No, its the finding out that hurts. My first marriage was filled with infidelity. Some I found out about at the time - and every one of those was VERY painful. Some I found out years after, when it was over and I didn’t care.
This is “if a tree falls in the forest with no one around, does it make a sound” question.
I’m quite sure the kids do not see them fighting or bickering. However, children can respond to unspoken stress in a family. Child Development 101: children can and do pick up on unspoken stress in a family, they don’t just have to be arguing like crazy back and forth, they can be doing subtle things as well that can affect the dynamic.
The guys who don’t confess keep doing it.
I’ve told this before so it may sound familiar.
I’d been dating and bedding this guy for about 9 months. He kept saying he was dying to see the day when I’d be the mother of his children. He kept trying to get rid of the french lieutenant; I kept saying “no rubber, no sex”. One day he informed me that “the others don’t mind!”
:dubious: “what others?”
He’d been getting nookie elsewhere any night that I wasn’t available, a succesion of one-night-stands with no trojans involved. And he considered this his God-given right, he actually gave me the line “a guy has his needs.”
If he’d handled things differently, we might still be together (big “if”, it would have required him to consider another person’s needs for perhaps the first time in his life).
Are you saying I should have been told by my gynecologist? 'cos frankly, I was quite happy when my HIV test came back -
Would you have rather never found out and stayed in a relationship with someone who routinely cheated on you then? My point was even if it hurts its your right to know so you can decide wether you want to continue the relationship or not. Its extremely selfish for the person who cheated to decide by themselves “well i fucked up but i would really like for this to work so i won’t tell”.
The only reason he told her was to make himself feel better. Phlosphr calls him suave, I call him a slimeball. It’s also pretty creepy that he’s running to a friend telling that his wife won’t have sex with him. Not what a fuck up he is, not about what his actions might be doing to his children. It’s all about him with this guy.
I’m not a friend, I’m a family member. Is thatwhatyou meant? I agree it’s all about him…
Well at least I got a backup from Digitalc and Kalhoun’s one liner above got through the rest of my point (the part nobody responded to, neatly and succinctly
I think it’s also important that we remember all of the timeframes here.
Now, regardless of whether or not he was selfish or wrong, it has been a considerable amount of time during which these problems persisted.
If there’s to be any hope of forgiveness at this point, for the sake of the children if nothing else (and i still believe he may deserve to be forgiven if he truly was driven to confess for the honest reason of not wanting to live in a relationship based in lies, still a moot point though), they need counseling. Obviously, some form of communication, which at the risk of beating this in to the ground, is that she needs to decide what is “enough” for her to make peace, or begin the road to trust again.
should read “…some form of communication has not been occuring…”
PIMF
I was wondering how long it was going to take for this to somehow be her fault.
Eight months isn’t that long. Are you married or do you have kids? Why are you so sure he’s truly sorry? He isn’t willing go to into counseling. He seems more concerned with getting some than he is with how much he hurt his wife.
Amor vincent omnia.
The only caveat I would throw in is the often-iterated: There must be forgiveness. Love is kind, love forgives.
His reasons for telling her really don’t matter, in fact i agree with you that it was probably done for selfish reasons. Still, she has a right to know the person shes with isn’t trustworthy and she has a right to decide wether she wants to continue with the relationship.
Absolutely. He eventually decided the grass was greener on the other side and jumped. I could have lived with the pain once rather than being run through a few times.
Where the hell are you getting that?
To be doing this? Yes, it is.
The OP said they were in counseling together. So apparently he is.
I would agree, if he’s answering her questions. He’s participating in letting this little drama continue as much as she is. You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t think they should stay together, anyway, so what does it matter to you?
I agree with kalhoun and enigm4tic, but I’d like to suggest that the husband ask his wife what he could do in order to make her feel secure again in the marriage-- he has to find a way to repair the damage he did. Beyond that, their marriage does need help rebuilding, and counselling is the way to go.
As for the sex, I wish she realized that, though it’s counterintuitive in this situation, keeping an active, serene (or fun) and safe* sex life is a way of building bridges between them.
Both of them have to decide whether they want to save the marriage/family, and act accordingly.
I’m a little astonished at how many people are angry that he would want to tell her and beg for forgiveness. The desire for absolution is a deep human need. If it weren’t so strong, there would be no need for Christianity. The guy clearly fucked up royally by having the affair, but I have difficulty blaming him for being eaten up inside and wanting forgiveness. People make mistakes, often terrible ones. After we’ve had our chance to feel outraged, we need to feel pity for them, if they come asking for forgiveness.
I think, if she really still loves him and wants to stay with him, she needs to forgive him. She just needs to make a conscious, strong-willed decision that She Has Forgiven Him, and let it go. Forgive AND forget. It should never be spoken of again, and when it pops into her mind, she needs to remind herself that She Has Forgiven Him. She may need to tell herself, “Perhaps I’m naive, but I will trust him not to hurt me like that again.” Eventually, the pain will lessen and the good things about their marriage will overshadow the incident when it does surface in her mind.
If she can’t do that–and I’m not saying it’s easy–they should get a divorce. Better to split than to live in an angry, loveless household together.
… but there are second chances and then there’s stupidity. She should forgive him for this once, but never for a future indiscretion.
And they both need to be smart about how he got into the situation in the first place. What was the cause of the original affair? Is he merely a serial adulterer? (Philosphr seems to imply that this was a one-time-only shockeroo, not a regular thing.) Was he drunk at the time of the first encounter? Was/is he angry at his wife for some underlying reason? Does he travel a lot? Did he spend long hours in close proximity to the other woman before this happened? If he doesn’t have the most willpower in the world, he should stay out of the candy store. Don’t tempt fate.
I don’t think eight months is that long,saoirse. Not for something like this. Anger can take a long time to work through. I was angry with my sister for about two years, once, for something of about this same magnitude–I could be civil to her, but any time we started to have any sort of closeness or affection, all that anger hit me in the face. So I just kept my distance until I worked through it. And I am a reasonable person who doesn’t hold grudges. It took this guy a year to tell his wife about the affair. He had a whole year to work through his guilt, to come to terms with himself. Of course the whole thing seems much, much further away to him than it does to her. He saw the “climax” of the whole story arc in the momment he confessed, but that was just the first page of the story for her, so he’s expecting resolution when she’s not ready yet. Nothing can hurry this process, really–she couldn’t if she wanted to, and he certainly can’t. Expecting her to be over it in 8 months is not reasonable.
I don’t know the details of the how and why…They had some underlying issues before the affair…Mainly he was away A LOT! They are Very Wealthy, but they are that way because of endless days on the job and away from the house. I hope he only did it once, but chances are good he did it everytime he went to this particular city for a undisclosed period of time. That is conjecture so I do not know the exact truth. He wasn’t drunk, just an idiot. And he should stay out of the candy store, I agree 100%
The OP said he was in counseling and quit. What does it matter to me? What does it matter to you? Someone asked for an opinion and I gave one.
Please show me where I said they shouldn’t stay together.
I personally wouldn’t but that wasn’t the question. Everyone’s marriage is their own business and I frankly could care less. But I will give an opinion when someone asks for opinions on a message board. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I’m just not understanding the “it’s selfish to have confessed” attitude. Certainly one of the purposes confessing serves is a self-serving one. But, isn’t honesty in the relationship good for both parties, ultimately? Are you saying that it’s better to lie and cover it up than it is to lie and admit it?