This is my first time at this so please have patience with me. I found out my W was having an A Oct 14th 2003. We have been married 6 years. I am 39 and the W is 29. This is my 2nd M, and I have been on both sides of this issue. The 1st M was for 11 years and my W had an A for 6 years of that marriage, it finally ended when I began an A with the woman I'm married to now and the exW became pregnant with the OM child. I have 2 boys from the 1st M, 18 & 15, and a boy aged 6 with the current W. Because of the situation when we met and married my W has not had much trust for me, which is OK, since I have not cheated on her in any way. The current events seemed to happen all of a sudden without warning or at least much warning. I had been very busy with work throughout most of the summer, although I was always home before 7pm and always home on the weekends. We have always been homebodies, my W never wants to be away from our son, so if it's something we can't take him to, we don't go. We lost a baby 2 years ago and she has been very depressed about that since. She is a stay at home mom and does a lot of volunteer work at my youngest sons school. In late Sept of this year she began to go out with some of her married girl friends, which I had no problem with, I was actually glad she was getting out of the house and doing something fun. I trusted the friends she was going out with because I knew thier husbands wouldn't tolerate any crap. The W was excited about going out, emailing me and my coworkers pictures of her out with her friends. No big deal. The problem is that her friends brother was on leave from Iraq for a month, and was also going out with them. I didn't give it much thought. The W went to a couple of parties for the Brother, they were large group parties which I was also invited, but did not go. Too stressed out from work. Around the 1st weekend in Oct, friends of mine rented a beach house and invited us to come stay with them, I wanted to go sat after my oldest sons double header, but the W wanted to go friday. When I came home friday, at 5, I was met with we are over, you suck, you don't love me, ect.....now i really didn't want to go with her, so she and my youngest son went to the beach house, on sat I called to get directions and was blasted on the phone with the same crap, my friend seemed a little perplexed but didn't say anything. I felt something in my gut, but let it go. The next day she called me in the morning asking me to come get her and our son, she had drank too much and made herself sick and couldn't drive. It's about a 2 hour drive, so my oldest son drove me down there. She didn't say a word all the way home, when we got home I checked my voicemail because she had my phone over the weekend, to my surprise there was some guy calling her saying he was waiting at the ferry for her to come pick him up. I played the message for her and she said she never went to get him. Of course it was a lie, i asked my friend who had the beach house and he told me a guy came but that as far as he knew nothing happend, just friends. I got a name from her of some guy she had met when she went out with her friends. I talked to her friend about who this might be but she didn't know, she also got very upset with the W because she didn't think people that are married should act that way. As it turned out that person was the friends brother, which destroyed her friendship, almost cost her the position on the PTA, and of course her marriage. The A is over, it only lasted about 2 weeks, I am still very dissapointed in her, and somewhat angry. Since both of us obviously have had other lovers before we met, sex is not the only thing that matters, the most important thing is the lies and the deception, and willingness to give up everything for pleasure. It's not that we don't have a good sex life, it's definitely better than anyone I know. Now to my initial problem, why am I the one that has to bend over backwards not to upset her or make her feel bad that she acted like a slut, in front of my friends, her friends, ect... I want our marriage to work and we are going to MC, but I am holding a lot of things in that I want to say, but don't for fear she will be hurt by them, all the while I'm torn up inside. I wanted to confront the OM but could never find him, he has moved away, but will be returning in Aug. There is nothing this guy had to offer her, he's only 23, no future, no job except for the military, no school, no car, no house. She wants to be a stay at home mom, with him she would have to support him. We live in a very nice suburban neighborhood, drive nice cars, have nice things. Plus I'm very laid back and don't put much rules or pressure on her for anything. I think we will work things out, she claims to love me and is very sorry for what happened, although she hasn't really shown a lot of remorse. She seems more upset about losing the girlfriend, than almost ruining the marriage. She says she "just felt neglected by me and this guy said all the right things" (whatever). I feel like i am smothering her right now and i am trying to step back a little. how will i ever trust her, how long will the pain last. will she ever show true remorse without passing the blame to me?

Keep reading here. Lots of folks have gotten through what you are going through. Luckily you found this site. Your W will probably not show remorse for awhile. In the meantime, you need to get some energy to go out with her, even if you do take son along. But try to start working on going out occasionally just the two of you together. Although it is awful now, it will get better in time.

yes, we have gone out recently just the two of us. it's not really what i want to do, but i am doing it for her. she is enjoying it. the first time we went out though it was to the same club she went to with her friends and the deal with the OM began there. the night ended up bad. but the other two times were much better. we actually are getting along ok now, but i have to hide my true feelings. in MC i haven't been able to let these out yet, still waiting for her to let me get a word in edgewise. last week was the first time we both were together in MC. i've been going by myself since i found out. we are probably in PA right now but have not laid out the groundrules yet.

Read all about Plan A. It is something you do, she doesn't have to participate. Also check out the emotional needs section. Most women who have an affair do it for emotional reasons. It is quite miserable when you first find out. I couldn't eat, sleep, and hardly work. It is almost unbearable. However, things do get better and if you stick to the MB plan they will get better for you.

Some Plan A references, along with a few <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> other things... </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. If your spouse is NOT willing to work on your marriage, is denying involvement in an affair despite the evidence, and/or is continuing an affair, read What Are Plan A and Plan B? after reading the "Basic Concepts" links below. In that case, you need to start Plan A with the help of a marriage counselor (see item #2, below). There are a couple terrific posts about Plan A that are worth reading at: Plan A, Doormats and Love Busters by Zorweb and Cerri on Plan A, which will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Your situation is harder, but your chances of saving your marriage and actually making it better than before are still good. But, whether your spouse is "on board" or not, you should do three things:

1.) Learn. The most important and helpful single source of information for my wife and I was “Surviving an Affair” by Willard Harley (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore, Amazon.com, and bookstores all over. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them. So that you can get started right away, while waiting for SAA to arrive in the mail, read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity You will find that I mostly followed his plan. It works. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">