Hello,

First post - not my story yet...

1) It says in Exposure 101 -

- with that said, I have Voice Notes Recordings on my Blackberry of discussions we have had in regard to the incidents and other outbursts of strange behavior that were recorded to send or show to her therapist. She wants me to delete them and I told her I was not going to - my reason was as stated in case there was ever a divorce...HOWEVER we are not married, we have a child together, I have custody as she has signed that over in a custody agreement, we are not separated living in the same house; so the question is...since we are not married and I already have Majority custody of our son do I need to keep the recordings or not? If so, she has asked that I take them off my phone, put them on a flash drive and leave it at that - which I am ok with.

2) Can this site help two people who are not married recover from infidelity or is it only for married couples? Its the sites name that has me wondering this as we are not married.

3) Can this site help a couple of which there were no affairs, they were two separate cases of drunken cheating with different people, not close friends, and not co-workers? Basically can this sites resources help with the recovering of infidelity with the issue of cheating rather than an affair?

I ask the last question because I see and have read the many instances of "emotional needs" not being met which can lead someone to an affair, I understand that yet I battle in my mind which is more senseless an affair or random cheating. An affair seems to point toward the lover giving them something they are not getting at home in regard to emotional disconnect or communication, however random cheating seems to me almost more senseless because it has no point aside from a person who "wants to have their cake and eat it to, whenever its convenient for them". It almost seems crueler to me, yet I can imagine being told differently and that both hurt probably the same or perhaps an affair is even worse.

Thank you for any responses.

Welcome to MB, Ringless (apt name!)

Why aren't you and your girlfriend married, since you lived together and have a child together?

We got together, moved in around 3 months afterward, I told her I wanted to get married someday and have a family. She did not want to get married as she has an ex-husband, she removed her IUD in Oct and she got pregnant in February.

Even during the pregnancy I spoke about marriage and throughout the relationship it was not until after these incidents that she has warmed up to marriage and now is sure she wants to marry me.

I wanted to wait 2 years prior to proposing, however it looks as if that will be postponed temporarily or indefinitely.

I appreciate and thank you for the welcome, however that does not answer my questions.

But your answer affects our responses, Ringless.

How did she come to sign away custody of her child to you? Why was there any need for her to do that? I think understanding the circumstances of that decision is crucial to our understanding of whether the recordings should be kept.

2). Dr Harley's work has been developed with married couples. A marital relationship is entirely different from a living-together arrangement,. In the latter, the couple have only their temporary, day-to-day agreement between themselves to be together. They have made no religious, legal and public obligations to society. That lack severely affects the way in which their relationship is conducted, and the expectations they have of each other, and that society and family have of them. Without the religious, legal and public obligations, there is no responsibility on them to keep their relationship together and to answer to other people (and God, if religious) for their conduct.

3. A one-night-stand is still something to be recovered from and prevented in the future. There could be a whole string of ONS if the couple does not affair-proof their relationship - and doing that is about much more than meeting each others' emotional needs. Making the public commitment of marriage is the most important step towards a faithful relationship (although not the only one, of course.)

Please download and Read Dr Harley and Dr Chalmers' new book Surviving an Affair to learn about the Marriage Builders' approach to marriage.

Ringless,


1)If so, she has asked that I take them off my phone, put them on a flash drive and leave it at that - which I am ok with.

Yes never give up evidence, keep it for at least 2-5 years as a relapse is very possible. I would also compress it into a zip file and store it online where only you have the password.

2) Can this site help two people who are not married recover from infidelity or is it only for married couples? Its the sites name that has me wondering this as we are not married

Yes, Yes and Yes, since you are in what you thought was an exclusive and committed relationship. But I think you already knew that from reading on this site, in any event continue reading.

3) Can this site help a couple of which there were no affairs, they were two separate cases of drunken cheating with different people, not close friends, and not co-workers? Basically can this sites resources help with the recovering of infidelity with the issue of cheating rather than an affair

Yes, a great many posters have just your circumstances. Do a search on ONS.

However many times what looks like a ONS and is claimed to be a ONS is just the culmination of months of flirting and often online fantasy.

God Bless
Gamma

If the two of you still want to get married, then I would say that following the principles in the book Surviving an Affair and the book Buyers, Renters, and Freeloaders you can probably build a very happy marriage. And that would be the best possible outcome for the child you share.

Regarding cheating because of drunkenness, yes, the principles on this site and in SAA can help you. Affairs are not caused by unmet emotional needs. That is one of the most common misconceptions we see here. To build an affair-proof marriage, you would need to eliminate the conditions that led to the cheating.

Dr. Harley's position is that the reason people cheat is because we are all wired for it. Under certain conditions, ALL of us would cheat. Under different conditions, NONE of us would cheat. In fact Dr. Harley realized early in his life that most men in his family had had affairs and decided that he had better take extraordinary precautions to make sure that he did not ever have an affair. His original belief was that he was genetically predisposed to infidelity, but his position today is that EVERYBODY is genetically predisposed to infidelity. In any event, taking the right precautions led to Dr. Harley and his wife having a very successful and happy marriage, with no infidelity. And in studying successful couples, Dr. Harley can tell you that they all do similarly.

If you and your girlfriend want to build a successful, affair-free marriage at this point, then one condition that would obviously need to be agreed to is: no drinking. And no nights apart. In fact, successful couples typically do not spend the night apart, and they spend most of their leisure time together, learning how to be each other's favorite recreational companion.

I thought this as well, I am not being confrontational, and that was what I was thinking you were trying to get information to answer the question.

The question though seemed typical of our society today, two people get together, have sex before marriage, and either nothing happens in regard to pregnancy and/or they eventually get married or they do not.

Perhaps the intricacies of our unique factors were most relevant such as my wanting to get married someday and her not wanting to.


After the second time of cheating I left, she wanted me to come back, and I told her my stipulations for reconciling, and one of them while not having the knowledge on this site of make no major changes such as marriage, divorce, etc. prior to going through the program; I told her that her lifestyle was dangerous and detrimental to the children, including our child. If she would have said no, I would have left, she agreed.

A custody agreement was drawn up, at times she was reluctant before that in feeling that I might leave her or that she did not feel she had to. I told her she didn't have to, I just was not going to stay if she would not.

I got the papers one day, shown them to her, she did not even want to go through them. I told her I am trying to show her everything so if she has any questions or things she disputes to do so prior to signing, she would not look at it. Then we went the next morning to the Attorney, I signed first, then she did. I was expecting her not to sign honestly, however it was her choice based upon the ultimatum and stipulation I placed.

I do not mind any of the options, deleting the voice notes, putting them on a flash drive or a disc as per her request, I simply wanted clarification before either of us mess up any of the rest of the proper steps to actually recover from this, as both of us have made many mistakes in this recovery process, and have found much conflicting information online from different psychological perspectives.


Thank you for your response to this. It sounds as if the answer is no based upon your thoughts or the websites concept and teachings. While I agree marriage is serious I feel that relationships are as well, if you cannot show the ability to be spouse-worthy prior to marriage and I do not mean sexually yet in all aspects faithfulness, loving, caring, slow to anger, agreeable, compromising, etc. then why would you be after you were married? Perhaps a common ideal in society, yet when I get with people as I have I am committed to them and faithful. That to me is not the challenging part, the challenging part is seeing if your relationship can work through the personality differences, need differences, sexual differences, and value, faith, goals and general compatibility of the couple.

If this site is geared toward married couples and not unmarried couples would you recommend couples counseling instead, or since it was pre-marriage infidelity does it eliminate the possibility of reconciling from this in your opinion?

Thank you Gamma.

I have a question that may adjust the answer perhaps.

If there is ever another relapse as there has been two offenses, there will be no reconciliation. With that said I already have custody of our mutual son, and unless these voice recordings are of some value to our working through this program or if in some way there would be a legal need to keep them of which I am not seeing, is there any reason to keep them?

I am absolutely adamant after two occurrences of cheating I will not reconcile a third time as I do not even know if I will get through this second time.

She is upset that I am keeping them as she feels I will be holding it over her head, and I keep saying "How?", I never have played them for anyone, I will not expose this these conversations to the whole world, and she keeps on with "well if you ever leave and get a new girlfriend I do not want you to show her what your crazy ex was like". This to me is ridiculous thinking, if I ever left, and if I got a new gf/wife, would my new gf or wife want to hear voice notes of my cheating ex-gf? Of course not, they would think I am carrying baggage or stuck on them.

Thoughts?

Hmmm, you two are trying to overcome something really serious here, and I don't see how a focus on coming to an answer to this is going to get you two back on the road you want to be on together. How about table that discussion for two weeks, and focus on rebuilding instead for now?

Or if that's not possible, how about leaving the copy with your attorney, so she knows it's not about playing it for the next gf or whatever?

Ringless,

I think what she is saying and the fear she is feeling shows the power of exposure as an antidote to more cheating.

Did you contact the wives or girl friends of the OM she was involved with? You need to make sure they get a copy of these recordings.

Are you going to get a polygraph for your GF?

BTW if you have recordings it means, I think, that your GF had contact with these OM before the physical act and that the physical act was just the fruition of an underlying emotional affair.

God Bless
Gamma

No polygraph because the results are inconclusive and she told me of the first time around 2 days after it happened without me even suspecting that anything had happened.

Neither have any girlfriends or wives to contact.

The recordings are simply a few details of discovery - mainly what she was thinking, was this pre-planned, etc. questions like that, which she denies it was pre-planned. That's one of the recordings the rest are things we recorded for her therapist where she is showing outbursts of extreme emotional behavior. Like psychotic episodes where she would wake me up at 3:30 AM a month and 1/2 after the second time she cheated and wanting to go through all of my online accounts FB, Twitter, emails, and the past 2 years of my bank account statements. - mind you I have never cheated on her or even had scandalous conversations, this is the type of person she is.

We have taken the route of putting the ones that involve her on a flash drive, and off my phone, the flash drive is in safekeeping. Yet I still do not know why I am keeping it, I have no intent whatsoever of reconciling a third time with this person as I am doubting the desire to reconcile this time.