I just found out my husband has been talking with another woman. I put a VAC in his car and heard him saying he loves her. We have been together 17 years, married 15 and have 6 children. I have dealt with this behavior by him before, he always immediately stops contact with OW (never the same woman)and we deal with it. The last time was about 2 years ago. He was talking to another woman, I found out, he stopped all contact and we worked it out. My mother passed suddenly in Dec. 10 and I got pregnant with twins around the same time. The babies are 9 months old now. We were really very good for the last year and a half until now. I felt he was acting strangely, going into other room to talk and so on so I put the VAC. I found phone records of him talking to her a lot since Febuary. I confronted him. He says it's "NOTHING" and doesn't admit there is someone, then he says that he talked to her and went to a cafe a few times, then goes back and says there is nothing to talk about, he's not doing anything and that noone compares to me and that he loves me. I told him to get out. He isn't telling me anything about it, and is even bringing up things I did before we got married. He is still talking to her even after I told him I know. I don't know what to do. Should I make him move out? I told his family before when it happened and frankly, it's not much help. I don't know how to proceed. How do I make him stop all contact? Should I keep trying to get him to tell me the truth? Should I just kick him out and stop all contact with him? My kids have finals this week so i told him he has until next monday to find a place to go. Should I make him leave before that? How can I get him to be honest? Should I contact OW? All he says is "you already know everything since you're spying on me" and "I forgave you for what you did before we were married"...well I forgave him 5 times for the same thing in the last 5 years, yet he keeps doing it. I'm just so hurt, lost, confused and broken right now.

Brokenmama, I am sorry for the reasons that bring you here. It doesn't sound like your husband is in the least serious about recovery, which is why he does this over and over again.

Do you know who the OW is? Is she married?

I know who she is but I don't know if she is married or not. I only know her name and number.

Google her name. You may find more info about her that way. Try www.intelius.com as well.

Were his other affairs exposed? Who were those women? Are they people he has worked with? Were they married?

BM, I would find out if this OW is married and if so, contact her husband immediately. Even if you have to drive to her house to tell him, he needs to be told. If she is a coworker, I would notify their employer.

Expose the affair to everyone, your children, parents, close friends, everyone.

In the meantime, the only way you will be safe with your husband is if he makes a radical change in his behavior. Otherwise, you are facing a life time of hell. Your H is a serial cheater and it will require extraordinary precautions to prevent another affair.

I would go to him with a list of your conditions. If he won't agree to this, then I agree he should move out. When that happens, you will want to file for divorce or legal separation to protect yourself legally.

Set him down and explain to her that you want to have a SAFE marriage and that you won�t stay in a marriage with a serial cheater unless radical changes are made. Tell him you are willing to give him an opportunity to earn your forgiveness. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. This is what it will take:

1. end all contact with the OW for life, sending a no contact letter that is written together and sent by you

2. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle

3. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, exchange cell phones

4. no more opposite sex friendships

5. complete honesty about his affairs � passing a polygraph

6. commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Tell him "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage." Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on his willingness and ability to make radical changes. His lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. He is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. Unless he makes a 180 degree turn in his approach to what it means to be a husband, your marriage won't recover, and you will be condemned to a life of hell.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if he won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage.

Unless you use this program to create a much better marriage than the one you had before the affair, you are likely looking at repeat affairs. So don't even think you can get away with sweeping the affair under the rug and going back to what you had before. What you had before led to the affair!

How can I get him to write NC if he won't admit anything? All the other girls were women he met at work. I did expose him numerous times and he stops everything but then he finds some new woman and it starts again.

Does he still work with these women?

If your WH will not agree to your conditions he will need to leave. Don't make an empty threat; follow through on this.

You do not 'get him to do' anything. He has been abusing your trust for so many years. He 'gets to' choose: either he cleans up his act or he is out. You are gracefully willing to give him ANOTHER CHANCE (which he clearly does not deserve, because he has already proven he is not committed). One strike and he is out.

You have to make clear to him that you are serious this time. I can tell you exactly what he is thinking: He will try to weasle out of this, until you forget about it and everything will be smooth and he can go on doing whatever he likes while you take care of the kids. You have to do something different this time. By all means give him the list: take it or leave it.

Your marriage has only one chance and that is that he does some serious work here so that you can feel safe again. Of course you do your best to be a perfect example of a good wife the next two weeks, but he should commit to paying you back for his multiple betrayals by volunteering these extraordinary precautions.
Even with 6 children, especially with six children: you do not want them to think it is normal for a man to have girlfriends, do you???

God bless you and your family,

Happyheart

If he won't meet your conditions, then he has to move.

What does he do for a living? Does his employer know he is trolling for chicks there?

You would need to make it one of your conditions that he changes his career so he is not around women. He obviously can't even work with women.

He works at a bank. The other women do not work with him anymore as he transferred to another department. I don't know if his boss knows what he's up to. I just told him that if he doesn't want to try to fix this by becoming completely honest, he needs to be out by next Monday. He didn't say anything. I can't get him to quit his job as I'm a stay at home mom since I was 4 months pregnant with the twins but he will change jobs if he finds another one, that has been on the table without all this other crap. He will keep turning it around on me, saying I lied to him before we were married and that maybe I didn't tell him the whole truth. I did tell him everything and that I've proven myself for the past 16 years. I asked him if I've done anything since then to make him not trust me and he said no, but thinks I'm hiding something. I've decided not to initiate any contact with him while he is here and told him I will not come to him again, when he is ready to talk he can come to me. At this point I think maybe my only option to save my marriage is by kicking him out. I just don't know. I've done this so many times and it's obvious that he think he can continue doing it and I'll just be here and forgive him. I've been in Plan A my whole marriage, it is not working. This isn't a situation where he is madly in love with OW, she is just a person who boosts his ego as she is easily replaced by any other bimbo that comes along. It just kills me that he looks in my eyes and tells me he can't live without me, can't function without me and that i should stop doing this to myself, he would never leave me and blah blah blah. I just have to kick him out.

He is trying to project his behavior on to you to make himself feel better. You're not the one lying and cheating. Ignore that. Don't take it on. You've acknowledged it. When he brings it up again, I'd ignore him. Don't get into the crazy cycle of arguing/defending.

I'm not the one to advise you on Plan A or B.

Is he a sex addict? Sounds like maybe he is? If so, he needs a 12-step program or something, some commitment to action that will help him change his destructive/addictive behavior.

He will have to continue to support you and the kids. Leaving won't change that. Especially with a good separation agreement.

He's bringing this old chestnut up because he has nothing else to say to twist his bad behavior back onto you. The fact is that whatever you did when you were single was done when you were single. Sixteen years ago.Let him know that he is welcome to leave if he cannot come to terms with something that happened sixteen years ago. If this mess with his affair gets worked out and he remains with you, he needs to shut his flap about something that happened sixteen years ago. He's being a bully and it's a lovebuster.
Let him know that you are perfectly willing to take a polygraph to prove your integrity. Tell him you'll schedule it for the same time he takes his. And mean it. This should not be an empty threat, remember. Your WH needs to come clean and I suspect he'll need a poly to truly get religion. I also suspect he's been up to a lot more than he's told you. Yes, you've shown him this. That's why I told you not to make empty threats. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

I wouldn't say he's a sex addict, he's more addicted to having other women find him attractive, say they want him and the like. He does have a very addictive personality and his alcohol abuse was way out of control but he has definitely slowed it since I got pregnant. I am the first to admit that I have not meeting his sexual needs as often as he wants, mostly because he doesn't want it until he comes home really late and he's drunk. I don't want sex that way. He says he has to beg me, I said no, you choose the time that is the most inconvenient, we have 6 kids and twins are a lot of work! I am breastfeeding and so at the beginning they nursed every 1-2 hours around the freakin clock, when I had a chance to sleep, I took it. He moved to another room in the house when I had babies so he could sleep as he works, yet he spends all his time there, he smokes and he doesn't want to smoke around them. I have told him several times that he needs to spend more time with us, but it's like he isn't here even when he is! I can see while typing this that we have many problems, maybe too many. :'(

We live in another country, there are no polygraph tests here. I don't know if he is up to more but I would think that something has to be more because why the hell would you say I love you to someone if nothing more was going on? He will continue to support us, no question about that. I know he brings up the past to shift the blame on me. Yet, we weren't married at the time, we were bf/gf and I was 20, he was 21. We didn't have children and all this. I have been proving myself for this long and it hurts me for him to bring it up everytime I bust him. I am just so afraid of how a separation will affect my children and I must say I don't want to tarnish his reputation, as stupid as that sounds, I don't want people to know my husband is like this. Everyone thinks we are the perfect couple, perfect family, they think he is such a good guy, I don't want them to change their ideas of him, does that make sense or am I an idiot?

That's why he brings it up. Take the bite out of that, BM. Take the power out of that play when he does that. Look at him calmly and say "I'm sorry that you continue to revisit something that happened when we were dating. If you truly feel you cannot come to terms with that we can't continue together. Your continued rehashing of it causes me pain and I no longer wish to live that way."

I don't want to know what you did. You were not married then. You were a single woman. BuI don't think you've been 'proving' yourself for sixteen years, sweetie. You've just been yourelf. He needs to zip his lip about whatever happened and stop using it as a Get Out of Jail Free card.

I am more concerned about his drinking. Would you say he is an alcoholic? How much does he drink? Why is he going out drinking and leaving you with the children? Why are the two of you not going out together?

It sounds like his life is all addictions - alcohol, smoking, other women, work maybe? He lies and tries to make you feel guilty for his garbage.

Kick him out. He needs help. And get a legal separation agreement from the get-go. I never in a million years believed my WH would stop supporting his children. The downward spiral doesn't stop unless they decide to get off. Protect yourself, because if he doesn't get off, one day he will quit supporting you. You have a big family, little children, protect all that - make sure he's legally bound to financially support you, and do it from the get-go when he's most willing to agree to it.

Best of luck, Mama. (I don't really want to call you "broken." I disagree with that, even though I know the feeling.)

Here's a Christian quote that may give you some peace and hope: To all who feel that someone - or something - they love is irreparably broken or irretrievably lost, (I assure you) it is not. Jeffrey R. Holland

Honestly I would say he is an alcoholic. He drink pretty much everyday now, even if it is a shot, he says he is stressed. On the weekends he goes with his friends, this country isn't one for mixed socializing, so he has the group of friends that get together and there are no women allowed, they drink. He comes home drunk every Thursday and Friday. He recently added Wednesday as another night of guys, poker night, where he drinks as well. We did go out together before I got pregnant but since then I can't go out and drink as I have 2 little girls that I cannot leave. If I tell him not to go, he says I'm controlling. When he did drink more, we fought a lot. I told him has a problem. He admitted he does and says he will handle it and if he doesn't, then he'll go to councelling. He said he will cut back but not stop. He cannot blame alcohol for his behavior though, he calls her during the day, on his way home from work and the like, not only when he's been drinking. That is just another part of this whole mess.

I know I have to do something but it seems as it's just too much to deal with. I can't go back home to the States, i won't take my kids away from their father. His mom lives with us and she will support me in my decision to kick him out, although she will not be happy about it. The laws here are in my favor as far as child support and the like. Now I just have to grow the cajones and go through with it. I'm afraid what it will do to my kids. I'm afraid he won't come clean and will try to wiggle his way back in and he is all I've known for the last 17 years, I love him. I hate him and I love him. I want to physically beat his [censored] but I love him. I'm afraid of the embarassment it will cause our family. I'm afraid, period.

Feel the fear, and do it anyway.

I would suggest you DO go home to the States! You have family here who would love and support you through this? Go!

You have not taken your children's father from them. He has. He is not fit to be a parent in his present condition. Get away from him until he turns his life around, go where you will have help, support, and love, and take care of yourself and your children in peace!

God bless.

This sounds to me like a country where drinking is frowned upon, and only allowed in special areas, perhaps for foreigners. Am I right? If so, it's sad that the strict alcohol laws haven't stopped him from becoming an alcoholic.

He is an alcoholic, though, and you will not be able to stop his destructive behaviour or work on your marriage until he is clean. You need to get him out of the house now, and get legal arrangements made for him to support you.

In your shoes, I'd be looking to go back home. I would give him a short period of time to enter a treatment programme, then a year or so to stay dry and prove that he had given up his affairs, and if those things were not happening I would go home to my mother.

You SHOULD take those kids away from their father. He is not father to them while he lives as he does. And once you are separated you will hate being alone in a foreign country, and there is no reason why you should be. Work towards taking those kids back to the USA as it is unlikely that you will see the extreme change that is needed from him.

rainy said it better.