Hi, I came on here a year and a bit ago when i found out my husband had been seeing prostitutes for the last 2 years.

I decided to give him a chance and we went to counselling to resolve our past and whatever excuses he gave for the cheating.

A few months ago I found out he had taken another woman to dinner while on a business trip. At this point I asked him to leave and called his parents and his sister to resolve the issue. They asked me once again to give him another chance. Which I reluctantly agreed to.

We have gone back to counselling and I feel like the counsellor sympathises with him and basically thinks I am being too harsh.

She keeps asking me to put myself in a vulnerable position and fulfil his needs when his needs are acknowledgement for things he has done in the past. Things that are now tainted by the lying and cheating.

She seems to think I should trust him even thoguh he has repeatedly shown he can't be trusted through broken promises and lies.

I don't know if there is any point in continuing. We clearly do not understand each other's needs and at this time i am not willing to open myself up to more hurt.

I think the counsellor does not understand where I am coming from or my situation. I feel she is only making my cheating husband feel like he has every right to cheat.

Not really a solution.

what would your suggestion be?

I could use any help I can get.

Thank you

Welcome back.

I'm not going to even look just yet but I'm betting you took some heat last time you were here for allowing your husband to continue to work at a job that required "business trips".

He is a serial cheater. The only way he can be trusted is if your eyes are on him. I've seen Dr. Harley suggest in situations like this that IF the husband wants to save his marriage, he needs to quit his job and find a way to make a living working with his wife. Simply...he can't be trusted alone (he'll call a prostitute) or with any female (friends or work colleagues - he'll ask them out to dinner).

Of course, you remain free to divorce him if you choose. You don't have to subject yourself to this one more second. His family can beg you all they want but your happiness and peace of mind matter too. Perhaps you took him back too easy last time so this time what's going to be different. He's learned he can get you back and still do what he wants. That's a hard habit to break.

I'm not hearing the counselors side of things but she/he sounds like they are just tying to facilitate compromise and "save" a family versus addressing the primary abuser in the room honestly. Staying married isn't the goal here...rebuilding a non-abusive marriage of extraordinary care is. What he is doing is worse than physcial abuse. Counselor doesn't seem to get that and might actually be a wayward him or herself.

Your husband has driven your car (marriage) into a brick wall and instead of totaling out the wreckage has begged you to allow him to fix the "totalled" car and give it another chance.

So for the last year you've been driving around in a beater car. The frame is off. The bumper has duct tape on it. It woobles down the road and it feels like you are driving sideways because no matter how hard you try the frame just remains a lttle out of kilter. Literally ...it's a POS car.

Now your husband has borrowed POS car for a "business trip" and "totaled" it AGAIN.

His family is begging you to take back this jalopy AGAIN. To continue to drive literally the worst car ever. It doesn't even resemble a safe car anymore. The bumpers are gone. The airbags have already been deployed and cut out. Even the safety belts are shredded now.

I say you deserve a NEW car. Read up on Just Compensation. I say it should be your husband running around reading on website and forums about how to be a great husband and make this up to you to the greatest extent he can. He can't rewrite history but he can become a better man, husband and father and becoming so....should be up to him. He totaled it...HE should fix it and until he demonstrates skill and expertise and a solid plan to not earn your trust but to actually be trustworthy and accountable ...you should keep your distance.

If you want to give him a chance....this should be HIS job to figure out how to make you actually safe in your marriage and how to give you some modicum of just compensation or else...you should be out of there.

Thanks for the response Mr Wondering.

I completely agree with you.

I don't think the counselor has any idea what it feels like to be repeatedly betrayed. For someone who isn't married herself, I find it worrying that she continues to try to tell us that it is fixable.

I would love for the marriage to be saved but frankly I don't see that happening unless he takes action.

You posted for a mere 24 hours the last time you were here, and this was as much as you knew then:

You knew that he had been on dating sites and with escort agencies, but he denied any physical contact with these women.

How did this go from no physical contact to prostitutes for the previous 2 years? Did you get him to take that polygraph? Did he confess before he took it? Did you make him take it anyway? What was he asked, and what was the analysis?

If you had stayed with us, we would never have let you see a counsellor. We spend a lot of time on here warning people against traditional counsellors, and pointing out the damage they do to an already damaged marriage. They have no idea how to recover a marriage after an affair, or what needs to be done to ensure that another affair never takes place. They actually make affair-damaged marriages worse. I'm so sorry that yours is another story that we can add to our case histories. If you are considering counselling still, you must consult only with the Harley's. You can get detailed, free advice by writing to Dr Harley care of the radio show.

What he will tell you is what MrWondering told you above; that your serially cheating, sexually impulsive husband will not change his ways on his own. Left alone in the company of women, he will try to bed them. If you want to give your marriage a chance, then your H must agree enthusiastically to adhere to the standard "extraordinary precautions" (EPs) that apply to everyone, but he must also never be without you in the company of women (or online, unsupervised). He must be desperately willing to live in a goldfish bowl, where you can see everything he does all day, for the rest of his life - and you must agree to have that kind of marriage, too.

If either of you cannot stomach that, then call it a day, right now. This marriage is not capable of being rescued without those extreme measures.

When was your last STI test? I hope you are not having sex with this dog right now, by the way.

I just posted to his old thread. He didn't stick around last time so maybe this time will be different. I've got a few former wayward husband friends that I'm made on MB over the years. I also know a ton of unrepentant waywards that just didn't and couldn't seem to change that couldn't handle posting here on MB. His odds aren't great but there is always hope. How big is your God?


An unmarried marriage counselor? You should probably send her here too. Do gooder counselor probably has a stack of family issues of her own that she's trying to cure...fixing your family with a Plan Appeasement and Enabling.

He still denies having had sex with anyone. the prostitutes are the same incident - a year and half from now - meaning 3 years ago.

He refused to come back to MB because he felt overwhelmed by the comments he got.

I'm not sure he can save this because he doesn't seem prepared to put in the work.

I've looked at coaching with Dr Harley and I honestly cannot afford it. I lost my job last year and started studying nursing a few months ago so I have zero income other than the measly bursary I'm allocated.

Asking him to leave his job is not a viable option. He is a co-founder in the company. I have expressed that I do not approve of any further business trips. He has complied so far but at some point he will need to go on a business trip and with my studies and the kids i can't go with him.

I hope you don't buy this whiny baloney.

He left because he was not serious about doing what it takes to fix your marriage, as evidenced by his further actions (continuing his secret second life and wooing of other women).

But that is not what I recommended. Dr Harley will coach you for free. I wrote:

It does not seem as if you read my post carefully. In fact, I also asked you questions that you did not address.

You are doing nothing that is in line with MB advice. You have set your bar VERY low and your WH is willing to oblige with his wayward behavior continuing since your first post here. And yet you STILL do not even want to follow the most obvious EP's to affair proof your marriage (which, is going to be relatively impossible because your husband is a very serious serial cheater who is unremorseful and has no plans to change).

Welcome to your future.

For what its worth, you are worth more than this. It sure doesn't seem like you believe that but it's true!

I was surprised to see that you were in this position given that you have posted here before so I went back and looked at your last thread.

Many of us told you to (1) make sure to follow through on the poly, warned you that you probably did not have the full truth and (2) that he could not continue his job.

This is what you responded to me:

Yet you disappeared and seemingly didn't implement ANY of our advice and have continued to listen to his nonsense? Even going so far as to go to a counselor and allow her to counsel you based on the words of a known liar and manipulator?

WTOIM, this is craziness. Sorry to be harsh but part of the problem here is YOU. Your WH knows that you will not follow through, using your financial dependence on him and your desire to keep the family together against you.

As long as you keep letting this happen, it WILL.

You already said something along these lines 1 1/2 years ago but then did.....nothing....so sadly, again, sorry to be harsh, I see the same thing happening again this time.

I am not sure how much you have read of this site but Dr Harley recommends separating from a wayward husband after three weeks - if requirements are not fulfilled to provide extraordinary care and protection to you....in addition to ending the affair/s.

Not only is none of this being done but he is gaslighting you in counseling sessions as well.

To continue spinning your wheels this way, you are putting your physical and emotional well being at risk. Think of it this way: Your children already have one wayward sick parent... it makes it that much more important that you keep yourself healthy for them.

What do your children know about all this? Have they been exposed to?

I did monitor him and he went on no business trips for a year. I had a key logger on his laptop and phones. He got rid of all phones and I had a tracker on the only one he had so I could monitor where he was at all times.

He worked from home in the same room as my dad. So he had zero opportunity to get on any dating sites or anything else. I'm not really sure what else I was supposed to do.

He has agreed to everything I have asked. Compliance does not mean he is motivated to work on this or that he knows how.

What would you suggest I do?

Chastising me for not following through is pretty ineffective and pointless.

Don't see the counselor any more, and do the other stuff SusieQ says you didn't do. That's what she would suggest you do.

Expose to your children, too.

The problem is not that SusieQ didn't suggest anything for you to do. It's very clear and obvious what she is suggesting for you to do. The problem is that you don't want to do it.

So you'll continue to live in misery.

The children know. I told them daddy was a liar and he did some really bad things and had to leave.

He will not be going on business trips any more. Have already made that clear. Until the company is bought it, he has to stay in the job. It is our only source of income and same for his coworkers.

Nonono, tell them what he did, not "some really bad things." And tell them who with, so they can recognize the people if he brings them around them. Finally, tell them that infidelity hurts horribly and that it hurts so badly that you cannot live with him until he stops doing it and never sees or talks to his affair partner again.

So are you going to do these things?

You seem defensive. We really do want to help you!

I have been in your shoes and know what it is like to be with a serial cheat. If we seem harsh it is because we don't want you to get hit but the bus...again.