Hi,

My name is Eric and I'm new here. Don't really know why I'm writing here tonight, but felt it might help. And maybe stimulate some brain activity. The past few days has been absolutely hell. I feel like I've been killed. Can't think, can't eat, can't sleep. I will try and keep my story short.

Last December, my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. She was 17 and I was 19 when we were married in 1983. After our wedding, we moved from Washington to North Carolina because I had joined the military. We spent six years in the military and came home in 1989. Shortly after coming home my wife admitted to having three affairs. This totally devastated me. My daughter was only four years old. I was determined to give my daughter a proper home. I had forgiven my wife and we vowed to work on building our marriage. In 1991, we had another beautiful daughter. And in 1993, we renewed our vows to each other in front of our family, church, and God. Everything was going great!

In September of last year, a very close friend of mine was innocently killed by a drunk driver. This was hard for me. For months I struggled with the question of why. Why him?

Over the past few months, my oldest daughter and her husband have been having some serious problems. My daughter had, and is still having an affair. An emotional roller coaster for me and my wife.

Last Wednesday, after coming home from work very tired, I decided to lay down and take a nap. My wife awoke me after a couple of hours. My daughters OM was wanting to tell me something, but my wife told me first. Last summer, my wife and my best friend had an affair. A physical affair. Not only was my daughter having an affair, but her mother as well.

I'm at a loss on what to do. I am in so much pain, I can hardly think straight. I finally got ahold of a therapist and have an appointment for Friday morning.

My wife says she loves me and is sorry for all the pain she has inflicted on me. She is so afraid that I will want a divorce.

I'll stop writing for now. I can't think straigt anyhow. I do have some questions I would like to ask lots of people.

Thanks for listening.
Eric

Hi Eric,

Welcome to MB! I'm sorry that you are in such pain... I know how much it hurts, especially when you don't even suspect it.

My situation was similar in that I found out about several A's that my W had during our first three years of M almost 10 years later.

It's great that you are getting some IC for yourself. That will really help you put things into perspective. Are you and your W going to MC? IMHO, you should make MC a priority if you really want to rebuild your M.

If your W really wants to rebuild the M, she must find out why she was willing to stray from her M... My W learned through IC and MC that she had acceptance issues with her father on top of being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder...

If you haven't gotten a copy yet, get a copy of Torn Asunder by Dave Carder. This book will help you with your feelings and will give you better insight as to where you are and where you need to go as you and your W rebuild your M.

Multiple A's are hard to deal with, but it IS possible to recover from them and have a better M than either of you ever dreamed you could have...

Semper Fi,
RIF90

Dear Eric,

This knowledge does little to help with the pain, but I'll share it anyway. When people have repeat affairs (or any affair according to my therapist), it's about THEM and not YOU. She has issues, most likely stemming from her childhood, that need to be addressed in individual counseling (IC). There may be problems in the marriage, but that causes a bad marriage...not an affair. The marriage issues need to be addressed separately. She is seeking something that is missing within herself and she has to find it, but not by hurting herself and you with affairs. She needs to figure it out in therapy.

If you love her and desire to see this behavior end, then stick around and insist that she get into therapy. It might be what saves your daughter in the end, too. It sounds like this is something that might go on for generations if they don't figure out why they are affair-prone. In my family all of the men had affairs and some of the women. I said, "It stops here." I've never had an affair, but I still attracted what I knew. I married a man who I thought would never, ever cheat and he did. His brothers all cheated too. We've both decided that we want to break this cycle in our families for the sake of our children and grandchildren. It takes a lot of soul-searching and emotional work, but it can be done.

I'm so sorry for your heartbreak.

Stillwed

Eric,
I’m just so sorry about all this. I’m sorry for your sake. But I’m going to be brutally blunt. This entire mess is very nasty. In fact it’s beyond nasty. It’s sick.

First of all, the way it sounds, your W doesn’t have any problem with taking little vacations from her marriage when the feeling strikes her. She can be a faithful W for years but along comes temptation and there goes your W. And now this one? With your best friend?

Second, is this the man that recently died in the accident? Or is your W’s OM some one else? If it is someone else, is she still seeing him? Is the affair still going on?

Third, your daughter is having an affair? So where do you think she learned that this kind of behavior is appropriate? From her mother possibly? Hummm, it makes one wonder doesn’t it? We all hate the specter of divorce around here and often we council people to stay with a cheater; if for no other reason then so that our children won’t be affected by the dissolution of the family. And what happens? Our children learn from their parent’s surprise, surprise! They end up become everything we hoped they’d never be. Is this true in your case for you Eric?

Fourth, and so if your daughter’s OM knows about your W’s affair is it a fair assumption to make that your Daughter knows as well? And what do we conclude from this fact if it is indeed true? That we have a mother and daughter supporting each other in their mutual infidelity. And if one really wants to get ill, we expand on this thought by evoking images of dinners for 4, nights out together socializing, one covering for the other, lying for each other.

Fifth, your W rushes to tell you the truth because for some reason, your daughter’s OM is going to spill the beans! Great! So now your W is just so sorry ha? But sorry for what? For cheating on you or because she had no choice other then to come clean before the piece of trash that your daughter is cheating with, was going to give you a different and possibly more nasty take on the whole rotten mess? And is she sorry for her influence on her daughter? Does her daughter’s lying and cheating bother her at all? Are there grandchildren involved?

Eric, here is my very Un-Marriage Builder like response to your situation. Get rid of this person once and for all and build yourself a new life. Yes you have years of history together but this woman is so toxic I can’t see anything there that is left to repair.

So very sorry.
Coach