If he had come to me first, and said I have this thing going on in my head (he is a sex addict) I would have given 110%.<p>When we were engaged, and he went thru inpatient alcohol rehab, I stood by him 110%.<p>When I found out about his affair, I gave 110%.<p>When he was in the accident, came off life support and confessed to continuing the affair he assured me was over a few weeks prior I gave my soul, my mental and physical health, and my family rallied to the cause.<p>Love is love. Marriage vows are real. It doesn't matter what the issue is.<p>For better or worse.<p>I chose to give up my career, my dream of law school, more than willingly to join hearts with this man and raise a family.<p>No matter what the situation (excluding physical violence) would be I would give everything I had to carry out my vow of till death do us part.<p>What the problem is doesn't matter. <p>Trying to make a marriage work after an affair has nothing to do with keeping what's yours, or not letting the jerk find happiness.<p>Making a marriage work is why they say for better and for worse. Worse happens. <p>Elizabeth

Yes, I was trying my hardest to fix my marriage before I learned of the affair. I just had an unwilling partner.

well, not a bs, but certainly have a marital history of discord to comment on.<p>If I understand JC right, the question is whether without the pressure of the affair (and the fear the marriage is gonna really end) would people have worked as hard, and in same ways without an affair (and spouse just saying I am done)...IMO the answer is no in most cases, humans react to percieved threat (real or not)...and the only way to actually "threaten" a spouse to the max, is betrayal (actions DO speak louder than words), it is unequivocal, and one cannot help but observe the spouse "left". This galvanizes folks into action they would not have taken without the threat. It is also a pretty well documented psychological reality, that humans respond differently to life threatening stress, it strips you down to who you really are, I suspect the aftermath of an affair triggers that too, for bs and ws.<p>In my case, I did complain, often and loudly starting BEFORE we got married, that we needed to fix things, or one day it would end. I found counsellor after counsellor, wrote her letters, often stood up to the chronic anger and criticism, but nothing ever changed (and yes, w was unhappy also, but I am the communicator in this relationship), so eventually I "left" via an affair (much to my suprise, but that is a different issue), I had been simply in the withdrawal stage, just waiting for the inevitiable divorce, been that way for 5 years, just taking care of duties, raising kids, paying the bills, and wondering how I could live the rest of my life like this, and why would I.....however the affair got w attention, I was rather shocked (and angry actually) that she even complained (rather than just dump me). I had even included her in the developing friendship with the ow, but she had no interest in what was going on. Anyways, the point is the affair caused her to participate more, (than she had in the past) in unraveling what the truths are re herself, my, and the marriage..... an affair in itself, will not fix, or end, a marriage....but it will force all parties to focus more, and make decisions they had heretofore avoided.

I am a BS and yes I would of worked on the marriage. You need to find a good counselor, one that you both are happy with. My WH found a counselor, but I feel and see that he was not a true marriage counselor. He works with inmates. He likes to phylosophy, but he never had a game plan. He never said we are going to do this next week, hardly ever gave homework, and when we walked in the door and sat down, he would always say "what shall we talk about today". Talked to various people going through counseling, and there is a plan, usually the counselor, tells you what homework to do, what they plan for next week, and of course they will allow for some changes. So yes I would of worked on marriage before the sexual affair.

Absolutely, positively YES!!! I recognized months before my husband's A started that us working opposite shifts and literally not seeing each other 5 days a week was tearing us apart. I tried for months to get him to open up and talk to me. He wouldn't even admit there was a problem until after the A started. Like some others' WSs, he told me he didn't know how he felt about me or if he wanted to be married, but totally denied an A. At that point I became a maniac trying to work on my marriage. I read everything I could find from my church and on the net to fix things. I Plan A'd my but off before I even knew what Plan A was. If anything, confirming that he had an A TOOK AWAY some of my motivation to work on my marriage. It made all that nice stuff I was doing harder to do.

I didn't read all the replies before my last post. I think I need to clarify. I am sure I would have done the work needed to improve my marriage without my WHs A. The key word there is "I". I'm a proactive person, a "doer" by nature--if something is wrong, particularly something important to me, I do EVERYTHING I can to fix it. Not everybody is that kind of person. Some people are so mired in their own complacency, it takes more to get them to change. My WH is that kind of person--a large part of the reason he ended up in an A is because he'd rather complain to someone who can't fix the situation than actually deal with the situation. I think you may be preaching to the choir here. The people on this board are here because we are proactively trying to rescue our marriages. There are BSs out there who, upon exposure of the A, throw up their hands in disgust, never look for a cause other than their spouse is a scumbag, and leave.

Yes, oh yes, oh yes, I wish I had had the chance.<p>I knew that we were "growing apart." and had asked for more time together etc. (WH's workaholism is a whole other topic)<p>But he didn't seem to see anything wrong, he was happy with his life. I can not imagine him ever coming to me with "This is not working, I want a divorce." But if he had, that would have been all the wake up call I needed. I would have worked, had been working, although fairly ineffectively.<p>He admits that he didn't realize that he was unhappy with his life/marriage until there was this conversation with the wonderful women and everything clicked and they are soulmates...<p>And the longer it goes on, the more recovery looks impossible. I still love him so much, but can this damage really be repaired?