To all,<P>My wife and I have been married for five years and been together for alomost ten. We are high school sweet hearts and up until now I felt we have had the perfect marriage. We recently went on a cruise and had a great time. We met alot of new people and saw alot of great things. It was the happiest I could have ever been. One of these people we met gave my wife a buisness card. I didn't think much of it. I felt that my wife and I were rock solid. Little did I know. Up until the cruise things were great, in my eyes only. Not until this happened did I realize the HELL my wife was going through. I worked all day and she worked at home running a daycare. We have three little ones of our own. She loves kids so she thought it would be the best way to make extra money while being there for our kids. Things like that make me love her so much. Actually she was trapped and I didn't realize it. Things were ok for awhile but it wore on her. She was stuck in the house running after kids all day. When the daycare kids left there would still be our three. I would come home and try to do what I could but working all day myself I was very drained. I expected way to much of her. But none the less she always had laundry done, dishes washed, house picked up, dinner ready, and our kids happy. I took it all for granted. I wasn't there for her like I should have been. Looking back I can see how she tried asking for help only for me to over look it or brush it of as if she was just in a bad mood or something. I will never make that mistake again. She came from a home where her dad cheated over and over until her parents were divorced, her grand fater cheated, her aunt broke up a marriage, and another aunt recently divorcing due to "wanting to live her own life away from her sick husband". Knowing all of this I should have kept my eyes open for this. She has been going to nursing school which has been very tough for her. She stopped watching most of the daycare kids not to long ago but have just replaced it with more stress of school studies. She went on that cruise and saw a whole new life of fun and no worries or responsabilities. When some 19 year old nice looking guy gave her his card at that poing I feel she thought life couldn't get any better than that. We came back home, I went back to work, she went back to hell. Don't get me wrong, she loves those kids more than anything in the world. They are her reason for living and rightly so. She ended up contacting this guy on the phone. This kid is from Brazil, and has that smoothe talk that women dream about. My wife was butter in his hands. From what I have been told is that he didn't remember her at first. But any single 19 year old is gonna remember anything if some women calls out of the blue saying she can't stop thinking of him. I still don't know what all was said but he did tell her to come down to him. He said he would take care of her and take all her problems away but before he could he had to go to Brazil for a month and he would call her when he got back to set things up. She wants to go. She knows its wrong but she feels "drawn to him". She hung his picture up I guess to keep the idea in her head. I eventually took it down the other night. Now they are in her purse. She took them to school to show her friends. All of this has recently gotten out. I told my parents she told her mom and her sister and brother in law figured it out on there own (pretty good huh). This past week I have been more depressed than I have ever been. I have never felt anything like this. At first looked for any way out. Whether it be leaving, running away, suicide, anything. I realized I couldn't leave my kids. Through all of this I have been trying to do more with my kids to get my mind off of it but it doesn't help. I look at them and I realize this could be the way it is. She turns her back on the kids and I and that will be it. I know I can take care of everything if she did leave, it would be hard for a long while but with family, prayer, and those kids looking to their daddy I know I could. As it stands now she seems to be happy with this. She doesn't seem to have any bothers in the world. Meanwhile its killing me. I honestly thought nothing like this would ever happen. I was looking with my eyes not my heart. She is planning, although she won't admit it to me, to go down and spend a weekend with him and then come back home when he gets back from Brazil. I know if she goes our marriage is over. I won't want her back. The worst of it is I don't really think she wants to go. I would like to think she wants me to give her what she is missing. Through all of this I blame myself. Not her or anyone else, just me. I should of been there for her. I could of done those little things that would have met so much to her. You don't realize what you have got until its gone, almost gone, or just doesn't want you any more. She says she loves me but when she says that I feel like she doesn't mean it. Like she says it out of obligation or something. Every time I see her I want to melt. I have always felt that for her, just never told her. She is the light of my existance, never told her that either. I swear to my holy god that if she gives me a second chance at this I will make her the happiest woman in the world. Shows you how blind I have been, I always thought she was. I can't blame her. With all the marriages she has seen go down this may be the only way she knows how to deal with me. I love her more than anything. Thanks for listening.

Hello HA,<BR>I'm so sorry to hear your painful story. I can see this is really tearing you up inside. But, you must stop taking all the blame for what your wife is doing. Even though you may not have been meeting all her needs, she is the one who is making the decision to go outside her marriage. DO NOT take all the blame for this!!! I say this as a wife who has had an affair. Nobody else makes someone stray!<P>I may have missed some facts in your long posting, but...how old is your wife? And did she actually have a sexual relationship with this 19-year-old while you were on the cruise, or at any point since then? Or is it strictly an emotional affair? It doesn't sound like they even know each other at all!!<P>All you can do at this point is make your wife aware of how much you love her and how important your family is to you. She is really in the "fog" right now and not seeing sraight. Do everything you can to meet the needs you have not been meeting. Show her you are sincere in your intentions to change.<P>Keep coming here for support and advice; read everyone else's stories to learn. I will be thinking of you and praying. Hang in there...you have family and a long history on your side.<P>Calla <P>

My wife is 25 same as me. I don't think there was any sexual relations on the cruise but I always find myself wondering, if not how can she be so attached. I talked to her alot last night. I told her how I feel and I know she doesn't mean to hurt me but for some reason I don't think she is as sincere about her feelings toward me like she use to. She says she loves me, but I think if you truley do have love for me than work on our marriage with me, go to counsling with me, show me that you want "us" to work out. I will start counsling on Monday. She has class that night. I just want to see what this counsler has to say, or even see if he can help. I've asked her to go with me but she will not. She has been to them before for problems in the past with her mom and dad. She feels they did nothing for her then and will do nothing for us now. She knows and admits that she has some problems that need to be worked out with herself but she won't take that step to do it. One thing that really almost killed me last night during our talk was that she said basically would it be ok if she goes for the weekend and comes back home to me and and then goes to counsling to work on our relationship. My heart dropped. I didn't show it but I wanted to die right there. Its like she is to far gone to even try to get back. She is a great woman, and I know if she goes down there to be with him there is no way he wouldn't fall for her. Making it that much easier for her to forget any love for me. I do take the blame. I have not been the husband / father that I have always pictured myself to be. What everyone else sees and what I feel I am are entirly different things. I don't know what I can do. I know I am a changed man and am showing her. She says to make sure to do this for myself and not her. I feel thats her way of saying don't do anything to try and keep her because nothing I can do will turn her back. She doesn't want me and I guess I can't really blame her. I have wronged her in so many ways and I can't describe the hurt I have for her and the dissapointment I have in myself for being the way I have been. Like I told her I will NEVER forgive myself for losing her, NEVER. I will be reminded by it when I look at each of my kids. My life will be hell and I feel rightly so. I am driving her away from me.

HA...<P>I don't mean any offense here, but there are more issues here than just you making some mistakes and not being there for her. If she is this adamant to go and have her weekend and come back to you???...and then go to counselling?....I smell a rat!! <P>Forgive me, because I don't know your wife, but that is the most selfish thing on her part, isn't it? She wants you to condone letting her go have a fling...whether EA or PA or both...and then maybe let her come back, maybe go to counselling, maybe consider if your good enough for her to try????<P>Don't enable her...this is like letting an alcoholic have one beer, and then go back on the wagon and return to AA saying, "See, it wasnt so bad and I can control it!" Talk to her and tell her to give it all she has in this committment, this family, this marriage and if it doesn't work out, then she can go. If you let her do this now, then when does it stop? Five or six months from now she sees him again...or worse...someone else turns her head/heart/physical feelings and she *needs* to see again? Why not put Plan A into effect before the meeting? You owe it to you, your marriage, your family, and your wife. From what I know of the South American culture, this 19 year old *boy toy* is looking for one thing...to maintain his status as a stufmuffin. She will end up more heartbroken than ever, feel guilty about it, and add even more issues to your marriage than are there now!! I say, do all you can to stop it before it happens...Do not condone it!!! Fight for what you believe in!! Who knows....maybe that is what she wants...to see you fight for her?? Just a thought...whatever you do....DONT GIVE UP OR GIVE IN!!!<P>Best of luck....<P>True

Just a quick addendum HA...<BR>Make sure and read the entire section on Surviving infidelity in here, as well as meeting emotional needs...there are some wonderful insights and messages there that may help YOU get through some of this...and keep coming here...there are some wonderful people here...it does help!!<P>Trueheart

I understand what you are telling me and it seems each day I start to feel more and more of that. The more that I stand against it the more she wants it. She isn't a bad person. I don't want anyone reading this post to think that. She is the most loving, caring, wife and mother anyone could ever hope for. I think its just that she gave and gave and gave of herself to everyone. Not just me or our kids but to everyone that needed anything. It seems like no matter who it was she would be there for everyone and carry their burden on her shoulders as well as her own. I as her husband should have been there to take some of the burden off. Now she is just looking to make herself happy instead of everyone else. I don't say I can blame her. But I do feel the same about the guy she wants to be with. I know he only wants one thing. She even knows that. But I don't think she realizes how this is going to destroy her life. I know she is smarter than that. I honestly don't know what she is thinking. I know in my heart that if she went and came back I wouldn't look at her in the same way as my wife and mother to our kids. I guess she would be like some stranger. Someone I thought I knew but really didn't. I don't want to be married to a stranger. She doesn't understand that and looking at her now I wonder if she ever will. I tell myself every day, every minute, that we will work this out but there is this other part of me that wonders if it did work out when will it happen again. If she would open her heart to me and see that I have changed and would do what ever it takes to make her the happiest woman, I would think that would be enough cause to give the man she married, her childrens father another chance. That seems to be in my heart only. I have never felt so alone before. Its only been a week that I have found out. In that week I guess she has tried to contact him again to see if he is really in Brazil. All she sees is this, not me or our family, just this. I feel all the resentment that I feel I should but at the same time she means to much to me to just say enough, I can't take any more and be on my way. Thats not what I am about and I thought what we were about. I don't want to push her away. I told her last night that if she is going to do this than she will do it with knowing that she had a husband with undying love for her. That would put her on a pedastal. She would know that if it doesn't make her happy than it won't make me happy, if it doesn't matter to her it won't matter to me. That is going to be my way of trying to deal with this. My way of fighting for her I guess. One thing that that guy doesn't have that I do and always will, her in my heart. God honest truth. I don't know how she could turn her back on that. I will look at her with a forgiving heart like I feel I need to but if she delibrately turns from me, destroys me, our kids and returns to us with expectations of me forgiving her then....I feel I am doing the forgiving now and feel that if she left to do this there won't be any forgivness left in me to give. No matter where she is she will always be my childrens mother and for that she will always have a special part of my heart. I don't know maybe she feels so frustrated and hurt by me for not being there she doesn't want to be in my heart. To be honest with everyone reading I am no angel. In highschool while we were dating for about six months I fell away from her. I didn't sleep with anyone but things did go to far. The day after all of my thoughts were to be with my future wife. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I know that no one made me do that. No excuses on my part. I told my future wife about another six months later. We were going through a hard time like young highschool coulples do. I thought that if I told her what happened and she forgave me that our relation ship was something special. Something to cherish and protect. She compares this situation to what is happening now. I don't know, maybe she is right. Maybe I have no right to judge her. The thing is I don't feel that I am judging her. I haven't spoke down to her about what kind of person this makes her. I know she isn't a bad person. She just wants to get away from the pressure. I feel there are alot better ways to get away. But with past experiences she has had, this might be her only way of knowing how. I want to change that more than anything. She is scared of letting go of the things that have happened in her life. I don't know how to deal with it. I think she needs to sit with a counsler but she rejects the notion as soon as it is thought. How do you help someone that you love so much that doesn't want to be helped. It hurts. It really hurts. I should have always been there for her from the beginning to now. But I am here now. It might be to little to late.

HA_husband,

My suggestion is that you Plan A until she goes to she this guy. Then if a few days before that date she is till insisting on going to see this guy, let you know that you are going to Plan B. Give her the Plan B letter and give her a few days to think about ti. Then if she leaves, knowing the consequences you have your answer.

Another thing you might want to consider. Could you go to visit this guy and tell him to back off. If not maybe you could send him a certified letter. I know that some people here would disagree with me.. they would call it a lovebuster. But I call it fighting for the woman you love and letting all parties know exactly how you feel and what you expect. One of the main principles of the MB phylosophy is radical honesty. The honesty must always be expressed with the upmost respect, but it must be expressed over and over until it is heard. If you read the MB books this is exactly what it says.

If you want help writing a letter to this punk and your wife I am sure that the people here will be glad to help you. People post their letters here all the time for input.

I can feel your pain.

<small>[ June 04, 2003, 10:21 PM: Message edited by: Eleonora ]</small>

Excellent Idea Z!!! Yes, it is a tad on the radical side, but I like it. It is bold, makes a solid statement, and is upfront and honest!! And besides....what in the HE!! can a lil 19 year old kid offer a woman with a family and a loving husband??? I say....GO FOR IT...AND HAVE NO REGRETS!!! Yes she may be angry that you do it, but, like Z said, you will have your answer. It is time for your wife to wake up and realize what she is losing. I know you love her and I know you have made mistakes, but that does NOT give her the right to be so self righteous and selfish. I believe, like Z, you should go to plan A now, and if she insists on seeing him, Plan B, before she goes. Let her think about the consequences before she leaves, and under no uncertain terms, that coming back and being forgiven will take an awful lottttttt of work!!! Good luck!!<P>True