Nickie I am sorry for the reasons you are here.

I have read through your story. There are two different kinds of affairs we see here. The first and most common is the affair where two married people have poor boundaries and allow each other to meet needs that only the spouse should be meeting. They wind up 'falling into' an affair. The second kind of affair is different. It isn't about poor boundaries, or about falling in love with a specific person, but rather it is about *actively pursuing* affairs. Usually this is done for the sole purpose of physical pleasure, or sometimes the high of the SSL, but it usually has nothing to do with an individual person.

Your WH is the second person.

We refer to these people as serial cheaters, because there is almost always multiple AP's (as there is in your situation). Recovering a marriage with a serial cheater is far more difficult, because it isn't just something that happened due to poor boundaries. You can't just shore up boundaries to protect yourself. You also don't have one 'enemy' so to speak as far as an old AP. Everyone is a potential new AP...in your case with bisexuality even more so. With serial cheaters who are actively pursuing affairs, you need to instead create a marriage that makes it virtually impossible for them to seek out another affair. This means being together or knowing their whereabouts at all times of the day. No smart phone or internet use, no social media. Being diligent to alternate ways for them to get around the system, such as using a second phone unknown to you to arrange hookups.

Your WH actively pursued multiple affairs. With men, which means EVERYBODY is a threat to your marriage, men and women alike. He hasn't pursued them for a long term love affair, but rather for quick sex. This is far more difficult to stop, monitor, or catch frankly because the act doesn't take long and it doesn't leave a lot of trace. He could be meeting up with someone before work, during a 10 minute trip to the grocery store, or on his way home. I am not kidding you. Do you know how many men hire prostitutes for oral sex on their way to work in the morning? It takes less than 10 minutes and their spouse is none the wiser. This is the kind of 'affair' you are dealing with here. This is what you have to try and protect yourself from for the rest of your married life.

Dr Harley has counciled people who had serial cheating spouses and if you are willing to be diligent in your monitoring for the rest of your life, you could potentially have a long marriage. I personally would not want to live like that. If I were you, at your young age and with presumably no children, I would not want to continue this marriage.

If you choose to though, I want you to know what you are up against. You can't have this non chalant attitude, where you commit to being totally honest about your snooping methods, and feel like you can quit checking up on him and just trust him at some point.

You are having a hard time getting through this because many of the conditions that led to his behavior are still there. He still works late (which was his excuse provided to allow him to meet up with these men), he is still hiding things about the past hookups, and he still hides things from you (like porn use). You have absolutely no reason to trust that he is not going to betray you again, quite the contrary.

If I were you, given the number of hookups and the fact that he has continued to hide things from you, I would also ask him to take a polygraph. You can find out if there are more things you do not know about. His response alone to this request will be very telling.

Read this and listen to the radio clips.
Serial Cheaters

I would just point out that, as far as Nickie knows, this all took place before they were married.

I'm very puzzled that she knew about this situation and married him anyway, but the fact remains that these were not "affairs".

There is some seriously convoluted logic in your argument. A man who has sex with men, whether he only "gives" or whether he also "receives", isn't "straight". That makes no sense.

I can't understand why you married him knowing that, at the very least, he "gave" sex to men, since you seemed to already think that this was an aspect of his sexuality that you would never be able to satisfy.

If I understand your first post correctly, you did not suffer any torment until you found out recently that he had "received". You seem to have been quite fine marrying him, and being married to him for over a year, knowing that he had "given". You seem to feel disgusted only because you have now found out that he "received" as well as "gave".

You don't seem bothered by his acting out on his sexual desires and lying to you about it; only about the fact that he "received', and lied about THAT. It's the details of the act that bother you, not the sex with other people, per se.

I hope this isn't how you still feel. If you are looking to use Marriage Builders concepts to build a romantic, integrated, happy marriage, you both need to be committed to fidelity - full stop. No giving, no receiving, and no other sexual practices outside the marriage. Just you two having sex with each other, and no-one else.

It was the fact that by only giving that is something he could do to a woman too. That he chose men because in his mind he didn't think of it as cheating because it wasn't a woman. I married him because I love him and by the time we got to the wedding, things had gotten much better. I'm not saying that I can't give him that sexual experience either. We had done that together and part of me wonders if he pursued men in that way because he liked how it felt with me.

I have a problem with him having sex with others, whether they be male or female. I was disgusted when he finally admitted to receiving because that made me feel like he would need a male companion from that point since a woman can't quite do that part. I felt like it was something I wouldn't be able to fulfill for him myself.

It just made it that much more real for me to see what he was craving and that I would have to worry about everybody walking down the street at that point. The point about him bringing another person into our bed was hurtful since that is supposed to be our safe place. It's still bad in my mind to do it in the car or whatever, but inviting a stranger to our home and sleeping with him in our bed made it even more personal.

I am 100% faithful. He has said he will be too and that this was all a stupid mistake. He is a serial cheater and I will always worry and check up on him. We had been doing great up until hearing these last admissions, and I think that is because he lied to me upon questioning several times. He hasn't had any slip ups in almost 2 years besides watching the porn and lying about those details. there haven't been any new conversations or hookups.

Honestly, I feel like I have 2 types of answers from you all so far. You either think I'm young so I should quit and start over. Or, I should spy on him forever. I want my marriage to work and if that means I have to watch him all the time than I guess I will.

It's not that you have "2 type of answers" from us.

It's that there are only those two options. Wouldn't you want us to tell you about both? Nobody is actually telling you what to do. The choice of going or staying is yours, but if you stay, this will happen again unless both of you first, believe in fidelity, and second, lead integrated lives as a means to that end.

I wasn't complaining I was just summing up what I have heard so far. I know the easy thing to do would be get a divorce and start over. I just don't feel like I'm at that point. I will look into spyware and what not to see what it all entails. I do have to say that I do appreciate all of the different opinions and advice. I am committed to making this work and I think he is too, but it sounds like the best way to keep this from happening again is to remain vigilant and watch for any signs that he may be headed down that road again. I know he can't have any side phones as he doesn't have access to any funds including cash without me knowing. I already have access to his communication routes. I don't have anything on the car or his phone for tracking. That looks like my next step.