My husband and I have been married for 2 years. Before getting married we lived together for 3 years and also ran a business together. Our relationship has always been plagued with arguments and I developed an urn controllable anger that would often result in aggression and violence.

I found out I was pregnant in march this year and now have a beautiful baby boy. When I was 5 months pregnant my husband told me we were separating. This came after an argument we had, he says it was the straw that broke the camels back.

During this period of separation I urged my husband to join me in counselling. He made it to two sessions. The first he missed half of and the second he attended to tell me he wanted a divorce.

I spent 2 weeks in Away with family as I wanted to avoid depression due to my pregnancy. On my return home my husband ( who was still living in our home) was very amicable. He said we should work on our friendship not a romantic relationship.
Things were going quite well and then a week later I woke up to an email from a stranger informing me of my husbands affair.

My husband had been seeing someone who lived abroad for 10 months. In fact a male friend of this woman had been living with us for 6 months prior to our separation, it was through him that he met her but my husband claims this man knew nothing of the affair.

I spoke with both my husband and the woman to get the truth of the affair. I then proceeded to work on our marriage. I was open and kind an understanding. I wanted to understand why the affair happened. My husband informed me that he had cheated on me several times during our relationship and always when he travelled abroad for work. He told me he felt he needed to be polygamous and practice an open marriage.

I played with the idea for a few days, but knew it was not for me and not what I believed marriage should be. He agreed that monogamy was best but was very honest about his struggle to be faithful, which he said had nothing to do with me or our relationship.

During the weeks that followed we got on well for the most part. My husband behaved quite erratic and would always need to be out of the house. When our son arrived we lived in a moment of bliss for a few weeks. But I still had questions about his affair, I was still reminded of it daily and was still hurt and angry. I wondered why I was staying with this man who beyond giving me the truth wasn't being very loving or kind.

When I told him I felt we should get divorced he made it clear he wanted us to be together, he had even given me an eternity ring on our anniversary. I stayed but the affair still plagued me and he shut down any conversation about it and would become cold and distant. This lead to us bickering and a few times he mentioned divorce and not wanting to be with me. When this happened I would become scared that my family was breaking apart and I would try not to mention the affair.

This developed resentment in me which inevitably resulted in another argument. Prior to this argument ny husband was being wonderful. He worked from home so my son and I got a lot of time with him, we went on movie dares and for lunches. The argument we had was all to do with me feeling trapped by not being able to go through what I felt was a natural process when getting over an affair. My husband took off his wedding rng and packed some bags, he left our home saying its over.

We met a few days later, he said he no longer wanted a romantic relationship with me an I should respect his wishes.

I pleaded with him to try counselling, establish rules etc. but he will not budge. A friend of his told us about his own struggles and hoe his needs her needs, love busters and counselling saved his marriage. But my husband still wants the separation. He says counselling is something he may consider later down the line.

I don't want to give up on my marriage, I don't wan to raise my child in a broken home, but with my husband being unwilling to work n things, do I have a choice?

Welcome to MB and I'm so sorry for you continued pain.

I would ask the MODS to move this to the SAA forum.

Have you read what Dr. Harley says is needed for recovery from an affair? You definitely should have all your questions answered about the affair.

Have you exposed his affairs? Is this OW married? Have you spoken to a lawyer to protect you?

He is probably still involved with this OW or has a new OW. What spying techniques have you done?

Where is he living now?
Please read this.
Thread to Help Newly Betrayed Spouses

Your husband says he "needs to be polygamous and practice an open marriage?"

I would throw his bags on the curb and tell him to find another wife

And expose his behavior to everyone. Then see how proud he still is of his views on polygamy

I agree. While many waywards hide affairs, try to blame it on the BS not meeting their needs, etc. YOUR WH is simply saying he does not want a monogamous marriage and does not intend to hold himself accountable to having one. You deserve better, and so does your son.

Hi,

My Husband and I were headed for a separation, during that time I tried to convince him to do counselling before giving up. A friend of ours pointed us in the direction of Marriage Builders and since coming to the site, reading the books and listening to the radio show, I've come to admire the practical approach to fixing marital problems.

With that admiration, I wanted to put what I was learning into practice. Moving past my husbands affair has been a difficult process, but I showed him love, and respect (with a few lapses here and there). This seemed only to make him more arrogant and callous. When he then refused to do counselling, I let him know I will be moving out or he will be moving out and that I needed to stop all direct communication between us, for my own emotional and mental well being.

He then said he would do counselling, and although he wants to work on our marriage, he doesn't believe we can fix our problems. He struggles with fidelity, and I struggle with anger management. We have definitely overdrawn on one another's love banks, and we have abused our relationship with far too many love busters.

Now that he has agreed, I'm not sure what to do next.

He is not living at home, because he feels we'll inevitably argue if around one another for too long. Is it okay for him not to be at home?

We live in London and I have tried to find a counsellor who is familiar with Dr. Harley's approach. So far I have been unsuccessful.

I have sent him the Emotional Needs questionnaire

I have purchased the His Needs Her Needs audio book for him to listen to. Would we benefit from browsing through Basic Concepts together, or is this okay to do individually?

Advice is needed and welcomed


Me: 27/BS trying to survive an affair and yrs of love busting

Hoping - you need to copy and paste this post into your existing thread in SurvivnganAffair. If you don't know how to find that thread, click on your own name and "find posts" and that post will appear. Open it and paste this one there.

People need to know your background - which you gave in the other post - before they can give relevant advice. I have to say that your H's stated desire for a polygamous marriage and his reluctance to work with you scream "continuing affairs" to me. He does not want to be married because he does not want to be monogamous, and I don't think you should be trying to recover with him.

Since you do want to try, though, for the sake of your son, you should contact the Marriage Builders Coaching Centre (click the link) and book an appointment with either Dr Harley's son Steven Harley, or his daughter Dr Jennifer Harley Chalmers. All the coaching at MB is done by telephone so it won't matter that you live in London (so do I, BTW - hi!). You need to get proper MB coaching from the experts who know how to use Dr Harley's methods and not from a "counsellor" who is trained to teach you to communicate, or who looks into your childhood and tries to resolve unresolvable problems from there, as most counsellors do. I saw a counsellor attached to my GPs surgery a few times during my H's long affair, and she had no idea how to stop the affair or advice for how I should remove myself from the harm it was causing, but wanted to talk about my father's affairs against my mother (both dead by then). I always left her office more upset than when I went it. Don't see a UK counsellor, and especially not anyone from Relate. And do not see a counsellor who will counsel both of you together in the same room - that is a recipe for anger, lovebusters, arguments and disaster. The MB coaching centre speaks to each spouse separately, or you alone for the first call, to establish your situation.

Don't mention this site to your H for now or introduce him to the HNHN CD. It will simply give him justification for continuing his lifestyle because he could then claim that it is how he chooses to get his needs met.

Better than pasting your question again (because then others won't see my answer) click "notify" at the bottom of your post and ask a moderator to merge this thread with your first one.

PS: Your thread title is wrong. Plan A didn't work, otherwise your H would be back home and ready to implement a plan to recover your marriage. What he is trying to do now is hold out for offers from you and when he gets the right one - one that will give him as much freedom as he likes to continue his lifestyle - he might consider moving back home and letting you do his washing and ironing.

He should be on his needs begging you forgiveness before you consider letting him set one foot in your door. Do not let him back for your son's sake unless this happens. If he comes back grudgingly when he has a deal that suits him, he will continue to betray you and your son will be in a worse position than ever.

Welcome. And sorry about the circumstances that brought you here.

I'd suggest that you ask the moderator to move you thread to surviving an affair. And order the book by the same title.

I have to wonder about the real reason you wh wants to live apart?

Thank you for the advice, still navigating my way around the forum.

I have an issue with controlling my anger, I can also be very disrespectful and aggressive. My husband has dealt with this abuse for years but now with our son here, he wont tolerate that behaviour. He doesn't believe its a good environment for a child (I agree with him).

As a way to avoid these types of encounters we both promised we wont put our son in a situation where we could both argue in front of him. With the issues we're trying to address now, arguments are inevitable and so for now, we don't live together.

Saying this, he does come to our home often, and has spent several nights here with our son. On those occasions we do not discuss our issues. The next step would be to have him home, but I know that right now he does not believe its safe to do so.

I also have doubts about using a UK counsellor, I have contacted the coaching centre as that seems like a great option.

In regards to my husbands idea on Polygamy. What he truly battles with is fidelity. Like many men the attraction to the opposite sex is constant and a temptation he has indulged in. After seeing the hurt the betrayal caused me, he has vowed never to hurt me like that again but he doubts his abilities to remain faithful. Exploring an open marriage was a way for him to get the best of both worlds but i made it very clear i would not be his wife in that kind of marriage. He understood and chose a monogamous marriage because he didn't want to loose me. But his doubts in his ability to be faithful still plague him. He worries about failing again, the hurt and anger that would cause.

He doesn't think he can be the man/husband i want him to be, and our arguing has created such a negative and stressful environment for all of us.

This is not true. Read up on the POJA.

For your anger, do you have the book Love Busters?
Also here Anger Management 101

If he wants to remain faithful he must get rid of the conditions that allowed his affair.

What EPs has he put in place?
Extraordinary Precautions

I was doing counselling for this and it has helped tremendously. It played a big part in how well I handled the affair.

We haven't taken any extraordinary measures, and the woman recently emailed him. He ignores her. but the fact she can communicate with him bothers me.

Did he write a NC letter? Did you expose? If so to whom?

Why hasn't he changed his contact information?

If he is still in his affair and won't stop you need to start preparing for Plan B.

He has ended the affair. What is an NC letter?

We closed down the email account that he created to communicate with her.
But she found his work email address and emailed him through that.

Also I have exposed to his family and some of his friends. My father, cousin and a few friends are also aware of the affair.

Who did you expose to on OW's side? Is she married?

Can he change his work email? Does he use outlook? There are ways to block her through this.

Thank you for all this information, very useful.

He did send an email to the OW, which I did see, but after he sent it. It did state that their relationship was over. He did not however express regret about indulging in the affair, but did say they cannot be friends and should not communicate with one another.

He doesn't use Outlook, but could change his email address, however I wonder if this makes sense as for a time at least he'll have to have all emails from his old address forwarded onto the new one.

The OW is not married and I have not exposed her. I wouldn't know where to start with that as I know nothing about her and she lives in another country. A few of her friends new she was having an affair with a married man, but all seemed to accept it.

He has agreed to counselling, should I press for him to take the other drastic measures? or maybe in time and through counselling he will come to realise how important those steps are?

I would make immediate demands that he follow the recovery plan

If you go to a counselor they will use their own recovery plan and it will not work.

You need to demand that he follow the recovery plan in Surviving an Affair book