I am 52 years old, my wife is a few months short of 48. We met in June of 2010, we married in April 2012.

I am an engineer in the maritime industry. I work on ships for 6 months a year. I typically work a 21 day on, 21 day off schedule. I have been doing this the entire time I have known my wife.

In the beginning XXXX struggled with my being away but over time, she learned to better deal with being apart. She had her son, who is now away in college, living with us back then and this meant she had someone at home while I was gone. When he graduated high school and left for college we moved to a remote area near XXXXX, WA. This was four years ago. Since then, when I went to work, she often felt isolated and at times she very lonely.

I am somewhat reclusive. Not socially awkward, I just do not present myself to meet a lot of people. My wife is the opposite. People gravitate to her. She is beautiful, outgoing, bubbly and very approachable. She will and often does engage with all sorts of strangers. People genuinely like talking with her. They love her and for good reason. She is an amazing woman. I on the other hand, am somewhat reserved. I do not seek out people nor they me. I just do not feel the need to connect with people. Everyone I know, and this is no exaggeration of any sort. Everyone I know, I have met through her.

We used to be inseparable. We were just as comfortable spending time at home with our dogs and the occasional visitor as we were riding on our motorcycle all over the PNW. For years if either of us left the home we were together. She almost never went anywhere without me and I her. We would stay at home or go about our business but we would always always be together.

More than six months but less than a year after we started dating I made a grave mistake. I was on a flight traveling home from Houston to Seattle and there was a woman seated next to me. I talked with this woman for the entire flight. I spoke about my life with my wife, my stepson and my German Shepherd dog. I showed her pictures on my phone of my family and we talked. Nothing that was discussed could ever have been interpreted as inappropriate. My wife could have been sitting there and would not have disapproved of one single word spoken by either of us.

She was traveling from Philadelphia to Alaska to report to a cruise ship for work for the first time. I told her that I worked on ships and we talked about life on the ship. There was another guy from my ship seated in the front of the plane. When this woman and I deplaned, Dave was waiting at the door and asked me if I wanted to get something to eat before I caught my connection. I said yes. The woman who had been seated next to me asked if she could join us. I said yes. While we were eating, I told her that she needs to make friends with the Engineers. I told her that the Engineers run the ship and they can get her anything she needs. We ate lunch, I paid for all three of our meals and gave her my card and left to catch my flight. I didn't think about it. I just gave it to her. This was my mistake. When I was getting ready to board she texted "Thanks for lunch" I texted back "Hey you. Keep in touch" That was it. I never texted her, called her or had any communication whatsoever with her to this day. It is this very moment that destroyed my life.

I have no idea why I gave her card. I was recently promoted to Chief Engineer and they were new cards. Possibly, I was bragging without verbally bragging. Maybe I wanted to show off to an attractive woman. I really didn't put that much thought into it. I just gave her the card, I told her to show it to the engineers on the cruise ship if she needed something and they would take care of her. I had no desire or intention of meeting this woman again. I was totally 100% in love with my wife. Our life together was great. The most I could have ever ask for and I wanted for nothing more.

My wife has been married twice before. Her last marriage (several years prior to my meeting her) was to a man who was an admitted cheater. She left in the middle of the night because of his cheating and never looked back. She does not approve of this behavior at any level. When we watch movies and there is a man that cheats she gets visibly upset.

The following day my wife found the texts on my phone. She approached me in a very accusing manor. I told her that I sat next to her and we talked on the flight the entire way to Seattle. She said "you never talk with anyone, why would you talk with her?" She asked if she was attractive, I told her yes. She asked how she got my number and I told her I gave her my card. She asked why and I had no answer. I told her we talked about work. That we had something in common, we both worked on ships. This woman was going to sell art in the gift shop on the cruise ship. I worked in the engineering department of a chemical tanker at the time. Other than the fact that she could not step off the ship and set foot on dry earth, we had ZERO in common. I am not overly confident with women and never have been. I would never be the guy that you would say "Had Game". In my text, I said Hey You". I used these words verbatim in an email to my wife when we first started dating. This fact did not escape her and she got really upset.

XXXX told me she wanted me out. (we were not married at this time). I was living in her home and she told me she wanted me to leave. I got in my truck and went to a hotel. I apologized profusely and she accepted me back in her home. Our relationship was never the same. We had many good times and loving moments but there was this underlying darkness that raised up from nowhere from time to time. She would call me a cheater and make accusations that were not true. I would try to defend my actions and she would call me a liar. This continued for another year or so. In 2012 we married and a year later we bought our current home together. Over the last three years and especially the last year, we drifted apart.

XXXX started getting more and more combative. I pulled further and further away. She started telling me I do not listen to her. I do not pay attention to her, she says I do not know her. When I tried to reach her she would push me away and say really mean things where I could not defend myself. She would bring this airport thing up all the time. Now when she would see a guy in the movie she would attack me telling me that I broke a seal that she thought was impenetrable. I could not defend myself. She would not listen to anything I had to say about that lunch. She would tell me I put spin on it saying we had something in common. I cannot tell her she is wrong about this.

For four years we drifted apart. We have come to a point that she is convinced that I cheated on her. I stopped trying to convince her differently after three years of being called a cheat and attacked for the slightest thing, I am ashamed at the way I have treated my wife. I have retreated into a shell. I was not affectionate and would get angry and defensive quickly. XXXX is very sexual , I am not strong in bed. She feels as though I do not love her. I have said horrible things to her telling her I do not care what she does. She started drinking and would get drunk and physically abuse me. We could not go out to dinner or stop at a bar to see friends without her drinking to excess. She would play nice in public and talk sweet to me in front of people but when we got in the car or got home she would abuse me physically, verbally and emotionally. The drinking got worse and we drifted further and further apart. She says I do not listen to her. She is right. She tells me things about her or our life and I do not remember them. She is right. She says I do not know her. As much as this hurts, especially after the past two weeks, I feel she is right.

I am not innocent by any means. I have been working on ships for the better part of 30 years. There are no women on these ships and I have developed an addiction to pornography. I did not look at pornography when at home when we were happy but continued to at work. As we grew apart I started using pornography at home to satisfy myself. She was aware of this and resented me even more over it. This create issues in bed with my wife as you would expect. I was going to Brazil one time and I searched Brazilian women on my phone. It was an image search, I was not looking to find actual women to meet. She found this and it increased the frequency and intensity of the cheater accusations.

I have never stopped loving my wife. About a year ago she started seeking friendships outside our home more aggressively and she befriended the owner of our local bar and began spending more and more time at the bar. Up until a 8-10 months ago, I still spent every waking moment with her, there were just more times that were not good times. I never never been comfortable spending that much time around people drinking to what I thought was excess so I stopped it is minimal time that I am going with her. She continued to go, her drinking continued to get worse and there were several times that she would tell me was staying over her girlfriends house because she didn't want to come home and fight. Things got worse, we stopped sleeping in the same bed and started not spending any time together. It was like we we just existing in the same home trying to ignore one another.

Two weeks ago she did not come home two nights in a row. I started digging and discovered she is having an affair. She made every effort to lie about this to me. She twisted and turned every question I had into my imagination and blame. She has since, I hope, started telling the truth and answering my questions. She tells me she is in love with him and he wants her to move in with him. She continues to see him after I asked her to stop. She is openly involved with him now, spending nights at his home and telling me when I ask where she is. It is devastating that she is so comfortable with this decision that she does this without hiding it from anyone. She tells me they are in love and they will live it out loud. I am lost. My entire life fell apart because of a lunch with a stranger and I am helpless to do anything about it. I told her I would get divorce papers signed if she wanted to go be with him. She told me she does not know what she wants other than to be happy and vibrant like before I cheated. She said she wants to remain in our home until she decides what to do. I think she is waiting to get the courage together to tell her son, who loves me, and her Aunt and Uncle, who also love me that she is leaving me. I still love her as much as I did that fateful day I handed that woman my card. I am devastated that I pushed her to become a cheat. Something that she abhors. I am feeling hopeless. I just want her back so we can be what we were in the beginning. She tells me that I need to not make matters worse by imagining things in my head. She persists to tell me she does not know what she wants to do. Her only goal she tells me is to get herself back to who she was before I hurt her. That person she is trying to find is my love. She is trying to become the woman I fell in love with and still love to this day regardless of all that has happened. I fear she will become that person only loving this man in my place.

I am currently on the ship for the first time since finding out about the affair. I have not slept more than three hours each night in ten days. Often far less. I have lost 22 lbs because I do not eat. I do not take care of myself. People ask me if I am ok and I lie. They believe this less than me. She has limited communication with me via text and email. I am pressing her pretty hard about what she wants to do. She is still with him. Is she moving out? Does she consider reconciliation as a possibility? She will not answer and I cannot stop thinking about these things. What should I do? What will get me back to a point I can just function with some sense of normalcy throughout the day?

I do not understand why she does not just tell me she is done and allow me to file for divorce. I'm not sure what hurts more, the knowing of what is going on or the not knowing what is going on. After much thought I guess that what hurts most is that she accepts zero blame for her actions. I believe had I not given my card to that women we would still be happily married. So I accept the blame for most all of this. She however, was unwilling to hear me when I tried telling her that it was no more than lunch and she made the decision to make herself available for this affair. Some blame must be on her. I want her to recognize this. In addition to this it crushes me that when she is with him she is happy. I feel that he is living my life and those happy times should be for me and my wife. I think that if she only knew the truth and she found a way in her heart to forgive me we could learn to love one another and we could begin again working to get us back to being happy together.

I do not know what to do. Please help me.

Hello LIW, welcome to Marriage Bulders. I am sorry for the reasons that have brought you here. There is so much wrong with your situation that one hardly knows where to start. I will start with my view of the incident with the woman on the plane before you were married. I don't believe that was the cause of the collapse of your marriage. The collapse of your marriage was caused by

a) your job which takes you away from home for months at a time. It is impossible to sustain a marriage when you are not home. Affairs and divorce are epidemic in the marriages of airline pilots and deployed military. It was only a matter of time before your job killed your marriage

b) your porn use was a major contributor to the death of your marriage. Porn use causes the user to view women only sex objects. It has a remarkable effect on men in that tend to be cold and unaffectionate to their wives. They view sex as little more than a means to "get off" rather a way to make love to their wives

c) your wife's drinking problem. If she is an alcoholic then saving your marriage is impossible until she stops drinking. Her love of alcohol will always come before your marriage

Unless all of those things change in your marriage, I view this as a lost cause. The reason your wife likely has not filed for divorce is because she wants your support. Does she get more settlement in a divorce if she is married longer? I would check on that.

I am sorry I couldn't be more optimistic, but we could have told you 5 years ago this would be a disaster just because of your job and your porn use. If you can change that and get home asap you might have a chance, but other than that, I see no hope here. Sorry.

Melody,

I appreciate your perspective and I agree with almost all that you have said. I believe the job aspect is an individual matter. There are millions who live very loving and happy marriages in similar scenarios. Not all my coworkers are without love. Not all in the military go without. I definitely do consider this point valid but knowing our relationship, I can dismiss this.

I agree 100 percent about the porn and the drinking. She has said similar things about my just going through the motions in bed. The drinking is a story so well littered with pain and tragedy that one would be in denial to try to argue.

The finances are not something that she is waiting around for. There is no advantage to leaving or staying regarding this.

I love my wife and never stopped. I do not plan on giving up on her until she quits on us or there is no hope.

I have reached out to her Aunt. This woman is like her mother. I told her everything. I have not shared this with anyone prior to this. After reading about exposure on this site. I decided this was the best avenue to take. I asked that she talk to her to get her to stop seeing him. This will either end everything with her lovers relationship or my wife's and mine.

This is not my personal perspective, but the professional opinion of Dr Bill Harley, the founder of Marriage Builders. He has not found a military marriage yet in years of asking where the couple was able to sustain the romantic love in their marriage while separated. He has worked with these couples for years and came to this conclusion after years of trying to save their marriages. You are living proof of this simple truth so I am baffled why you would try dismiss the truth when you have experienced it first hand.

In short, there is nothing that can be done for you unless you change this. It is impossible to sustain a marriage when you are not together and equally impossible to save it when you are not together. In order to sustain a marriage, you need to live together year round. Anything that comes before your marriage, will come between you.

Read this and listen to the radio clips in the thread Traveling Jobs

It will probably just make her angry with no benefit. If you want to save this, it will take a radical change in your lifestyle to remove the problems that led to this sad state. As of now, your lifestyle does not support a marriage. If you are serious about saving your marriage, that is where you must start.

I want to emphasize that this issue is a distraction from your real problems. It is the least of your problems. The reason this "cheating" [which was really just inappropriate behavior that happened before you were married] has remained an issue is because your marriage has gone downhill from the start because your lifestyles don't support marriage.

Let me explain a simple truth about psychology. When a person is happy in the present, their mind does not tend to go to the tragedies of the past. For example, when a couple is recovering from an affair, unless they create a fantastic, romantic marriage that was better than the pre-affair marriage the mind tends to stay stuck on the affair and resentment grows year after year. This what has happened to your wife. Since your marriage never evolved into a great relationship, she nursed resentment over that issue.



She learned to better deal with it by checking out. Her emotional detachment grew and grew until she found someone else to meet her needs. That is not uncommon in marriages that endure long separations.

I just ran across this article written by Dr Harley that explains the concept of putting your marriage before your career:

"We marry to find someone who cares more about us than anything else. Both men and women feel that way. If your career interests are more important than your husband's interests, he will eventually conclude that he is missing what he needs most in marriage, someone who puts him first.

Incidentally, that applies not just to careers, but to everything else, too. If children are most important, they will come between spouses. The same is true for friends and in- laws, how you spend money or what you do on weekends. These will ruin your marriage if they are more important than your spouse's feelings. Your most important consideration in life should be the interests of your spouse, or your marriage will suffer.

If your career really is your first priority, your marriage does not have much of a chance. I don't think it's possible to love anyone, for any length of time, whose career is his or her highest priority. But if you put his interests first, your career will flourish and serve both of you very well."
http://marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5011_qa.html

This is a great post - I wish somebody had explained this principle to me sooner!

Melody I am grateful for your direct succinct comments. Hard to read without holding my breath the first few times. But I do appreciate them.

Am I to accept that my marriage was doomed from the onset because of my career choice? I acknowledge that separation breeds issues in weak marriages (mine for example or I wouldn't be here). But there are many people that deal with separation without going to the extreme choice of infidelity. There are happily married folks in my industry.

I am not in a position to leave my job. I understand that this sounds like I am choosing one over the other and it may possibly become this simple but, if my wife will not stop seeing this man, what good would me quitting my job be? I am not wealthy. We rely on my income to live. Losing our home will just be another area that will divide us.

I hear what is being said about the separation. If my wife would be open to reconciliation, I would most certainly sell our home and move into something that would afford me to spend more time at home and build that fantastic, romantic new marriage you speak of. This however, cannot be my focal point at this time. She is not willing to stop seeing him. Until this materializes, nothing I say or do will help me. She is not willing to go to counseling. She will not tell her son. Yes I am aware I am enabling her allowing this. I cannot tell her son via phone or text. I do not wish to hurt him more than he will be when we do tell him in person. I need advice on the here and now and that is there anything I can do to get her to stop seeing him?

Her aunt has not written me back or contacted my wife. I do not know if she hasn't gotten the email or she is reviewing her options before she reaches out. I did tell my wife that I wrote her and she was VERY upset. She said I have no right. Said that I ruined her relationship with her aunt. I explained to her that all I have been doing is fighting to save us and I am getting someone who loves us to help me. She would not hear of it. She wanted the email and I refused. I told her that was between her aunt and I. If she wanted to share the email with her, it is the aunts choice. She said depending on the fallout of my email, she may or may not be looking for a place to move.

I have no idea at this point. I do know that am starting to stop feeling sorry for myself and starting to get angry about her choices. I know that the most pain I endure is the back and forth of will she or will she not, work to fix us. I have accepted that if she will not stop seeing him all of the above are meaningless. I think I know the answer to this question. Is there anything I can do to get her to stop seeing him?

I am very sorry for what has happened to you.

I am concerned about the approach you are taking. You seem to be more interested in rational justification for yourself than you are in actually understanding your wife. While I can engage you in all the errors in your assumptions, I want to emphasize that fact that you are completely on the wrong track. The key lies in understanding your wife's perspective, and not in refining your own. It doesn't matter so much what you think. What is she thinking? Don't just dismiss it as you being right and she being wrong.

Honestly, there is nothing I know you can do if you aren't there. You could do a comprehensive exposure but since you aren't there you won't be able to manage the fallout and it is unlikely the affair would end. Even if you did end the affair [unlikely] it would be pointless because your lifestyle cannot sustain a marriage. You need to choose your marriage or your career.


Yes. It is the truth.


No, separation CREATES weak marriages. You have learned this first hand. That is why you are here.

If I were in your shoes and wanted to save my marriage, here is what I would do:

Take a leave of absence and go home and expose the affair wide and far. Run the OM off. Do the best Plan A possible and pledge to your wife that you will never be away again, that you are putting your marriage first if she will end her affair and commit to marital recovery. Take the time off to search for a job that will keep you home every night. Fight for your marriage.

You might as well do this now with this current wife, because I assure you this will be the outcome of any future marriage if you maintain this career. Your career cannot sustain a marriage.

Another option - some ships like the one you describe have accommodations set up for families (usually husband and wife). Is that a possibility? Can she accompany you on-board? This way you aren't separate, and you are still together daily.

The idea that people have strong marriages while enduring prolonged separations is an empirical fallacy. You stated early on that many other couples in your situation have succeeded, but seriously, name one. You likely do not actually know and are making assumptions. If you have not yet exposed, others probably cite your marriage as a success example. You might interpret a marriage where you get all the attention you want when you are not actually absent as a strong marriage, but it simply is not. Dr. Harley has studied this extensively. He has served as an expert consultant to the military. There is a simple force at play here - separation ruins marriages. You think this happened just because of your wife's weakness, when the true cause is separation-induced neglect. Life is full of choices. You have made yours, and your wife is making hers. I had to leave a job as a PhD - level research engineer because recovery of my marriage required it. Six years later, and I am still happily married.

I appreciate the job aspect and I do understand that it is a choice between the job or the marriage. I will choose the marriage every day of the week and twice on Sunday. I am just not able to walk away with no means to support our household at this time. .

I have tried to reach her so that she understands that I want to know what it is that she needs from me. I read the letters from Dr. Harley that I am not meeting her emotional needs. I am trying to listen to her but she doesn't know what she wants. I asked her to stop seeing him and she says she will not. She went through great lengths to hide this from me before she outed herself and now she is living it out loud. I'm not sure which is worse. I told her that I will file for dissolution when I return from work and she tells me she doesn't know if that is what she wants. She said that I am putting things in my head and just making things worse for myself. what does this mean? Am I to allow the relationship to continue without pushing her?

Lastly, I have not been able to expose the affair to my stepson who is 22 years old because I am away at work. I will wait until I can do it in person. My wife says she will wait to talk to him. How detailed should I get when he asks questions? should I tell him details about how they met, how long, he is pushing to have her move in wioth him? What do I expose?

No, you shouldn't be complacent about it. You should view your wife the same way you would view a crackhead. A crackhead will tell you that you are making things worse for yourself if you try to interfere with her crack use. The truth is that you have no chance unless she gives up the crack. [the OM]

You should focus on exposing the affair. Have you read the exposure thread in my signature? Exposing to one person here and there will have no effect.

I am far from complacent. I do not know what more I can do to get her to stop than to ask her. He will not stop as I have asked him as well. He moved his girlfriend out a week after I discovered the affair. I have no one to expose to on his side and wouldn't know how to get in touch with them regardless.

I have read the exposure 101 and I have exposed her to all. I am awaiting the fallout.

She tells me she does not want to file for divorce. She tells me that she does not know what she wants. She says she will not stop seeing him and I explain that this is unthinkable to me as she is living in our home. When she spends time with him and I ask, and she tells me. She is not mean about it she just answers my questions because she knows I will keep asking. She tells me that she does not see him and spend the amount of time I think she does. She says she is not making a choice between him and I, she is doing what makes her happy and that she is getting emotional support from him that she could not from me. I am paraphrasing.

I am going to go home and she will be spending a night or two a week with him and it kills me.

I asked her if she sees any way that we will come out of this together and she says possibly but will not answer when I ask her what she needs from me. She says I am pushing her into a corner.

I have asked her for four things.

I asked that she not bring him to our home while I am gone to work. I have made assurances that if she does, I will know.

I asked her not to bring my dogs to his home. I understand that this is not a major thing for some but He is sleeping with my wife and she is laughing while she is with him. This always was and should be my place. I feel that if he is spending time with my dogs he is that much closer to living my life with me on the outside watching. I do not expect all to get this.

I have asked her not to spend our money on anything affair related. Do not buy him things, do not go anywhere with him out of town with our money. I know, not a big deal. I just do not want to support this financially in any aspect regardless of how small.

I have asked her if she makes a decision to stay or leave that she tell me immediately after telling the OM.

I have nothing else.

Expose to his girlfriend, his parents, grandparents, children. Your wifes parents, gandparents. Her son. Who was witness at your wedding?

Expose to all of them. They can influence your wife, your stepson and her parents can tell OM that they will not accept him in their family.

You don't ask OM to stop seeing your wife, you tell him!


Did you click and read all the links in the "start here first" post?
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2695379#Post2695379

You need to expose this affair on OM's side. Hire a PI to locate his side of the family.