Two weeks ago, 2 days after our 13th anniversary, I discovered that my husband had been posting a personal on a website strictly for the purpose of finding someone else to have sex with. I found a few messages from one woman in another city in our state, and he had already been trying to set up a time to go meet her, although it hadn't happened yet. In his address book on the website, I found at least 50 other women listed, but no hard evidence that he had communicated with them.
In his profile, he made a point of saying that he is self-employed and thus can easily get away during the day.
When confronted, he said that the only replies he had ever gotten were the ones I had found from the woman he hadn't met yet.
He cancelled the service immediately--I now have access to his email account, and saw the message confirming the cancellation.
My problem is #1, am I a fool to believe that nothing ever really happened? I want to, but part of me feels like I'm just being stupid--he hasn't confessed to a single thing beyond what I already had proof of.
#2, how can I ever trust him again? Sure, I have access to his email account now, but it's incredibly easy to get another free account that I would never know about. He has a separate computer at the office, and really can take off just about any time that he likes during the day--I'd never know, as I am working during the day, myself.
He says that the reason he started doing this was because he was feeling that our marriage was already over, as our sex life had fizzled. This is true, and to be honest, I was feeling the same way, myself.
The most ironic and hurtful thing is that the weekend before I found out, I had made up my mind to do what I could to make things better, and we were actually having the most sex we'd had in years. During the 4 or 5 days that this was occurring, he emailed her three times, still talking about setting up a time to go have sex with her. This makes me feel like, even now that I am trying as hard as I can to be what he needs, he might still go out and cheat on me anyway!
I'm having a very hard time getting past the fact that this wasn't just a matter of him meeting someone, and then finding himself falling in love or whatever. He purposely set out with the intention of finding someone to cheat on me with--he even paid for the privilege! Even if the actual sex never happened, I feel that what he did broke our marriage vows.
We are working on getting things back together, and he seems to be trying, but I just don't see how I'll ever be able to trust him again. No matter how many times I check on him, he could always find a way around it.
Does anyone have any advice for me here?

Thanks!

I am in the middle of going through a very similar scenario with my wife, and in her case, it did lead to more. I'm not saying it did with your husband.

Does he have a cell phone ? - ask to see the bills, they will tell you a LOT.

This is a tough issue. Forgiveness is one thing, but forgiveness and reconciliation are two separate things.

Below is an excerpt from another post that I think will be helpful. It may be true that your H has not had an affair, but he has been unfaithful to you, adn was taking hte first steps toward an affair, so I think this all applies although it was specifically for the case of an actual physical affair. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> The pain and trust issues remained barriers to reconciliation. It turns out the pain fades with time, if the actions that produced it are not repeated. That leaves trust, and trusting that the actions will not be repeated, as the sole barrier to reconciliation.

As far as I can discern there is really only one approach to re-establishing trust, and a couple of well-established ways to get there. In both cases, the bottom line is: believe their actions, not their words, at least until you have seen a consistent pattern of their words and actions being aligned for a period of many months. That necessarily means you have to be more involved in their lives so that you have the ability to verify that their actions and words are cohesive.

The path to get there, according to Willard Harley, is to have no secrets from each other, and to use the Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA) in all your decisions. Once you see your spouse consistently use the POJA, and the two of you have learned to understand each other and communicate with each other well enough to implement it, you will trust them when they are out of sight, too. Perhaps ironically, one thing that will convince you of your spouse's honesty is if they tell you things they know will hurt, instead of lying to "protect" you. So this process will likely not be painless, especially since, if you are like most couples, it will require learning a new way to communicate. Change is hard.

A second path, promoted by Carder in “Torn Asunder” (and the younger Harleys, too, I think), is for the WS to really dig in to the "WHY?" of the affair, and in gaining that self-understanding, communicate to you both why it happened, and how they will change their behavior in ways that you can verify and that will prevent them from having another.

Of course, these two paths are not mutually exclusive. I view them as complementary, and think “Surviving an Affair”, by Harley is extremely helpful in figuring out important parts of the why, at least as far as the answer involves unmet Emotional Needs, and it almost always does.

The fallacy is the belief that unmet EN’s “cause” affairs. If that was the case, I would have had the affair, not my wife, because my EN’s were less well met in our marriage than hers.

Unmet EN's do not cause affairs, they cause lousy marriages. If you read Harley thoroughly and carefully, he does not say unmet EN's cause affairs, either, though it is a so common a misconception among his readers that I would say he should do some re-writing of his material. Reading SAA, it can be easy to conclude that unmet needs are the reason for affairs. Not so. Affairs are entirely the responsibility of those involved, and the reasons vary.

Our MC worked w/ Bill Harley for 8 years, and one of his biggest dis-agreements w/ Bill was on this very issue, because according to him, in about 40% of MEN'S affairs unmet EN's had very little to do with it. Yes, there were usually unmet EN's in their marriages, because no marriage is perfect. But, having the wife find out about and meet his most important EN's did not stop the affairs from re-kindling or stop the husband from having another. Harley is aware of this, which is why his plan for recovery is a lot more complicated than: 1.) Take the EN questionnaire. 2.) Meet your spouse’s EN's. Our MC said that in his opinion, for that 40%, if the wife had been meeting the husband's top 5 EN's PERFECTLY, the husband still would have had the affair. If you want to learn more, read "The State of Affairs", by Todd Mulliken particularly the chapter on "The Double Life Man". </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think "Surviving an Affair" would be great for you to read together with your husband, because there is probably something missing from your marriage that he is looking for by pursuing contacts with these other women. SAA can help you discover what he is looking for. If you come up empty using the exercises in SAA, try reading "Torn Asunder" or "The State of Affairs" for the next most likely sources of his motivation.

In order to verify he is being truthful, you will probably need to snoop. Install a keyboard logger without his knowledge to verify that he is not going further in his contacts with these women - this will show if he opens another email account. Consider using a semen detection test kit to verify if he has been engaged in any sexual activity without your knowledge. Check his cell phone bills.

I would treat this as if he had had an affair. Click on the link in my signature line to find more about the path to recovery from an affair.

Thanks so much for the advice!
Right on about the cell phone--I was just thinking of that myself, but couldn't locate the bills this morning. They're probably at his office.
The real problem I have is that I am very much a "pleaser". I hate to rock the boat, and can't stand conflict, so I avoid bringing things up, even (or especially) if they're in my own best interest. Asking him to show me his cell phone bills will be very hard for me, because I don't want to make him "mad".
The keystroke tracker and semen kit may be more than I can handle at this time...
I'm so thankful for this message board, because I don't have any friends that I can talk to about this--really no one except my husband. It's been eating me up inside, and it helps just to be able to vent a little bit.

Thanks so much!

Dear Murphy Lady,

It isn't time to worry too much about the trust issue until he's really got everything out on the table. I would be worrying about WHY he did it. A fizzling sex life isn't that good of an answer. If your sex was great then would he feel great and have no desire to do this? If not then there is a deeper issue and THAT could affect your trust issue. What made it "okay"? What made him think he could get away with it? Was he trying to get caught by not being very careful...was it a call for help?

Anyway, you get the idea. I would strongly recommend individual counseling (but please read on this site about how to choose one first!)for him and marriage counseling for the two of you.

Looking for sex the way he did is like picking up new kids in the school yard and bringing them home because yours just aren't acting up to par!

I would be very curious about his personality type in the Enneagram. You said that you tend to be a pleaser type. In the Enneagram that is a type 2, but it might not fit you perfectly of course! See if you can't use this tool to find what you are both looking for in the marriage. A link to the test is in my signature line.

My H is a type 4, a tragic romantic type of soul. I'm a type 1, a perfectionist. Now obviously these are only our personality types and not our very essence, but it was really helpful to see what our basic tendencies were. My H's read something like this: Unhealthy type 4s spend their time waiting for someone to come along and rescue them from their ordinary life. They are seldom happy with what they have and are always looking longingly to the past or future. Hmmmmm...gave us both something to think about!

Hope you can work things out! It's definitely doable...just read my signature line! If we can do it, most anybody can!

Stillwed

Stillwed

Hi Murphylady,
Just wanted to say hello and hope you're doing okay. Your situation is so similar to mine (except that my H did his internet ad only a few months after we married...4 1/2 years later I *still* do not know what EN's I failed to meet).
I agree with the way stillweb put it: like shopping for new kids when your own are acting up! The whole "consumer" mentality is beginning to drive me nuts, if this model displeases me well then I'll just log on and see what else I can find.
My H and I separated last summer for two weeks, the culmination of my festering doubts about him. We're back together and much happier, but I don't think I'll ever stop wondering if he is shopping around. I'm back lurking here after almost a year away (summertime in general is a huge trigger for me).
I know what you mean about being a pleaser. I'm an enneagram Type 4 myself (and an INFP too <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> and have been very emotionally dependent on my husband since we met. Scares me sometimes, that the one most wonderful man I've ever known has that dark side in him (his personal ad even alluded to it) <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />
Anyway, I'm new posting here and kind of staying in lurk mode, but wanted to wish you well. Please check back and keep us posted.

<small>[ June 03, 2003, 09:06 PM: Message edited by: Wary ]</small>

"The STate of Affairs", by Mulliken, is a great book that looks at affairs through the lens of how Pleasers and Controllers natural tendencies affect their marriages and their inclination to cheat, and recover from cheating. I highly recommend it.

Hi Everyone!
I just wanted to get back on and fill in what's happened in the last week or so.
First of all, hubby has been very caring, doing just about whatever he can to make me feel better and has also been very patient and understanding whenever I bring up suspicions that I have. He has not been the least bit defensive, and truly does not seem to be hiding anything, nor have I found any new evidence. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
I just checked his most recent cell phone bill, which covered a few weeks before d-day, and there was nothing to see--no questionable calls at all. Also, last night, I surprised him with a request to go see his office to make sure there was nothing hidden there. Unless he anticipated this on his own, there was no time for him to hide anything, as I had purposely not brought it up before we were basically already on the way there. I saw absolutely nothing to make me doubt him.
He has been spending far less time on the computer since d-day, which actually made me aware of just how MUCH time he had previously been on it (a LOT). Now he hardly gets on at all.
So overall, things have been going very well. My only real fear is an extremely paranoid feeling that he could just be trying to "snow" me so I'll go back to blind trust again. But I don't really believe it. Nevertheless, I won't be letting my guard down for a long time to come...
I have bought both His Needs, Her Needs and SAA. Hubby has read a little of HNHN, and I have asked him to read SAA once I finish it. He seems willing.

Anyway, thank you all for your support--hopefully the worst is now behind us and we can go on to have a much better marriage than we had before.