After 6 years of relatively happy marriage, my spouse worked out of town for about a year and started multiple affairs. I've worked to build love during the times she was not in withdrawal for over 2 years.

4 months ago, she lied about a business trip and met a childhood friend got drunk and had a physical one nite stand. She always admits the affairs, often when she's still in the hotel room.

Two days ago, she said she was going to see a former lover for "closure". This turned out to be one of many lies. She re-connected with the man and may or may not have symptoms of withdrawal after this one.

The situations are becoming almost routine, but every time she tells me about the affair it feels like my heart is dying for at least a day. Normally, she relents, but secretly maintains contact with those adulterers without my knowledge. No permanent boundary is ever set or really agreed to by her.

Question: Is she getting some sadistic "high" by simultaneously hurting me and getting affection from other men? Once I'm devastated she quickly looses interest in the latest man, but some of them re-surface at a later date. If I can't set an effective boundary, even temporarily, how can I make additions to the love bank?

Thanks for any suggestions that you may have.

Have you read this?
Serial Cheaters

You are married to a serial cheater. Very different from a standard affair. As you observe, they get their high from the chase. Much more work to affair proof a marriage to someone like this. What is a serial cheater

Hi JDTEX, welcome to Marriage Builders. Your marriage problems are very different than most in that your wife is actively seeking affairs. There is nothing here to save unless that changes. Your wife is not having affairs because of unmet needs, but because she is trolling for men and has a lifestyle that supports affairs.


Of course it was a lie. When someone wants "closure" they CLOSE, they don't open.

The only advice I have to give is to demand that she make radical changes in her lifestyle by affair proofing your marriage. If she won't agree to that, then you should plan to get a divorce.

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.

Sadly, she cares MORE about getting her needs met by other men than she cares about protecting you or her marriage. This is standard for a serial cheater.

And unless you create a lifestyle where cheating becomes impossible, she will keep doing again and again.

Do you have children with this woman?

I'm sorry to tell you that making "enough" love bank deposits won't make a difference in terms of stopping a serial cheat from straying.

It's all about the EPs. Would your WW be willing to completely change her lifestyle to make cheating impossible?

Serial cheats cling to the SSL (secret second life) and IB (independent behavior) so please realize that this will be an uphill battle for you even with her upfront agreement, as this type of cheater tends to agree to things and then backslide over time.

Thanks for your wise advice and review of the material. The mechanics of the affair(s) are described perfectly by MB online material. The behaviors are so predictable it is quite remarkable, although consistently heartbreaking.

Radical lifestyle change is unlikely...right now I can't even initiate the conversation because she's still involved.

No children.
Thanks so much.

Did you read Mel's Exposure 101 above? You do that before any conversation takes place. You do that whether you plan to save the marriage or not.

You do not warn her, you just do it. Tell everyone exactly what she has been up to. This is important protection for you. Serial cheaters reinvent reality. Within a few weeks she will have a completely different version of what happened. If she gets her story out there before you get yours out, she will be believed, not you. My serial cheating ex husband told everyone that the affairs were his way of saving the marriage.