Your wife might be your best friend but you are not her best friend.

You say you treat your daughter like a wife but she
1. is not your wife
2. you treat your actual wife with betrayel and cruelty

People CAN change.

Keep reading about Marriage Builder concepts (emotional needs, love bank, etc) and maybe the epiphany will happen to you.

You are in a self focused, testosterone fueled messy fog in your thinking right now BUT you could get out of the fog and get it together. It is possible.

To do so you have to figure out how to build a life that doesn't allow for any time alone with any female who is not your wife. Obviously, you can not handle not starting intimate conversation and heading for sexual contact with them. Never be alone with another woman, not at work, not off work. You can make sure other people are around in the contact circle or immediately excuse yourself. You can even say "It is my policy to never be alone with any woman who is not my wife" and let people think you are a weird religious dude. They will learn to respect your position if you are firm and matter of fact about it. This is NOT unreasonable (esp. considering the way you have lived your life so far!)

Build a life that protects your Wife and protects your Child!

This sounds like a great plan to get the results you want, along with scheduling 15+ hours UA time and finding FC time as well. A beautiful life waits you! You have been so blessed.

My dad was a serial cheater, but he made a huge life change when he met his 3rd wife. He settled down and was faithful. He said the chase wasn't worth it anymore and he didn't want it. He was a wonderful father to his stepson, and gave him a childhood he wouldn't have had otherwise. There is nothing like having both a mom and a dad who love you available to you all the time.

That's the real dilemma. You're on the fence. You like the thought of living a single life, but you're worried that if you decide to leave your marriage, you'll have regrets.

Regardless of the help you may receive here, just want to make sure you realize that ultimately, the decision of what you should do is your decision. You shouldn't do anything just because someone tells you to do it; you should clarify for yourself what you should do.

Do you love your wife? (Not looking for a "yes-but" kind of answer; if you take time to dig deep into your gut feelings, do you love your wife, yes or no?)

Of course that's true: for the sake of your daughter, you do need to change and there are ways to change. The question is, do you want to change? Because if you don't, there's no point trying to convince you that you should change.

That's because a lot of people reading this thread don't think you want to change. If you do not want to change, then I agree with them; you should divorce your wife, endure the emotional pain that will result (to you, your wife, and your daughter), and allow your wife to heal, move on, and hopefully find someone she deserves.

That makes the decision to leave very difficult, doesn't it?

This makes it sound like you do want to change.... Do you?

You know yourself better than anyone else. This is a question only you can answer. What does your gut tell you?

The conflict in your thoughts makes it difficult for you to decide what to do, and the easy way out is to hope someone else will make the decision for you. Many on this thread have made the decision for you, telling you to divorce your wife. You're not happy with that decision, which probably indicates that it's not the right decision for you. Again, what does your gut say?

If you have trouble listening to your gut, maybe you should consider counseling. Have you checked out the Marriage Coaching services available on this website. I personally haven't tried them, but I've read from others that the counseling is well worth the money.

Because the decision you're brooding over is very important to you, you could go on for a long time and not be able to make up your mind. In the meantime, you will be putting both you and your wife through emotional stress that's bound to be intense at times, not to mention the effect on your daughter. Counseling can help you navigate this situation and reach clarity much sooner than you could on your own.

"Regardless of the help you may receive here, just want to make sure you realize that ultimately, the decision of what you should do is your decision. You shouldn't do anything just because someone tells you to do it; you should clarify for yourself what you should do."

Of course it is his decision to make. That doesn't mean he "should" do things that are self destructive or destructive to others. Clarifying for himself doesn't make a bad decision a good decision. And adultery is always a bad decision.

Badhusbandbadfather, I am a big believer that people can change if they choose to do so. That decision does not come from the "gut," but from the brain. The right thing to do would be to straighten up your life OR divorce your wife so she doesn't have to endure your abuse. The unethical path would be to stay with your wife and subject her to your crummy behavior.

"You know yourself better than anyone else. This is a question only you can answer. What does your gut tell you? "

Actually he is the least objective person on this thread.

How much of this site have you read? I don't get the sense that you understand what MB is about. At all.

When I came here, I wasn't sure that I wanted to save my marriage but I still read everything on this site, more than once, before I posted.

I have to say, when I see in a WS here talking about possibly saving the M, and it doesn't even appear that they have read the information available for FREE on this site, it doesn't make me feel very optimistic.

MB is all about changing bad habits and creating new ones. Serial cheaters tend to be lazy and want a quick fix and are focused on THEIR feelings and needs.

Well, if you are serious about change, this is a good place to start. Start reading. Don't make us spoon feed this to you.

Especially when you have had an affair or crossed the line (never mind have a history of serial cheating), you should be here talking eliminating your Secret Second Life (which I will point out that you haven't even acknowledged, another red flag), eliminating IB and creating a lifestyle that would make your straying impossible.

Good grief, if it is really as important as you say that it is to stay married so that you won't be separated from your child, instead of crying about how it would affect YOU (the one who put your family in this terrible mess to begin with), start talking about a plan to protect your BW from the immense pain and suffering ever again if you stay married to her.

Yes. Melody Lane's experience is my own. In fact I have spent a long time reading the MB infidelity forum not because I myself was ever cheated on but because my father cheated incredibly flagrantly, essentially every opportunity, when I was in my youth, when he was married to Mum. I am still trying to understand why.

It was so wrong, it created so much suffering, to especially my mother, but also to me and my sister, and many other people, including his best friend (he screwed his best friend's wife). There was so much trouble relating to my father's screwing around, it's like a black curse on my childhood.

My parents split up when I was 17. It was dad's decision, he wanted to see "what there was out there" for him, he wanted all that he had "missed" by getting married at 26.

I loved Dad, he was a good fun dad when I was little. I believed the great dad illusion, he spread this notion that he is wonderful.

Then he finally got rid of his annoying, carping unhappy wife (alias my loving mother) - charmingly after she had a heart attack that she would die from 20 years later. I slowly started to despise him over the next 15 years for his cruel selfcentredness and utter lack of care for others.

Haha, he was ASTONISHED to find that actually he could NOT get any woman he wanted (he was by then late 40s, very handsome, well-remunerated, intelligent, professional and fit). It was the shock of his life. He started going for the toothless ones, the drunk ones, the dregs of society. He kept trying with the more desirable ones and could not believe that they weren't interested. Once my 21-year-old colleague, at our work BBQ, hissed at me, "Can you get your father to stop touching me?! It's inappropriate. He's like - gross - drunk and old!". My father tried to look like he didn't hear it.

My sister and I, we can't stand him. My sister cannot, however, ever relinquish my father. It's screwed up her whole life, he treated her as his best buddy, told her all his "marital troubles", took her on his red-light night club jags with his friends when we living overseas. She's 53 and acts as his wife (I mean in terms of providing domestic support) when he is in between girlfriends and she gets really mad and mean (in a really underhanded way) every time Dad ditches her for his latest woman. She has struck a great poisonous oar into every single relationship. That on top of my father's increasingly alchoholic self-pity and aggression has chased off all of the girlfriends one by one.

I ended contact with both Dad and my sister several years ago because I did not want my life and my H's and children's lives to be further toxified by all this nuttery. We're happy and I'm glad I'm out of it. I don't know whether dad is alive but I'm not looking for him.

Good luck to you, mate. Honestly, be careful of what you're throwing away, you fool. There will be nothing left for YOU when it's all over.

Mirabelle, thanks so much for sharing your story. I choked when I read this about your sister because my sister had the same creepy relationship with my father. She needed his approval so badly all of her adult life and was his best "bud." Imagine my surprise when I discovered he had been providing black market pain killers to her for YEARS. [I found the fed ex receipts in his drawer after he died - he had set them every Wednesday for 10 years] My sister stood up at his funeral and talked about my dad's "unconditional love" for her. Her idea of a loving father was some man who kept her addicted to pain killers for 10 years!

Having a corrupt parent is no prize.

Wow, Mirabelle and MelodyLane,thank you so much for sharing your stories. I hope the poster is listening to your wonderful advice.

Thank you for all the advice.

What are you going to do?

Fight for my marriage and put in the work that I need to become a good husband, a good Father, and a good person.

Have you listened to Dr. Harley on the radio show?