I think that your depression after your father's death and your deployment were very important contributors to the circumstances that made the affairs possible. That being so, you need to remove those circumstances so that they do not contribute towards your having an affair ever again.

The depression needs to be tackled effectively. Medication is one way of doing so, but there are other ways, including cognitive behavioural therapy and exercise. What specific help is your counsellor giving you to end the depression? It won't end if what you do is visit her to talk about how miserable you feel having lost your father. In fact, focusing on that loss in weekly meetings is likely to make you feel worse for as long as the meetings last, not better.

What does your counsellor's treatment consist of? Has it had a significant effect on your depression?

The second thing is the deployments. Being separated from your wife is an open invitation for both of you to allow other people to meet your emotional needs. The military is rife with affairs and marital breakdown, and Dr Harley has had no successful outcomes with couples who face deployment. You said that your deployments are over, but can you be sure of that? Can you guarantee that you can stay in the Army and never be sent away again? What is your role for the remainder of your time in the Army? Do you have to be away from home EVER, in your current role, for training purposes or the like?

Please note that crying crocodile tears, faking remorse and going to "counseling" is not on the list because it is all BULLSH**.

WHAT are the changes? You keep saying this but give no evidence of any changes.

You weren't in a fog...you thought you could get away with cheating and didn't care about your wife. If she hadn't caught you, you would still be cheating...it was a lifestyle for you.

If you are sorry for the hurt and pain, you have caused your wife then respect her wishes to divorce and stop with the emotional blackmail and guilt trips. If she wants to reconcile that is her decision to make...not yours. Your wife's tears are grief...even if she cries to you or on your shoulder, that doesn't mean she wants you back. She cries because she hurts.

If you want to be a better man, great...you should want to be but I think your current attitude towards your wife is still cruel and selfish.

1- Did that
2-Did that
3- Did that
4- tried to do that but "she doesn't care- we are not together"
5- same as above
6-same as above
7- She doesn't want to. Interested in OM
8-Not needed in this situation
9-She is out of the home. I would like her to be back so this was possible
10- see we are not together statement
11- Done, done, and done

We work for the same company and she is only a block away. I absolutely want to be transparent to her. Would be a complete change from before and I welcome that.

We don't typically see "fog" in a person who cheats as a way of life. The fog occurs when someone is behaving in a way they find morally reprehensible. When someone repeatedly cheats, that is not the case because that is their way of life. It is the NORM, unlike the typical one-time cheater we see around here.

Sorry. Wrong choice of words.

How can I make it known that I do love and care for her and want to make a better life without having a cruel and selfish attitude? I'm really not trying to come across that way and am open for suggestions.

Wel,, I'm sorry to say this but I think this was HUGE missed opportunity, and a big letdown to her. She went to you crying, which was a big admission of failure for a woman who has proudly filed divorce and tried to wash her hands of you. Her life is a mess and she did not ask for it to be this way. She is divorcing you but that isn't making her happy. You are in the marital home and she is living with "room mates". I can tell you that it would be a cold day in Rio de Janeiro before I ever left my cheating husband in my marital home and moved into a rental with other people. I gave up renting when I stopped being a student 30 years ago, and I would not hand over my home to my serial cheater dog of a husband if I was ever in my right mind. She must be in a desperate state. She wept to you about this and what did you do? You closed the car door on her and let her sit there crying - when she was really crying for you to come and rescue her, until eventually she gave up hoping that you would rescue her and she drove home, still crying.

I can't tell you how big a missed opportunity that was.

Behavioral therapy and exercise are the main two. Also the spiritual aspect of reading and studying the bible and understanding. Didn't do that before. Yes I can be sure of the deployments ending unless they start sending bankers over there

Dang... I was trying to take the approach of not being "controlling".

Is there anything I can write to her to tell her that I want her home and ease the controlling/demanding tone of my exposure letter to her today?

I would stop talking about counseling, PTSD, and talk solely about concrete steps of how you will make her safe in the future. And having "remorse" and going to counseling will not make her safe. She might not ever come back [I sure wouldn't] but you can let her know you are willing the necessary changes if she will.

Why is she living in a rented place while you are living in the marital home? How did that come about? Did she leave to move in with a man? If the answer is no, how do you know for sure? Did your ever see the place she first moved into? (Is this the same place she is living in now?) Apart from what she tells you, how do you know that a man isn't living there?

I'm really puzzled about why she let you sleep in the nice clean marital home while she moved into a rental - with other people! I can't get over that, but that's because it's the last thing I would ever have done, having once had my own home.

Did she ask you to move out and you refused to go?

She decided to move out. One of her former friends convinced her that it was the best thing to do. Our families did not agree with that because they are all pro-marriage and want us to work on it. The place where she stays is girls-only so no men can live there. I haven't been over there myself but her parents have and they are ultra-conservative and would not approve of her moving in with single guys.

I would love to take steps to make her feel safe. Can you help me with that? How can I talk to her about making necessary changes. I really am serious about doing those things. I know I come across a dirt-bag from my history but I really am not that person anymore and I love my wife and care about our marriage.

I would send her an email with all of your changes much like the check list I posted. Write them out - and post it here.

Thank you Melody. I will write it out once I get back from the gym and post if you guys for comment before I send it.

The other thing you need to do is invite her to move back into the marital home.

When I say "invite", I do NOT mean "badger her and put pressure on her to do the right thing and work on your marriage".

As you can probably deduce from the way we turned the focus of this thread away from her affairs and wrongdoings and onto yours, the bigger problem with restoring your marriage (if such a thing is possible, and I would describe your chances as vanishingly slim) is the five years of adultery that you inflicted on your wife. Even though she only learned on this last year and so was unaware that she was living through it, she has had to adjust her view of your entire marriage. From her point of view she hasn't had a marriage. From her point of view you have exploited her ignorance and had a high old time screwing around at her expense. She didn't sign up for serial adultery when she made her vows, and when she learned of it, she learned that she never had a marriage. Less than a year of fidelity out of 5.5 years does not count as a marriage.

You'll probably tell me that you have apologised to her for what you did, but your tone to us when you got here sounded anything but apologetic. You covered your affairs in less than a line of text but went into great detail about her breaking up her friend's relationship and all the other affairs she has had. You clearly felt yourself to be the wronged husband, to the point that you didn't see importance of her decision to divorce you. The divorce was an interference with the life that YOU wanted to lead, not a sign of her utter despair.

If you want to have any chance of winning your wife back, then the focus has to be on the concept of winning her back, and not on telling her what you will and won't put up with, as you did in that letter. At the moment it is she telling you that she won't put up with your execrable behaviour, and I've seen nothing from what you've told us to suggest that she should ever go back to you.

Winning her back means treating her with the utmost care and consideration in the hope that she'll call off the divorce, and if she doesn't, in the hope that she might want to reconcile with you one day.

The reason I pressed you on how she came to move out and leave you in the home is that that situation should never have happened if you had wanted her to work on the marriage with you. If she refused to live with you, then you should have moved out and let her stay in the home. Now that she has moved out, Plan A requires that you invite her to move back, and offer to leave the house yourself if that is the only way to get her back home.

The thing is, she has no reason at all to consider returning to a life with you. She has no children with you, and whatever joint assets and investments you have can be undone. They are not the definition of a marriage. Your marriage is relatively short and during its duration you have been separated from each other due to deployment. She has learned to live without you and can easily carry on doing so, so if she is to come back, it will only be because she sees your treating her with kindness and care. In Dr Harley's terms, you need to make love bank deposits and make NO love bank withdrawals; none at all. There must be no angry outbursts from you, and no lectures about the wrongness of her affair or the rightness of your marriage; these are disrespectful judgements and they will only serve to confirm what a thoughtless pig you have been to her all these years.

The first step in showing extraordinary care and consideration for her is to give her back her home. If she refuses to live there with you, then offer to move out - without telling her how miserable that will make you feel. If you have to move out, try to date her and court her as you did before you were married.

If you are lucky enough to get her to move back, you must stay in Plan A in the hope of getting her to end all her relationships with other men, and return emotionally to you.

Please listen to this radio clip involving a BH in a similar position to yours, in that the marriage was only a few years old, they had no children, his wife was having an affair and she had moved out of the marital home.

The difference is that when he came to this forum, unfortunately this poster was advised to tell his wife to move out. Having done so, he was now stuck trying to do an effective Plan A with a wife whom he hardly ever saw. When he asked Dr Harley what to do, Dr Harley told him what I have just told you; invite her to move back, and move out yourself if need be, but try to date her if you are forced to move out.