Long 10 yr story short- my husband has had ongoing emotional affairs with women throughout our 10 yrs of marriage. I have found out about ALOT of them, but probably not all. Each time, when confronted, he some how convinces me he is sorry and it won't happen again.
However, about 6 mos ago, I found more evidence it was ongoing, but this time there were MULTIPLE women at one time. I did enough investigation that I was able to actually catch him at a bar with a woman, when he had told me he was still at work. This led to a search of his phone, where I found nasty pics and sexting.
This led to a huge blowup and then major counseling.
All of which definitely helped. He re-committed his life to Christ, got baptized and is continuing to seek accountability from fellow Christian men and he is truly a changed man.
Through all of this these past 6 mos, he has been convicted by God about something he had not been truthful about... thus leading to his confession to me last week.
He indeed HAS had physical affairs with multile women. 3 to be exact. And with one woman, he slept with her twice, & the other 2 women, he can't even tell me how many times it was ;(
It took me several days to absorb this information. I had already forgiven him for his past. I know that THAT man is dead and he is a NEW creation in the Lord. However, here is my struggle--- I have visions of him with these ladies whenever I am not busy. I was having them on my commute to work, but have since just turned the praise and worship music up loud to drown out the thoughts Satan tries to plant in my head. In the mornings while I'm getting ready, I play a morning audio devotional. But, at night-- when we lay there to sleep, I have visions! I visualize him touching them the way he touches me. I wonder how it 'went down' in the hotel room... was it quick, did they stay the night, where did I think he was during this time? Was it during the day? Was there holding and caressing or was it mad, passionate sex? When he touches me now, I wonder if he did it the same way with them?! I visualize how he might have looked at her and how she looked at him. It is BAD... how do i get these toughts and visions out of my head??
I WANT our marriage. I love my husband. And we were doing so well in recovery until he told me about the physical affairs. I did need to know, but what do I do with these visions? It is consuming me. Any advise? will it just take time or are there strategies to help me? Anyone else been in my situation-- feel free to respond!!

BH2, welcome.

If your wayward husband is truly ready to recover your marriage, he's going to have to give you all the information that you require in order to feel ready to recover. ALL information - names, dates, times, activities, etc. How much you need to know is up to you.

You will also need to make sure that the spouses of the women he affaired with are informed of the affairs. You'll need their names and phone numbers. Your hound dog with have them. Get them. Call the spouses of his affair partners and let them know about the affairs. This is to protect you - he's going to have a hard time calling them for another hookup if their husband is aware of him. Plus, their spouse has the right to know about this attack on their own marriage, as well.

Have you read the "Start Here First" thread yet? There is a lot of valuable info there for you.

The good news is that you can recover your marriage. There are specific things you and your WH will need to do, though. It's hard, but very much worth it if you want to save your marriage.

By the way, his act of re-committing himself to Christ doesn't cut a lot of ice. His actions toward recovering the marriage is what Christ is looking for. And that is what YOU should be looking for, as well. He may have been 'convicted' about disclosing his physical affair to you because he was afraid that someone else was going to do so. Not so much, being 'convicted by God' - your wayward has led a life of deception against you and himself. He's reaping the results now, and I suspect those results have something to do with someone who is threatening to expose his misdeeds to you.

I would strongly recommend a polygraph examination to determine the extent of his deception.

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain that has brought you here.

Please read this.
Start Here First-Welcome Aboard

I'm so sorry you have to endure this.


Time heals nothing. It's what you do with the time that heals.
In most cases, our imagination is far "worse" than the reality of what our WS experienced with other people.

The reality is, that there is a common element in both your experience with your husband and other women's experience with your husband....HIM.

He will not be largely different with other women than with you.
His hangups, his preferences, his likes and dislikes, will remain unchanged.

My WW enjoyed lying to me about her sex-capades. She knew how it hurt me, and part of her motive for her affairs was revenge.

Hopefully, your husband did not have this motive for his actions.

You are going to be on an emotional rollercoaster ride for a while. Expect that, so that you're not upset when it happens. You need time to process this affair - it is a part of your marital reality. Absolutely, there are things you can do to help! First and foremost - don't sweep the affair under the rug and pretend it didn't happen. Face it and deal with it as a couple.

There are tools on this site for recovering your marriage - have you read them? Have you read the Basic Concepts on this site? What have you done in regards to recovering your marriage? You should not give your wayward unearned forgiveness. He has sinned against you and your marriage, not to mention against God's covenant of marriage. He needs to EARN your forgiveness. What has he done to repair this marriage from his adultery? Even Christ had His limits. You need to have yours.

There is work to be done, here. First of all, this affair needs to be exposed to the people who are in the best position to benefit from it and to support your recovery efforts: his affair partners need to be exposed to their spouses or SO's - if you have children over the age of four, they need to know what Daddy did that caused so much turmoil in their family. Your Pastor needs to know, as well as your immediate family. Anyone who is in a position to support your marriage needs to know.

Have you done any of this?

My husband has done alot to prove he is changed. He is in a recovery group at our church called 'Restore'. He is also in a weekly men's group that meet every Thurs morning to discuss a Christian book about men who struggle with going outside their marriage (whether that be porn, EA or PA).
His ACTIONS on a daily basis are drastically different than they have ever been.
His cell phone is no longer private.
He has erased any and all females from his contacts that I do not approve of.
He does not answer the call if he doesn't recognize the number.
He has gotten rid of his extraneous email accounts.
He lets me know of his whereabouts all throughout the day.
He hasn't had a late night from home in 6 mos.
He has stopped drinking.
He reads his bible daily and has his quiet time.
He is only listening to Christian music.
His relationship with our daughters is soooo much better.
The respect he shows me is amazing.
I truly feel, he is changed and will continue to 'do the work'.
I have been reading tools after tools on website after website, listening to podcasts, etc to help myself.
I've reached out to our pastor and yes, he is aware and has been aware of things since it 'all went south' 6 mos ago.
since I originally posted, i have found a great site (beyond affairs) that gives 17 ways to cope with obsessive thoughts. I also found a blog on warfarestories.com about how to pray against unhealthy thoughts and dreams. I know this is a journey and I will continue to find things to help me heal throughout the journey... as I'm fully aware it will not just go away. I was mainly looking for someone who has been in my shoes and wanted to know what worked for them in regards to the visions and thoughts they had post discovery of the affairs.
Thanks for the insights.

Will he change all his contact information?

Did he write a NC letter?

How do you know he's not in contact with her? Do you have any spyware in place?

Who have you exposed to? Are any of these women married?

Have you read this?
Exposure 101

He will change whatever I ask of him.
He will DO whatever I ask of him and has.
He has not contacted the other women b/c our Pastor told him not to. He was advised to just completely stop ALL contact-- which he has and I truly believe he has. I have 'snooped' to make sure and have found NO evidence of him doing the opposite.
I'm not looking for advice on anything other than how to eliminate the visions of them together in my head...will exposure help with that?
We are good on all other levels and I feel confident about the counseling we are receiving through our Pastor.

We have seen many affairs restart if extraordinary precautions aren't put in place. What EPs has he DONE? What conditions allowed for him to have his affair? Have all of those been closed? How did he facilitate his affair? Email, text, phone? Have those been closed?

If the conditions that allowed the affair to happen isn't changed then it leaves an opening for another affair.

Here, please read.
Managing Memories and Dealing with Triggers
Extraordinary Precautions

Thank you, THAT helped!