I am writing this mostly from my perspective and I understand that it is just a little over half the story. I hope MM (my wife) will post her perspective soon.

I am in so much pain. I feel alone and depressed, even though I think my wife loves me and wants to be with me.

MM and I have been together for 17 years, and married for 10 years. We have two beautiful young children. Two weeks ago MM told me that last year she had a five-month affair with a mutual acquaintance of ours. He had a partner and three year old son. The affair ended when he left his partner. Many (I suspect most) of our mutual friends knew before I did.

I did not blow up or walk out. My first instinct, even through the pain, was to rationalise what happened. We have talked endlessly for two weeks and MM says she has never felt so positive about our marriage. She wants to renew our wedding vows as soon as I am ready. We have made love many times.

18 months ago I had a breakdown caused by stress at work, a house move and new baby. As I recovered from my breakdown I sought to get ‘control’ in my life and focus on basic important family issues. I wanted our household to be environmentally sound, our children to eat the best organic food and get all the attention they deserved, not be put in front of the tv for half the day. I rarely went out with friends, partly though loss in confidence and also I failed to see the benefit in a few drinks and some pointless chat.

MM moved in the opposite direction. During this period MM was coming out of her time as a ‘mother of young children’. She is a beautiful woman and she lost some weight, started spending money on clothes, listening to pop music and going out with her friends. Our new needs were totally alien to each other.

I was obsessed with my new role and could or would not empathise with MM’s needs. I would continually criticize her over the food she fed the kids and the amount of quality time she gave to them.

Our mutual respect diminished, although we still had moments of intimacy together. We talked less and less, argued more and did fewer things together. I spent almost all my time at home when I was not working and MM spent most of her time out, with and without the kids. Some arguments resulted in talks of separation and more than once she threatened me with an affair. My response was ‘it’s your loss’.

From my perspective I had been through the worst period in my life. I had worked myself to a nervous breakdown and all I wanted was to focus on important issues in the home. All MM wanted was to go out with friends, spend money we did not have and offload her responsibilities onto me as often as she could (which was quite often as I spent so much time at home). I could not believe she had the gall to threaten me with separation or an affair. I did not believe she would carry out her threat.

I was blind to all the signs. The affair itself was right in front of my nose, but then an affair is something that always happens to someone else… MM met him through mutual friends and got to know him at the local playgroups, where he also took his son. I saw the guy occasionally socially and knew him to be a womaniser and continually unfaithful to his partner. I knew they spent time together at the playgroups and occasionally had lunch. She once gave me a book to read on an adulterous relationship and even said in company ‘don’t worry I am getting it somewhere else’. At a party early in the affair they actually flirted closely with one another in front of me and his partner. It all went right over my head.

Some aspects of the affair make me feel sick. On a night out with friends they held hands under a dinner table with his partner and me present. They had picnics in our garden and once arranged an overnight rendezvous with two of our mutual friends (both of whom are married) at our holiday caravan. Their meetings often involved sex while our 3 year old daughter watched tv in the next room. I know there are other things I may or may not discover.

MM maintains now that she wanted me to know, that she thought I knew and did not care and God knows I should have known. But the nature of our relationship over 16 years was that she was free to do as she pleased and I never had an objection to men friends. MM often flirted with my friends in front of me. I felt it was harmless. I trusted her completely. I believed that she had never had an affair; she often said that lying was the worst possible sin and that if she ever found out I had even kissed another woman she would leave me.

I wish I had had an affair, not for revenge or any sense of ‘redressing the balance’ but so I could understand how she could deceive me so much and hate me so much to cause this much pain. I don’t think I could ever have done this to her, the way she flaunted it right in front of me.

I know I am lucky that MM eventually chose me. Some days the pain goes away and other days I feel abused, walked all over and alone. MM does not regret what she did, only the pain she caused. I want to move on quickly and re-build our marriage but I cannot help the feeling that MM is ‘getting away with it’. I want to make sure none of my feelings are buried, as I am prone to do. I don’t want part of the story, I want the whole excruciating truth from MM. I want to suffer every little detail and to express all my pain, anger and resentment until it finally burns itself out.

I am so sorry for you - please keep posting on here. My story is similar, infidelity, feeling like a fool, it has taken me a month to feel as if I'm starting a fresh chapter. I decided nott o continue the rship, but there were other factors there as well.

Here's my advice, it worked for me, be prepared to stretch it to your own needs.

Get as low as you can. Consider every tiny detail, no matter how much it hurts, visualise it all, cry until you run out of tears. I know that sounds stupid, but it helped me immensely. You have to get low so you can then wake up the next morning and see that you survived it - then you'll realise you're strength. Soak up the pain like a sponge and rise through to strength.

Develop a mantra - mine was to say out loud to myself each day "coping, because I am". It makes you think how you've come on another day, maybe a whole week.

Be completely honest with yourself and your wife. Don't pretend to be over it until you are. If you need space or extra affection then ask for it.

Honestly this is what worked for me. Strange as it may sound it felt quite empowering getting lower than I'd ever been and knowing that I would come through and smile again.

I wish you all the luck in the world!

Katie

</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">

Hello,

I am sorry for your pain. What a horrible story of totaly disrespect and humiliation your wife was putting you thru all of this. She flirted right in front of you and had sex with the OM while your 3 year old was sleeping in the next room? You said something that I think is very very significant and it is why I suggest that you do not renew your vows at this time. You stated that your wife has no regret for what having the affair for 5 months but it is sorry that it caused you pain?
This is a hugh red flag. The message is that she has no problems and no remorse in breaking her marriage vows to you at all. What is the point of renewing your vows with her if she feels she has done nothing wrong by breaking them in the first place?

I doubt that your wife if the roles were reversed would have accepted your comments that you felt no regret for the affair and apparently enjoyed this total disrespect and humiliation that was played on her. If I read this correctly that since she has no remorse or regret for the affair that it is fair to presume that in the future if things are not going the way she wishes then she would have no problem engaging in another affair?
The fact that she also engaged in this sexual affair with a friend of yours is again so disrespecting to you.
I would encourage the both of you certainly to be tested for STD's. Next you both should go into marriage counseling. Third, do not even think of renewing your vows as long as she feels it was acceptable behavior on her part to have sex with a friend of yours behind your back. It is interesting that she would never tolerate such behavior from you but feels it was acceptable for her to engage in these cheating behaviors and disrespect to you and your marriage with a friend? You need to step back and again seek counseling for the both of you. Until she recognizes and has regret for having an affair on you; I do not see how your marriage will succeed in the long run and how you could possibly trust her again. This is just my opinion but she should be begging you for forgiveness for what she has done to you. Telling you she has no regrets is a clear slap in the face to you. Would you not agree?

peter,
your story is very sad...all here who read it will sympathize with no questin i'm sure...but what's important now is deciding what you want and where you want this situation to end up. in other words, what are you here seeking? what can we do to help you?

one last unsolicited thought. please don't blaim yourself in any way for what your W decided to do and how she decided to do it. her acts of betrayal are more then scandolous and for you to make excuses for her behavior are in my opinion totally counter productive to you both moving forward in the relationship.

if you decide to leave well enough alone, just being greatful that your wife has decided to chose you, i firmly believe that you are making the greatest mistake ever.

the issues that created the feeeling of rightness in your wife's mind, a feeling of rightness on her part to do what she did... needs to be addressed, understood and and dealt with...by you both. And please! your emotional problems at the time that all this took place is no excuse.

this is a dirty little problem and it shouldn't be swept under the rug. face up to now or accept the potential for it to happen again.

coach

Thankyou for you kind replies. It is immense help to have an outsider's opinion on the situation as I cannot bring myself to talk to any friends or relatives.

As I am sure you all know the emotion of writing down the events is intense and painful but I wanted to present at least a reasonably balanced view. Things are never black and white, always grey. I presented the 'black view' that I felt.


I agree the fact she says 'no regret' is a major obsticle and we need to understand firstly if it is true and if yes then why. MM explained that she actually hated me at the time and certainly had no respect for me. That is why she was able to do this in front of me. She says she wishes she had left me rather than deceive me and at least got it out in the open. For me that would have been an even worse outcome as MM is my best friend, she still is, and I would have no one to turn to.

We are both absolutely committed to repair our marriage. The alternatives are too appaling to consider at this stage. We have been together a long time and shared a thousand intimate experiences, including the birth of two children. Part of my problem is I have buried my emotions for too long and in some perverse way this opportunity feels like a liberating emotional experience. I have and will continue to express all my pain, anger and frustration to MM until it runs it's course.

Be careful HOW you express your anger. Re-read the link in "Basic Concepts" about Love Busters. Avoid them like the plague. I know it's hard to do.