Dear Friends: My brother told me about this website. He said that you've been a tremendous help to him in the past few months. Can you all help give me strength just now? I have been married for 15 years and although I adore my husband, I have always had to fight a strong temptation to commit infidelity. I know spiritually, emotionally, legally it is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and I frankly don't think I could ever live w/ the guilt. But I've known a man at work for some time who has recently approached me rather vigorously and I am AFRAID. Please help me to be strong....

ZT,<P>You obviously know what could happen to your marriage if you do cheat. If you haven't done so already, read everything you can on the site.<P>Welcome <P>Mitzi

Zooteacher<P>I will be very brief and to the point. <P>You will find some excellent resources offered here. Some very real pain shared by others who have "Crossed over" and will attempt to wave you back.<P>Whatever you do here, avoid getting to "close" to members of the opposite sex.<P>I came to these boards for the very same reason you are here today. Your post could have been mine. I met a woman on here who was as vulnerable as I was...looking for some support. We ended up being "to supportive" of each other. It has created some very complicated matters. <P>In closing, I'll share with you, what others tried waving me off with....<P>"YOU DON'T WANT TO CROSS THAT LINE...NO MATTER HOW ENTICING IT MAY SEEM...BELIEVE ME!<P>Good luck!

At least you realize that much. There is much more pain and suffering that is subjected to EVERYONE involved in an affair that you DO NOT want to go through. Don't do it.... There's too much to lose and it's not worth it!<P>Hang around here... there are many who will help support you....

Welcome! You've come to the right place!<P>First of all, if you are having this desire, your husband is not meeting some of your needs. You need to get a handle on what you're missing in your marriage and talk to your husband. <P>You know that infidelity is WRONG! It will cause pain and hurt, and create a serious scism in your marriage. Find the problem between the two of you and fix it. <P>Definately look at all the information posted on this website. You definately should get ahold of Dr. Harley's book, His Needs/Her Needs. This will give you a lot of insight on why people cheat - what leads up to this catastrophe, and how to fix it. Your library might have it, or you can purchase it on this website or amazon.com. Definately a must read to determine what needs your husband is not meeting.<P>Coming from a person who has been betrayed by her husband, I can not begin to tell you the pain, anger, loss of confidence, self worth, desirability, sorrow and despair I went through, and continue to try to work through.<P>Don't even think that your spouse will never find out - we always do, sooner or later.<P>Please don't be put off by my response (I'm sorry if I harped). There are plenty of betrayers on this site also, so you are not alone in your feelings and perhaps they would be the best people to seek advice from. I just wanted you to know what the betrayed spouse goes through.

ZT,<BR>Most of the time logic and emotion do not live in the same house and emotion usually dictates because it is in the present.... and it feels so intoxicating. Logic is the ability to step back and take a long term view of what is happening now as well as into the future. If you can take a piece of paper and be a little logical about some scenarios.<BR>What is this guy who is attracting you going to be like when the emotion cools, say 5 years down the line? <BR>If you have kids still with you how are you going to like them being influenced by your husbands new wife?<BR>How is your family going to view you?<BR>How are your friends going to view you?<BR>How will you tolerate the guilt that you will have considering the pain you will cause EVERYONE that is around you?<BR>Like it or not you will be viewed by the general population as the bad guy because of what you will have done (at least for a time)<BR>Will you ever be able to overcome the distrust of knowing that this guy has no problem persuing a married woman. How will you know that it won't happen again....<BR>One last thing.... affairs have single digit percentages of ever turning out into lasting relationships... are you willing to risk your marriage and family for those odds?<BR>I believe from an emotional perspective which you sound as though you are in, you could rationalize all the above questions away. Keep on this site and you will find it more difficult to rationalize. You could turn your husband into the enemy (which you almost have to do to keep the affair justified) and you will end up starting over, No husband, no lover and having to start the dating game again having to learn all the baggage of someone new all over again.... <BR>Gosh sounds like a load of fun..... NOT<BR>Now I will jump off my soap box, all those that read this, am I accurate or just sour grapes?

ZooTeacher,<P>Prepare to be AMAZED by the caring and sharing of total strangers here. IMO, one of the finest and most valuable uses of internet technology. I'm so glad your brother sent you here.<P>You "adore" your husband, so what is the temptation? Is it simple sexual curiosity? Has your marriage become dull? Are you and your H in a rut? Grown apart? What?<P>Read Jill's posts (you can search on her name) to get a flavor for the horror and utter remorse you are risking. Learn from the mistakes others have made.<P>You CAN reinvigorate your marriage with the Marriage Builder principles. If you were convinced of this, would you still be tempted?<P>Talk to us! And spend lots of time reading the articles and the posts here. Get oriented and see if what you read changes your thinking at all.<P>------------------<BR>But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.<BR>Galatians 5:22-23

I know just exactly how you are feeling - well, almost. I had strong urges to have an affair over the past few years. My husband just couldn't seem to fulfill my need for love and affection. I told him so many times how I was feeling and he said he understood and would try to work on it but things never really got better. It would kill me to see how affectionate he could be with our children but he couldn't do that with me. He would say that he wants to make sure his children know he loves them and he just assumes I know he loves me. I even told him that I wasn't sure if I could live in a relationship without affection. Like you, even though I had strong thoughts and I do think I would have been easily tempted had any man given me that type of attention, I knew it would be very difficult to live with the guilt and the fear of falling in love with someone else and having to tell my husband.<P>Anyway, what ended up happening wasn't at all what I expected. He went to California on business during the month of December (against my better wishes) and became very friendly with a female co-worker. One thing led to another and they ended up in bed. When he returned home they kept in contact with each other and he began thinking that he was in love with her. I had my suspitions but because of blind faith, I just didn't think he of all people would be capable of doing such a thing. I found a letter he wrote expressing his feelings for her and at that moment the most gut wrenching, sickening feeling came over me and I know I will never be the same.<P>Finding out that your spouse has been unfaithful for whatever reason is the worst pain imaginable. It plays a very close second to having someone very close to you die. Do you really want to inflict that kind of pain on your husband? It only creates so many more problems than you could possibly be going through right now.<P>Is this man you are attracted to married? Do you really want to be pegged as the "other woman". What people don't realize when they have an affiar is just how many people it will affect. Yourself, your spouse, your children, the other persons spouse and their children and on and on it goes. Everyone suffers and believe me there is absolutely nothing to gain because in the end a few minutes of pleasure will cause you so much pain and regret and you will wish for the rest of your life that you could have been stronger, that you should have tried harder in your marriage.<P>Talk to your husband. Tell him how you are feeling and try to work on the root of your feelings. You should also get Dr. Harley's book, "His Needs, Her Needs".<P>There truly is a better answer than infidelity!

Zoo<P> My wife tried for 18 years to make me human. It took the affair to open my eyes. The big problem is I now understand but I am depressed, anxious, my world has fallen apart in every manner you can think of.<P> Now this may have been what it took to change me but it has also has destory me. <P> MAN ARE TRAINABLE, WE CAN BECOME HUMAN TRUST ME. Were raised to provide, were raised to "Deal with it". All BS but that was how I lived. With some work I believe you can build your marriage to be everything you want. <P> You need to also break all contact with this OM it is only going to become the end of your marriage.<P> I have learned from all of this that if I wanted I could do a wonderful job destorying troubled marriages. The appoach is so simple and so easy to do you can't help but be successful. Think about, and I don't know your story, I find out one way or another you have a troubled relationship. Now all I need to do is listen and become someone who you can talk to. It is real easy for me to sit here and say your husband is a jerk, he doesn't know how good he has it. I would love to have my wife treat me this way. "It would take an act of God to get him to change"!!!!! This is my favor because my wife got feed this BULL**** and she bite. The big thing here is God did see that I needed help and I have changed, I now know how to be most of what my wife is looking for.<P> It sounds like you happy, and if you are you can build on these 15 years.<P>I'll be praying for you<BR>Joe<BR>

Welcome <B>zooteacher</B>...<P>I have a post of general welcome I wish to share with you... <P>It has a lot of quick links to many of the <B>most</B> important MB sites...<BR>Click here ==> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum29/HTML/000002.html" TARGET=_blank>General Welcome for All New Builders(Newbies)</A><P>A while ago... the "main" forum was divided into 4 separate "sub" forums... and a new one added...<BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/marriage/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Just+found+out...&number=29&DaysPrune=10&LastLogin=" TARGET=_blank>Just found out...</A>...for those new the forum... pre/post "discovery" of an affair or possible affair.<BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/marriage/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Plan+A/Plan+B&number=30&DaysPrune=10&LastLogin=" TARGET=_blank>Plan A/Plan B</A>...usually after "discovery of the affair"...for those with questions of "what to do now?"<BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/marriage/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=In+recovery&number=31&DaysPrune=10&LastLogin=" TARGET=_blank>In recovery</A>...when a commitment to work on marriage by both spouses has begun.<BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/marriage/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&number=34&SUBMIT=Go" TARGET=_blank>Divorcing/Divorced</A>...when efforts at reconciliation fail or are failing.<BR>We are being asked to post the forums that make the most sense with respect to our questions/vents and not just dump everything into the <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/marriage/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=General+Questions&number=28&DaysPrune=10&LastLogin=" TARGET=_blank>General Questions</A> forum because it will give you the most responses! <P>Do check out Jill's posts... click on the underlined words...<BR>(Jill... you know we're not bashing you...<BR>...you have given us so much hope...<BR>...and it is nice to pass on that hope to others)<BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum28/HTML/001436.html" TARGET=_blank>I'm really, really scared...</A><BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum28/HTML/002089.html" TARGET=_blank>What a mega-mess I've created for myself... </A><BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum28/HTML/000829.html" TARGET=_blank>To reveal or not to reveal, that is the question... </A><BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum28/HTML/000877.html" TARGET=_blank>So, I decide to tell my husband that I'm a liar and a cheat...THEN what happens???</A><BR><A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/Forum28/HTML/000882.html" TARGET=_blank>The story of how and why I betrayed my husband... (I'm such an idiot)</A><P> <P>Jim<p>[This message has been edited by NSR (edited April 14, 2000).]