I don't have time to read all, but one caution-if your H started acting weird again it is possible that he has started seeing the OW again.

Stop your affair-this is just going to make things worse and you don't need to get an STD while you are pregnant!

Keep reading here. You should be trying Plan A now.

Sorry this is short-got to go.

When I first discovered evidence my W was
having an affair I kept quiet about it.

I decided why should I be faithful to her. I went
online and found an adult/swingers matchmaker site. And posted my profile. Within a week I
already had 3 women ready to meet me for sex.

It was partly out of anger and partly out of a
desire to have sex again I even considered it.
But luckily I came to my senses before I ever
met any of them. I wrote back explaining my
situation and I appologized to each of them as
to why I could not meet them.

I realized it was not about sex or having a good
time. It was about revenge pure and simple. I
could not allow myself to use someone else to
try and get even. Why would I want to get dragged
into these other womens lives and bring them into
mine. I had enough to deal with already.

For me sex is the ultimate expression of love.
The two become become one kind of thing. For
my wife, sex and love have always been seperate.

The other thing that stopped me was the realization that once I started, I could not stop.

I did not have many lovers in my life and I have
always wished I would have experimented more.
I love my wife and we are GREAT together but
I also miss exploring the differences with each
new lover.

Right now I am grateful for the Divine
Intervention that took control of my heart
and made the guilt so bad I could not go through
with it.

I have a question about RAs that maybe someone could shed some light on. I posted a similar question in GQ a while ago, but no BS who had seriously considered or had an RA replied.

My H has been talking about maybe sleeping with other women, 3 1/2 months after I confessed to a one-night stand A that happened 9 months ago. At the time I confessed I was already completely over OM and never thought about him, except in relation to my remorse about keeping a secret like that from my H, and the damage it did to our R. All of my energy and effort for the past 3 1/2 months has gone into my R, and we seem to be becoming much closer.

But his comments about wanting to have an RA throw me off balance, plunge me back into depression, and make me feel that my efforts to try to restore my R might be useless.

The worst thing is that it is a constant threat, but it actually hasn't happened and maybe won't. There is a part of me actually wants him to go ahead and do it, just so that I could have some certainty and be able to react. Constant threats, at the same time as we are becoming much closer and seem to be healing, just seem to destabilise everything.

My question is, are there couples in which the BS having an RA actually did help with closure, from the points of view of both spouses??
As I said, although it would be terrible for me, a part of me would prefer to know that it had happened and was over with, than live with the constant but unspecified threat of it.

Just an update on what I said previously... I think I LB'd, but I'm not sure.

Last night, H and I were talking and he was again telling me his point of view about how if he had sex with another woman, why should it mean anything to me? Why should I care about it, as long as he loved me and didn't leave me? etc etc. I just listened to all of this. But eventually I told him about my thoughts that I posted here - that, although it would hurt me terribly if he had an RA, there is a strange part of me that would be relieved, because I'd feel that we were 'even', and then he could also know what it felt like to be the one putting energy and hopes and time into trying to restore your relationship after a stupid mistake that you deeply regret.

Anyway, the point is, he took this comment as a threat - ie as me telling him that if he had an A like mine, that I would give up on trying for our R. It just sort of cancelled out all of the good feelings we had built up over a week of communication and LB deposits.

Did I do the wrong thing??

I am in the middle of an affair. But it wasn't revenge. It was just like I felt I had given up so many years trying to work on my marriage and I thought my husband was at least faithful, so we could work it out. Well, he wasn't faithful for 3 or 4 years (don't have full story). He made me feel so badly about myself. I just was surprised by finding out someone was actually attracted to me. I truly thought no one ever would be attracted to me. I thought he had affairs because I was not attractive.
Well guess what. I have a great thing going. A man treating me with respect, doting on my every whim. Plus, wonderful sex (now, held off on that for awhile). My self esteem is back. I couldn't have done it this fast without my lover.
The whole thing just sort of happened and I'm glad it did.
No my husband is not getting one millionth of the betrayal I felt. I have not lied. He knows. I have not waved it in his face either. Its just he knows this is something I had to do for myself. And my lover knows all, too.. No lies to anyone.
Not recommended revenge affairs. But if there is someone interested, go for it. I truly think in the long run this is what I needed.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by doing the best I can:
Well guess what. I have a great thing going. A man treating me with respect, doting on my every whim. Plus, wonderful sex (now, held off on that for awhile). My self esteem is back. I couldn't have done it this fast without my lover.
The whole thing just sort of happened and I'm glad it did.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If your self esteem is so dependent on having a lover on the side, how are you going to react if he decides to dump you for another woman?

Don't you realize that this is the way that a great many of WS start their affairs? They suffer from low self esteem and chose to have an affair because it makes them feel alive and desired.

I'm sorry but you are no longer better than your WH.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not recommended revenge affairs. But if there is someone interested, go for it. I truly think in the long run this is what I needed.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">In case you forgot, this is Marriage Builders, NOT Open Marriage Builders.

<small>[ September 23, 2004, 10:43 PM: Message edited by: T00MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

I was faithful to my husband through four years of hell. He didn't even have the curtesy of cutting me loose to find happiness somewhere else. I had no idea what was wrong. He just treated my like crap. He swore he wasn't having an affair. If have low self esteem its because of what he did to me. All I could think was I wasn't enough for him, pretty enough, thin enough, or that the house wasn't clean enough. I begged and cried for him to tell me what was wrong. I tried giving him space. I tried to love him anyway (and I did). I stayed because I believed in marriage. I believed in staying it out even if things were really bad. I had faith we could get through the bad times. I LOVED him. I LOVED my family. I did and would of done ANYTHING to save our family.

No I'm not as bad as him. I haven't lied. I never would even consider looking at another man. Not the whole 10 years of my marriage or the 6 years before when we were in a committed relationship. He bailed out first. He did EVERYTHING possible to destroy me and my children's lives. After I found out, I stayed. I tried to work on our marriage. He continued to LIE.

Sorry if you think that women should lie down and die. That we should stand by our man no matter what. Sorry for you because that is pathetic. I deserve to be treated with some respect after all I have done to save this marriage and all I have been put through. Do you see him on Marriage Builders? NO. Have I gotten the books and tried to work with him on it? YES.

The other night we were working on the Love Buster "Honesty". We discussed how important it is, especially now after all the lies. I admitted and have been working on my Love Busters. Do you know we went upstairs to go to bed and talk and he LIED to me. 10 minutes after finishing our discussion on how important it is to not lie ...he lied to me!

I'm staying right now to see if we can spare the children a divorce situation. But I have lost 4 years of my life. 4 long years of having no comfort, no one to care for me. I just can't do that right now.

I truly believe that at the very least, I have figured out that his problems were not because I was a piece of crap.

Amazing that you all bend over backwards to furgive and figure out the cheaters. But you have no compassion for the BETRAYED. Nice.

FYI I AM a BS myself [just like you] but just because my XWW had affairs left and right [like your WH] it didn't give me the right to have an affair of my own. Did my self esteem take a big hit from my XWW affairs and abusive behavior towards our daughters and me? He** yes! but I realized that to engage in an affair [and beleive me I had plenty of opportunities] was to become no better than my XWW. Affairs are like drugs in that they are addicting and eventually destroy those that are engaged in them and my XWW did pay for them in spades. After our divorce and losing custody of our daughters, she attempted suicide and had to be institutionalized. Fortunately for her, and our daughters, she finally accepted that she needed therapy and committed herself to regain her soul. It is too late for us since I've already moved on with my life and remarried but I am very happy for her and our daughters [they have their mother back from the abyss].

Now I can empathize with those BS that fell into an affair of their own because they became vulnerable from their WS affair(s), but what I take offense is that YOU, a BS of all people, are endorsing revenge affairs to other BS to get back their self esteem. When you stated:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not recommended revenge affairs. But if there is someone interested, go for it.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And da** the fact that you may be destroying another marriage and family as well. So I still stand by my statement that you have have become just as bad as your H. Let me phrase it this way, does the fact that I was a faithful and suffering H to my unfaithful XW give me an excuse to kill her? NO!.

There is NO EXCUSE for an affair, not even a so called revenge affair.

doing the best I can,

I agree with TMCM.You are doing just what WS's all over the world do in a case like this: rationalize,justify and make excuses.This in no way absolves your WH of the treatment you endured but neither do two wrongs make a right.

Adultery is NEVER the answer...to anything.Please don't encourage it.

O

Doing the best I can,
I'm curious because I can relate to your situation a little. My WH treated me poorly for 3 years. I asked more than once was there someone else but he denied it. Said he felt a 'general malaise' that he couldn't explain. So I thought he was depressed and let so many things go. So now I know it was an A and it explains so much of his behaviour over the past few years. I would love to have someone dote on me and give me some attention. It must feel great and I cannot attack you for what you are doing. We all deal with these dreadful situations in various ways. BUT, how is your husband towards you now the tables have turned. Is he trying to gain you back or is he accepting of your A. Also, is your new boyfriend married? How did the two of you become involved? You say there are no lies so does your husband know this guy? What pisses me off about my situation is that nothing has changed for me. My WH is home but behaves like he would rather not me. He's unaffectionate, unloving, uncommunicative so we are at a stalemate. I deserve more than this from life.

Tummytuck,

If you approve that a BS have a RA [like 'doin the best I can'], then what's the point in staying married? The children? What kind of message about marriage will you and your WH be sending them, if both of you are having affairs? Are you going to justify your affair by telling your children 'But your father cheated first'? Isn't that the inmature excuse that children use when they fight among themselves?

I was both father and mother to my two daughters when I divorced my XWW who had more affairs than I can probably count. I had plenty of opportunities to pay my XWW back by having affairs of my own, but instead I chose not to continue to live in a marriage that was already a sham. You know what influenced me greatly in saying no to having affairs? What one good friend said to me one day 'If you find a woman to have an affair with, ask yourself what are that woman's view on marriage and family if she is willing to have an intimate relationship with a married man? I'll tell you, a woman who has NO respect for marriage or family, a woman who tomorrow will do to you what she is doing with you right now, is that the woman you want to become involved with?. He was [and still is] absolutely right and I decided from that point on that the only intimate relationship I was going to have with a woman would be one in which neither of us was married, and so I made the decision to divorce my XWW. Now I'm happily married to a woman who went through the same situation with her XWH, and who shares my views on marriage. If I had been like 'doin the best I can' the chances of me ending up with a woman that was exactly like my XWW would have been extremely high.

I probably haven't changed your mind [and that of 'doin the best I can'] about the destructiveness of RA but you have been forwarned and if you get hurt then it will be nobody's fault but your own.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by doing the best I can:
<strong> I am in the middle of an affair. But it wasn't revenge....... .....Well guess what. I have a great thing going. A man treating me with respect, doting on my every whim. Plus, wonderful sex (now, held off on that for awhile). My self esteem is back. I couldn't have done it this fast without my lover.
The whole thing just sort of happened and I'm glad it did.
No my husband is not getting one millionth of the betrayal I felt. I have not lied. He knows. I have not waved it in his face either. Its just he knows this is something I had to do for myself. And my lover knows all, too.. No lies to anyone.
Not recommended revenge affairs. But if there is someone interested, go for it. I truly think in the long run this is what I needed. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">DBIC.

I am not mad at you and I don't intend to be mean or do you any harm. I am going to tell you the simple truth. You will not like it.

You have opened a can of pain that exceeds ANYTHING that your husband did to you. What you have done is going to eat at you like cancer. It will never go away.

Gimble

It's funny, in his state of fog my H actually "presented" this to me. He said he'd look for some nice guy so I could have what he and OW had.. sport sex, that is.

I thought to myself - OMG, this is SOOO not what my problem is. I don't need a good "boinking" with some nice guy to feel better. How can the fact that I feel betrayed and hurt be changed by sex with someone else???

I asked OW (actually my "best friend") "How would you have felt if YOU had found a video of me with your H on it?" She answered (also in a state of fog): "Oh well, then we would all have had fun, wouldn't we?"

My point is - there is no point to revenge affairs. Either you love your W/H and you forgive them for doing something stupid AND you both work on the M. Or you get a D. Then get your act back together.
If you want to stay in your M then don't add more hurtful acts to it. Unless you want to start an "open" M and then you should expect your partner to feel free to have yet another A... after all, if that's the way you'll start solving problems in your M... hey, you can have another RA!!!

And using another person to crank up your self-esteem is something that simply doesn't work for me. Maybe it would work for others, but not for me. My problem is with my H, I want to solve it with him. Do you really think if some other nice guy would say "Oh, but I would never do that to you!" that I wouldn't think "Yeah, right..." ??? I need to work this through with my H or I can never trust another man.

Maybe the fact that I have had several BF before I got married makes a difference for me. I'm not wondering about what it would be like to have sex with another person. I KNOW what it is like, what it can do for you and what it doesn't. It can't fix a broken heart. It can't make you trust people again. In fact, if you'd end up in bed with a MM or a MW, would that restore your faith in people??

I feel like talking someone out of taking drugs when I advise against RA. Or A's for that matter. It's up to everyone to make good choices in their lives.. It really doesn't matter what I'm saying or warning about if a person really sets his mind on something.. they'll just have to hit the wall to realise it's there.

Maybe sometimes a RA can jolt the WS into understanding what he or she has done. But it's equally likely to
- make the WS lose all love and respect for you (too)
- make you doubt your own standards (you'll hardly be able to think "how could he/she" when you're doing it yourself)
- make the WS think he or she will just have another A since that's the way this M works
- hurt someone else if you just so happen to meet a nice person (or will you tell them "this is not emotional, I just want to [censored] your brains out and then dump you" - but hey, it's not like you care about that, do you? it's revenge all around!)

Well, I apologize for endorsing revenge affairs. I do not see mine as a revenge affair. I didn't want to get back at or hurt my husband. He was in total withdrawal. He was gone already, just not legally. Like what he says in the Love Busters book, its like throwing your efforts and love down a blackhole. (See the chapter on alcohol and drug addiction).

But I realize that you all are right. Its not right. I just feel lie everyone out there is just taking care of themselves and I was the only idiot trying to do the right thing. And what did that get me? I huge NIGHTMARE. And I see all these people on here trying to do the right thing even though they are in such pain and then they think the have it all worked out, they think they can trust again...and then they are on here talking about getting screwed over AGAIN.

(By the way, I would not EVER have an affair with a married man. He is single and he does know my situation.)

All I can say is that I felt soo badly about myself and I was so shocked to learn that someone could value me. Maybe not the way I should be valued, but just in ANYWAY was amazing to me. I can not tell you how desperate I was/am.

My situation is a lot different that other people on here. My husband was doing drugs for three years (I had no clue), was having sex with anything and everything when he was out of town for business (I had no clue), was treating me and my children like he could care less. I thought it was ALL my fault.

I just kept asking myself "Why would he do this?"
In my heart I felt it was because of me.

So then I thought "Why even work on this marriage? If I wasn't enough for him before, what has changed? I'm still not enough".

In a really warped way, this has helped me to see that I do have something of value and this was not my fault and that has actually helped me to stay in this marriage. Actually, we are not working on our marriage anymore. He can't right now. He has a whole lot of personal issues that he has to work on before we can work on our marriage. (Also see Love Busters addiction chapter). I tried for awhile but it was clear to both of us that he is not anywhere close to that, yet. So I am here still feeling like crap and I can't even expect to work on us for probably a long time. (Anyone out there know how long I can expect to be waiting?)


I have a lot on my plate than a normal affair. My husband was not in an affair. He was addicted to drugs, alcohol and (in my opinion) sex. He never had more than one night stands. He just had many, many one night stands with total strangers. If I would have known that he was doing drugs and drinking, I'm sure I would feel differently. I would of known it wasn't me. I would of had choices. I would of known what I was dealing with. I wouldn't have blamed myself for years.

I don't know what else to say. I cannot tell you in this little space what all happened and what I was feeling.

Truly sorry for upsetting everyone! I hope I didn't hurt anyone reading this because I have found comfort here many times and I wouldn't want to hurt anyone.

If there is anyone out there who has the same situation as me, as far as the drugs and sex and going years without knowing, I could really use some help here.

doin the best I can

What your WH has done to you and his kids is INEXCUSABLE and very self destructive. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" /> so it doesn't surprise me that someone who was addicted to drugs would also partake of ONS. Your WH does not have any love and respect for himself so why should he have any love and respect for those that love him? It may take you divorcing him to finally confront and conquer his demons [like I did my XWW] but that is up to you.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">(By the way, I would not EVER have an affair with a married man. He is single and he does know my situation.)</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The problem is not just the extra marital sex you are having with the OM but the increasing emotional investment you make every time you are with him. If you haven't done so already, you will probably fall in love with the OM, but will the OM love you enough to want to marry you and be a step-father to your children. The vast majority of OM's are only interested in having sex with married women because they can't make too many demands out of them because of their married status. The OM's motto is Why should I buy the cow, when I can get the milk for free? and married women find out this bitter lesson soon after the OM dumps them for other women.

Keep this always in mind what he does with you, he can do to you. Your OM has demonstrated [with his involvement with a married woman] how much respect he has for the institutions of marriage and family. Would you like to marry another man like your H or worse?

If you truly beleive that there is no hope for your marriage, then do what I did and divorce your WS. You'll be then free to meet and discover men who truly value marriage and family.

I wish you and your loved ones the best.

My h had 3 revenge affairs and my life is in utter turmoil now.R A are not the answer it just adds to all the problems. H showed me no mercy when I revealed i had had an A.He stated at the time after I revealed my A that we would work on things bold lier he was looking for woman anywhere i feel sorry for them he used them everyone of them for only one night...

doing the best I can-

I'm so glad you apologised for what you wrote because it did hurt me to read it. I guess that your situation is different to most, and hopefully different to mine.

Many times on this site I have read that there is (almost) no pain worse than the pain you get from knowing that your S has had an A.

Well I would say that there is a worse pain. That is the pain you get from knowing your S has had an A, AND at the same time as feeling desperately hurt, also feeling guilty as hell, because you also had an A and think you are a BAD person who DESERVES the revenge pain your S has caused you.