That in an of itself is a can of worms that is again my fault. When all of that started I was about 60lbs overweight and my husband and I werent happy. I wanted to do whatever I could to make him happy and to be frank I didn't want him to leave me for someone else so rather than deal with my own insecurities I decided I could control The situation if I let him sleep with other women and knew about it. Then he would have no reason to stray. Looking back that clearly indicates how little I trusted my husband and how much respect I didn't have for either of us.

I have since lost the weight and had been feeling a lot better about myself. He told me yesterday that I fit every stereotype. Wife loses a bunch of weight and cheats on her husband while he is at work. It happens a lot in the fire dept. I just never thought it would happen to us. I told him I would do whatever it takes to earn his trust and I knew it wouldn't be a matter of days or weeks. He said that he doesn't know what's going to happen, but he doesn't want to give me false hope that this will ever work.

Why would you do such a destructive thing to your marriage? I think when someone's judgement is this impaired that they probably need much more help than we can provide here. Do you have a pastor or other sane person in your life who can help you with your living skills?

Do you understand how messed up this thinking is?

I doubt he will sign up, but I can ask.

If by coaching center you mean counseling? No, but his work offers ten sessions free. He is going to one Monday and said if it is his son we will go. My mother doesn't think he will go.

From what I understand of COBRA your employer only has to offer that if they employ 20 or more people. I work for a small law firm that doesn't employ 20 people.

Yes. I realize now how messed up that thinking is. I can't take back all of the poor choices I made. I am desperate to fix this. I thought I was being a good wife, but on hindsight I probably singlehandedly began destroying our marriage at that point.

Here MB Coaching Center

My husband and I fought a lot. I just wanted to make him happy. I wasn't making him happy so I thought allowing him to sleep with other women would. For the most part it did, he claimed he never wanted to do it, but only did it because I wanted him to. It killed me everytime, but I never told him that and the weeks after he was with the OW he was kind and attentive and we had peace.

I don't think I can afford that, but once we find out that I am carrying his son I will bring it up. Thank you

Yowser.

That is some low self esteem EpicFailure, and for him to capitalize on that was some very selfish behavior, to say the least.

Take ownership for your infidelity, but please understand that whether you gave him a green light or not, your husband has ALSO been unfaithful and has committed adultery, several times. You should not be carrying the burden of saving this on your own. He had a wife with such poor self esteem she told her husband to go sleep with other women to 'make him happy', and he said great, see ya later! So just like you did he also CHOSE to commit adultery, rather than find a way to help create a marriage where you felt more secure.

In the meantime while you are waiting for test results, and after, read everything you can on this site, which is free. Order Dr. Harley's books and read and absorb his concepts.

You have said that you have not seen anything that applies to your situation. ALL of Dr Harley's concepts on infidelity and building a better marriage apply to your situation. Every infidelity has minor differences than the next one, but in general, they are all the same. If you stay on these forums you will see that, over time. And the principles of how to address them, and how to build a better marriage, apply to all.

Also, FYI, under this Infidelity section there is a specific forum for Pregnancy/Child that deals specifically with OC's. But for now, I think you should stay here as I believe this forum gets the most activity.

Thank you, thy helps a little; that is pretty much what my mom said when I fessed the whole whole story to her. She said his mother probably wouldn't be throwing the same pity party for him if she knew the whole truth etc... But that's not relevant because she doesn't know nor will she I am sure.

The truth is he will NEVER see it as having been wrong. In his opinion it was okay and thus I cannot hold it against him. In no way do any of his actions condone what I did. I know this. What I did was wrong and there was no excuse for it. I am just not certain that we can heal fully if we don't get to the root of everything.

My mother (she is the only person I have to talk to about this on a daily basis and has really kept me sane. She has asked me not to tell my sisters until we know the results. You'll probably hear a lot about what my mother thinks in coming posts) seems to think that my H will forever hold this over my head and use it as a way to put me back in the low self esteem place I was before. She thinks that he will use it to control me and keep me miserable. I don't want to believe thats correct, but I have no way of knowing.

If your WH (I will term him wayward husband because just as you are a WW, he is a wayward husband) is not ever able to see how having sex with other women IN FRONT OF his own wife, with or without her consent, is damaging to a marriage and WRONG, then there is no hope for your marriage. But, he is still reeling from the shock that YOU had sex with someone else, so lets not presume to know what he can or cannot learn about marriage down the road.

The first thing that Dr Harley advises when there has been an infidelity, is exposure. A very knowledgeable vet, MelodyLane, has posted to your thread and in her sig line there is a link to the exposure process. I suggest you go read that, and I will bow out of any more exposure talk since this is not something I have firsthand experience with.

I understand that if your son is not his, your H has told you he would leave. That is certainly his choice to make, and one that many people would. But if it is his son, he has told you he wants to stay in your marriage.

Does he want to heal from these infidelities and create a loving, safe marriage? Has he agreed, at least, that having relationships with others outside the marriage is damaging, with or without each other's consent? Would he ever be willing to post here?

I understand as well that if it is not his the marriage is over. I am now thinking it would be better for him of it weren't his son, but i believe it is my husbands child.

I don't think he will ever post here. The fact that he is going to a counselor in and of itself is a feat I never expected to see in my lifetime. He is a very proud man and I have gutted him.

I still can't believe I did this to him. I don't know how he will ever be able to forgive me. I took away everything he had in a matter of seconds. Thinking about those moments, the look on his face, the way he sobbed, it just kills me. What have I done?

The first step you must take is exposure.
You must expose you affair and your husbands affairs.
Is he sleeping with married women? Do they work for the fire dept. ?

These open marriage/ swinger lifestyles never work out.
In your husbands case, he probably had fantasies of having an open marriage forever BUT he wanted to be in control.

The first step is exposure. You need to expose your open marriage lifestyle and affairs to:

Your parents
His parents
Sex partners spouses/ significant others
Married friends and family members of sex partners
Employers
Your family members.

If anyone in your family or friends knew of this open marriage and approved of it they should be considered TOXIC and disowned.

Exposure should be done Without husbands knowledge.

You wrote that there was heavy drinking and he quit last month
Is he an alcoholic? Is he addicted to alcohol?

Are you an alcoholic? Are you addicted to alcohol?

Have either of you been in treatment for addiction?

Are you drinking alcohol while pregnant?

A very proud man would not have allowed his wife to watch him have sex with other women.

I keep coming back to this because although I like to see remorse for what YOU have done, I also don't think you quite understand that what your husband has done is just as despicable.

If YOU can forgive HIM for having adultereous affairs with several people, then why should it not be possible for him to forgive you for having an affair?

thank you unwritten. i have just read this thread, and the first step to recovery is exposure. this means the two of you should sit down with WHs mother and tell her the WHOLE story. your WH needs to admit that he was also wayward, your permission or not! infidelity is infidelity.

i hope that your OC turns out to be COM. it will help a lot w/recovery, if that is the way you two decide to go. i agree that the multiple problems here need professional support. MCs do not know how to do this. their main goal is either facilitating the D, or rehashing a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter (we call this navel-gazing). free or not, your *best* bet with this M is to contact the coaching centre and coach towards marital recovery with the harleys. yes, it's expensive. but not nearly as expensive as a D and raising a child on your own.

as UW said, although you think your sitch is unique, it really isn't. you have the same problem as everyone else: spouses with poor boundaries. this is what needs repair. neither's infidelity can just be swept under the rug (forgive & forget), because you will simply end up in your before-adultery M (on both sides). the resentment will be too much. please consider the coaching centre. those of us who have used it cannot recommend it more highly!

OP, i'm sorry for your pain and why you find yourself here. however, you have landed in the right place to save your M! hang in there. read everything (start with the basic concepts) and keep posting, especially questions.

I read the exposure 101, their contact has ended as of July. She is just a volunteer there and does not actually work with him, they now work at separate stations. I feel like he would think I violated his trust yet again by telling his parents etc... Because I condoned it. I made it okay and now I'd just be being vindictive and somehow trying to justify what I have done.

I am not drinking at all. I haven't since I found out I was pregnant. In my opinion both my husband and I were alcoholics. He decided on his own to quit drinking because he didn't want his son to grow up thinking it was okay.

He kept saying everything was perfect, and honestly after we found out I was pregnant things changed they were going incredibly well, but I knew I couldn't keep lying to him.

I am scared. I don't know what the future holds. I want what's best for my son.