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.
Hoping - we need to get to first principles here.
Your H's working life facilitated his numerous affairs and therefore his travelling job needs to end completely if you are to even consider reconciliation.
There things need to happen before you consider moving back together:
-He needs to give up that job and find one that involves no travelling whatsoever - not even within the UK.
-He needs to tell you all about his "cheating on you several times during your relationship". you need to know the identity of the women involved so that you can take steps to know that they are not around you and can never be in contact with your H again. In fact, given that he has had "numerous" affairs with no trouble to his conscience and you were not even able to detect that this was happening, you must require him to take and pass a polygraph exam to confirm what he tells you about his "numerous" affairs.
-You both need to be STD tested.
-He needs to undertake coaching with the MB coaching centre. Unless he willingly agrees to that you should just walk away. "Counselling" about the problems in your marriage is utterly pointless unless your coach puts you through the same steps that Dr Harley would insist upon to make sure that your H's lifestyle changes and he is unable to do ever again what he has been doing so far.
Hoping - I live in London and my H and I are on the online MB course. This is the only "counselling" that has worked for us to ensure that our lifestyles change and my H's affair cannot reignite. I have had so many false recoveries that I have lost count, and all were possible because my H continued to travel after the first D Day and simply continued his affair in Belgium. Even when he stopped travelling in 2006, OW and he communicated occasionally by phone at his workplace until 2011, somewhere that it was impossible for me to monitor.
I spoke personally to Dr H about my case and he told me that I could try recovery again ONLY because my H was retiring altogether 3 weeks after the last D Day in 2011, so the workplace access would be shut down. My H has no mobile phone, laptop or tablet and spends all his time - very happily I might say - with me or one of our kids. And he DID come to me on bended knee as Dr Harley says a a man genuinely wanting to recover will do. He will always have strong feelings for OW - there is no denying that and this is why NC is a must for me - but he wanted me, the marriage and to live with his kids more than he wanted her; he did not want his cake on the side more than he wanted those things.
Your H has to demonstrate the same kind of commitment if you are ever to entertain him again, and that begins with his giving up his job entirely and moving to a new organisation that OW does not know about, and coaching with the MB centre.
If you settle for less you will regret it bitterly. Take that from me without a shadow of a doubt.
