I have been married for 18 years to a wonderful woman. We have three children, who are all very special. The reality is that I have a great family.

Which leads me to my problem. After 18 years of marriage, I deployed to Iraq. Within three months, I met a very nice woman. We became friends, and, in a very short order it became sexual. The affair lasted about two months and she returned home, but we kept in touch as friends.

During all this, I kept in touch with my wife. I am not sure why, but I was able to justify my actions in my mind and had no problem telling my wife that I loved her and missed her.

I returned home on mid-tour leave, and about a week in to it, the reality of what I had done hit me like a train. To make things worse, I realized that I never even asked the woman I had the affair with about STDs. I put my wife�s life in jeopardy. I subsequently asked the woman about an HIV screen, and she had done one for the military about three months after our affair and was clean. I also had one done, just to be sure and am awaiting the results. After speaking with the woman about this matter, I told her that I had to break it off with her completely as I realize that keeping her as a friend would be a slap in the face to my wife.

But, what do I do now? I do not know why I even had the affair. As I said, my wife is beautiful and perfect for me. It is killing me that it was so easy for me to betray her trust. I know that I could never tell her, because it would devastate her, not to mention my children who think I am some great American hero. Please, I don�t know how to get past this. I know I did wrong, and it was a conscious choice on my part to do this. I just do not know why, or how to move forward. Advice or suggestions are greatly needed. Please.

You.Have.To.Come.Clean.With.Your.Wife.

Because on some level, she already suspects, and is tortured.

Welcome to MB.

It's late and you probably won't get many responses tonight, so I suggest that you spend some time reading over the site. There are a lot of great articles here about recovering from an affair. Read them, and order the book "Surviving an Affair."

Yes, you will have to tell your wife. Telling her isn't what will destroy her. You already did that when you chose to have an affair. The damage is done, but lying to her will only make it worse.

BTW you didn't meet a nice woman. Nice women don't have affairs with married men. Nice women don't set the stage to break up a marriage.

This is a thread that I started to help newly betrayed but Wayward spouses can gain a lot of useful information from this thread as well. DON'T skip the parts, DO THE WORK.

You need to tell your wife as your FIRST step. You CAN do this. You have reached out for help, so take the suggestions and run with them.

It wasn't clear from your post, but I gather that you have returned to your overseas deployment, and are apart from your wife as you write us. If so, you might have to refrain from hitting her with this most painful of all confessions until you are home. NO ONE deserves to absorb that kind of blow via e-mail or phone connection.

Until then, you have some serious work to do to heal yourself, before you have to ask your wife to help heal your broken marriage.

Where has DrH ever suggested that someone NOT tell their SPOUSE IMMEDIATELY? His wife should know about the destruction that is taking place in her marriage. She should be told TODAY. ASmith came here and asked for MB help. Let's stick to that shall we?

Asmith, your wife has to be told. This is information about her life that she has a right to know. To not tell her is cruel and manipulative. I would tell her the full truth now because she can help keep you accountable. Additionally, I would tell your chaplain and your commander so they can keep you accountable while you are over there. As long as this is kept secret, you can resume the affair. But if you take those steps, you can cut off that path.

She probably already suspects something is amiss so telling her now will just give her relief.

When will your deployment be over? Apparently, you are vulnerable to an affair when you are away from your wife. And this is not uncommon at all. Dr Harley calls overnight travel away from one's spouse "an invitation to an affair. " It certainly has been in your case.

So, the first step is honesty. Honesty with your wife, your chaplain, your commander will help keep you accountable until you are back with your wife. Don't wait to do this. Waiting will make it easier for you to resume your affair and will just prolong your lies to your wife. The longer you lie to her, the harder it will be to clean up the damage.

I agree lying to your wife will only hurt your marriage, and if you are truly remorseful on what you did then telling her the TRUTH (all of it) will only help it.

At the risk of being scolded again by some of the more dogmatic correspondants on this site (few of whom, I believe, have had their marriage subjected to the stresses of deployment to a war-zone), let me expand on why your being home will be vital to easing the blow you are about to deliver to your spouse.

1) Your physical presence will provide an assurance of your intent to work through this as a team. Your wife may very well lash out, verbally and/or physically, and you would do well to be there to accept her fury, acknowledge its legitimacy, and ask for her forgveness. However many times it takes.
2) She is going to need immediate responses from you over the period following the revelation, and not at times that are easily coordinated 10(?) time-zones away. She will be shopping, and something will trigger her to the extent that she will need a phone call RIGHT THEN to get her past that crisis. She will be jolted from her sleep by another disruptive thought, and wake you up with a demand for answers. There will be untold numbers of these instances, and you must be there to deal with them.
3) Unsurprisingly, her first question and most pressing need will be for the "Why?" of your actions, which you say you do not yet have. Find the answer NOW, pal. Not a trite, "get-me-off-the-griddle" answer, but the "who-am-I-what-do-I-need-and-why-am-I-so-broken" answer that will not be comfortable to unearth. Not having that answer will be like papering over a mold-infested wall. Fortunately, you're already here and have access to some extraordinary advice, in the libraries, and among those of us who care enough to help.

On re-reading your note, I discovered your thoughts that you would consider NOT telling her at all. NFW, amigo. As bad as hearing of your betrayal from you will be, hearing it from another party would be immeasurably more devastating. And given the nature of a military environment, where people tend to re-encounter colleagues from previous assignments, with all the attendent jealousies and unresolved personal conflicts, it will get back to her eventually. (My bet would be through, if not directly from, a girlfriend/confidant of the AP.)

This is bad advice that will just lead to a prolonging of the affair and a compounding of the crime. I know that you mean well but you are new to the board and not familiar with working with military marriages. The longer he waits to tell her the truth, the longer he lies by omission. Better to tell her now and confirm her suspicions that continue to keep this secret from her. EVery day that goes by is another lie added to the mix. And a new opportunity to resume the affair. So your reasons make no sense.

When a BS comes on this site with suspicions,[and they usually do suspect] it is especially stressful when her H is deployed and she has no way of confirming her suspicions. Almost always they KNOW something is wrong and are driven crazy by the inability to confirm those suspicions.

It is much better to tell her NOW, give her all the facts and offer to tell your commander and chaplain so they can hold you accountable.


We already know why he had an affair so this is counterproductive.

Neverguessed, none of the reasons you gave are valid excuses to not tell her now. We have helped untold members of the military on this forum, and deployed or not, the solution is to tell the spouse NOW. Not in the future. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so the longer it is kept secret, the more likely it will be to resume. There is no legitimate reason to wait. NONE. Exposure is to be NOW, not later. Please familiarize yourself with Marriage Builders concepts before you disrupt the threads of newcomers by giving contradictory advice. It is disruptive and counterproductive.

ASmith, not only can you do exposure before you get home, you can also learn how to ensure you have EPs in place so this NEVER happens again(as long as your BW WANTS to recover your marriage).

So get on that exposure to your wife. Bite the bullet. Your BW already KNOWS there is SOMETHING. Let her know the TRUTH.

ASmith,

I agree--you MUST tell your wife the FULL TRUTH NOW. Don�t make any weenie excuses. Man up, fall on the sword, take full responsibility, and tell her the truth.

Yes, she will be devastated and hurt--you already ensured that with your affair and you can't put that genie back in the bottle. Don't delude yourself with the self-serving "I don't want to hurt her feelings" nonsense. You already did that.

Truth lives. Truth breathes. Truth always has a funny way of bubbling to surface�no matter how much you try to suppress it.

Lying to her (and not telling or denying the FULL TRUTH is indeed lying by omission) only adds insult to injury...literally.

I can personally attest to the fact that �as bad as hearing of your betrayal from you will be, hearing it from another party would be immeasurably more devastating�.

I guarantee that, as damaging as adultery is to a marriage, nothing will destroy it more thoroughly than denials, deceit, delays, and a$$-covering. These activities will only reinforce to your wife why she can�t trust, respect, or believe in your sincerity. Like politicians who get themselves into a far greater bind by covering-up their misdeeds, lying to her now will only cost you far more later.

There are really only 2 reasons why WSs refuse to come clean:
1) They want to continue the affair. Revealing it greatly lessens the secret thrill and often threatens the affair�s very existence.
2) They are too cowardly to face the personal ramifications of what they have done. Avoiding them only ensures a far worse effect when the truth inevitable starts to leak out later.

Thank you, Sir, for your service to our country. Please don�t dishonor that service any further by dodging your obligations to the wife who was waiting faithfully for you.

ASmith,


My husband had the intention of never telling me about his affair. Here were his "reasons" and/or "justifications":

1. What I didn't know could never hurt me.

Each day that we spent time together that he kept this affair secret from me was a day that we spent living a lie together. Our marriage was therefore not based on honesty or trust. How could living in a marriage based on dishonesty and deception NOT HURT ME?

Each and every moment that we spent together was a LIE - because his interactions with me were now based on his guilt, his remorse, and his knowledge of a transgression that I had no information about. THIS HURT ME.

Our sex life changed. His expectations of what I might or might not do during our sexual relationships were altered due to his sexual affair. I was confused, and had no understanding of what had changed or why. THIS HURT ME.

Our emotional life changed, because he seemed to blame me for things that were small or innocuous. We fought, something that we had not done before, and over things that he had never been picky about or even commented about before. THIS HURT ME.

He seemed distant at times, and at other times he wanted me to be close to him. I couldn't read his emotions, he seemed upset, but then again he seemed like he wanted to please me, too. When I asked if everything was okay, he would get angry and tell me not to bug him. I felt like I was walking on eggshells around him, and couldn't figure it out. I thought it was me, but I couldn't think of anything I had done wrong, or changed. THIS HURT ME.

Sure, I "didn't know". But there was plenty going on that HURT ME.


2. He was trying to protect me.

Right. He was trying to keep me from knowing that he had betrayed me, for my OWN protection. To keep me from understanding that he had an affair, that he was dissatisified with our relationship on some level, and that he had sought comfort outside of the marriage with another woman - all this in order to PROTECT...ME?

There is no protection in that. What would have protected me, and our marriage would have been if he had told me that he was unhappy with whatever it was...or that he needed something more from me...or that he had an emotional need that was unfulfilled...or that he was feeling vulnerable or needy or weak or angry or dissatified or WHATEVER IT WAS - so that we could have addressed the issue like two people who had a mutual goal of a solid and loving relationship. Instead, he slept with another person to - what?

Not telling me is not protecting me - it is continuing the problem by avoiding the issue that LED TO THE PROBLEM. The affair is a SYMPTOM of the PROBLEM. His secrecy, his affair, his independent behavior, his blaming of me for the affair, all of it - they are symptoms of a bigger problem. That bigger problem is THE STATE OF THE MARRIAGE IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO THE AFFAIR.

I could not solve the problem if I did not know what the problem was.

If I had never found out about the affair, I could NEVER have solved the problem that was present immediately PRIOR TO THE AFFAIR. He did not protect me from anything by keeping this all a secret.


3. He kept it quiet because he loved me.

It was not "love" that kept him quiet. It was FEAR.

He was afraid that I would leave him.
He was afraid of my anger.
He was afraid everyone would find out.
He was afraid that he would be judged by others.
He was afraid I would think negatively of him.
He was afraid that he would lose face.
He was afraid that he would lose standing in the community.
He was afraid that his friends would think badly of him.
He was afraid of being known of as a serial cheater.
He was afraid I would not love him anymore.

He was afraid, afraid, afraid, afraid.

He was a coward.

Mostly, he was afraid of the consequences of his behavior. Just like anyone else who does something WRONG.




ASmith, You need to man up. Your wife deserves to know the truth of her life. She has every right to decide whether or not to stay married to you. It isn't YOUR CHOICE to make for her. That, sir, is HER decision. She has the right to know that you cheated, so she can have all the truth about the man she is married to. Without the truth, there is NO HOPE for her to make any changes to herself or the marriage to help bolster it against further outside attacks. YOU have NO HOPE in that regard, either.

Only the truth offers that chance. Marriages do not thrive on dishonesty. You have a chance to save it, or trash it. The secret is the surest way to the dump.


Schoolbus

^

"And the crowd said.....AMEN!!"

Thank you all for your responses and insight. I am currently deployed.

I am going to come completely clean with her. That is not an option, I understand. And though you may think it cowardly, I am going to start the process here, today, by confessing all to my chaplain. I will sit down and work out the issues with him and figure out the best way to do this, and it may mean waiting until I am sitting in front of her where she can ask the questions that she needs to or strike out in some way. I think bringing my chaplain in to this will also hold me accountable for doing the right thing both in not straying again as well as confessing with the time comes. Although, I do not see how I could ever do this again, I never saw how I could in the first place. So, I understand when you say not telling leaves it open to reoccurring. Also, I will use this time to determine the real why�s about why it happened so that when the questions are asked, I can answer them honestly. I hope that my chaplain can help me find these answers.

Regardless I will face up. I had thought about not telling her, but you are absolutely right. The decision needs to be hers, she deserves much more than she has gotten from me.

And I know it probably means nothing to many of you, but I am truly sorry. For years I have heard in church and from others how devastating adultery can be. I just guess I never realized how true it was until it touched me. I wish you all well with your situations, and I hope you wish my wife the same. Please pray for me that I will stay on the path to do the right thing by her, and that in the end she is ok.

Thank you again

ASmith, please tell her very soon. It doesn't have to be in person. But the longer you wait, the more resentment she will have for lying to and tricking her. She will remember every conversation as a LIE when she finds out afterwards.

I assure you she knows something is wrong and it is probably driving her crazy not being able to figure it out.

We have scads of women who come on this forum who SENSE something is wrong but can't put a finger on it. So tell her NOW. Don't make this worse by keeping it a secret.

She can also help keep you accountable and work with your chaplain. We have had many wives of deployed soldiers who worked with a commander and/or chaplain in cases of affairs.

Asmith,

For all the reasons in the previous posts, I agree you should tell your wife now, not later.

Send your wife to this site, so she can get assistance.

Some other questions: You wrote that your affair partner re-deployed and that you stayed in contact as friends. Are you still in contact? Is the OW married? When you re-deploy, will she be in the same area as you? Have you taken steps to end the affair, not just be physically separated from your affair partner? By the way, get over the fantasy idea that you had an affair with a nice woman. She was a woman with no qualms about bedding another woman's husband.

AM

Good luck with your recovery and healing process with your wife. It will not be pleasant, nor easy, but it can be done. It seems I have been a lone voice suggesting that you conduct that most brutal of all confessions only upon your return to your family, but we all bring different experiences and personal histories to this discussion. The principles embedded in the links and documents here are invaluable; it is only the specific implementation that must be tailored to our own situation. Your use of your chaplain is, I would think, going to be of great value in starting this process.

God bless you, friend.

I would like you to all know that I have told her. I could not talk to her on the phone without crying and finally had to explain what was going on. She will not answer the phone from me now, but I have called her brother who is a preacher and he is trying to get a hold of her.

I will keep trying to contact her.

Please pray for us, or at least her if you can for me. I understand.

Please, tell her about this website. Get her to come here, and we can help her.

We can get the two of you through this - and we can help her heal from her pain.

Ask her to give it a chance - to at least come here and let us try to help her through the rough spot. We have been there, and we know what she is going through.

Just text her the website, and ask her to get a username. We can even start a thread for her if she needs us to. Let us know.

SB

You did the right thing, ASmith. We will pray for you and your family.

PLEASE send your wife her to us and we will help her.

I'm glad you told her.

Now you have work to do.

First, you need to write a letter of No Contact to the Other Woman (OW). This letter needs to state that what the two of you did was wrong, that you must not contact one another again for any reason for the rest of your lives, and that you regret the affair and that you love your wife. You must NOT apologize to the OW, make any attempt to smooth things over with the OW, or leave any opening for the OW to be a "friend" or anything else whatsoever. You must not leave any opening to one another to check up on each other, either. Finally, you do not say that you love her, like her, or anything of the sort. You sign off with just your name. Not "love" or "sincerely" or "respectfully". Just your name.

Tell your wife that the letter (or email) is on the way to her, that your wife can read it and send it to the OW. That you are doing it this way so that your wife can be 100% certain that the letter is sent and that your plan is to NEVER have any type of contact with the OW again for the rest of your life.


Next, you need to assure your wife that you will answer any and all questions she may have about this affair with 100% openness and honesty. Your wife deserves to know anything she wants regarding the affair. You do not hide anything about the OW, nor do you say anything that is meant to protect the OW. Your job is to protect YOUR WIFE AND MARRIAGE. That is only possible with 100% honesty, and by not protecting the OW. You need to understand completely that your relationship with OW is an enemy invasion by an outside force - and YOU ALLOWED IT. You must now protect your marriage with something we call:

Extraordinary Precautions

For the rest of your life.

You need to look at this website for what those precautions are, and get to work, brother. You need to let your wife know that you are already on board, learning what EPs are, how to get them into place, and working to understand them so that your marriage is reinforced against the enemies around you.


You have very weak boundaries, and this is what you will learn here. EPs will help protect you, and will also help your wife feel much safer in your marriage.


That will get you started. Please, get your wife here. We CAN help.

Sir, you have done well. You BW is now going through: Shock, fury, outrage, despair, anguish, shock, fury, outrage...

Consider this a necessary bloodletting brought on by you. It's the only way. Continue to do this the right way and it will cleanse and restore your M. That is, IF your BW wishes to continue the M. She's driving the bus, now. Not you. It's all up to her.

But you can help steer her toward reconciliation by answering all of her questions, however hard that may be.

By all means, send her here. Tell her we're waiting for her and want to help her. She may initially balk (not being used to having other people in her M, mind you.) Encourage her to do so anyway.

And begin your refrain: "I will do whatever it takes to save this M." She's got to be convinced of your willingness.

You done good, soldier.

((((((ASmith)))))

I am really PROUD of you for telling her. That is the FIRST step towards recovery. It may only be personal recovery, but it will be WONDERFUL if you continue to be honest with yourself and make yourself a better MAN and SPOUSE.

Now, the next time that you speak with your BIL, tell him about this place and tell him to pass the message on to your BW that we are here for her waiting with open arms. Also, if you can, I would order the book Surviving an Affair by Dr Harley and send it to her with a note that says, "I am sorry. This may help you."

You have been very brave. You have done the right thing to correct the wrong.

HURRAY!!!

You are now in the process of recovery...how does it feel? To get that all off your chest? Bet it feels dang good!!

We know she is angry, and upset, that is expected!

You are on the right track my friend, bring her on the MB site and we can help her as well

It does not feel good. She said that she wished I would have kept it a secret from her. She said she will wait for me to come back home before she decides what to do. She said that she did not want to come to the website because she doesn't need the help, I do. I will tell my BIL.

I know it was the right thing to do, I just did it the wrong way and waited too long. I have betrayed my wife and my children.

I want to make sure that I am not dishonest anymore. My name is Jason, and we have four children. Everything else is the truth.

I hope that my wife does come here and sees that we can recover, but I understand that it is her choice now. I gave up that right. In the interim, I will rebuild my realtionship with God, as the falling away from that is what led me to where I am now. Maybe he will see fit to turn her heart to forgiveness. Either way, I know I do not deserve it.

Please keep us, especially her, in your prayers. She needs comforting that I can no longer give her.

Jas

Keep the faith. You did the right thing. If you hadn't told it would have eaten you and your marriage alive. It would make it easier for you to cheat a second time. Remember, the OW is an enemy of your marriage and not a nice woman.

And, I wanted you to know that I broke contact with her before I came here. I told her that what I did was wrong and betrayed a trust of my wife, who is the woman that I truly loved and deserved more than I had given her. As such, I could never speak to her again.

ASmith,

You have done the right thing by telling your wife. Good work, so far. And the NC letter to OW via your wife is the next step.

Can you please answer the questions from my previous post?

"You wrote that your affair partner re-deployed and that you stayed in contact as friends. Are you still in contact? Is the OW married? When you re-deploy, will she be in the same area as you? Have you taken steps to end the affair, not just be physically separated from your affair partner? By the way, get over the fantasy idea that you had an affair with a nice woman. She was a woman with no qualms about bedding another woman's husband."

Just curious, why did you tell us you had three children and later said there were four? Is there something significant about your children? How old are they?

AM

I am no longer in contact. She is not married. She will not be around me, she is in a different state. In retrospect, I see that she was not nice, but I made the choice. For my family and my part the blame rests solely on me. I could have said no.

I made the statement about having three children because I wanted to give whoever gave me advice a more realistic picture of my situation, but was trying to mask who I really was. I really don't care about that now. People need to know who I am and that what I have done is wrong. Hopefully, it will help someone else not fall, but either way, I need to get right with my God and my family. Being honest and open is the only way that will happen.

ASmith,

Ah, I see. No one on this site needs to know your real name. If you want to be anonymous, edit out your name from your previous post and if necessary, change your login name.

There are plenty of military on this site. Being apart for long periods of time really sets up the environment for affairs. How long until you rotate back? I assume since you already had R&R that it is something less than 6 months.

You mentioned you are not currently in contact, email or any other way, with OW. How long has there been contact between you? Is there a way to block her from contacting you? I think that is difficult with the military email system. What was that last correspondence's nature, ie did either of you say you did not want to hear from the other? The NC letter is a fundamental component to recovering the marriage, and was something that I wholly underestimated with my H.

Best wishes,

AM

I told her that I could never speak to her again. There had been contact since November 09. I had the affair in Dec-Jan. We remained in contact until about 5 days ago when I sent her the mail that we could not speak again.

I go home in three months

Asmith, you did the right thing. The most important thing you can do now is to affair proof your marriage. The best way to do that is to block any access from the OW. Block her email and block her phone # from your phone. Another thing you can do is install a keylogger on your computer and have the reports emailed daily to your wife. Give her the password and let her change it to something only she knows. [she can do this remotely] One that works very well is eblaster at spectorpro.com

Are there any other ways you can affair proof your marriage to make sure contact does not resume?

ASmith, you of course have done the right thing. It doesn't always feel great at first, but it WILL get better.

Have you looked into ordering SAA and sending it to her?

There is a lot you can do to make YOURSELF better before you get home to see your wife.

We don't need to know who you are, but you will need to be honest about what is going on for you to get some real help and advice.

I've been where you are. I was in the military and while over in Iraq had an affair. I had just gotten married a few months before though but I made the mistake of not telling my husband until 3 years after. I had no clue why I had the A, my husband was a wonderful man been together since we were 15 yrs old. I had never been away from him and maybe that played into why. But in my case a child was born from the affair and it makes everything much much worse. I regret the affair the most but also that I didn't tell him after it happend. I was scared but waiting just hurt him even more because he did suspect something was going on but I denied it and lied. Now 5 yrs after the affair but only 2 yrs of me coming clean things are still very hard. We now have another child and it makes things even harder.

You need to come clean now don't wait like I did, trust me it'll eat and you and you'll eventually tell her but it'll be that much harder on your marriage because you lied and kept it from her.

Well, she went out with another man tonight. She said that only way that she could get over it was to have someone treat her like a woman. She said that if I had been home when I told her we could have worked on it, but now she is there having to deal with is alone.

I do not think that telling her while I was deployed was a good start. I am sure that I have lost her completely.Which I completely understand is my own doing.

hmmm, that is a curious reaction. Is it possible she was already in an affair and she is using this as an excuse? That is a most curious reaction. It takes quite a bit to make a spouse commit adultery so I find it odd she would view this as a solution.

ITA with you Mel. That was my first gut reaction to this too. If (and that is a HUGE IF) she had not already been having an affair, she most definitely had someone lined up. This is a strnage reaction for a BS and would explain fully why she was ADAMENT that WE couldn't help her. You have much more to deal with here. Have you thought about giving the coaching center a call and asking for their help?

You will probably have to do this the even harder way of being a WS and a BS at the same time. YOU DID THE RIGHT THING. You also most certainly did NOT push your wife into her affair. She is responsible for that action HERSELF.

Take care. Keep posting. We can still help you.

Or, she could be making it up because she's hurt and she wants to hurt you in return. Do you know for sure that she went out with another man, or are you just taking her word for it?

My friend,

I�m extremely sorry I could not forcefully enough make my case that telling her of your infidelity while deployed was not advisable. Now it appears you are faced with a new mission to solution.

I urge you to accept for the moment that your betrayed wife has taken some retaliatory action in response to your confession. Even if she has not been able to arrange an outing with another man, it is evidently her desire to have been able to do so.

************edit*********

The question you must put to her is as follows: Is the marriage you once had, and hopefully can have again, worth fighting through the destruction you have caused? Do NOT fight fair in this debate. Enlist family and friends if necessary, which would, of course, mean self-exposure of your transgressions. Use the probable future lives of your children, as either children of divorced parents, or as members of an intact family, to urge her to pull back from the leap she is contemplating making. Recall for her the hundreds of days of loving and caring cohabitation you shared, and the lives you have built together. I would expect you know her well enough to have insight into what factors would work best on her resentment and hurt. Brother, use EVERY one of them.

We�re here to offer what aid we can, but right now, the assignment is yours. Our prayers go with you.

This doesn't ring right to me. AS, I suspect your W is lashing out at you, and no date occurred.

Can you explain more about her "dealing with this alone"? How are you able to be in contact with her?

Neverguessed, being honest with his spouse now IS ADVISABLE. Dishonesty is never the solution to adultery. Just because his wife is angry about his affair and is threatening to have her own affair is no reason to keep it a secret. We knew she would be angry, that is the natural reaction to an affair, not because of how he told her. Every BS is in shock and rage when they find out. This is no different, so it is ridiculous to presume that if she was told in some magical perfect way that she would not have reacted with fury and rage. This is the rule, not the exception.

WE have helped many couples through this difficult time while one was deployed. There was no reason to continue lying about the affair and many reasons to be honest.

I realize you are new here, but the advise you are giving is not helpful and is most certainly NOT in keeping with Marriage Builders best practices.

Please stick to the basic principles if you are going to presume to help others here and remember the sign on the door says Marriage Builders, not Neverguessed.

Just a reminder to help this poster with Marriage Builders. Please help him in that regard. If not, I would strongly suggest you refrain from posting.

Asmith,

I agree that your wife's response is curious and believe the other posts about her being 1) so angry that she is telling you this but not really acting on it or 2) she had someone in mind already.

From reading here more than 2 years, nearly every response (mine included) to finding out about a spouse's infidelity has been a feeling of "being kicked in the gut". This is not exactly a feeling that makes me want to go have a good time with some other man.

Have you talked to your wife since this conversation? What is preacher BIL saying? Has he talked to her? How are you doing? Have you talked to the chaplain? It is very important to maintain no contact with OW. Regardless of your wife's response right now, do not contact the OW.

Have you read all the articles on this site? Looked at the threads for newcomers?

AM

************************EDIT**********************

ASmith, I am very glad I found your thread. I will concur with the dozens of people here who have successfully recovered marriages, many of whom are in the military, that you did the right thing in telling the truth. there is never a "good time" to confess such a thing, and there is NEVER a "good reason" to deceive....period. Yes, never is an "ad hominem," I suppose....but if the truth is the truth....it's the truth.

So, she is very hurt and angry. This would be true even if you had told her on a private cruise to a secret island armed with MB counselors. You did what is right and not what is easy....and that says a lot about you.

Keep the faith, and keep coming here. And I want you to know your thread has given me some much needed personal encouragement today.