I am married to a wonderful woman, my soul mate. But I am the one who jeopardized our marriage by going outside the walls of our marriage. I would have never thought I was the type of person that could betray my wife, but I did. It was a face book affair, in the beginning I thought it was innocent enough it is not. My first girl friend looked me up, and now I wish I would have run form that. But I didn�t and think if it would have been anyone else I would have seen it coming.

I carried on this emotional affair for almost three months, I did go and see hear and did talk on the phone several times. I keep telling myself that as long as it didn't get physical that it was not an affair, I was wrong and I really knew it was an affair. The reason I had the affair was purely selfish, I guess it was to boost my ego.

I never wanted to hurt my wife and the way I thought about it while in the fog was as long as she didn't know it would not hurt her. I now know it was very hurtful, I also know now how dangerous this affair was I thought I was in control. The fact is if I would have been in control it would have never went on as long as it did or crossed the line of more than just catching up. I went as far as making a fake faceboook account to try and keep it secret and to keep it going.

Since D-day the day she found out about the fake account, I tried everything I could to keep her from finding out everything, that just prolonged the healing process. I had a lot of hard things to do and telling the truth was one and then I called the other woman�s husband and told him about it also. I dread calling him and put it off as much as I could, but it was something I owed my wife. The other hard thing is full disclosure, but that was something I also owed my wife.

We started marriage consoling while I was still lying, but the after the second visit everything came out. It is funny how we can convince ourselves it ok to hide as much as we can for self preservation. We have been working on our marriage since and I continue to try to give my wife her compensation, it is hard for me to admit when I have done something so wrong.

It is bad that it takes something like this for me to realize how lucky I was and still are to have her love in my life. I am very lucky to have a wife that is willing to love me after all I did to our lives, I will never be so stupid ever again and I am trying to convince her of that.

Welcome to MB.

What just compensation have you given your BW?
Please listen to these radio clips.
Radio Clip on Forgiveness From your spouse
Segment #2

Paddy,

Welcome to MB.

Do you have a question?

AM

Thank to all for help, I am still learning about all this. First we was lucky enough to find a good counselor. We went through some of the questionnaires, and they are an eye opener. Sometimes we forget how to treat the ones we love the most, and that is what where we let ourselves get to. Seeing each others emotional needs does help me realize what I needed work on, we both have been trying to meet each others emotional needs. I have agreed to let her know where I am at all times of the day, and I have done that. I took a lie detector test to ensure her that it was never a physical affair, but I also realize that an emotional affair can hurt some worst. I think we have all Dr. Harley�s books and have been working through them.

I have learned the importance of affair proofing marriage, I would have considered myself the kind of person that would never have any kind of affair. The truth si I am the one that betrayed my wife. I feel that I am so lucky to have my wife and we have been both working to make and keep our marriage the best it can be, that does not mean we do not have rough patches. But I think our marriage is as good now as it has ever been.

This is second marriage and my wife's first, and in my first there was very poor boundaries, we both had affairs and I thought we worked through it but I was wrong because she continued to have different affairs with different people. So I went into this marriage with no idea about marriage boundaries, but I now know how important the boundaries are. So we have set marriage boundaries, I know that I have thought some things were innocent enough. There are no innocent things that should be shared with our spouse.

I am sorry for rambling on so much.

Were you still legally married to your first wife when you met your current one?

Your wife has a lot to think about here because you are a serial adulterer. It is much more difficult to recover a marriage with a serial adulterer.

I was legally married to my first, but I tried to get divorced before I met my wife. My ex wife would not sign the divorce papers because she wanted alimony to offset child support she was supposed to pay, ex did not want to go through with until the youngest turned 18 and she put it off several times. My ex ran off with someone and left the kids with me. I did cheat in first marriage (it was a physical affair) and I was not the only one but I did promise never to do it again, and I never did again in 12 years but I was the only one who did not cheat again. I am not saying that I am better than ex because I did cheat also. I kept my promise for me not my ex.

Now that I know how to affair proof my marriage, I will never let anything like this happen again. I told myself as long as my affair was not physical that it was not an affair, I was lying to myself. Now that I have seen how much I hurt my wife, I will never do anything like this again. I am usually smart enough to see something like this coming, but I did not maybe because it was my first real girlfriend the reason does not really matter because there are never any excuses. I am not trying to excuse what I did because I am totally at fault for my actions.