!

Welcome to Marriage Builders.

I commend your BW for taking such an awesome approach for dealing with your betrayl of her.

If you aren't serious about proving to your wife then don't waste her time.

Was this the first time you had a relationship with another woman? Have you had any other affairs?

You need to learn everything you can from the great Dr. Harley. What will convince her are your actions not just words. So get ready to do some work.

Read this and come back and tell us what your wife's top Emotional Needs are.
a Summary of Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts

Also I would write this OW a NC letter and let your BW read it and send it to her.
IS this OW married?
No contact Letters

Taking you at your word that there was no sex, I'll go you one better and call it what it was anyway: An emotional affair. An affair, period. Lots of people deny to themselves that it was an affair unless it went physical; but in reality, the breach of marital intimacy is the same. The sooner you face up to what it really was, the better starting-point you'll have for fixing your marriage. You had an affair. You've gotta own it.

Did she ask you to move out? If you've been reading around here much, you should know that living apart is not recommended, unless the betrayed spouse has asked for the wayward spouse to move out. It's harder to meet your spouse's emotional needs when you're separated. Shy of disrespecting her desire for space, see if you can move back in.

Do you see that to suggest that you neglected her needs only because you're "not great at that kind of thing" is an evasion of responsibility on your part? No one is born "great" at marriage, anymore than Hank Aaron was born great at hitting home runs. You work at it. You practice it. Accept responsibilty for your past choices, and make better choices for the future.

Words may help at the margins, but there are no words that will suffice by themselves. What you need is actions. Buy time by offering to do things for her around the house. Whatever means you used to communicate with this other woman, offer your wife complete transparency: Give her your phone, give her the password, change your phone number so the other woman can't text you, change your e-mail address. Offer to take a polygraph so that your wife can have more assurance that it wasn't physical at the convention. Write a "no contact letter" that your wife proofreads & approves -- those are some things you can do for a start. If the woman works for your company, then look for a new job with a different company. If she lets you stick around, plan to promise that you'll never travel on business without your wife again.

There are no guarantees or magic words. Keep reading. Do a search on this site for "How Should Affairs End?" Report back on your progress in taking the above steps.

Thanks for the replys. In response, I very much see this as my responsibility, and as said, am ashamed of what I did. I do not use "i'm not good at communicating" as an excuse and truthfully realize I have no excuse. That there was nothing sexual does not diminish that I violated the marriage trust. First thing I did was shut off all communication with OW. She has not contacted me since and I will tell my wife if she does. I moved out because my wife wanted space to think this over - but if this is to work at some point we need to begin road back. Ball is in her court, I have no right to expect anything. My wife did ask what would be different, and I wrote her an e-mail (which I regret a little because it might not be giving her the space she wanted - I just didn't want her to think I wasn't going to do anything beyond hoping she comes back). I have already seen a counselor and will continue. I will be honest, no more secrets. I will make our relationship my top priority, as it should have been all along. I joined this forum to seek support and advice to help me learn and stay focused on fixing myself. I began writing a journal of my feelings and what I'm learning about myself and about making relationshipos stronger. I have learned a lot by reading the sections on basic concepts and recovering from things like this. I am encouraged by the stories of recovery in these pages and realize I have a lot of work to do on myself before I can expect her to stand by my side again. I just hope I get the chance because she is the best person I've ever known and I was a fool for taking that for granted. And that was why I asked the original question - How can I convince her I'm serious about changing to strenghten our marriage, making it better than it ever was? Can I win her back? I realize it will be actions, not words. I am committed to taking the actions, but need her permission to try and make it work. Divorce will be a tragedy, and I hope she sees some value in the 17 years we spent together. Thanks for your help.

What does shut off all communication mean?

Did you change your number, email address? Give your BW all your passwords?

Live your life with complete transparency?

What about calling the coaching center and setting up an apt with them?

Did you write the OW a NC letter?

Thanks for questions. It helps.

"Shut off all communications" means OW is under no circumstances to contact me in any way - e-mail, phone, text, nor will I contact her. OW has not tried to contact me, and I haven't tried to contact her. I called and told her this on the phone right after my wife confronted me. This was before I found this site so didn't think to write a NC letter. I don't think I should write a NC letter now because it would be, well, a contact. I do not believe she will contact me, and if she does I will tell my wife and then write the NC letter. Also, didn't think about changing phone numbers and e-mail addresses, but these are no-brainers and I will do that next. Live my life with transparency? That is my pledge, and one I made to my wife. Can I do it? I must. Have not called coaching center, which may have been a good idea. So here's the latest: After I moved out we had some maintenance issues at the house. I've been communicating with my wife to resolve those. We've also made some casual remarks about what each of us are up to, nothing serious, but like a conversation. I did write her an e-mail - which I said I was nervous about - telling my wife what I was going to do to make things different in the future. About an hour after sending that e-mail, which I described in my last post, my wife texted me and asked if I wanted to go to lunch tomorrow. Well, I didn't tell her this, but I wanted to say "that depends" - if you're going to tell me you don't have energy for our relationshipo, then no, I don't think I want to go to lunch. But if it is to begin rebuilding our relationship, even baby steps, then yes, I would love to have lunch. So now I'm beside myself trying to think if my e-mail about how things would be different has pushed her to say, "well, I'm not ready to make things work, so don't waste your time on changes on my account." Of course, I need to make the changes no matter what, but I sure hope she tells me she is open to at least the possibility of rebuilding. I may just contact the coaching center and see what they say about how I should handle the lunch. My wife has been by herself for a week, and over the weekend we did not text or e-mail at all on prior agreement to create space and a cooling off period (well, she did e-mail me her recipe for my breakfast, knowing I would be making it myself - did this mean she cares about me or that she knew she was about to end it and was giving me info I needed?) I know I sound like a blithering idot, but I am on pins and needles and very emotional. Thanks for letting me get my feelings down - really helps.