I have been married almost 24 years. I have had 2 physical affairs, several female friendships that included late night chats (platonic, but hidden), internet pornography and playing Second Life, (having inappropriate interactions online there). All of this has been exposed to my wife, and we are trying to make it work. We are trying to go through Marriage Builders as a resource and have read Surviving an Affair. Over the past 6 months, I have been 100% successful in not interacting with anyone that I was interacting with before in any inappropriate way. My wife (and I) have made contact with these women, letting them know she knows and that my interactions with them will cease. I also am hyper-aware to how I interact with women in general. I have not done anything inappropriate on the internet at all, and attend a weekly faith-based recovery group. She has all my passwords and monitors my email and phone activity. I feel like I have been working hard to make changes, but am having a hard time with dealing with the present and future, when almost every day, she brings up the affairs or my past dishonesty, and she basically floods me with my past transgressions, regardless of what I say. She often blames herself and wants to know how "she can be more like these women" I had affairs with. She also has a "photographic memory" where she can recall emails she has seen verbatim, or conversations held 10 or even 20 years ago. I have made many changes and have tried to show her she is enough (more attention, more following the policy of joint agreement), but it doesn't seem to help. We seem to be caught in this cycle right now and I don't know how to get us out of it. Ideas?

What has been done on this list below? What is left to do?

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.

Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

hi kansas, welcome to Marriage Builders. It will take much, much more than more attention and the POJA to recover your marriage. The first step is affair proofing your marriage so she feels safe. She will be horribly triggered unless there is a radical change in the environment that led to your affairs. Prisca posted the check list, where do you stand on each item?

Affair recovery? With your wife or alone? Mixed or single sex?

What is their plan for recovery?

The problem with a lot of counselling efforts is it simply keeps the affair a topical and an ever present subject. This plan cleans out the affair, affair-proofs and places focus on a romantic relationship.

Once the checklist is done you should be making UA time fun and conversation pleasant rather than keeping up conversation about the affair.

Your wife would really benefit from support here where she could see that generally mistresses are no great shakes and there's zero need for her to compete.

Will your BW post here?