Hello to whomever may be reading this....first time posting anything on this subject...in fact, my first post ever on the internet. The reason, I feel I have run out of all options and would really just love to vent and get some advice...from somebody! I will try to keep this as short as possible, even though leaving anything out takes away from the pain of it all. You see, two years ago, I discovered my dear wife, the love of my life, wad having an affair on me. It was with a guy from work, at a time when I was busy working on my career and school (finishing my masters). I would have never thought it was happening...was even trusting enough to let her go out with this guy. After I caught them at his house, she came back home to me immediately and I thought we were going to be fine. I enrolled us in counciling, spent more time with her...thought everything was great. This until 3 months later I found that they were still talking and seeing each other. After I caught her, again she professed her love for me and just said she was lost...but wanted to make it work. We became very sexual...and again I thought all was well...was even happy when she told me that she was pregnant. Had no reason to think it wasnt mine so I started being the good father I was twice before and thought all would be great. That is until I found out she had gotten another phone and I came across text messages revealing that they were still having an affair. She swore it was my baby and that the time just didnt work out to be his...and again stated she was lost. I am so inlove with her that I took her word that it would never happen again and I thought we started moving on. I ended up catching a few more texts and emails, and when I was out of town...she even let the guy into my home for a paternity test, one she told me there was no reason to get because she was sure the baby was mine. Again, I forgave her and I was happy to find out that the baby was in fact mine. At this point I was sure she would never hurt me again, but my surety soon faded when again, I caught her being dishonest by finding out she had been talking to him from a friends phone and even met up a couple of times. By this time I was a complete neurotic wreck yet she has always told me that she is inlove with only me. Quite a bit of time had passed without evidence of cheating...and I was starting to feel comfortable that this was all behind us. She swore on the world my worries were not warranted, even becoming irritated and angry when my neurotic found ways would start thinking of potential ways they may be speaking. All in all, I thought we had made it out, stil lots of work to do, but I felt like the work could finally begin. It was after about 6 months of easy sailing that all of a sudden a woman that was in the other mans life contacted my wife to see whether or not she was still in his life. You see, she had been misled the same way as I, and had come across some texts that were RECENT! I overheard the conversation and learned that while supposedly the physical affair had ended...more than likely because it had become next to impossible, but the emotional affair was still very much alive. It was at this point that I did something I should never had done. Or maybe I should have....that is still to be reconciled. At any rate, I ended up contactinh this girl because I felt I could possibly get some answers to questions that had long plagued me. I received information that I had thought true all along, and it was about to get better. After our initial coversation, this girl decided to give me the other mans old phone. What was significant about this was that he had JUST gotten a new one and while he cleared the texts on the old phone, every voice mail my wife had left him over the two year affair was still on it. Like a fool, I pressed play on each one and listened to my nightmare unfold. Though I receiveda crash course on how she felt about him, the worse was to hear and see by the call log that she was still speaking with him....and it was not just a friend thing. It was as if my wife sat me down and came clean about the whole thing...and now more than ever, I am devastated. 17 years together, 15 of them married, since 17 years old I have been with this woman, and in all of those years, I never thought it would ce down to this. I feel embaressed, alone, cheated, scared, hurt, and as if I have failed at everything. Failed as a father...as a husband...as a man. I notice that few extra pounds Ive been carrying around, those age lines around my face....even question whether or not she enjoyed making love to me all those years as much as she said she did. Whats funny is that she still swears on our love...that she is inlobe with me and that this time...it is REALLY over. Whats more is that the whole time the affair was going on, she never held sex from me...in fact approached me more often than not. She went out with me...shared laughs, milk shakes....I mean it was like nothing was going on...other than the fact I was devastated and cried like a baby each time and for a month after I would find out the truth. Now Ive heard with my own ears the fact that she loves him..though she says that the feelings are over and that she could love no one with the love she has for me. She says she cant live without me...though it appears she sure was trying. I guess in a nutshell, I want to know if I am being foolish....staying and trying to make this work AGAIN. I love her with all of the love God has given me to give....and cannot picture my life without her, but on the same token, am I standing in the way of the inevitable. ...or her true happiness by not leaving? Am I cheating myself? Is it even possible that she loves me or that this could work? I mean how can a woman act as if nothing is wrong and carry on an affair like that...especially when I have tried to give her everything, provide a better than average household, love....all my love....and the promise of my life? Has anyone gone through so much back and forth and made it out well....still inlove on the other side? I need her, but I need her happy as well, and inlove with only me. While I write this just as inlove as the first day I met her, I am left wondering if she still loves me. Left with the question I imagine all have after even the first sign of infidelity, ....what to do now? I know from my story it doesn't seem like there is much hope, but I would give everything for even the slightest chance at forever. Thats the line I hope would resinate with her should she ever find and read this. I may be hopeless, but I just dont feel like its over...atleast not for me...but I also can't waste my life for someone who doesn't love me enough to try. What can I do to know whether or not she really means this is really over? I appreciate those who took the time to listen to my journal entry! Have to admit, having no one to talk to, this post has somewhat allowed me to vent! Thank you to all.

So sorry man. I married my high school sweetheart and she cheated on me after 23 years too--we are all susceptible. I feel your pain and many here will help you carry it.

Decide to fight for her. Many of the veterans to the battle will be along to encourage and instruct you soon.

Until then, know you are not alone.

I had to help others with readability.

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain.

Please read all of these first. Start Here First-Welcome Aboard

Then a couple of questions.

Does she still work with this OM?

Read the Exposure 101 thread and tell us your plan.

You need to get an STD test.

Is OM married or is "the girl" his girlfriend?

This is probably the most important thing.

Affairs are an addiction. You need to kill the affair and take away her drug (OM). Please stop enabling her and fight for your marriage and blow this affair out of the water.

Now, do you really want to fight for your marriage?

Welcome to MB. I'm sorry to hear of this affair and your distress.

As well as the STD test that Brainy mentions, you also need to get a paternity test done on your child. I strongly suspect that the child is biologically OMs, and that the reason that the affair never died is that he and your wife are conducting a kind of "marriage" between them while she maintains her stability and security with you.

Even if I am wrong about that, the reason why your sex life has been maintained is because she has wanted for years for you to believe that she is faithful to you and your marriage is genuine. Her OM is like my H was, when he was an OM in his OW's marriage, and you are like her H was.

My H, as a married man, had the usual reasons for beginning the affair - opportunity and the willingness to let someone else meet his ENs. He came across a WW who had been unhappy in her marriage for years, since her H moved them from their home country to another, where she could not work without a permit and lost the status she wanted to have and became "just a housewife" at home with young children. She never forgave her H for "reducing" her to that.

She had long wanted to leave her marriage and fell hard for my H. He fell hard for her too, but did not want to leave our marriage. Our marriage improved for him after I discovered the affair about 6 weeks in. At that point, he just took it further underground and continued it for another two years until my next discovery. Because of the great improvement in our marriage, he was very clear in his own mind that he wanted to maintain his marriage, and because the affair was so exciting he wanted to maintain that, too.

Her husband discovered the affair about 9 months into it, but she managed to convince him that it was an budding EA only (when it had been sexual from the first "date"). She appeared to renew her passion for her H, while all the time planning to leave him. She moved out of their bedroom because "he worked early shifts and she did not want to wake him and night, or for him to wake her early morning". In truth, she told my H that she did this out of loyalty to my H, to whom she fantasised that she was actually married. But so not to make her H suspicious, she had sex with him whenever he asked, and he suspected nothing.

She applied for jobs that would enable her to move out of the home, and finally got one in another country (leaving her teenaged son at home with his father to finish school). She lived there Monday to Fridays and went home at the weekends, where she had duty sex. During the weekdays she was free to travel around and meet my H for sex, since, by using a mobile phone, her H never knew what country or town she was in. She saw her partial moving out as a preparation for the end of her marriage, and she was waiting for my H to end his. He, meanwhile was not being honest about having no intention of leaving me, and made enough excuses about his son being too young (6-10 during the affair) for him to leave home - but he would one day, he always said.

When I exposed to her H and we talked about how they had managed to keep this going despite both our discoveries at one time or another, it was clear that he had never suspected that she was planning to leave their marriage. She did not shower her H with love, but she did just enough for him to believe that she was - if not exactly committed, then at least accepting of the marriage.

I am telling you the details of my H's affair because you asked about how she could appear loving to you while continuing an affair with OM. I'm just trying to show you that a married woman can do this. She won't necessarily go it alone unless a man is waiting to provide her with support. If her OM is married and gives her the oldest story in the book about having kids that he cannot leave, and also has passionate sex with her and conducts long phone calls during which her EN for conversation is met (and his EN for admiration is met), she can easily be convinced that she is the love of his life and he will break up his marriage for her one day. She will wait for him for ten years for this - at my last D Day in 2011, I discovered an email that showed that my H and his OW had not seen each other for 5 years, and the affair totalled 8 years by then, and she was still waiting for my H to leave me. My son was nearly 15 by then and she was still not getting the message that my H wasn't leaving because he did not want to leave. I wouldn't call it love for me or the kids; it was much more, in my mind, that life with us was good and comfortable, and divorce would be a nightmare - but he did not want to leave us and would never have left us for her.

Dr Harley has found that a married woman usually has to have fallen out of love with her H over a long period of time in order for her to justify an affair in her own mind. And when she finds that OM, she falls in love with him hard and transfers all her loyalty to him. It is very hard to stop her from loving him, but that is what must be done if her husband wants to restore her marriage. He will have a monumental fight on his hands to break the addiction of the affair and win her love back, but if he can do that he can have his marriage restored and will not have to fight continual affairs from her. If a husband can make his wife love him again, a specific OM, and OM in general, will not be a continual presence in the marriage. However, this will not happen unless all contact is broken with OM, decisively and for good.

You would normally have a gift in your hands in that this OM is married and is cake-eating, like my H was and like all married men. Married OM are weasels and cowards and will dump their married OW the second her H contacts him and makes it clear that OM's life will not be worth living unless he stays away for good. If you expose this affair to the workplace and to OM's wife, your job of breaking the affair will very likely be done, as OM will drop her like something something nasty that landed on his shoe. (You do need to spy on her communications, though, as she will contact him and he will meet her again if he thinks that everyone has stopped looking for an affair. That is what my H did to his OW, many times. There were about 10 D Days during my H's long affair. Don't set yourself for any more than you have already had.)

The very important difference, though, in your case, is that they might believe or know the child to be his. He probably won't walk away easily if he believes himself to be the father of your child.

Your job now is to expose as outlined in the Exposure 101 thread, put spyware on WW's communications, contact OM and tell him that his affair with your wife is over and get DNA and STD tests set up.

You are a man and you need to fight this affair, instead of expressing despair and wringing your hands about it.

@DBD - I am so sorry to hear that. "We are all susceptible." really hits the nail on the head. I was blind for so long and I think drug this thing out longer having a hard time coping with the fact that it happened to me. I always thought that I would never have to deal with this...but I know better now!

I have fought a long battle my friend, and hope I can keep up the strength fir what is coming.I hope you were able to reconcile with your love, and are happy now with it behind you. Thank you for the encouragement!

@BrainHurts - First, thank you for the editing! I began with what I thought was going to be a quick post, and my fingers just kept moving as if in a rant. Before I knew it, I had written a book!

She does not still work with the OM. I allowed that mistake to continue after initially finding out. It didn't take long for that to go down the wrong path. I was abke to get her to quit her job shortly after.

As for the exposure, I am going to have to really get down and dirty with planning to be able to pull this one off without destroying our marriage completely. I am sure this would completely piss her off and cause at the very least a seperation. You see we are both somewhat pillars within our community, and we both have a lot of political harm that can come from this. I have worked very hard for my career, and negative exposure at that level, regardless of fault, is just not good. That being said, I am really going to have to think on this one. Of course, as I read, waiting somewhat defeats the purpose!

Std test is definitely a must...scary...but will do.

The OM's girl is just a girlfriend, however she thought herself to be a very serious girlfriend to him. Whats more, to show you how sick this guy is, right about 6 months after they started dating, she was diagnosed with cancer! She is going to be okay, but as he told her he was there for her, he was speaking to my wife!

I feel like the vm recordings I have scare the crap out of her...and of course she wants them gone! Thats not going to happen, but I believe that me having them is enough to have quite a bit of leverage due to her not wanting people to know she is a perfect little angel!

I am ready to save and fight for my marriage, and have been each and every time this has happened. I just wonder if those feelings are reciprocated.

I thank you so much for all of your thoughts and direction. The reading material jas really opened up my eyes as to what I am dealing with. One thing that I did not mention is how belittled I feel. I dont brag upon myself, but this guy is a complete idiot...and in my opinion...unattractive. A musician to his own accord with a nowhere job, he can barely take care of himself. You would think that she would fear having to actually rely on this guy if I left her and straighten up! Just makes you feel like a big waste of air when you look at what your wife chose to cheat on you with!

You are a big help...thank you again!

@SugarCane - I am sorry to hear that you had to go through that so long! What a strong person you are and believer of your marriage. I hope that all is well for you now and that you are happy. Thank you for sharing your story with me.

I am going to get the STD test done next week. As for the PT, when I was gone out of Town on business, the OM came to my home and they performed the test together. At the time I think he thought it was his as well and was ready to use that as ammunition to end our marriage once and for all. Problem was that the test came back as him not being the father. I always took that as good enough evidence, but the more I think about it, the more I should perform one myself. After all, whos to say she was only unfaithful once? Maybe someone else was involved for all I know these days!

Thank you so much for your time and for reading my post. I will certainly take all the advice I have received thus far. Hope everyone has a good night!

Get your own DNA test done ASAP.

Your WW will be pissed when you expose. The angrier she gets the better for you. It will show how much of an impact you've had toward ending the affair.

Please listen carefully to the vets on here, especially regarding exposure. Far and wide friend. They call it nuclear exposure for a reason and the affair will NOT end unless you put the exposure stake thru its heart.

Good luck ach.

You need to expose. This is your best weapon in killing her affair.

When will you be doing this?

Do you have the book SAA?

Please also listen to these radio clips of a BH not exposing his WW affairs. He was enabling her.

Radio Clip on Not Exposing and Enabling the Affairs
Segment #2
Segment #3

Exposure took place today. Informed all of our friends and family as well as got on my WW's facebook and posted an informative message on the OM's wall as well as private messaging his boss.

Let all of my collegues at work know as well so that when the stuff hits the fan, they have my side of the story. Transferred all of my evidence onto 2 discs and one thumb drive in case anything is found.

So here I am....locked out of the house for now sleeping at my brothers!

Here we go.

I am brand new to the forum, but I wanted to wish you the best. I think it's very brave the way you are fighting for her. I wish my husband wanted to fight for me.

Good job.

Is OM married?

Is your name on the house?

When can you get back in?

Men Do Not Leave Your Home