OK folks here goes...

49 years old, married 28 years. Back in early October I had an anonymous sexual encounter. It was a 15 minute vile event that I regret greatly. When I told my wife (10 days after) she was hurt massively. The encounter was a way of acting out fantasies that I have had for years (more on this later)

We have been getting joint counseling + each getting individual counseling. Through out the course of the counseling it has become clear to me that I have been verbally abusive for 15 years. No name calling or degrading, but raising my voice and "arguing to win". I grew up around this sort of thing and it was no big deal to me. She did NOT and it has hurt her greatly. Also, through counseling it has become clear that I have an issue with fantasies/visualization and issues with views on sex as an act that I was entitled to. Will spare you the details but I "released" regularly to these fantasies. Now the good news is that I've stopped ALL verbal lashing out and ALL fantasization and "releasing" -- was not easy but it screwed up my life and I want my life fixed.

Wife says she still loves me -- I believe her! But she also has always said she would leave me if I ever had an affair on her. She can see where I have changed / has told me she is pleased. However she is uncertain she will ever be able to trust or respect me. For the past month we have had NO physical contact (hand holding, hugs, etc.) She has given me two hugs since this started but cringes if I touch her / hence my stopping one month back / even before this it was VERY minimal (like one time every 3-4 days where I placed a hand on her shoulder)

She has stated that she is not sure she want to try and reconcile / that she wants to stay in the marriage. She says she has no idea how long it will take her to decide if she wants to try and reconcile

Other piece of information is that in late October I finally turned my life over to Christ -- been close multiple times / crisis like this makes you realize that self-reliance is stupid. This has brought me great peace of mind and allowed me to see things totally differently. It's also allowed me to help a couple of friends that have reached out to me. Amazing the power of faith / what God can do when you let him!

I want to reconcile and am willing to change. Have read His Needs, Her Needs; Love Busters; and Surviving an Affair (each two times). Have accepted that I have massive needs to change and am willing to do what I need to. Have NOT blamed wife and will not -- affair was my lack of character. We will have things to work on together as she has not been able to be honest with me for 15 years due to her fear of me lashing out verbally. I accept that if I had done the things that Dr. Harley advised over the past 15 years our life together would have been much better.

I'd appreciate any thoughts/perspectives on what I might do to help her through this tough time. My guess is that I just need to give her time and be supportive -- fine with both. But if I'm missing something I would appreciate any/all perspectives. I would be 100% fine with Dr. Harley's 15 hours a week of quality time (for 15 years it has been more like 3 hours) but she is not interested.

Thanks in advance for the thoughts and perspectives.

Hi MUB, welcome to MArraige Builders. It sounds like what you need most is a plan. The MB plan has 2 parts: affair proofing the marriage and creating a romantic relationship. Affair proofing your marriage is the most critical first step. The environment that made the affair possible has to be eliminated. Where did oyu meet the OW, for example? Do you ever spend the nights apart? Does your wife have full access to all of your computers, phones, etc? Have you made your life so transparent that it would be impossible to create the necessary secret 2 life?

And do you watch porn?

Here is the checklist from Surviving an Affair. Where do you stand on these items?

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.

Would your wife be willing to come here and let us help her?

Thanks for the initial thoughts.

Regarding "ending" the affair, there is nothing to end -- it was with a total stranger that I do not even know who to contact. The biggest thing to "ending" things is via stopping my fantasizing -- which I have done. It did take place when I was driving to visit relatives. I have made the trip since and NOT put myself in a risky situation. On spending nights apart, she has been gone several times since this happened. She has FULL visibility of all of my accounts, all the money and have enabled tracking on my phone so that she can follow me if/when she likes. The honesty/transparency/stopping things aspects have all been implemented IMHO.

Regarding the leisure time / spending time together, I would love to do this! She has no interest. Right now she is not certain she wants to continue in the relationship. On the good news front, I am still in the house (albeit sleeping on the floor since), she does still love me, we are going to counseling and she "does not want to give up" on the marriage

Regarding coming on here, that's not going to happen. Her counselor has advised her to not spend any time investigating/reading on affairs. I think this is very poor guidance BUT I will NOT intercede in her counseling / interfere.

Also on the bad news front, spouse has stated that she "cannot afford to connect with me emotionally" as if I hurt her again she would "not be able to recover". Basically we are in the same house but she is totally disconnected emotionally.

It could simply be a matter of waiting.

Any other thoughts are welcome!

Thank you in advance for your support

My other thoughts are that spending the night apart *IS* placing yourself in a risky situation. It is how your last affair happened. Saying that you traveled again but did not place yourself in a risky situation is like saying you went drunk driving but did not place yourself in a risky situation this time. Spending the night apart is an invitation to an affair.


This is why we are telling you to affair proof your marriage and tell her about your plan. She can have a great marriage with you if you will affair proof your marriage. But you need to do that first. Otherwise you are not safe.

Tell us about this anonymous sexual encounter.

I suspect you did not trip over a stranger in the street and wound up copulating.

MelodyLane -- My preference is NOT to spend the night apart. She has wanted to go to functions/events out of town and told me she does NOT want me there. I do not drink, smoke, or touch drugs. I will not put myself in a risky situation again as I understand that I am prone to temptation. I would love to spend more time together with her and discuss more about reconnecting. She is not interested at present / she does not know if she can get over her basic belief that cheaters are the lowest life form and should be tossed out

SugarCane -- The encounter was meeting a stranger in a public place and copulating in a public place. As I said it was vile and reprehensible. I have shared the details with my spouse per her request and she has visited the site where it took place to put her mind at ease. Have spoken at length with the counselor about this. As I said have had fantasies/been "unfaithful in the mind" for years. I have also been through the "why" with my counselor and shared the "why" with my spouse. It was a major issue with her (understanding why) and since I shared she has not asked any additional questions.

I DO respect the feedback and WILL follow it to the best of my ability. My challenge is getting my spouse to engage. The marriage counselor has challenged her multiple times if she wants to be there. She says she does as it provides her a "safe" place to talk to me about things -- my communication style / arguing to win has hurt her BADLY and WAS abusive. I have admitted this to her and come to terms with it.

The reason I asked for the details is because there is always something that we can do to ensure that we are not exposed to our vulnerabilities again.

Sometimes it is the environment of the workplace that facilitates affairs, such as when working on airlines and staying away from home, or in some medical settings, where long working hours and socialising with colleagues is the norm. In those situations, the unfaithful spouse might have to change their working environment altogether, even if that means giving up the job (as my husband did).

I don't think you've given enough details of this encounter. Did you bump into someone on the street, and have sex on the street? How did you know that the woman was willing to do this? This sounds so unlikely.

I think you might be talking about sex with a prostitute, or with a worker in a massage parlour, or with some other kind of sex worker. Alternatively, it could have been someone you picked up in a bar, with whom you had sex in the toilet or in a park.

I am not trying to invade your privacy here, so I wonder why you will not give the details. It might that you are ashamed of them - which would be a good thing, because shame is a valuable, protective response to what you have done. If you felt no shame, it would mean that you did not have the values that married people should have, and it would mean that your wife is not safe to be married to you. If you feel repulsion about what you have done, that should mean that you will not lightly do it again; alternatively, if you feel repulsion at what you have done and do it anyway, that could mean that you are a sexual compulsive, and that requires a very stringent set of precautions to work around.

The point is that the details matter. Your cannot take extraordinary precautions against repeating this offence if you do not analyse the way in which your poor boundaries - or your fantasies, as you prefer to describe them - collided with the perfect opportunity. If you are to use the help that is available on this forum, you need to answer our questions properly.

So, what happened?

You said that the encounter happened when you were "driving to meet relatives", but an encounter like that could happen even if you were not spending nights apart. (That is not an argument for continuing to spend nights apart.) That encounter was able to happen simply because you were alone, out in public, without your wife.

No wonder she feels that she can never be safe if she stays with you. Your wife thinks that something that happened so easily once, with a perfect stranger, probably happened a lot more than once, actually, and can easily happen again, frequently. Your wife does not know who you are any more. I suspect that it is this, rather than her belief that "cheaters are the lowest form of life", that is stopping her from having anything to do with you. She probably would admit, when not angry, that she knows that we can all be tempted in the right circumstances, but for you - you did not have to form a relationship with a woman you liked, at work or in the neighbourhood; you did it with a complete stranger, purely for the sex, with no emotional attachment involved.

Actually, psychology experiments show that 99% of men offered no-strings sex with a stranger would accept it - but that isn't the kind of affair that affects most marriages. In most affairs, the man is drawn to a particular woman, and so the first extraordinary precaution must be that he never sees or communicates with that particular woman ever again. Solve that issue and a couple has done a lot to make sure that there are no further affairs. That, and transparency, of course.

However, you are going to have to offer your wife a different, very specific set of extraordinary precautions against random encounters, and it sounds as if they will have to include never going out of the house without a chaperone (your wife, or one of your kids, or someone else). Can you offer that?

Have you and your wife taken tests for sexually transmitted infections?

SugarCane -- It happened in a gas station. I stopped in to get a candy bar and noticed an attractive woman. Eye contact, chatting, flirting, innuendos. We made our way to the men's room and the encounter ensued. Less than 20 minutes from first contact to done. Very embarassing. Very ashamed.

I revealed to my wife after 10 days because I contracted an STD and was concerned I put her at risk by having intercourse with her one time PRIOR to knowing that I had the STD. We both received antibiotics and are fine.

I cannot/will not even look at another woman now. When I see pics of women in tight clothing -- much less a bikini -- on line I get away fast. In public I look the other way. As I said have had visualizations for years. My counselor has been a HUGE help with this and I am doing great. HOWEVER, recognize that I am weak in this area and always will be. Turning my life over to Christ / praying daily / asking for His help every time I notice another woman is making a big difference.

I know that I will face temptations going forward. I am now sharing openly with my wife -- as much as she is willing to hear -- when I have even noticed someone.

My concerns are about what -- if anything -- I can do to help her heal / get to the point where she is willing to consider reconciling.

Hope the above is enough details. Trust me I'm analyzing the heck out of things and doing all I can think of to avoid putting myself at risk.

One other thing for the past 15 years I have been begging my wife to come back to me / quit closing me out of her life. Three times I have asked her if she wants a divorce/wants to move on as she does not seem to want me in her life. I see now that I was to blame for hurting her and causing her to pull away. Have stopped the "love busters" and am doing all I can to make ammends

Thanks for the feedback

What specific things is your counsellor telling you to do?

What do you do to stop "visualising"? As well as not looking at images of women, have you been told not to masturbate?

Has he or she told you that you must not use the Internet unsupervised - perhaps not at all? That you should not watch TV? Even the news will have pictures of scantily-clad women at the Grammys. But most importantly, what does he or she suggest about your going out without a chaperone?

Unless you adopt behaviours that make it impossible for you to have another random encounter with a woman in a gas station, your wife has no reason to take seriously a single thing you tell her, including that you have turned your life over to Christ. God isn't going to stop you physically from doing something that you want to do; you have to do that yourself, and willpower will not cut it in tempting situations. You have to remove the opportunity from those tempting situations.

When you've answered my questions above, I think you should read Dr Harley's article What is Sexual Addiction?

Do not stop at the scenario at the top of the article, which might not sound much like your situation. Make sure you read every word of Dr Harley's advice written below it.

I think you have not given us enough information to send you down the sex addiction path, but this article is invaluable because it makes specific recommendations for sexual compulsives.

When you've read it, I think you should then send a letter to Dr Harley, describing this encounter and being honest about any other "encounters" there have been, and telling him about your visualisations and your counsellor's strategy. Ask for specific advice on changing your behaviour in order to make your wife feel confident that another random encounter is not around the corner. This is quite an unusual situation on the affair spectrum, and I think you need his expert advice.

SugarCane -- Thanks for the feedback. You raised some thoughts/ideas that I had not considered.

Masturbation is an issue. I have stopped -- not easy to do / did have a backslide on this.

I did not think about having a chaperone and/or never being alone. I'm not adverse to that, but it would be really, really tough.

On the STD front have been tested and am getting one more "gold standard" test to put her more at ease.

I'll read the article on addiction -- suspect I qualify.

Counselor has given me some mental coping tools that are working well. My urges are GONE -- been bit hard by this and do not want anything to do with the perversion anymore

When you say send a letter to Dr. Harley, do you mean via mail or email? Agree that the situation is strange / have not been able to find much similar

Thank you for giving me some things to think about/try

SugarCane -- Read the article. Think I fall in the category of insensitive and stupid versus addicted. I've always "looked" and shared my comments openly with my wife -- even when she let me know they hurt.

Since this happened we have discussed. I have had no problem avoiding looking. Now mind you I do "see" on occasion. However, now my thought is "that's not for me" and "God would not want me to do this". With these two tools (thanks to my counselor) the urges to look are gone.

The consequences of my stupidity have been massive and I have no interest in repeating my acts -- they brought me nothing!!!

Actually, Dr H says says that most people DO NOT qualify; they (and their counsellors) use the label too readily. The point of that article is to show why most people who have prolific sexual encounters - even Tiger Woods - cannot assume a sexual addiction until they have tried behavioural methods to keep themselves away from opportunistic situations. (Not that you have admitted to rampant sexual encounters - but pornography is another form of sex addiction.)

Send Dr Harley an email to the Marriage Builders radio programme that broadcasts every day - and listen to the programme from today, every weekday. You can listen when you like by downloading the app to your phone. You need to learn how the Marriage Builders concepts work together to give your wife (and you) the kind of romantic, sexually fulfilling, faithful marriage that you want.

You need to read every single article on his site (click the "Articles" link in the red area at the top of every page), starting with How to Survive an Affair and How Can Trust Be restored After An Affair?. But you absolutely must also read the Basic Concepts that the affair articles discuss; do not make the mistake of thinking that once you find a way to reassure you wife, your marriage will be fine. It won't be fine, and it won't recover, unless you both live an integrated, transparent life, making each other into your favour companions and spending a large amount of time focusing on each other, every single week, and also eliminating love busters. The way to create such a marriage is described in the Basic Concepts articles, and the links that they contain.

You, sir, need to become a marriage scholar. Study Marriage Builders to save your marriage, the way that you would study for entrance to Harvard.

Sir, I do not believe you.

What I see in you is a guy who passed an STD on to his wife, and needed some kind of a cover story. He thought that one-off random sex with a complete stranger would be the easiest excuse for his BW to swallow. So, if you have failed to convince a total stranger on the internet, how is it a wonder that your wife is in withdrawal?

What is remarkable about the story is that, if true, it makes you a hopeless case for recovery. To recover from infidelity, one has to identify the circumstances that made the infidelity possible, and then eliminate them. In a typical case, one can do things like change contact information, quit a job, or move away to another city. What can you do with somebody who can�t be trusted in a checkout line? ... somebody who can not be trusted for even 20 minutes alone? Such a person is far too risky for recovery. The BS will have to accept a marriage with continuing unfaithfulness to stay with such a person. Clearly, divorce is the only real option in that case.

So, feel free to stick to your story. You should accept that fact that this poor woman has put up with enough, and let her move on.

Sugar Cane -

Appreciate the feedback very much. "Addict" would have been an easy thing to claim. The reality is I have been selfish and inconsiderate. As I said in the post after reading, I don't qualify IMHO

As you suggest I'm reading everything that I can get my hands on to figure out how to get back on track. Understand from what is out there that it'll be a few years to get through this IF she decides that it is worth it. Also understand that it will be very difficult to stay the course and not give up during the process.

While it was only one physical encounter, the multiple mental encounters have done WAY too much harm -- to me and to my marriage. I had no clue until I stepped back and got some help.

While the encounter was non-traditional, the marriage situation is EXACTLY what Dr. Harley describes in that we both grew apart due to not making a commitment to meeting each other's needs. His recipe for getting back together makes perfect sense and hopefully we'll get a chance to implement.

In the meantime will keep working on getting my head on straight. Your challenges on whether I am doing everything I can to protect myself and my spouse from further encounters are well placed. Relying on will power is NOT enough. Need to avoid situations at all cost.

Thank you for the input and support

MrEureka -- You're welcome to be skeptical. I respect that

My wife did NOT contract an STD and I strongly suspect I could have "gotten away with it" by not telling her.

I told her knowing that it would likely cost me my marriage. I am amazed she is still with me. I told her as I could not have lived with myself if she contracted something and was not treated promptly

You mention nothing about an email to Dr Harley. If you don't send this, I don't think you stand the slightest chance of succeeding.

You're missing his point. The fact that she did not in fact contract an STI is not the point. You didn't know that she hadn't contracted one when you confessed.

His point is that your story does not add up, and I have to agree. I don't think you've gone all these years in your marriage managing to be physically faithful, and the only time you slip, it is with a stranger who is strangely willing - when does fantasy sex like that that ever happen, outside a porn movie scenario? - and who also has an STI which you catch.

Your story does not add up, and that is why your wife does not believe you. She knows you have done this before, a lot.