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Last year in June I found out my husband had what I thought was a EA. I saw a message from the OW on his phone. He told me he ended it and they were "just friends". DDay#1.

So 3 months ago the OW reached out to me stating that it was a PA and it didn't stop when he said it did. He took her on a work trip with him a month after it was supposedly over. She has been trying to get back with him and when she found out we was still together she messaged me with pictures that are burnt into my brain. DDay #2.

When the OW had messaged me she had given me a name of another woman she saw him messaging when they were away together. I messaged her on IG but never got a response. I asked him and he said he meet her and they just chatted for a bit and that was it. A few weeks ago I got that gut feeling again. So I checked the phone records and saw he was messaging a Chicago number alot. I asked him who it was and he said "If you wouldn't have messaged her on IG this wouldn't have happened". I said is it the Chicago girl? He said yes. I said did you sleep with her. He said yes, one time. He has been talking to her because he was trying to play it off so she didn't tell me. DDay#3

So he had an affair in December 2018 and then started another in March 2019. And here I have worked so hard these past 3 months to get us in a good place for nothing. We've been doing therapy, I've read a ton or books, watched a ton of videos, been spending time with him, showing him how much i love him. I was the only person he had ever slept with. That was so special to me.. and he gave it away so freely, like it ment nothing.

His 20 year old brother had passed tragically in 2017 and i feel like he never dealt with it. He has never been able to deal with emotion. He never wants to be vulnerable.

I was getting to a better place. He has done this to me 3 times now. I cant take much more. Why couldn't he just be honest the first time and let me make the choice on what I wanted to do. But instead he played me like a piano. He would send me sweet messages. Tell me we should go places together knowing what he had done/doing. We went on a trip to New York the week he slept with the 1st one. How did he do that? How did he go with me and act like everything was fine. He just strung me along. We had been having problems for about 3 months but it wasnt anythibg i didnt think we coukd handle. I sure wasn't thinking about someone else. I just wanted my loving husband back and he wanted someone different. He blamed me before I know about the first affair and said I was horrible to him for months. When in reality now I see it was probably him from all the guilt pushing me away. So he thought that gave him another excuse to cheat because he was unhappy.

At the beginning of the year we moved to a new state for his job. We both looked at this as a fresh start. How could he do that know what he was hiding. I just dont know if there is anymore to give. I have put in so much work on myself and for us. Im just so tired. And here I've started this new life ti have to turn around and possibly do it again. Thats evil!

I came to my moms for a while to see what I want to do. I would love nothing more than to be with my husband but I dont know if its possible. I dont see how someone who claimed to love me did this. He is super remorseful and we had some really hard days after this last Dday. I really feel in my heart he wouldn't do this again. But do I want to be with soneone who gave part of us to 2 other woman so easily.

I just wish someone could tell me what to do. Im just so confused. I just want my old happy life back but i guess I need to understand thats not going to happen. Im not scared about being alone or any material things. Im scared to lose him. We were 16 when we got together. We have been together 16 years. Married 10. We have no kids and don't want any. We are best friends and share so much history and interests. I cant imagine life without him.

I just wish i knew what to do....

I just wish someone could tell me what to do. Im just so confused. I just want my old happy life back but i guess I need to understand thats not going to happen. Im not scared about being alone or any material things. Im scared to lose him. We were 16 when we got together. We have been together 16 years. Married 10. We have no kids and don't want any. We are best friends and share so much history and interests. I cant imagine life without him.

I just wish i knew what to do....

OK, not a doctor, but if he is really bottling things up about the death of his brother, that can be very harmful. I suggest trying to get him to seek serious counseling over this. I can't imagine he can give himself over to fixing himself and healing the relationship until this is done.

If he refuses, you have a hard decision to make. Stay with a person who seems self destructive or separate from his toxicity.

Oh Ascott, he isn't doing the work.

And You Should NOT take anymore.

You alone cannot save your M. You cannot nice him into being a safe partner. You cannot rebuild your M alone. You cannot force him to own his choices.

What you can do.... make him uncomfortable with his choice to not do the work. Leaving him is a start. Then he has a choice to do the work, or to D. He may not be capable of it, but either way he stops hurting you.

What makes you think now w/ 2 women and 3 ddays that you have the full truth???

It is rough, I know that. I agree with the others that if he isn't doing any work, then there isn't much you can do.

I hope for your sake he does a turn around. Maybe a divorce filing would jump start that. Sometimes it does. At the very least you would be protecting yourself financially.

Honestly, I know it is likely an old fashioned opinion, but I think once many of these guys/gals start cheating, they won't stop. A spouse can't compete with it. The thrill of illicitness is what they are after. We want to ascribe something deep and fixable but...

I just want my old happy life back but i guess I need to understand thats not going to happen. Im not scared about being alone or any material things. Im scared to lose him. We were 16 when we got together. We have been together 16 years. Married 10. We have no kids and don't want any. We are best friends and share so much history and interests. I cant imagine life without him.

I'm so sorry you're back here with another DDay.

Yes, unfortunately, some choices last forever. Your husband made choices that cannot be un-chosen. This, what has happened to you, is now with you. Forever.

Now you have choices to make. No one can really tell you what to do, but we can make it clearer for you. You have three options to choose from:

1) You can reconcile with your husband. This will take incredible work from both of you for a long, long time, and it may not work out in the end. You cannot do it by yourself. You also will never have what you once had; part of reconciliation is building a brand-new relationship, one with infidelity as part of its foundation and something that will have to be dealt with on some level forever with this person. There is no going back.

2) You can divorce your husband. This you can do all by yourself and, in a marriage with no kids, can often be accomplished very quickly. I realize it's unthinkable, unwanted, and scary, but then again, #1 may be, too.

3) You can continue as you have for the past year or so. I hope this is the scariest option of all.

He is super remorseful

I really feel in my heart he wouldn't do this again.

What makes you say so? What is he doing and saying? Is it somehow different now than with his other DDays?

As a guy who's been around here a while, I'm skeptical of this. He was chatting with her up until a few weeks ago, and only stopped(?) because you caught him.

I just wish i knew what to do....

I know. It is so hard. Be kind to yourself and take the time you need to really think.

One good way to really consider reconciliation is to map out all your absolute *needs* in order to even really attempt it. Seriously, make a list on paper of 10 or 20 or 50 things you need from your husband that, if he doesn't live up to them, would cause you to proceed toward D no matter what even if it makes you really sad and you don't want it.

For example: would you be willing to proceed toward D if you found out, say, next week that he was once again texting with the Chicago girl? If so, then "no more texting with Chicago girl" can be one of your needs.

And so on. You make a list that works for you. Have you done an exercise like this already?

It's important to have your boundaries clarified for yourself (and eventually with a reconciliation-worthy partner if you decide to go that route) so that you can make intellectual decisions if and when they are crossed. Otherwise, you (and I, and all BS) tend to get lost in the absurd emotional hurricane of infidelity when it hits us again and again and again, and then you make bad decisions that keep you stuck indefinitely.

Of course, the biggest concern of all is that your boundaries aren't really boundaries. That if you tried R again and he texted her again, you'd get very mad and sad but nothing would really change. That leads to all sorts of bad outcomes and will kill you slowly in the end.

[This message edited by Okokok at 1:36 PM, August 12th (Wednesday)]

I can't give you advice as to what you should do. Every situation is unique. What I can tell you after 4 years of absolute shit is, you need to put you first. You can't change people, you can't fix people, and you certainly can't make people do things. Not a magic power. And since you can't do any of that stuff, you also can't make people cheat, or bot cheat for that matter.

It's going to be a steep learning curve, but trust me, you will come out of this much stronger and more authentic than you could have ever imagined. Now, had someone told me that at the beginning, I would have punched them in the face.

Early on, my IC asked me to draw a circle and put everything that was important I my life, inside, with the most important things in the centre and so forth. When I was done, she asked why I didn't put myself anywhere. I was completely taken aback. I had never, and I mean never, considered myself important. I stumbled and told her that I was the circle. Well, and I am paraphrasing now, she told me I was a complete shithead.

All of my life, I was under the impression that I was put on this earth to give, to empty myself until nothing remained but a shell. What did that get me? A cheating, lying, entitled POS WW... and a shitload of baggage. I am now a work in progress, but sorry, not good enough is now in my vernacular. And no as well. And fuck no.

You have one life. Is the purpose of your life to make someone else's better? Some are given that road. Others take it on in a misguided attempt to fix something broken inside. That was and us me. But I have chosen to move to living what years I have, authentically, for me. My air mask first and then others. You are still in shock and it sucks. It will fade. When it does, ask yourself what YOU want. Be strong.

He continues to cheat because there are no consequences.

You are doing a tremendous amount of work. Reading and learning and understanding his behavior.

He’s still cheating despite everything.

I was in your position. Except dday2 was the day I stood up to my H and told him to get out. Oh and by the way I’m divorcing you - even though he was the one who kept telling me he wanted a D for 6 months.

Suddenly he’s begging me to reconcile. I refused. I had enough. I did the hard 180 and was executing plan B. Because I was smart enough after Dday1 to realize I needed a plan B. Just in case.

My H was so blindsided at how fast I executed he had no idea what to do.

I can tell you he started making amends immediately. He immediately started showing remorse.

He did nothing after Dday 1 except lie to me and cheat. He was arrogant. He flaunted his affair at times. He thought two women fighting over him was a good thing especially for his ego.

Except one woman (me) stopped being part of his triangle and got out.

That’s when stuff got real for him.

If there’s no consequences there’s no incentive for him to stop cheating. He won’t stop cheating unless he wants to so you can do everything possible and he may not stop. But sometimes you need to take a tough approach. If it works out great.

If not, then you know you were just going to continue to live with a liar and cheater.

Honestly, I know it is likely an old fashioned opinion, but I think once many of these guys/gals start cheating, they won't stop. A spouse can't compete with it. The thrill of illicitness is what they are after. We want to ascribe something deep and fixable but...

I'm really starting to think this is true, old fashioned or not.

I worked with a woman who did little crimes. She forged our bosses name to get a quick end so she could move on to the next job. She ignored little rules. She stole one or two small items and she cheated on her husband. None of that would have gotten her jail time. She was surprised that I was put off. Little crimes. She never saw them as that.

I tried to find reasons for her behavior. She said her mother had been mean to her. That was no excuse. She knew right from wrong. I realized one day that she and I were so alien to each other that when given the chance I moved to another job. She went to church every Sunday.

Loose morals. Whatever served her she did.

Your husbands “crimes” against you won’t get him jail time. He has loose morals. How are you going to “fix” him? You aren’t. That’s who he is.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them. He's shown you more than once.

Doing therapy while your husband is still in infidelity is about as successful as having an AA meeting at a bar during happy hour.

It’s true that you can’t change people. There is no wand you can wave that will make him better. But that doesn’t mean people can’t change. We see that all the time – people CAN change. Only that change has to be done by themselves. What you can do is possibly create the conditions where your husband might be motivated to do the required change.

My suggestion would be this:

Learn about your options. Take away the fear of the options so you both know what they are and realize their costs and benefits. Basically, your options are three as I see them:

a) Go back to the present situation.

b) Get your marriage to true reconciliation.

c) Get divorced.

The fact you started this thread suggests option a is out of the question.

To have option b open to you he needs to change. I have already stated that YOU can’t change him.

Option c is drastic, but it might be the pressure that makes HIM want to change.

Only – if he doesn’t or if there is not enough progress you need to be willing to see it through.

I would consult an attorney and learn what divorce would be like. What are your rights, what can you expect, what is the process…? Have all these issues clear.

You could even file if your attorney suggested you do so. You have a lot of control over the speed of divorce. You can file and then spend some months getting the paperwork, pressing for a court-date and all that. It’s not an automatic process.

You can then sit him down and let him know that the present situation isn’t attainable. That the problem isn’t the marriage but rather his depression, lack of self-worth and need for validation, the way he willingly risks his marriage and his health with random women and his lying. That no amount of marriage therapy can change that. If he wants the marriage, then he needs to seek medical guidance to his depression and IC for his actions.

If you see him do that you are willing to pace the divorce, but you are 100% committed to NOT living in the present situation.

"If you wouldn't have messaged her on IG this wouldn't have happened". I said is it the Chicago girl? He said yes. I said did you sleep with her. He said yes, one time. He has been talking to her because he was trying to play it off so she didn't tell me.

No, do not listen to his excuses and blame. It's not your fault that he had an affair! It's 100% on him. This is just like a car thief who blames the car owner for leaving their car unlocked.

I am so sorry to hear about your betrayal and the dishonesty that you have been enduring. Are you both wanting this relationship? Are you willing to go to counseling?

You both have some really hard truths and questions you need to face.

I am praying for you, but you have got to deal with some really hard things over the next few months, but the number one question do you both want this relationship?

Praying for Reconciliation.

" He is super remorseful"

No he is not! He's sorry that he got caught.

He's a serial cheater and he's not going to stop. Either you decide to live with that or leave him.

I urge you to start planning a life without him.

I felt like that. Being in love and not understanding why it happened to me. Wanting my happy life back.

You must be brave now. It will take courage to make a stand for yourself. He will not stop unless you do. You will be miserable unless he stops or you choose freedom. I know. I know.

I waited and I waited. Patiently. Lovingly. I reached out. We talked and talked. It will take a strong resolve from you. I finally said I'm moving out, I can't live this way. You must tell yourself that you come first. He becomes grateful a d honest or he's not the one for you. Even if you love him dearly. Even if you feel everything you ever wanted is ending, still you can't go on being used. It consumes all your joy, your health, your peace. He must know you are willing to walk away from it all rather than endure the selfishness he's forcing upon you. He's saying I get what I want, fine greedy child that he is and you get crumbs.

No that's not right. You can come out of this and maybe he changes for the better but it takes believing in yourself. You have the strength. Stand in your own power and know you deserve happiness in this life.