Hi all,

I need serious help. I am extremely lost in what to do. I’m not sure if anyone has ever had an experience like this or am I the only one?

I’ll start from when I met my wife, 13 years ago. From the day we got together, I was faithful to her, deciding to do the “right thing” as Christians.

We dated 3 years before marrying and both abstained from sex until our wedding night. She knew I wasn’t a virgin and she made it clear to me that she had never been with another man. Basically, never been naked or sexual at all. She was “totally inexperienced”. We dated when she was 23 and myself 24.

In the course of our dating relationship, I noticed some red flags, which bothered me and after some counseling with her parents and extensive work from her side, I decided trust her. The red flags were that she had seen another person emotionally on the side but was never physical. She hid the relationship from me hence my broken trust.

Despite this she went on and on in gaining my trust, showing me her whereabouts, we read dr Harley’s books “this is when I found him” when looking for help.

On the day we married, I had trusted her and felt I was marrying an honest woman. I never again questioned her and believed I knew the woman I married.

We made our promises and vows which included some of our own vows of openness, faithfulness etc.

13 years later almost to the day, I have discovered my worst nightmare.

It starts from when we started dating, from the day we both visit her friends and she leaves me there to say “hi” to someone next door. Two hours later she comes back and little did I know that 13 years later I’d find out what was really happening.

She dated me and kept me on a string in order to get to another person that she was obsessed with. She used me to “play” another man and make him jealous. Basically used me as a cuckold, which I only now know what the term is.

She decided to lose her virginity to this man while we dated.
They began having casual sex while I believed my virgin girlfriend and i were abstaining for marriage. Her family (pastors that counciled us) and my own family had turned on me saying I was the crazy one making things up. That I needed deliverance, it was a traumatic time for me. While she was sleeping with him with me right there not knowing. She wanted to be a “bad girl” since that’s what she thought this man liked. Coupled with an attraction to infidelity and “secret” affairs.

She had casual sex with him through the 3 years (from the start of our relationship right up until a few nights before we married and then it continued after we married. On our wedding night, I was a total fool unknowingly and the day before being my birthday.

Soon after we returned from our honeymoon, she resumed casual sex with him for about 8 months until we immigrated to another country. We never had sex.

It started out with her being in love with him, but since he didn’t want a serious relationship with her she was happy to do it purely on a physical basis as this man had “what she wanted”.

I now have 3 children with her, I am 38 years old. We never had sex in our marriage. It wasn’t until 9 years later when we had proper sex for the first time (about a year ago)

While in our marriage, she had a difficult time being sexual with me. In my stupid mind I thought she was too shy, inexperienced and had issues around sex which she said was due to the taboo nature of it that church and family had taught her. I was understanding and never once forced her to sleep with me. I also thought it was my past she was insecure about.

Meanwhile, the reason why we could not have sex was due to guilt that would arise when we would become intimate. Or if she had been reminded of the acts she had done with the other person. It seems also due to the massive amounts of negative associations toward me.

The sex was the best when it was right under my nose, in other words when it was right near me in location and right before or after seeing me. The “wrongness” was a turn on for her as well as the idea that he had what I didn’t have.

Meaning she would think about what I am lacking and what he has while having sex with him. And the comparison turned her on.

No wonder she couldn’t bare the thought of being physical.

Between her and her flame, I was made fun of and became a complete joke of a person. It’s the most demasculating thing I have ever experienced.

She married me out of care, guilt and also because she wasn’t able to get the type of guy she really wanted. So she settled. She had a reputation to uphold in church and couldn’t face up to what she did.

The thing I am struggling with the most, is not that I can’t forgive her. Since I think she is finally comming clean, it’s that 13 years of my prime have been stolen from me. I’ve had zero sex life while she has had hers. In our 13 years we only had 2 months of proper sex which was about a year ago. Sometimes she would laugh at me during sex, although she doesn’t intend it, she just can’t help it. Then she cries for feeling bad.

I don’t know if there have been other men or how many for that matter. She says there are others but he was the main person. She hardly remembers anything, she said she has blocked it all out.

I don’t know how to accept that I’ve thrown away 13 years of my youth, between 25 and 38 have been empty, sexless, meaningless and I have been completely fooled. I have never known my wife at all sexually. I don’t know who I married and it feels like a total waste of my life. These men know her sexually while I have never known her that way. She gave to them what belonged to me, she gave everything. We are older now and I doubt I can compete with her 23 year old sexual experiences and multiple orgasms, her lover being 26 at the time. I have to get into extremely excellent shape to offer her anything remotely similar in terms of sexual pleasure etc.

I can never get those years back, I was faithful but repaid like this, I didn’t deserve this. I really don’t know what to do. We are 3 kids later and now she wants something with me, I feel she is offering a body of hers that is damaged and not properly functioning sexually. She has no feeling anymore from the births and I feel like that’s the only reason why she is happy to have something with me. She’s done it all anyway. In some ways I regret being faithful because I got nothing for it. She was a dishonest cheat and at least got something out of it.

I am so lost, looking at my 3 girls I don’t know what to do. They are all I have left and the only reason I’m still alive.

I write this trying my utmost to hold back tears and be strong. I have an intense hurt that seems relentless, I finally understand the impact and what it means when someone says the words, my family has been destroyed.

Is there hope? Can I get back what I’ve lost???

Someone please help with advice?

Hi someguy, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am confused about your story. How could you have 3 kids if you didn't have sex with her until a year ago? You said this:


And how did you find out about his history? How was she able to carry on these affairs all these years undetected?

When I say sex I said proper sex. In our first 9 years of marriage we had sex probably about 8 times in total and it was basically just because she wanted kids. The sex was nothing to do with desire. She didn’t want sex she just wanted kids.

About a year ago, we had sex for the first time out of a wanting. Well, at least she was willing because I kept bringing up that we have a problem.

It was from there when it came out that she said she was sleeping with someone else. That is why she would cry afterwards or laugh.

The affair ended about 8 months after we marrried and that was because we left to another country. She kept in touch with him over the internet and have no idea if they ever saw each other again.

She was not seeing him for the entire 13 years. It was from when we dated until about 8 months after we married. Then ever since we had sexual problems in the bedroom. During that time she had the affair she said there were 3 other men which were one offs. I don’t know if there have been anyone else since we have been in the new country... I don’t know if I can trust her, she says there has been no one since we moved. How can there be no one when she has a need for sex and were doing nothing.

I suspected something was happening but she came out and said she was seeing this “ex” of hers trying to get over him by being friends. Because I noticed red flags from when we dated. I was obviously foolish to think she was seeing him as a friend.

Do you think she is still having affairs now? If she admitted these past affairs to you, wouldn't she admit a current affair?


What makes you believe she has a need for sex?

Do you and your wife want to save your marriage? What have you both decided to do going forward?

Going forward she is happy to do dr Harley surviving an affair.

What makes me believe she has a need for sex was her sexual addiction to the person she slept with. She was happy for them to as she says, “use each other” for sex. That she enjoyed being used for sex, in the same way she enjoyed using him for sex.

Yes I would assume if she could admit it in the past, she could admit if there is someone else recently. However about 2 years ago, we lived at a different premises and I can recall two occasions where there was a man wondering around in my yard. It happened twice the same man, and I thought oh perhaps he just let himself in to do yard maintainence... however usually it doesn’t work like that. And this guy shows up when I wasn’t there and when I arrived left very quickly. Felt like an intruder.

So I’m not sure if she was seeing someone 2 years ago as well, as perhaps she wants me to think these things happened only until we immigrated a long time ago. She has this, I blocked it out and can’t remember thing, so perhaps if anything recent happened she can’t use the “I can’t remember” card.

Thanks someguy. Most women are motivated to have sex by an emotional attachment to the man and the prospect of enjoyment. It is not an attraction based on just sex. It is emotional. She had an emotional addiction to this OM that led to sex. She can have that with you too if you can follow this program.

The steps would be to affair proof your marriage and follow the basic concepts to create a passionate marriage. I would start first by snooping on her so you know what she is doing when you are not around. She should not ever be told about your snooping. This will help you build trust for her again when you can see what she is doing when you are not there. I will post the checklist for extraordinary precautions from the book Surviving an Affair. Do you have that book?

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.

Thanks Melodylane,

I don’t have the book but we have looked online at some of the free material and advice of surviving an affair etc.

I understand why you mean by saying it was an emotional attatchment. But she tells me that she used him because he was extremely well endowed. And that it was absolutely meaningless. It was purely to get satisfied etc. she would go there to his house, there wouldn’t be much talk and they’d get straight to it for an hour or two after work and then she’d go home. She says he didn’t know her personally or she didn’t know him well personally, I argued with her saying how can that be when he knows her so well sexually.

Ive promised to try my best to make physical changes but I hope it’s enough. I’ll follow the dr Harley’s building an affair proof marriage and hopefully if she is in love the sex is as good?