You came here yesterday questioning the board's advice to every BS to expose the affair.

When you came here several years ago, exposure was not routinely advised as a way of ending the affair and knocking the WS off the fence, and neither was there routine advice to monitor your spouse, and here you are, back at square one. Now the board's approach is different and encourages the BS to take firm steps to end the affair. you will be glad of that if you take our advice today.

Here is what you wrote in 2006, and nobody challenged you:

Words fail me at how misguided that was and how little advice there was to snoop.

Did you ever move away from the first OM, who was a very near neighbour? In the last post I can find you were hoping that he would move, but I can't find an update on that.

Who is this new OM?

First let me say, I am very sorry you are in so much pain. Pain deliberately inflicted by the woman who vowed to be with you through thick and thin. It hurts. No doubt.


Has she packed her bag yet? Whatever else happens, you do not move out.
If she really wants to leave, she is free to do so. Or, is she all talk & bluff & noise, and no action?

This sort of answers the question about WW being all talk & bluff & noise, doesn't it? She did not learn & change. She is essentially unchanged and fully capable of hurting your with keen awareness of the havoc it wrecks upon the marriage. In other words, she is careless when it comes to hurting you.


All talk & bluff & noise. Attacking you is her only defense. Hers is a most offensive offense.


Did WW ever post on these forums?

Stay cool. This is not your fault.

She did, Pep. So far I have found her posts in the thread here in SaA, which has been bumped. There is another thread in Recovery that I haven't looked through yet.

Ah, "normalguyswife".

She wrote:



Her post seems very cold and lacking sincere understanding about the pain she caused. She is mostly concerned with her own feelings.

Well here is my update. Its going to be long because a lot of time has passed.

We did move to a new home. Things seemed to be going well. We had a new baby who has been just such a joy. He is 3 now and I feel like I got to do everything right with him this time (you know with all of the experience of raising the other 3 kids under our belt). He is just a joy to have around. Our family is outstanding. The kids are all really smart, we have all the things we need. My wife really worked hard on recovery and I have been a very happy man for the most part. She finished her college degree and went on and got a masters degree and just this year started a great job. She's excelling at her job too. I've been so proud of how she has improved herself over the years.

We had problems that I could never seem to "solve". For example, she would often get frustrated with me if she noticed I was "triggered" by something. She often said things like "why aren't you over it?". She would say I was always upset at her. She says now that she was constantly afraid of making me upset. My recollection of things is that I could never console her when we'd have one of these disagreements. I would apologise over whatever the issue was many times but never seem to make her feel any better. We'd lie in bed unhappy and she'd turn her back and withdraw. This happened many times. Early in our recovery I had to stop going to the MB website because I'd get triggered or remember some new detail and then we'd have a problem. So I stopped going to the site and we stopped posting.

As the years went by, the amount of UA time did slowly go down although I always did things like show affection many times during the day, call her to talk, compliment her appearence (easy to do because she is very attractive) etc. We went on dates every Friday. She did a lot to meet my needs and I was very happy. I *thought* I was meeting her needs but maybe I wasn't to the level she needed. We also often disagreed on large purchases, it seemed like I could not keep up with her desires for certain things or home upgrades. She complained that we didn't go on enough trips.

One day maybe 6 months ago we had a conversation where she just ripped me up saying how she had made all of these improvements but she was stuck with the same old husband. I could recognize areas where I've slipped and tried to improve but things just got worse and worse. I noticed she was working out with extreme focus. I tried to just work out with her. At some point she noticed that I was worrying about her behavior (Before her previous affairs she also worked out a lot.) and she would say things like "you make me feel like the person I was back then". "You don't trust me". Things like that. It would get harder and harder for me to meet her needs. For some periods of time she'd put up a wall where I could not even touch her to give her a hug for days. That hurts so bad. I even suggested counselling but she said she didn't want to talk to anyone.

It got so bad that I actually went to counselling by myself even though she refused. Soon after I discovered an affair. This time it was worse. I think it had been going on longer than the previous one and she wasn't even remorseful when I caught her. I actually found her car at the new OMs house and banged on the door until she came out.

The next weekend she made an excuse to go to a hotel to "think about what she wanted to do". She promised nothing was going to happen and I took the kids out. I told her I wouldn't lie to the kids for her so she swore nothing was going to happen. Well it happened again because I found a secret cell phone. I got real mad that night I went to this guys house but he didn't come out. We exchanged some angry texts, etc. The next day I did the Facebook exposure.

Now she wants to divorce. She seems dead set on going through with it. Our kids are freaked out. My oldest is actually on track to be the valedictorian of his high school but hes having trouble even doing his homework right now.

Thats where we are. I've been talking to Steve, he tells me we didn't finish the recovery program completely which caused a lot of problems over the years. My wife is extremely resistant to even trying now because she says she's already been through that stuff and doesn't want to do it again. She says she can't be herself with me, she says she realized that she won't ever get what she wanted from me. She also says the affair isn't the issue, she wants to leave anyway. I believe her. It seems that she really is set on leaving.

Maybe mine can be a cautionary tale to anyone who is recovering. You need to get all the way to where the affair is behind you. I don't know, I keep beating myself up for things I wish I'd done differently. I'm happy with this woman (most of the time) but I can't seem to keep her happy with me.

Your case is a false recovery.

Who was watching the toddler when WW was busy with her adultery?

The day I caught her, the 3 yr old and 10 yr old were home alone. Its what made me suspicious because my 10 yr old daughter loves to go to the mall and wife had said she was going to the mall. The next weekend I was watching everyone. Prior to that I don't know, things were probably happening while I was home.

I don't know what your plan is, but it is pretty obvious to me that your marriage never recovered because your wife is not in love with you. Your marriage was not affair proofed [evidenced by the removal of the keylogger and her comments that "you don't trust me," famous last words of every fogged out cheater - when a cheater objects to your spying that is an indication you need to be spying] nor was the romantic love every re-created in your marriage. In order to fall in love again, you have to spend 20-25 hours of undivided attention together meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs.

Sadly, I don't think anyone pointed that out to you in 2007 because so few members understood Marriage Builders and even fewer were in recovered marriages. Of course, you always had the option of going to the MB seminar like many us did.

Even so, there is not much here to save if your wife won't get on board. It sounds like she has been pretty wayward the entire time and was just looking for new action.

How many affairs has she had in her life?

I recall a long period of time where we were very happy and she was very open. The keylogger comment happened before the affair back in 2007 and yes it made me suspicious. The "you don't trust" me comments came back up only recently of course due to what is happening now.

I thought we were recovered but maybe we never were.

I don't know how many affairs she has had. I know of 4 now.

She describes the past 7 years as her constantly working very hard to recover and always feeling like she came up short. At some point she decided to give up. That is her point of view.

And this is the problem and the reason why you find yourself at affair #2: you have no standards. Your wife has just been living down to your standards all these years. We see the result.

If this were handled appropriately, it would read that she is struggling with the fact that YOU will not stay in the marriage unless she meets certain standards. Because otherwise you have no marriage. There is nothing here to save other than a cheating wife in a loveless marriage. She knows she can always keep you around as an option while she pursues other men.

Dr Harley wrote this to a woman in a marriage with a serial cheater like your wife:

When I caught her this time, we both wanted to divorce. As I read about the effects on kids, I decided to try to save it. I've talked with many people, my parents, her parents and other relatives, counselling and all have recommended to try to save it and say it could be saved.

So my current plan has been to break up the affair (expose) and then try to re-recover using MB principles.

She is clearly telling me that she is not interested in that so far. I do not think she's going to string me along and cheat on me; rather she is probably going to divorce.

I have felt in love for the past 7 years. It seems she lost it some time ago and just kept "faking" it.

Make that affair number 4 - that he knows about! See the post above yours.

This is astounding.

Person, the point is that you can't save a marriage alone. You don't have a marriage unless she does engage. And she fell out of love. That has never been reversed.

Seriously? This is her 4th affair?

You do understand that Marriage Builders is not a magic spell that can force someone to do something against their will? MB cannot force an unwilling serial cheater to make radical changes against her will. I am sorry, but divorce would be the definition of success in this case.

The effects of serial cheating on children are profound. A corrupt parent teaches children that wrong is right and causes great moral confusion. It is also confusing to children to be raised in a home where one parent abuses the other. Is it ok if your son or daughters spouse cheats on them repeatedly? What kind of role modeling is that?

That's horrible. Waywards are not good parents.

My xWH's mother had LTA while he was growing up. He became a serial cheater and two other of his siblings had affairs.

Your children are watching your WW's dishonesty, thoughtless and selfish behavior, affair after affair, year after year, and the message they are learning from her is that this type of behavior is OK. From you they are learning conflict avoidance.

Keeping the M together at all costs is NOT in the best interests of your children.

Yes, its the realization that she fell out of love (again) that has me torn up. I had everything and blew it by not doing my job to maintain romantic love even when I'd learned the MB principals. I thought I was doing my part but it wasn't enough. The feeling of impending loss is just crushing me right now. I've looked into the details of the divorce and it is not going to be fun but at least I will hopefully achieve peace at some point.


Yes, I can't force her and it looks like she is not interested in trying.


I agree with all that you said. This sucks.

I am so sorry, person, and I really do sympathize. You didn't blow it though. Even if you had met her needs 110%, it wouldn't have made any difference if her love bank was open for business to everyone else. And it has been open all along. You never had a chance.

My suggestion would be to file for divorce on grounds of adultery and get the best terms possible so you can protect yourself and your children legally. Get primary custody of the kids, possession of the home if you can and get her moved out.

Once you get her out of there, I would go into Plan B. In your Plan B letter, give her the conditions for return, ie: extraordinary precautions, radical change in her approach to being a wife, etc, etc. And she can either make radical and demonstrated changes or you can let the divorce go through. Either way, you are better off. If she doens't change, you will be divorced from this nightmare and if she does, you may have a marriage.

I don't think she believes you will do anything to stop her and will forever remain her "option." Filing for divorce on grounds of adultery may be the thing that wakes her up. If not, you are better off.