So what kind of decisionmaking went into having a second child in an already troubled marriage? I am not trying to be nasty, I am just curious.
You could do with taking a little more blame for your cheating. It’s not as if your dick just fell into that woman’s vagina, yet you’re acting as if she’s entirely to blame. It takes two to tango, as the cliche goes.
Good on you for waking up and smelling the coffee. I would wait a bit (not months, but a few weeks) and then broach the counseling with your wife. If your experience is like ours, you will both meet with the therapist and then s/he will want to meet with you each separately. That’s a good time to mention the infidelity to the therapist and ask if and when you should tell your wife.
Churches and other places of worship usually have lists of marital therapists. Or you can try your doctor or a friend’s recommendation. You may not find the right therapist for you both first off. A good therapist will tell his or her qualifications first thing and ask you what you might be comfortable with (ex: our therapist asked us if we wanted to include a Christian focus in our marital therapy. We both said no and that was the last we ever heard about scripture or Jesus etc.).
So not only did you cheat, but you cheated with someone you work with, at a work party (where presumably other people you work with were noticing the flirtation…believe me, they did) and now the woman you cheated with isn’t happy that you said it ends here? Hope you don’t lose your job over this…
I only mention this because my SO’s former assistant decided that it would be a smart thing to have a fling with a married man at a convention they were all at. EVERYONE in their group knew what was going on…and they knew the man’s wife. The guy has discovered that all of a sudden his opinion isn’t asked about things, and he isn’t included in planning discussions, and isn’t being selected for jobs he expected to get in their organization. It’s not a group of religious people…but it is a group of men who place a lot of value on integrity and morality, and they’ve let him know in a tangible way how they feel about what he did.
Go to counseling right away, by yourself. Your wife deserves to know the truth about what happened. You are not the only one trying to make decisions about what is right for your marriage and for your children. She has the right to make her life decisions with all the information in hand.
You need to tell her gently, and in a comfortable healthy manner, but you need to tell her. So find a counselor immediately! If you tell her in the wrong way, as I suspect you will eventually be driven to do (after all, you did shout this on an internet forum fercrissakes!) you will cause a great deal more damage.
Everyone has the right to know where they stand, and what the truth is about their relationships.
That’s MHO.
I agree that he should tell his wife, but only if he isn’t going to make serious changes in his life to prevent this from ever happening again, which I hope he does. If that is the case, then the truth regarding his infidelity is no longer really relevant to the relationship, since he has changed himself and their relationship. I don’t see the point in hurting someone unless it helps them change for the better or more accurately gauge what’s in their best interest.
I base this on the fact that I would not want to know about an infidelity that was just a blip and which served as a wake-up call, and one that would never occur again. If you feel your wife would feel otherwise or that you can’t save the marriage or really make her happy, of course you should tell her. But I don’t think you should tell her *just *to relieve your guilt.
I think we have enough children of people who stayed together “for the sake of the children” and made the children feel like the air in the house was made of barbed wire to be able to say that is not the best option.
But the rest? Hell yeah. You’ve got problems with the wife? Fix them, or don’t, with the wife. “My wife doesn’t understand me” is so old it should be in assisted living.
And I third the “wait with the counseling until the baby is weaned.”
And quit whining about sexual incompatibilty. It’s not like she only prefers missionary posistion sex, and you’re hardcore S&M.
You can learn to have better sex you know.
I’m twenty and haven’t had a girlfriend since I was fifteen. I’ve never made anybody pregnant or been married. I’ve never been truly shitfaced or been lusted after by a married woman. So maybe I’m “not one to talk”.
But it sounds like you’re really willing to screw your family over for your own selfish desires. You want to have sex with a better-looking, better-riding woman, and you’re considering leaving your wife and kids just for this. Others have pointed out that the whole fling is probably temporary, but if I’m doing my math correctly, you’re being really immature even if she really does want you for the long term.
But the fact that this is even a hard decision for you shows just how skewed your values are from anything I’d respect. So maybe your marriage is bound to end no matter what. All I’m saying is that if I were you, I would think of your children.
The world is full of douchebag boys who can’t be bothered to grow up and act like men. Don’t want to be married anymore? Stop getting your wife pregnant. Wonder what you are missing? Tough shit, be a man for once in your life, you might like it.
Waaah waaah! I want to have my cake and eat it too! I want a hot sexy woman and leave my pregnant wife… waaah waaah! I want to be a daddy with my kids, I don’t want my wife to take them from me and I also want hot crazy monkey sex with another woman. I’m not a bad guy!
My god, your selfishness beggars belief.
[moderating]
It appears that this thread has run its course, and the OP has asked me to close it.
[/moderating]