Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. On the one hand, I would think since all this happened when you were long distance and not since you were in the same city or married, it's possibly forgivable. On the other hand, if this is an ingrained personality flaw, better to divorce now when it would be relatively simple than down the line when lives are really intertwined and things could get messier. Hard decision.

Exactly what I think. The simplest decision of all, OP, is to NOT have children with him right away, even if you decide to stay with him.
See if he can change first.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My therapist thought I had done my husband a disservice by telling him about my second affair. I didn't want there to be any secrets any more. But she said that was my cross to bear, and I should not have placed that burden on him.

I believe your therapist was correct. More often than not the person doing the confessing does so to shed some of the burden. The pain inflicted on the 'injured' party is not worth it if you are in fact going to work to remove yourself from the affair and seek the help needed to deal with it.

I disagree. I would certainly want to know all material facts before staying in the marriage, if I were her DH.

That's you...and you certainly have that right to feel that way. But what I stated is a majority opinion of the professionals and for many solid reasons. And please note I did quality with "if you are in fact going to work to remove yourself from the affair and seek the help needed to deal with it."

That said, I think the person who started this thread is bogus.

Could you please cite to some valid psychological literature for your position that encouraging an adulterer to keep the secret of infidelity from the victim spouse is "a majority opinion of professionals". I'm not aware of any professional protocols that encourage secret-keeping in couples therapy. While it's not ethically permissible for a therapist to reveal one client's secret without permission, neither do I think it's ethically professional for a therapist to encourage secret-keeping in therapy from another therapeutic participant.

I personally had exactly this discussion with my now exDH's therapist. I made it clear to him that I would want to know every last detail of my husband's cheating because I thought to leave me in the dark was incredibly patronizing and manipulative. I am a grown woman who can handle my own hurt feelings and want to make decisions about my life based on the truth.

Most often, an infidelity perpetrator who wants to keep the infidelity a secret merely uses the excuse of protecting the "spouse" in order to protect him/herself from the natural consequences of their bad behavior.

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm. On the one hand, I would think since all this happened when you were long distance and not since you were in the same city or married, it's possibly forgivable. On the other hand, if this is an ingrained personality flaw, better to divorce now when it would be relatively simple than down the line when lives are really intertwined and things could get messier. Hard decision.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I would really advise you to confide in one good friend, someone who isn't judgmental and will support you if you decide to divorce but will also support you and accept and respect your husband if you you decide to stay and work it out. I hope you have someone like that in your life.

I hear so much shame and embarrassment in your posts-- which you have absolutely no reason to feel! These are feelings that only your husband deserves. But as long as you keep this secret from everyone who knows and cares about you, these feelings will just keep bumping around unchallenged inside you.

You are a loving, trusting, honest person who did the right things. Please find a friend or family member who can remind you of that well enough so you can know it in your heart.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My therapist thought I had done my husband a disservice by telling him about my second affair. I didn't want there to be any secrets any more. But she said that was my cross to bear, and I should not have placed that burden on him.

I believe your therapist was correct. More often than not the person doing the confessing does so to shed some of the burden. The pain inflicted on the 'injured' party is not worth it if you are in fact going to work to remove yourself from the affair and seek the help needed to deal with it.

I disagree. I would certainly want to know all material facts before staying in the marriage, if I were her DH.

That's you...and you certainly have that right to feel that way. But what I stated is a majority opinion of the professionals and for many solid reasons. And please note I did quality with "if you are in fact going to work to remove yourself from the affair and seek the help needed to deal with it."

That said, I think the person who started this thread is bogus.

This is overly dramatic and unnecessary. Stop acting like this ams creating problems in your life.

Anonymous wrote:Thank you again, from OP, for your input and advice. I have an individual therapy appointment tomorrow and I am literally counting down the minutes. I feel so alone in all of this and I am desperate for someone to talk to. This forum is my only outlet right now. I don't think I can tell family or friends; to me it feels like a horrible secret I don't want anyone to know. I'm waiting to hear back from my EAP about a marriage counselor who specializes in infidelity. I've been warned it may take weeks. In the meantime, I can put my energy into my own therapy. My husband is seeking an individual therapist as well.

I've decided to spend the weekend away from my spouse and our home. I do not feel comfortable or happy being in our home right now. It was once a big source of pride and comfort and what I looked forward to after a long day of work, but all week I have stayed at work as late as I could in order to spend as little time at home and with my husband as possible. The idea of a wide open weekend at home, either with him just down the hall or avoiding one another would be dreadful. I ordered some books on infidelity and will spend the weekend at a hotel alone, reading, absorbing, thinking. I suggested he spend the weekend at home doing some serious soul searching. I'll be away on business for most of next week. I am looking forward to it and am thinking this might be a good time to for us each to sit with our feelings without interacting. Selfishly, I want him to feel physically alone. I feel alone and hollow inside and out - the least he can do is experience being alone in an empty house and knowing his wife is so ashamed of him and their marriage that she couldn't stand the idea of being in the same house as him. I want him to think about all he has done and how deeply he has hurt me, how drained and used I feel, and how he has wrecked my self esteem and taken from me the security and safety I once had. Perhaps it will provide him more clarity in deciding if he is sad to be in that situation and truly wants to correct it or excited by the freedom it affords him.

Anonymous wrote:I am in desperate need of some support and advice. In the past 24 hours, I found out that my new DH has been unfaithful to me, engaging in a physical/emotional fling with one woman and online flirtations with others before we were married. I am in shock, that lucid, unfeeling state where you can't exactly feel emotion. I have no idea whether I should stay or go.

DH (mid-40s) and I (mid-30s) have been together for 4 years. We were long distance for the first 3 years, during our dating phase and our engagement, and have been living together in the same city for the past year. We were married a short time ago and have been trying to have a baby. We've had a very happy, special relationship, and what I thought a very open, honest union.

I found out because the other woman contacted me to tell me that he had had an emotional and physical affair with her, an old flame, while we were long distance. He had portrayed himself as single, and ended things with her last year, telling her he needed to move on. They had not been in touch since. She did some online searching to see what he was up to and discovered he was married. She then was able to locate me, likely using social media, and sent me an admittedly very sincere message with the details and a number of photos that immediately cast no shadow of a doubt that she was being truthful. She had no idea I existed, wants nothing to do with him, and her motivation seems just to inform me of what had happened. From screen shots she sent, I saw that he had communicated with her through an old email address. I logged on to that account and saw more messages between them that further corroborated the story. I also found old flirty messages to a few women, all appear to be old flames or people he has know for a long time, from before we were married that one does not send when committed to someone else.

Last night, I sat down with DH, told him what I had discovered, and the entire story came out. He says he has no words for what he has done, and is remorseful and deeply ashamed. He says that he had maintained flirtations with people while we dated because early days in our relationship we were not exclusive as we tried to sort out if we could make things work despite long distance (which is true), and that after we decided to be together and make a go of it, he just continued the bachelor life and flirtations on the side. He said he has no idea why he did, he felt fulfilled in our relationship, even though it was tough living apart. He said when we relocated to live together in a new city it marked a different life for him. He wanted to leave everything in the past and focus on starting our life together. He swears he loves me more than anything and when he took our marriage vows he meant them. He says he is ashamed of what he has done and wants to leave it in the past and focus on righting the wrong with me and saving our marriage. He said he has been faithful since we married and will continue to be. He asked if I would go to couples therapy. I suggested we each could benefit from individual therapy as well. He agreed.

My instinct, which I shared with him calmly, is to cut and run. Get a quick divorce, divide assets, part ways and never have contact again. While I am obviously devastated, I am a very cut and dry person. It would be the hardest thing in the world to do, but I could make a clean break if I needed to. At the same time, the humiliation and fear of telling family and friends and starting over is overwhelming. And underlying everything of course is that he is my husband and I love him.

We slept apart last night and I imagine will continue to for some time. I asked him to connect with anyone he needed to out of the old email account and then shut it down permanently. I told him to delete any phone numbers from his cell that he might need to delete. I told him if he wanted any fraction of a chance at rebuilding any trust with me, that he needed to think about providing me with unfettered access to his email and texts at any time at my request. I am in the process of making arrangements for marriage counseling, and for individual counseling for each of us. Everything is too new and raw to process at this time and make any decisions about our future, but I am absolutely heartbroken. I truly feel like I don't know this person at all and that everything I thought I knew and trusted was a sham. If I was reading this message on the forum I'd advise the person to get the hell out. But being in these awful shoes I never, ever thought I'd be in, the answer is not so clear.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My therapist thought I had done my husband a disservice by telling him about my second affair. I didn't want there to be any secrets any more. But she said that was my cross to bear, and I should not have placed that burden on him.

I believe your therapist was correct. More often than not the person doing the confessing does so to shed some of the burden. The pain inflicted on the 'injured' party is not worth it if you are in fact going to work to remove yourself from the affair and seek the help needed to deal with it.

I disagree. I would certainly want to know all material facts before staying in the marriage, if I were her DH.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My therapist thought I had done my husband a disservice by telling him about my second affair. I didn't want there to be any secrets any more. But she said that was my cross to bear, and I should not have placed that burden on him.

I believe your therapist was correct. More often than not the person doing the confessing does so to shed some of the burden. The pain inflicted on the 'injured' party is not worth it if you are in fact going to work to remove yourself from the affair and seek the help needed to deal with it.