# Do you tell your spouse if you cheated?



## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned. 

Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better. 

He hasn't. 

Now. This past weekend. I was at a wedding by myself and ended up having a drunk one night stand with another guest who I'd never met and who knows no one in our life, really. 

I feel awful. I've never cheated on anyone I've been with. I've never wanted to cheat. 

I love my husband insanely. I've been sick all day. I hate myself right now. This is the worst thing I've ever done in my life. All I've wanted all day is to curl up in my husband's arms and feel him around me. 

If this were your life, would you tell? Would you want to know? There is no chance I'll ever do this again for a few reasons. First being I will NEVER be drunk without my husband again. Second, we will start marriage therapy when I get back home. 

I won't be back with him for a week. And if I do tell him, clearly it's an in person conversation. 

But. Would you tell/want to be told?


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

If the shoe was on the other foot would you want him to confess?


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Yeah, nah you don't love your husband insanely. You wanted to cheat because you did. Sounds like you had problems and you decided to burn it down to the ground. I wonder if you were at the wedding I was at. There was women whose husband wasn't there and she was literally throwing herself at other men. It was interesting to watch, I can assure you there was no one there who thought she was insanely in love with her husband that's for sure. We all just felt bad for her husband. 

Anyway if it was me I would want to know because I wouldn't want to live a lie. Your husband deserves to know who he is married to and if he wants to stay married to someone who could do that to him. Besides that not telling just continues the selfishness and bad decision making that began at the wedding. Finally it will eventually get out it always does. At least you can try to get ahead of it.


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## Lostme (Nov 14, 2014)

Yes I would tell, your spouse needs to know and it will be his choice to whether or not he wants to stay with you.

If you do not tell, you will just drive yourself crazy, and it is not fair to him.

You also need to get STD tested, especially if you did not use a condom and if you did not use a condom your husband has a right to know that as well so he can get tested too.


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## Melrose8888 (Jan 1, 2017)

I would tell him and then divorce him.

What's the point in staying in a sexless marriage?


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

Tell him. He may or may not divorce you.
He should. Probably not.

Then if you are remorseful, and if you don't tell him you're not, maybe you can rebuild things.

If he is asexual, you should tell him,divorce, and move on. If so, you'll wind up looking for sex again. It wasn't a mistake, you were hoping for it.

Own it.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

He doesn't love you insanely if he hasn't made a sexual advance in 3 years.

At least not in the traditional marriage sense. 

Why would you want to stay in a marriage like that?

That's what you'd be asked if the roles were reversed.

You want sex and your husband doesn't..... at least not with you.

You have sex with a guy you have to "order"?

Yuck. I can think of little that's more of a turnoff.

But to answer your question I think yes, you should tell him and you should tell him why.

Then divorce him. You two are incompatible.


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

Yes I would want to know. Drop any excuses out of your explanation to him. Don't say anything that might even hint at him being at fault for your own actions. Nobody forced you to cheat, you chose to do it.

The good news is most states have laws that chop the balls off of a lesser man and he very well might stay because he doesn't want to lose half of his money for having married a cheater. As a matter of fact, most states will reward you as a cheating woman with much more than you will ever deserve. Men don't initiate many divorces as such, so you have that on your side. Plus he might want to stay for the kids too. 

If he does stay, just know that the relationship as you knew it us over. It will be different from this day forward. He won't ever love you the same after this act and he knows you don't love him as much as he thought you did. But a drunken one night stand is a lot easier to live with than a long term affair where emotions were involved. 

What do you do if he decides to have a revenge affair?


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

Many of the people on this website are betrayed spouses that have been cheated on and are heavily biased towards any and all forms of disclosure whether it would have any real-world benefit or not. 

Before you go jumping into anything ask yourself what would your rationale be for telling him? To lessen your own guilt? To force him to the negotiation table of your marriage? To make him better understand your need for physical attention? 

Do you feel telling him will benefit HIM in any way? 

You have a crappy marriage now, will this disclosure worsen it or are you thinking this bombshell may shock him into becoming a sexual dynamo? 

My advice is don't do anything rash now (that has already happened and see where it got you) My advice is let the dust and the emotionality settle for awhile. Then get yourself in to see a counselor (individual counselor) and start peeling back the layers of your own issues and objectives and such and see if you even want to remain in this marriage or not. 

I personally do not see the point of hurting him and causing him pain unless it is for some kind of higher purpose that ultimately ends up to his and the marriages benefit. 

Telling him now will probably not have any kind of immediate benefit, but it sure as $^!+ could cause a lot of immediate harm. 

Weigh this carefully and give it much thoughtful contemplation and preferably with the guidance of a disinterested, professional 3rd party.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

TheDudeLebowski said:


> Yes I would want to know. Drop any excuses out of your explanation to him. Don't say anything that might even hint at him being at fault for your own actions. Nobody forced you to cheat, you chose to do it.
> 
> The good news is most states have laws that chop the balls off of a lesser man and he very well might stay because he doesn't want to lose half of his money for having married a cheater. As a matter of fact, most states will reward you as a cheating woman with much more than you will ever deserve. Men don't initiate many divorces as such, so you have that on your side. Plus he might want to stay for the kids too.
> 
> ...


Interesting. So a guy who cheats after his wife has basically refused sex with him for 3 years shouldn't bring that up?

Because it wouldn't be relevant, right?

I can't imagine that said guy would be told that his wife refusing him for years has nothing to do with it.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

TheDudeLebowski said:


> Yes I would want to know. Drop any excuses out of your explanation to him. Don't say anything that might even hint at him being at fault for your own actions. Nobody forced you to cheat, you chose to do it.
> 
> The good news is most states have laws that chop the balls off of a lesser man and he very well might stay because he doesn't want to lose half of his money for having married a cheater. As a matter of fact, most states will reward you as a cheating woman with much more than you will ever deserve. Men don't initiate many divorces as such, so you have that on your side. Plus he might want to stay for the kids too.
> 
> ...


Let me add to this if you don't tell him the marriage as you knew it is still over because you will know.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> Many of the people on this website are betrayed spouses that have been cheated on and are heavily biased towards any and all forms of disclosure whether it would have any real-world benefit or not.


Haha I always love this. Biasedness is basically just another word for life experience, used by people who don't like to hear about it.

So YES probably all of us who went through this crap think it's best to know about it sooner rather then years later. Normally people with real world experience are the ones you want to listen to.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

sokillme said:


> Let me add to this if you don't tell him the marriage as you knew it is still over because you will know.


It should be over.....dude pulled a bait and switch.

Especially if there are no kids.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

lifeistooshort said:


> It should be over.....dude pulled a bait and switch.
> 
> Especially if there are no kids.


I think that is fair, or would have been fair is she would have told him before she decided to fix the situation with some stranger. She is the one who now wants to lie in his arms.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

sokillme said:


> Haha I always love this. Biasedness is basically just another word for life experience used by people who don't like to hear about it.
> 
> So YES probably all of us who went through this crap think it's best to know about it sooner rather then years later. Normally people with real world experience are the ones you want to listen to.


I agree that she should tell him. 

But he should also know that if he marries and stops touching his wife she'll either leave or look elsewhere depending on her character. I'd say the same if roles were reversed.

He's not a total victim here.


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

lifeistooshort said:


> Interesting. So a guy who cheats after his wife has basically refused sex with him for 3 years shouldn't bring that up?
> 
> Because it wouldn't be relevant, right?
> 
> I can't imagine that said guy would be told that his wife refusing him for years has nothing to do with it.


No that is a blame shifting tactic to lessen your own guilt for having stepped outside of your marriage and pissing all over your vows. 

Her marriage isn't sexless, he doesn't initiate it. Instead of her stepping outside of the marriage, you divorce first if you have to. Cheaters cheat because they want to, nobody drives them to it. 

But I guess if you are a low life enough to cheat on your spouse, you probably have the exact character needed to blame other people for the choices you decide to make.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

sokillme said:


> I think that is fair, or would have been fair is she would have told him before she decided to fix the situation with some stranger. She is the one who now wants to lie in his arms.


Yeah, I agree that is messed up. 

It's why I asked why she wants a marriage like this. 

She could always ask if he's ok with her going elsewhere if he's not interested, but that seldom ends well.

This situation isn't fair to either of them.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

lifeistooshort said:


> I agree that she should tell him.
> 
> But he should also know that if he marries and stops touching his wife she'll either leave or look elsewhere depending on her character. I'd say the same if roles were reversed.
> 
> He's not a total victim here.


She lost the high-ground when she decided to go outside her marriage. Again what you argue for is not what she wants. Seems like what she wants is to have a little twist and then have that somehow make her marriage better. She wants to screw her fling and then sleep in her husbands arms the next day. I mean I think the least he could ask for was a wife who isn't looking for him to comfort her after she stabbed him in the heart.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

* (A) You are in a virtual nonexistent marriage because of the deprival of the marital attribute of sex by your husband!

(B) You had a covert drunken ONS with a “complete stranger!”

Here are your options: 

If you want to hold on to the marriage and praying that it might come together, you need to tell him, but only confess to him if he agrees to attend marriage counseling! If he does not, then do not tell him and proceed in filing for divorce!

If he subsequently agrees to MC, tell him about the ONS only in session.

I rarely ever side with people who actively cheat in a marriage, but when confronted with a choice between them and someone who is doing absolutely nothing to foster their marriage vows by keeping their spouse sexually and emotionally happy, I’ve got to side with the deprivated spouse, although they did make the choice to unconsciably cheat on the sham of a marriage that they were engaged in!

*


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## Spicy (Jun 18, 2016)

Yes. You tell him. He deserves to know. Your future is very unclear right now, but you have to deal with it. Don’t add to this by hiding it for years. Fess up, and see where it goes.


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

I don't see where she said they are in a sexless marriage, she said he doesn't initiate sex. Many marriages out there consist of lots of sex where only one spouse initiates. 

Add in the fact that she is in a state of mind to try and justify her actions in any way she can to ease her own guilt, I dont see why anyone can jump to the conclusion of a sexless marriage. All she said is he doesn't initiate.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

chillymorn69 said:


> If the shoe was on the other foot would you want him to confess?


I honestly don't know. I'm not sure what good it would do if I were his role in or relationship. I've talked to him many times about the fact that sex, once a month, after me pretty much begging him to have sex with me then me finally saying we ARE having sex that night because I'm done waiting for him to make any sort of advance. And he never changes. So it doesn't seem that the sexual needs of our marriage are important to him. So does it do anything to help or hurt our marriage? People have asked why I'm staying in the marriage. In large part, we have kids. Also, I keep thinking/hoping something will happen to where the intimacy we had before will come back. 

So if he's apathetic about it, I don't know how it would impact him to hear this. I honestly don't. And if I were apathetic, I don't know how I'd feel. But right now? In the situation we are in where I'm begging for sex and he's not giving it? Yeah. I'd be pissed to know he was having sex with someone else.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

I would want to know.

By the way, get an STD test done.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

P
I didn't WANT to cheat. Not consciously, at least. It wasn't a 'hey, let's go bang' to this guy. It was a **** happened, I said I can't because I'm married but it was one of the things where once someone has given you a touch on the back you haven't had in years, it's hard to stop. 

I'm not trying to excuse what I did. I didn't want to go have a twist then some back to my husband. I actually do have remorse for what I did. I do understand that this more than likely indicates a deeper layer of issues that need to be addressed. 

I'm just wondering if those issues need to be addressed before I bring him emotionally into the fact that this happened, and if ever.


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## frusdil (Sep 5, 2013)

Absolutely you need to tell him. He deserves to know. He may choose to leave, or he may choose to stay and rebuild the marriage. But that needs to be his choice.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

frusdil said:


> Absolutely you need to tell him. He deserves to know. He may choose to leave, or he may choose to stay and rebuild the marriage. But that needs to be his choice.


*Which is far better than your H finding out all about your infidelity via some 3rd party source!

Which could always happen!*


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

The last thing you want to do is go about fixing anything before you confess. If you are going to confess, to it up front. Otherwise he will be working more towards your sham of a marriage only to be blindsided after doing a bunch of work to change. I can only imagine that would lead to more resentment on his part for doing that to him. 

"Now that we've fixed you honey, guess we can work on me now. Oh by the way, remember that wedding I went to..."


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Yes, yes, and yes.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

lifeistooshort said:


> It should be over.....dude pulled a bait and switch.
> 
> Especially if there are no kids.


They have 2 children.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned.
> 
> Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> 
> ...


You need to for several reasons.

It is a very real issue in your marriage that needs dealt with.

Your husband needs to be an equal partner in the marriage as do you.

This secret creates an imbalance. Neither of you is on equal ground. You are carrying a burden that will impact all aspects of your marriage and relationship with your family.

He is clueless and will remain clueless as to many problems that WILL arise from your betrayal.

You will have to lie to him the rest of your life while expecting honesty from him.

Do not ignore this. Please don't have sex with your husband before informing him. Get a std test. Get some books on helping your spouse heal from your infidelity.

Very sorry you slipped but don't make it so much worse by lying.

Best wishes.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

Yes you need to tell him asap, you can't have massive dark secrets like that in a marriage, and yes I would definitely want to know. You also need to get tested for STDs, they are rife today. 
Don't make any excuses, just do it. Then its his choice as to what he does next.


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## VeryHurt (Mar 11, 2011)

DECENT / MATURE ROUTE
1. Get married.
2. Have marital problems.
3. Seek professional guidance together.
4. If it doesn't work, get a divorce.

YOUR CHOICE
1. Get married.
2. Have marital problems/issues.
5. Cheat on husband.

You seemed to have skipped over Steps 3 and 4


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> P
> I didn't WANT to cheat. Not consciously, at least. It wasn't a 'hey, let's go bang' to this guy. It was a **** happened, I said I can't because I'm married but it was one of the things where once someone has given you a touch on the back you haven't had in years, it's hard to stop.
> 
> I'm not trying to excuse what I did. I didn't want to go have a twist then some back to my husband. I actually do have remorse for what I did. I do understand that this more than likely indicates a deeper layer of issues that need to be addressed.
> ...


How convenient that would be for you, if they were, you fix your problems and then live the rest of your life lying to him. Let me ask you why do you assume he would want to stay with you? 

That is always the selfishness of the equation of "should I tell". The cheater assumes the spouse would want to stay anyway and is therefore doing them a favor by hiding it. Like they couldn't do better then them a spouse that cheats on them. Nice favor they get to live their life with someone lying to their face every day. Even more wrong is the idea that somehow they are still living in the same marriage if the secret doesn't come out. Whether you tell him or not he is still now married to someone who cheated on him. How do you think YOU knowing that will affect you? You say you love him if it wasn't you would you want him to live with someone who was cheating on him? Would you want your kid, would you cover it up so they didn't feel pain? Sounds wonderful doesn't it. I bet for most, they would rather know the truth so at least THEY are the ones who get to have agency in their own life.

You may not have wanted to when you got there but you did when you CHOSE to.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

BTW. Not taking anything away from how bad your behavior was but a drunken ons is a very different animal than a planned and lengthy infidelity.

Fessing up quickly and owning this gives your marriage the best chance for recovery.


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## doconiram (Apr 24, 2017)

OP, yes you tell your spouse. That one act may have saved my marriage. However, the lies and coverup added to the cheating was too much to bear and my spouse lost all credibiility in the process. 

Hiding this or lying about it, is just as cruel as the cheating itself. You can't work on issues you have if you don't own them. This is not something you can ignore and hope that it goes away.

Please do not have unprotected sex with your spouse until you get tested. he doesn't deserve the gamble you are taking with his health. 

Best
DO


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

wintervalley said:


> P
> I didn't WANT to cheat. Not consciously, at least. It wasn't a 'hey, let's go bang' to this guy. It was a **** happened, I said I can't because I'm married but it was one of the things where once someone has given you a touch on the back you haven't had in years, it's hard to stop.
> 
> I'm not trying to excuse what I did. I didn't want to go have a twist then some back to my husband. I actually do have remorse for what I did. I do understand that this more than likely indicates a deeper layer of issues that need to be addressed.
> ...


There’s no remorse without accountability, and there’s no accountability without honesty.

Confess. Nothing gets fixed until you do that.


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I honestly don't know. I'm not sure what good it would do if I were his role in or relationship. I've talked to him many times about the fact that sex, once a month, after me pretty much begging him to have sex with me then me finally saying we ARE having sex that night because I'm done waiting for him to make any sort of advance. And he never changes. So it doesn't seem that the sexual needs of our marriage are important to him. So does it do anything to help or hurt our marriage? People have asked why I'm staying in the marriage. In large part, we have kids. Also, I keep thinking/hoping something will happen to where the intimacy we had before will come back.
> 
> So if he's apathetic about it, I don't know how it would impact him to hear this. I honestly don't. And if I were apathetic, I don't know how I'd feel. But right now? In the situation we are in where I'm begging for sex and he's not giving it? Yeah. I'd be pissed to know he was having sex with someone else.


It seems to me after reading these fourm for awhile that the person who is not very interesred in sex with their spouce never wakes up and smells the roses so to speak. The frustrated partner has tried everything from talking to getting in better shape trying new tactics you name it they tried it and the disinterested partner his just given empty promises. Ocasionaly cheating or the real threat of divorce will wake them up but its still not what the sexually frustrated spouce sees as satisfying sex between a husband and wife.


My advice is your best chance is to go to him and tell him listen I am so disatisfyed with our marriage sexually that I had a one night stand. And I am realizing that I don't want to be married the rest of my life to somone who dosn't desire me as his sexy wife and the reason I'm telling you this is because I love you butI won't stay married to someone who isn't interested in sex with his wife. I feel terrible i never would have thought done what I did but it making me relize that sex is important to me and not so much for you.
So we could decide that were just not compatible and athought it will be sad and our family will be different we can still coparent and raise wonderful children. 

I am not opposed to seeking help with this and try to find some middle ground but I have to see and feel you are vested in trying . Listen If I just wanted out I would not have come to you and confessed. But I did because I owe you the truth and and oprotunity to try if you want to I am willing and wishing with all my heart that we can get past this. That you can forgive me and that I can believe my husband desires me. 

I am so sorry ! Please please belive me when I say I want our marriage to work but only if we can meet eachothers needs in a loving manor.

Good luck.

With all that being said I am very doubtful anything will change in the long term. Very few sexless marriage get to where both are happy with it.


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

chillymorn69 said:


> wintervalley said:
> 
> 
> > I honestly don't know. I'm not sure what good it would do if I were his role in or relationship. I've talked to him many times about the fact that sex, once a month, after me pretty much begging him to have sex with me then me finally saying we ARE having sex that night because I'm done waiting for him to make any sort of advance. And he never changes. So it doesn't seem that the sexual needs of our marriage are important to him. So does it do anything to help or hurt our marriage? People have asked why I'm staying in the marriage. In large part, we have kids. Also, I keep thinking/hoping something will happen to where the intimacy we had before will come back.
> ...


This is terrible. You basically are saying tell your spouse you banged someone else, then give THEM the ultimatum to change in order to keep you. I mean, if your ultimate goal is for your spouse to tell you to "go f*** yourself" sure. 

Now what if he falls in line after that? After being told "hey I just banged someone and it is all your fault, you better man up or I'm out of here" and he actually stays? How much respect could you possibly have for a man like that? He deserves to be walked all over at that point, and she will keep cheating on him because there would be no respect.


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

TheDudeLebowski said:


> This is terrible. You basically are saying tell your spouse you banged someone else, then give THEM the ultimatum to change in order to keep you. I mean, if your ultimate goal is for your spouse to tell you to "go f*** yourself" sure.
> 
> Now what if he falls in line after that? After being told "hey I just banged someone and it is all your fault, you better man up or I'm out of here" and he actually stays? How much respect could you possibly have for a man like that? He deserves to be walked all over at that point, and she will keep cheating on him because there would be no respect.


Shes just telling him the truth if he takes it the way you would then the marriage it over .....and its been over because he dos't have it for her or he would be banging her.

But I have been on this board long enough to see some men and women when face with their spouce cheating to wake up and realize they were selfish sexually.espically if there spouce tried and tried to get them to meet them in the middle with the sex descripancy.

And at least she was truthful. I feel a cheating spouce who falters because their partner isn't into sex with them is a different beast than one who cheats just to cheat like a serial cheater. I'm not excusing their cheating but saying they can confess and basical say well if things don't change between us in the bedroom I'm out of here because we are not a good match.


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

Would it have been better to not have cheated and had the gut to just come to this conclusion instead of cheating ? You bet but she didn't

And she isn't going to grovel for forgiveness so she can stay with someone who dose't want to bang her in the first place.


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

Unless he has mucho cash $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Then who knows!

Its called the real world. And its ugly but thats how it works in the real world


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## scaredlion (Mar 4, 2017)

Here is a post that most are going to throw rocks at. There are times when you may not agree with an action someone takes but you do understand how and why they did the action. This is one of those actions that I understand . I have been a male all my life (lol). Therefore I can not understand how a normal healthy man can forego sex like wintervalley's husband. Either there is something physically or mentally wrong with him or he is getting his sexual needs met some other way (mistress, GF. porn with masturbation..etc or he's asexual). I have never heard of anyone getting married NOT to have sex. I can understand if someone is consistently denied an important need, and in a time of weakness, accept the fulfillment of that need by someone else. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying I understand it. Should she confess? Who is going to be the most hurt by a confession and who is going to be the most relieved? I have never ask my wife how far her EA went. I have my suspicions but I have never ask. Why? Because being the person I was, back those many years ago, I would have more than likely done some really bad physical harm to someone. Doing harm to bad people was my profession. Since that time 35 years ago, I have had the closest thing to a perfect wife as a man can have. Wintervalley has to ask herself if she can live with this secret. It is her decision. Personally, if I was in a marriage with a healthy spouse that refused me sex, I would look said spouse in the face and say we either have good sex 3 times a week or I'm going to find it somewhere else. If the spouse refused then it would be time to talk about separation/divorce. Just my 2 cents worth. I do wish you well.


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## David51 (Sep 12, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned.
> 
> Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> 
> ...



If what you did is not going to affect your relationship with him then I’d keep the one nighter to myself. But I do have questions. How old is your husband, how long were you together before marriage? Most of all why after only 3 years is he not interested in sex with you. In my opinion a man not wanting sex is unusual. Has he seen a doctor, blood test to check his Testosterone level? 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

chillymorn69 said:


> Would it have been better to not have cheated and had the gut to just come to this conclusion instead of cheating ? You bet but she didn't
> 
> And she isn't going to grovel for forgiveness so she can stay with someone who dose't want to bang her in the first place.


I thought your post was very good and balanced.

Groveling without addressing the issue of lack of sex isn't going to solve anything. She'll just be increasingly resentful and probably do it again. 

A man in a marriage where he only got sex when he informed his wife they'd be having it, essentially pressuring her, would never be told to grovel without addressing the sex issue.

That last statement wasn't directed at you..... it was a general observation of what often happens on TAM.


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## RWB (Feb 6, 2010)

wintervalley said:


> Now. This past weekend. *I was at a wedding by myself and ended up having a drunk one night stand with another guest who I'd never met *and who knows no one in our life, really.


WV,

Be honest with yourself and us.

Alcohol may have lowered your inhibitions, but you were looking/thinking about having sex/ONS long before the alcohol took effect. At the time did you feel justified to pursue another due to your H lack of attention? Before the ONS, did you not really know where the flirtatious behavior with the OM was leading you?


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Yes, I'd want to know. Yes, I'd tell him. No, I am not taking best guesses here. I was a WW in my first marriage. My first extramarital affair was a ONS and I did go home and tell my then H immediately.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

Blame the victim who does not know he is a victim. Not yet anyway.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

I just don't get how anyone could even think of hiding something so very serious from their spouse. I just haven't got it in me to act that way.


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## michzz (Jun 6, 2008)

Lostme said:


> Yes I would tell, your spouse needs to know and it will be his choice to whether or not he wants to stay with you.
> 
> If you do not tell, you will just drive yourself crazy, and it is not fair to him.
> 
> You also need to get STD tested, especially if you did not use a condom and if you did not use a condom your husband has a right to know that as well so he can get tested too.


And do not have sex with your H until your results are back from the STD testing.

Also, do not have sex with him before telling him that you cheated. he needs to know that and make up his own mind.


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## marriageontherocks2 (Oct 4, 2017)

I think you need to tell him, you could be exposing him to an STD, or perhaps a pregnancy from the other man. He has a right to know.

As for fixing the marriage, first account for the affair and work through that THEN look to work on other issues like his lack of initiating sex in the marriage. If you try to do them at the same time it will come off as excusing the cheating and blaming him.


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## michzz (Jun 6, 2008)

wintervalley said:


> P
> I didn't WANT to cheat. Not consciously, at least. It wasn't a 'hey, let's go bang' to this guy. *It was a **** happened*, I said I can't because I'm married but it was one of the things where once someone has given you a touch on the back you haven't had in years, it's hard to stop.


This is a textbook example of practically every single act of infidelity out there. Most cheaters are not planners or serial philanderers.

When presented with an opportunity, you demonstrated a lack of self control. Then, you've tried to frame your personal responsibility for what you did in some kind of context to justify it. But since you are an intelligent person, you try to wrap that in some weak-pulse remorse even as you blame your husband.

I hope you both get tested for STD's and tell your husband BEFORE you even attempt intimacy with him.

If you are unsatisfied with how often you are intimate with him, who approaches whom, or you just have a higher libido that he does, then talk about it with him, masturbate more, do something.

OR

Leave him and find a different life.


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## uhtred (Jun 22, 2016)

I can't really tell from your post what your sex life is like. It sounds like it is very limited and he is not willing to fix it. If that is the case, then I can relate. I'm in a relationship that has gone for long periods of time with very limited sex. I can say that I have been tempted to cheat, and honestly in this situation I would not feel guilt if I did, nor will I blame someone else for cheating in that situation. 

That is not to say that I recommend cheating - I think it the long term it will lead to the end of the marriage, but I do not blame someone in that situation for cheating. Affection, intimacy, love and desire are a critical part of a happy marriage. I do not think someone who withholds these things has a right to complain if their partner finds them somewhere else. 

So I would not tell him. I don't particularly want to know if my wife has ever cheated unless that information would help me understand her low interest in sex. 

OP - while I don't blame you, and I dno't think you should tell your husband, I do think that as a result of this experience you need to dramatically limit your drinking. You got drunk and did something that you now regret. So I agree with your plan to never get drunk without him again. 

If you want to save your marriage, go to therapy. Don't tell him - I do not see how telling him will make anything better. Get rid of your guilt because that will cause harm as well. It happened, it was a mistake, don't let it happen again. Try to fix your marriage, and if it works that is great. If it doesn't, divorce. 

You owe him forgiveness for a one-time major screw-up. 


The goal is that everyone be as happy as they can, not that there be some sort of balance for mistakes made. 





wintervalley said:


> Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned.
> 
> Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> 
> ...


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## JayDee7 (Sep 12, 2017)

Your husband has a right to know. Don?t have sex or kiss him before you tell him. What if you contracted oral herpes or another STD? At least show some respect to not transfer anything onto him. Get checked for your own health. And then tell him. Sure you?ll have reasons for your reduced culpability, the lack of sex in your marriage and your alcohol consumption are two you?ve already begun to to fabricate as reasons to reduce your own blame. Maybe your husband will buy it? You can guilt and shame him perhaps into believing it? He?s not doing it for you and you were drunk and couldn?t control yourself and were horny because your husband didn?t do you right so it just happened. He might buy it. 
Or just be honest and tell him the truth owning up to your betrayal. It?s your choice.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

wintervalley said:


> I honestly don't know. *I'm not sure what good it would do if I were his role in or relationship. *
> 
> ....So it doesn't seem that the sexual needs of our marriage are important to him. So does it do anything to help or hurt our marriage? People have asked why I'm staying in the marriage. In large part, *we have kids.* Also, I keep thinking/hoping something will happen to where the intimacy we had before will come back.
> 
> ...





wintervalley said:


> P
> *I didn't WANT to cheat. Not consciously*, at least. It wasn't a 'hey, let's go bang' to this guy. It was a **** happened, I said I can't because I'm married but it was one of the things where once someone has given you a touch on the back you haven't had in years, it's hard to stop.
> 
> I*'m not trying to excuse what I did.*
> ...


I am 68 and have seen a lot in those years. Not as much as others and I have not been betrayed by a spouse. Your H was taking care of your children when you went to another city to go to a wedding and then you had sex with a stranger while H was home with the kids? Wow.

I think the answer to your question of should you tell your husband that you cheated on him has a lot to do with you. Clearly you can either tell him or don't tell him, but you can't predict how he will react.

If you are truly remorseful as you said, you have gone through the trouble to emotionally fix yourself and you know absolutely that nothing like this will ever happen again, AND you have forgiven your husband and do not expect him to change, then yes, I don't think you need to tell him what a horrible thing you did.

On the other had, reading your post I think that subconsciously, you were fed up with your marriage and the lack of sex and you wanted subconsciously to have sex with someone else as a way of sabotaging your marriage so you could get out of it. People often do self destructive things to end situations they don't like. It is a shame that your children will be part of the damage, but it is what you set out to make happen, whether you want to believe it or not. 

You don't seem to be taking responsibility for what you did, you seem to be providing excuses.

If I were your father and you told me this, I would tell you to go to a Catholic Priest and confess your sin. Ask the priest to pray with you for God's forgiveness, then dedicate yourself to your husband and children for the rest of your life. I would also suggest that you get some individual counseling and that you and your H sign up for marriage counseling. If you did that, maybe you might learn enough about the man you married to know if you can tell him or not. Until then my advice would be don't tell him (take it to your grave), if you did all those things (confession, seeking God's forgiveness, fixing yourself, dedicating yourself to your marriage, forgiving your husband, etc.)

Your marriage has some serious issues that need to be resolved. Unless you both work at it, it is not real likely to last too many more years. 

Does he deserve to know that you cheated? That depends on you. If you aren't going to dramatically change yourself and forgive him (i.e. hold a grudge about your lack of sex) then I think that most honorable thing would be to just ask for a divorce so you can get the sex you seem to want and he can get a wife who will love and honor him. However, you might want to consider if your husband might not be a better moral example for his children than you going out every now and then with strangers for sex.

Oh, and do get tested for STD's. If you are lucky you will find out you have one and that will force you to tell your husband what kind of woman he married and what kind of mother you are.

I am sure that you are shocked by what you have done. I am sure that you don't think of yourself as the kind of person who would do such things. But you did it and now you have to figure out what to do.

You are looking to strangers for advice, I think you need to get with someone (individual counselor, priest, someone who is a mentor to you) and work through how to change yourself and what that includes.

Good luck.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

I am 68 and have seen a lot in those years. Not as much as others and I have not been betrayed by a spouse. Your H was taking care of your children when you went to another city to go to a wedding and then you had sex with a stranger while H was home with the kids? Wow.

I think the answer to your question of should you tell your husband that you cheated on him has a lot to do with you. Clearly you can either tell him or don't tell him, but you can't predict how he will react.

If you are truly remorseful as you said, you have gone through the trouble to emotionally fix yourself and you know absolutely that nothing like this will ever happen again, AND you have forgiven your husband and do not expect him to change, then yes, I don't think you need to tell him what a horrible thing you did.

On the other had, reading your post I think that subconsciously, you were fed up with your marriage and the lack of sex and you wanted subconsciously to have sex with someone else as a way of sabotaging your marriage so you could get out of it. People often do self destructive things to end situations they don't like. It is a shame that your children will be part of the damage, but it is what you set out to make happen, whether you want to believe it or not. 

You don't seem to be taking responsibility for what you did, you seem to be providing excuses.

If I were your father and you told me this, I would tell you to go to a Catholic Priest and confess your sin. Ask the priest to pray with you for God's forgiveness, then dedicate yourself to your husband and children for the rest of your life. I would also suggest that you get some individual counseling and that you and your H sign up for marriage counseling. If you did that, maybe you might learn enough about the man you married to know if you can tell him or not. Until then my advice would be don't tell him (take it to your grave), if you did all those things (confession, seeking God's forgiveness, fixing yourself, dedicating yourself to your marriage, forgiving your husband, etc.)

Your marriage has some serious issues that need to be resolved. Unless you both work at it, it is not real likely to last too many more years. 

Does he deserve to know that you cheated? That depends on you. If you aren't going to dramatically change yourself and forgive him (i.e. hold a grudge about your lack of sex) then I think that most honorable thing would be to just ask for a divorce so you can get the sex you seem to want and he can get a wife who will love and honor him. However, you might want to consider if your husband might not be a better moral example for his children than you going out every now and then with strangers for sex.

Oh, and do get tested for STD's. If you are lucky you will find out you have one and that will force you to tell your husband what kind of woman he married and what kind of mother you are.

I am sure that you are shocked by what you have done. I am sure that you don't think of yourself as the kind of person who would do such things. But you did it and now you have to figure out what to do.

You are looking to strangers for advice, I think you need to get with someone (individual counselor, priest, someone who is a mentor to you) and work through how to change yourself and what that includes.

Good luck.[/QUOTE]

That's awesome that you assume that my husband would take care of kids while I was out of town. Nope. They flew with me to stay at my parents' house while my husband went on a hunting trip. 

I'm not making excuses. I'm providing context to my marriage. 

I accept this as MY fault. MY action. That I made while I was drunk. 

I have admitted that it was probably, on a subconscious level, something that I was accepting of happening. Im not saying that makes it ok. But I am saying I didn't go out, get drunk and say 'let's go bang!' to some random guy. Who I barely talked to the entire weekend so there was no flirting or leading up to it. 

To imply that I don't love my husband because I made a MISTAKE is completely moronic. 

The fact that I gave up everything in my life to marry him, have his kids, care for his kids, move somewhere I HATE but knowing it is only temporary, take care his every need and request, tote our children around the country so that our families can still see them, support his career when mine was taken from me so that he could have kids like he'd always wanted, and I get NOTHING in the way of intimacy and affection and I still stick around? I think that's clear that emotionally, I am tied to this man. I hate so much about where my life is right now, but I love HIM and am willing to stick out the crappy years in hopes that there will be good ones. 

It's so easy to make it seem like the person who cheated is a piece of crap with the worst morals and no character. But. Maybe there's something else going on. Something else that the one who was cheated on could have addressed one of the SIX times in the past year that they've been told 'our sex life needs to change or I'm leaving because I can't handle feeling like I'm just coexisting with you and acting as your servant roommate nanny.' 

Maybe. Just maybe there have been attempts. And maybe. Just maybe. Someone made a MISTAKE. That they take full ownership for and know that no one made me have sex with another man. 

But also. I know that something else needs to be addressed. 

And I'm simply asking if this information being divulged to my husband would be something, that if someone else were in this situation, a ONS that I take full ownership for, and am currently sitting in a room waiting for an STD test and I've already taken plan B even though I have an IUD and he had a vasectomy, would want to know that it happened. Even though it WON'T happen again. And he and I both know our marriage needs work as we've talked the same conversation a lot. Would this bit of information have any worth? 

And who would be a better moral example for my kids? You, sir, overstepped a serious line as you have NO CLUE about what type of man my husband is or could be. I get that you're shaming and trying to seem condescending while seeming like you're not being a jerk, but, your reply went a lot of directions that just were unneeded.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

David51 said:


> wintervalley said:
> 
> 
> > Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned.
> ...


He's 36. We were together 3 years before we got married. It wasn't sex all the time then either, but it was significantly more than now and he even initiated it. After we or married and I got pregnant, basically all intimacy stopped. The pregnancy he wanted. Then the second one right after. And it's not like I got fat and sloppy. I'm the same weight and build now that I was pre-pregnancies. 

He won't go to a doctor about it. He won't go to a therapist on his own. In previous conversations, he's agreed to marriage counseling, but never sex counseling. He just always says he'll do better and never does. 

I don't know why. But honestly. It breaks me almost every day to not feel wanted but to want him. Both physically and emotionally. It breaks me to feel like he doesn't want me but we have these kids that HE wanted. I'm not saying it makes what happened ok. But I'm broken almost every day.


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## JayDee7 (Sep 12, 2017)

OP would you want to know if your husband had a one night stand this weekend on his hunting trip with a random woman? As his wife, do you deserve to know?


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

You can never know that “it won’t _happen_ again”. In fact, smart money says that it will.

Best way to be sure that it won’t is to make yourself accountable to your husband for your actions, and you do that by confessing to them.

You can’t really claim that you’ve taken ownership for your actions until you cop to them.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

JayDee7 said:


> OP would you want to know if your husband had a one night stand this weekend on his hunting trip with a random woman? As his wife, do you deserve to know?


Uh. Yeah. Because if he's not giving me sex at home but can find enough testosterone to have sex with some random woman, yeah, I'd want to know because that indicates he's not just apathetic about sex with me, he just doesn't WANT sex with me which means this marriage is over. 

I WANT sex with him. I BEG for sex with him. I DEMAND sex with him. And get it once a month MAYBE. 

I mean. I get your point. I do. And if the shoes were on the other feet and I just didn't care about sex and never offered him sex and he went out and had a ONS, I don't know that I'd want to know. If he just said we need to get our **** straight and we fixed it and I never knew, I suppose I'd be fine with that. It's not a habit I make of cheating on him. One time, a friend of ours kissed me and after I slapped him and shoved him away, I immediately told my husband, who then addressed it. I don't keep secrets from him. But I don't know if telling him this one would help at all.


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

wintervalley said:


> Uh. Yeah. Because if he's not giving me sex at home but can find enough testosterone to have sex with some random woman, yeah, I'd want to know because that indicates he's not just apathetic about sex with me, he just doesn't WANT sex with me which means this marriage is over.
> 
> I WANT sex with him. I BEG for sex with him. I DEMAND sex with him. And get it once a month MAYBE.
> 
> I mean. I get your point. I do. *And if the shoes were on the other feet and I just didn't care about sex and never offered him sex and he went out and had a ONS, I don't know that I'd want to know.* If he just said we need to get our **** straight and we fixed it and I never knew, I suppose I'd be fine with that. It's not a habit I make of cheating on him. One time, a friend of ours kissed me and after I slapped him and shoved him away, I immediately told my husband, who then addressed it. I don't keep secrets from him. But I don't know if telling him this one would help at all.


Yes you would. You’re just rationalizing in order to accommodate what’s been — until now — your decision to not confess to your infidelity.

Can’t fix a problem if you don’t know how bad it is.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I am 68 and have seen a lot in those years. Not as much as others and I have not been betrayed by a spouse. Your H was taking care of your children when you went to another city to go to a wedding and then you had sex with a stranger while H was home with the kids? Wow.
> 
> I think the answer to your question of should you tell your husband that you cheated on him has a lot to do with you. Clearly you can either tell him or don't tell him, but you can't predict how he will react.
> 
> ...


First off you haven't "taken full ownership" of **** until you tell him. Whatever your husband did to you he didn't cheat on you as far as we know. You are not the victim in this, that title went away when you cheated. 

Unfortunately if you had not cheated and had came here and said all of that most of us would have been on your side, probably told you to leave before you did something you regret. Now you have blown up your life and his. You don't have the high ground anymore. You certainly don't have a right to be defensive when people call you out. At this point go home and tell him the truth, see what he wants to do, if you want to stay together. I think you have no idea the kind of hell he is about to go through, that will be more then enough to compensate you for the hell you just described. That's the thing, you didn't fix this you just made it worse. Maybe your intention was to get him back because you felt rejected. I totally get that feeling and why you would feel that way, but it's not going to fix this most likely, and if you lie you will only make it worse still.

Besides all that you preferenced all this in your first post with the fact that you LOVE your husband. This is how you treated the man you love, your children's father? And yet your are still defensive about it? You are seriously thinking about lying to the face of the father of your children every day for the rest of his life? You are still his wife.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

Posted by wintervalley;

To imply that I don't love my husband because I made a MISTAKE is completely moronic. 





To imply that I don't love my husband because I made a MISTAKE is completely moronic. 





To imply that you do love your husband because you made a CHOICE is completely moronic. Herein is where your problem lies, you have so much resentment towards your husband from your posts is palpable. You will probably get angered over my post, but the truth is you aren't remorseful, nor are you taking ownership for your choice and actions. I'll leave it at that for now, this will be a lot for you to digest. But I will say this, if you go home and are feeling as you do now, don't tell him and file for divorce. If you would like to discuss this further, that is fine, but at the moment I wouldn't discuss anything with your husband yet. Not until you at least know that this is going to be a nuclear bomb to him. Best of luck.


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## harrybrown (May 22, 2013)

you can write out what happened on a sheet of paper and give it to him.

one can be a summary. the other one would be each and every act, where he touched you, what you were thinking, did you use protection, did you orgasm, etc.

I would want the detailed summary, because I need the entire puzzle.

you should read how to help your spouse with your A. yes, you are saying it was a one night stand, but there are many decisions made from flirting to taking off your clothes and having sex.

many many decisions where you could have stopped. Did you use protection will be very important to him. Have you stopped all contact with the OM?

you do know that he has bragged about having sex with you to all his buddies at the wedding, so many many people know. I do not know who you knew at the party, but everyone at the party knows that you had sex with the OM.

He may have posted it online on facebook, or linkedin, or whatever. the guy is going to brag. was he married as well? You should tell your H before he finds out from someone he may know that attended the party. The guy is treating like he is some stud, because he had sex with you and he will brag to all of his buddies and they will tell their SO. Sorry, but I have heard this guy talk for many years now. this is the way it goes. It is not your and the OM's secret. And you need to tell your H the OM's name. 

Your H may want to know if he was bigger, if he was better, if you used a condom(I really hope you did) and if you did things with the OM that you do not do with your H.

Please be honest. maybe do not tell him he was so much bigger and you had so many O's with him. That would kill you H. but do tell him the truth. Did you give the OM your phone number and email? Have you stopped all contact with the OM? You need to stop all contact. 

Tell your H. if the OM is married, you need to protect your H and your marriage and not protect the OM. You need to tell the OM's wife or SO.


good luck to you and your family. better let him know before someone else tells him.


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

Do not tell. Why hurt your husband?
File for divorce. If you are sufficiently unhappy about the lack of sex, or other aspects of your marriage, do both of you a favor and free yourselves to find people you want to be married to.
Tell the next guy that you got drunk and cheated on your H because he stopped putting out after you got married. Next guy will know that sex is important to you.

If you came here saying "I have a great marriage, and I can't believe I was stupid enough to cheat while apart" then maybe you can justify telling your H. But if you come here saying "I am unhappy in my marriage, and I got drunk and did what I wanted but didn't have the guts to do while sober" then stick a fork in your marriage, it is over. No need to tell him about the cheating.


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## leon2100 (May 13, 2015)

two answers:
1. NO
2: HELL NO!


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## badmemory (Jul 31, 2012)

It would be very unusual for a man your husband's age to have zero sexual urge. I'm wondering if he's a closet porn user. Either that or perhaps he has a medical or psychological issue.

As for as should you tell him; of course.


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## Loveless17 (Oct 16, 2017)

Do not tell him. Why would you want to intentionally hurt him by taking away the ignorant bliss he has in believing he is married to a faithful wife? Don't put him through that pain. You did it so you should keep it to yourself and work on bettering yourself. We all make mistakes at times and what we do to prevent making the same mistake is what counts.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

wintervalley said:


> ...That's awesome that you assume that my husband would take care of kids while I was out of town. Nope. *They flew with me to stay at my parents' house while my husband went on a hunting trip. *
> 
> I'm not making excuses. I'm providing context to my marriage.
> 
> ...


Thank you. yes I made an assumption about who was caring for your children and I should not have. Yes, I don't know your husbands morals, so that was overstepping.

Are you a piece of c^ap? No. Do I think that your are being positive getting an STD test? Yes.

You have rattled off a fairly long list of problems in your marriage (ignoring the "mistake.") and you indicate that both you and your H know you have problems.

All that said, why don't you do marriage counseling or individual counseling to address some of the problems.

When I was in a sexless marriage, I read all kinds of relationship books and tried to figure out what was going on. Ultimately, even though I initially thought I was the victim of a frigid wife, figured out that I was part of the problem and needed to change myself so our marriage could be renewed and blossom. It was hard for me to change myself and express emotional love to my wife without getting anything in return or know if she could change. Ultimately, we went to a sex therapist who helped save our marriage.

So I think I can understand some of your anger and frustration.

Have you done introspection as to what might be your contributions to your marriage being in crisis, besides you "mistake?" It took me a long time to realize that I was part of the problem in my marriage. It was not until I corrected my part of the problem that I could get my wife to get on board with going to a sex therapist to save our marriage.

You were asking if you need to tell your H. I still think it depends on you and where you are in regards to your "mistake" and where you H will be about this. I told you how I would advise you.

I also think that we are all human, subject to temptations and can slip. Which is why I suggested you perhaps get some IC or go to someone (say a priest or IC) who can help you find forgiveness for yourself or atonement for your actions.. 

What you did was not good, but there are much more evil things people do in the world. Perhaps your H can forgive you if you tell him, perhaps he can't. There is only one way to find out how you H will react.

On the other hand, if you know it was a mistake, have atoned for it in your mind, are certain it will never happen again, and you are going to work on fixing your marriage, maybe you have no need to tell him (at least not right now--maybe in time you will need to tell him.)

Again, it really depends on you and your H.

Again, Good luck.


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## michzz (Jun 6, 2008)

Loveless17 said:


> ... ignorant bliss...


There is no such thing!

The OP should have respect for the man being an adult, able to deal with whatever comes his way.

Tell him. Yes, with sensitivity and contrition, but please tell him.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

One of the issues is that he may well find out from another source. That will be far far harder for him to deal with than if you were honest straight away. The lie and deception will be just as hurtful as the actual affair. Also, could you lie to him about something so terribly serious for the rest of your lives? I honestly don't know how anyone could live with themselves if they did that. 
Also if the OM has a wife or partner she needs to be told what sort of man she is with.


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## chillymorn69 (Jun 27, 2016)

Any one know where I can get a hot date for an up comming wedding?


Sorry just my sick sence of humor.


If you try ending it most likley he will ramp it up just enough to keep the peice then fall back into old habits.

Maybe its best to just end things


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## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

Simple answer YES 100 times over, and with complete honesty to all his questions.

And another aspect is what are you going to tell your next SO, if you leave the marriage, that you cheated and didn't confess, or don't say anything in which case you start off your next relationship dishonestly.

Tamat


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

Young at Heart said:


> wintervalley said:
> 
> 
> > ...That's awesome that you assume that my husband would take care of kids while I was out of town. Nope. *They flew with me to stay at my parents' house while my husband went on a hunting trip. *
> ...


What exactly did you find introspectively? I've asked my husband numerous times what I can do to help and he never has a reply. So I'm just wondering what you found that helped you so I know where to start since he has no help for me.


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Diana7 said:


> *One of the issues is that he may well find out from another source.* That will be far far harder for him to deal with than if you were honest straight away. The lie and deception will be just as hurtful as the actual affair. Also, could you lie to him about something so terribly serious for the rest of your lives? I honestly don't know how anyone could live with themselves if they did that.
> Also if the OM has a wife or partner she needs to be told what sort of man she is with.


Yep.


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## WonkyNinja (Feb 28, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> 
> *A person who loves their partner does not put them in the humiliating position of having to beg for sex. That is an abusive relationship.*
> 
> ...


If you want to try and make the marriage work then you probably need to tell him. All the advice you have been given about how you must take all the blame and deal with the other marriage issues later is total BS in my book. 

Intimacy isn't an option in a marriage, nor is it something you can just change your mind on after saying your vows to your partner. 

If you have addressed this with him on many occasions, as you say you have, and he has chosen to ignore your feelings then he gave up the moral high ground to criticise you for straying. Sex and intimacy either means something or it doesn't. You don't get to tell someone that it isn't important and ignore their needs then get all indignant when they stray. He was the one who showed that intimacy wasn't important to the marriage, well what's good for the gander is good for the goose. He doesn't get to exercise double standards.

My XW did this to me for years. Always the promise of sex, but it never happened, always the threat of "no sex for you if .." when there wasn't anyway. I have zero sympathy for someone who would act this way towards the person that they claim to love.



TheDudeLebowski said:


> Yes I would want to know. Drop any excuses out of your explanation to him. Don't say anything that might even hint at him being at fault for your own actions. Nobody forced you to cheat, you chose to do it.
> 
> *He is at fault. He chose to ignore her after giving her a vow that he wanted to enter into, what is by any standards you'll ever find, the closest and most intimate relationship you can have with someone.*
> 
> What do you do if he decides to have a revenge affair?


Then at least she knows the truth. It's not sex and intimacy he isn't interested in, it's sex and intimacy with her.



TheDudeLebowski said:


> No that is a blame shifting tactic to lessen your own guilt for having stepped outside of your marriage and pissing all over your vows.
> 
> *The vows were pissed on already, she just continued the behaviour.*
> 
> ...


Her H chose to give her his wedding vows and then ignore them. That shows his character.



wintervalley said:


> I honestly don't know. I'm not sure what good it would do if I were his role in or relationship. I've talked to him many times about the fact that sex, once a month, *after me pretty much begging him to have sex with me then me finally saying we ARE having sex that night because I'm done waiting for him to make any sort of advance.* And he never changes. So it doesn't seem that the sexual needs of our marriage are important to him. So does it do anything to help or hurt our marriage? People have asked why I'm staying in the marriage. In large part, we have kids. Also, I keep thinking/hoping something will happen to where the intimacy we had before will come back.
> 
> So if he's apathetic about it, I don't know how it would impact him to hear this. I honestly don't. And if I were apathetic, I don't know how I'd feel. But right now? In the situation we are in where I'm begging for sex and he's not giving it? Yeah. I'd be pissed to know he was having sex with someone else.


Stop the begging. For your own self respect don't do that. You make yourself feel lower while he gets to hold the power in the relationship. No marriage should depend on one partner holding power over the other. You just don't do that to someone you love and respect. You need to let him know that if he wishes to be "just friends" that is fine with you. You can get an amicable divorce and move on to find someone that actually wants to be with you.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

Loveless17 said:


> Do not tell him. Why would you want to intentionally hurt him by taking away the ignorant bliss he has in believing he is married to a faithful wife? Don't put him through that pain. You did it so you should keep it to yourself and work on bettering yourself. We all make mistakes at times and what we do to prevent making the same mistake is what counts.


Overcooking spaghetti is a mistake we can all make from time to time.

Having the wrong penis paint the wrong cervix is not a mistake, it is a choice, and a hell of a lot of us refuse to betray our SO like that.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

WonkyNinja said:


> wintervalley said:
> 
> 
> > Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> ...


Thanks for actually seeing the back story to the mistake. And for not shaming me or calling me a POS. 

I'm not saying cheating is ok, but happy people don't cheat, and I've tried to make us happy. 

Now. Your advice on informing him. Would you suggest letting him the latent issues that most likely led to the infidelity or falling on my sword and saying it happened but we have issues to fix? 

Thabk you!


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## Cormano (Aug 22, 2017)

Although Ive never cheated, I would. However, it breaks my heart when i think about my daughters.


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## Sports Fan (Aug 21, 2014)

You need to come clean for any real healing to occur. Despite your reasons you need to own what you did. When telling him do not make excuses. He will either want to end the marriage or give reconciliation a full go.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> Thanks for actually seeing the back story to the mistake. And for not shaming me or calling me a POS.
> 
> I'm not saying cheating is ok, but happy people don't cheat, and I've tried to make us happy.
> 
> ...


Happy people cheat, sad people cheat, but sad or happy one thing is for sure selfish people cheat.


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## doconiram (Apr 24, 2017)

ConanHub said:


> Overcooking spaghetti is a mistake we can all make from time to time.
> 
> Having the wrong penis paint the wrong cervix is not a mistake, it is a choice, and a hell of a lot of us refuse to betray our SO like that.


Absolutely fantastic post.


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## doconiram (Apr 24, 2017)

leon2100 said:


> two answers:
> 1. NO
> 2: HELL NO!


This is positively a craptastic answer. This is the cowardly "advice" my wife followed when she had her affair. She wasn't protecting anything but her own self. You can't fix or address what you do not own up to. 

Should your spouse find out from another source, your chance to have some credibility will be long gone. 

My wife thought she covered her tracks well... and she did. However, the truth eventually found the light of day. Remember, there is at least one other person aside from you who knows the truth. Will he cover his tracks as well and keep his mouth shut forever?


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## WonkyNinja (Feb 28, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> Thanks for actually seeing the back story to the mistake. And for not shaming me or calling me a POS.
> 
> I'm not saying cheating is ok, but happy people don't cheat, and I've tried to make us happy.
> 
> ...


You're welcome.

I agree with you in principle but there are some who cheat just because they get the opportunity and/or are certain they won't get caught. In general though I think you are right, happy people don't cheat. 

Probably a combination of the two. It happened because someone showed some interest in you that should have come from your H. Don't fall on your sword too badly. You did do wrong but then so did he and if you want the marriage to work then he needs to work just as hard. 

You need to think long and hard about how much you want your marriage. If he is not prepared to make a significant effort then do you want to stay knowing that the rest of your life will be like this? 

You may think you are doing your children a favor by staying with their father but you must remember that you are their role model. What you put up with and what you expect from a relationship will shape their own relationships and you have to ask yourself if a sexless affectionless marriage is what you want them to expect of life. My daughter grew up never having seen me and her mother showing any sort of PDA as she didn't like that sort of thing. I am remarried, incredibly happily, and my daughter now gets to see what a real loving relationship looks like. I so wish she could have seen this earlier.

You are not being selfish demanding your own happiness, you will be a far better mother for it as well.


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## Dyokemm (Apr 24, 2013)

OP,

Most of the advice you have received here is to tell.....and I will add my voice to that.

IMO you do not have the right to infantilize your BH and make decisions of this magnitude for him without his knowledge or input.

You betrayed your BH and your vows.....it is your H’s choice on if he wants to remain in a M with someone who could do this to him.

The issues in your M before the ONS have ZERO to do with your poor choice.....to try to connect them is pure blameshifting......and the opposite of taking ownership of your betrayal.

Tell your BH and work to convince him to try fixing your M from the destruction you have wrought.


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## David51 (Sep 12, 2017)

Huh


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> WonkyNinja said:
> 
> 
> > wintervalley said:
> ...


I love these blame shifting posts. Its like the Ray Rice video justifying him knocking the crap out of his wife. "She spit on him and talked sh*t to his face, she deserved getting knocked out and dragged around unconscious"

Get over yourselves. You must have a lot of guilt to sit here and say these actions are justified. OP, you want the advice you want to hear and nothing else. So god help you on your quest to justify your poor decisions and turn the blame around on your husband for all of your bad choices. 

Question, do you often blame him for every wrong move you make? Is it all his fault? If so, no wonder he doesn't want to f*** you. Who would?


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> Thanks for actually seeing the back story to the mistake. And for not shaming me or calling me a POS.
> 
> I'm not saying cheating is ok, but happy people don't cheat, and I've tried to make us happy.
> 
> ...




Wintervalley

This, this post is the poster for resentment in a marriage. The thank you for understanding the back story to your "mistake" is absolutely priceless!! Are you honestly saying that your not having sex led you to cheat, or as you so eloquently state, your mistake? You can't possibly be remorseful, but you are full of resentment and blame shifting. I'm not trying to be mean, but when you fell on your sword, was it the same as falling on OM's penis? Would you believe your husband telling you this if the roles reversed? Just so you know, I support what the OP generally wants, regardless if it is popular choice. 

In your case, if you decide to reconcile, then you need to tell your husband. But if you go forward with telling him and then say it was a mistake and you wouldn't have sex often enough, I caution you. Your husband is going to hit a rage you never thought possible, and for good reason as you blame him. You say you've owned your "mistake", when reality shows you haven't owned shlt. Remorse? Please don't insult any of us with your remorse. If you want to see remorse then listen to @EI, @NJ2, and @LosingHim. They know remorse, and you aren't even near that yet. Tell them you made a mistake, not a choice, and see how well that goes over. These are three posters who have owned their shlt respectively. They can help you in ways you never imagined. 

Flip the roles of you and your husband, picture him coming home and telling you he had a one night stand. Then he says you don't have sex with me often enough, and by the way, it was a mistake. No, you made a choice, a choice fueled with resentment and alcohol. After you did the deed you now realize how wrong that choice was. You have regret, regret that you may now just lose all you had. You don't state if you work, if your husband makes good money, and what your lifestyle is like. So is that something you may be trying to protect by blaming your husband instead of yourself? My wife tried to blame shift to me, I shut that down so hard she had nothing to say. All it took was one little sentence, that had her mute for almost twelve hours. As she tried to blame shift to me, I asked her, did you consult me about banging your OM? No, you didn't, so don't you sit here telling me I caused you to cheat. You made a choice, all on your own, and now you live with that choice. 

My wife's OM told me it was a mistake, the whole affair and sex was a mistake. I looked him in the eye, said having sex with my wife was a mistake? She isn't worth having sex with? Guess what, he was dumbfounded and mute also. He later told his pastor, the pastor agreed, having sex with someone is not a mistake but instead a choice. If you didn't choose to have sex with your OM wintervalley, then you were raped. End your shlt that this was a mistake. That's step one in your recovery. Step two is to own your choice and actions, regardless if the marriage was good or bad. My wife later told me she thought our marriage was over, funny thing is, SHE NEVER TOLD ME THAT. Hopefully you are starting to understand the many nuances to infidelity. Again, I'm not being mean to you, I'm telling you what you will come face to face with. 

If you go to MC your first step is forgiveness. Once forgiveness is completed, then and ONLY then do you begin to work on the marriage. You own fifty percent of the marital problems, your husband the other fifty percent, but the ONS is yours to own one hundred percent. I hope you understand this, I hope you have the strength to really get this. Your choice just nuked the marriage, it's now dead, and each day you don't tell your husband is another day he lives a lie. Each day you don't tell him you protect OM, so if you love him as you say, you will tell him. Give him the choice to stay or leave you, give him the choice to possibly remarry someone who won't make a mistake. Do you now see why it's not called a mistake and instead a choice?


ETA: I'm not shaming you, I'm not being mean, I'm giving you a hard truth about infidelity.


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## aine (Feb 15, 2014)

drifting on said:


> Posted by wintervalley;
> 
> To imply that I don't love my husband because I made a MISTAKE is completely moronic.
> 
> ...


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## Vinnydee (Jan 4, 2016)

I think it is a selfish act to tell your spouse. If you are sorry, just resolve to never do it again. If you tell you are destroying your spouses life and marriage which will never be the same if you remain married. Trust takes a very long time to regain and even then it will never be the same. Every time you do something out of your routine, your spouse will suspect you. Plus they may forgive but never forget. 45 years later and my wife still brings it up and tells me how lucky I am that she is still married to me.

There is no upside for your spouse by knowing. Most tell to alleviate their guilt so that they feel better, much like a criminal confessing to a crime even though he knows he will spend a long time in prison. You tell to make yourself feel better while ruining your spouse's life and view of you. For some reason cheaters think that their spouses will be happy that they came clean and love them more. How can telling your spouse that you are untrustworthy, lied and deceived them but expect them to believe you now. Be prepared because you spouse will bug you for details for a long time. They will need to know exactly what and for how long you did it. You will have to endure her questions and suspicions. Also hearing about it when you fight about anything..

There is no pros, only cons in telling your wife. Why would you need a therapist if you are not going to do it again and your wife is happy not knowing. My wife said that what the eyes do not see, the heart cannot feel. I am lucky in that my wife decided to join me in playing with other women. She was repressing her bisexuality and before I knew it she was bringing her girlfriends home to share with me and moved one into our home and bed for 30 years. Plus my wife had sex with another guy just to see what it was like since she was a virgin when we met. It was a wife swap that she said yes to, not me. She hated it and that is when she started setting up threesomes with her girlfriends. So we were not actually monogamous to begin with. Maybe it was my cheating that changed her from a vanilla virgin into the chick magnet she became. Who knows and who cares.

I told my wife to get rid of my guilt and though she would be happy that I was so honest and guilt ridden. Nope, she just focused on the cheating part. As my example, someone who confesses to a crime out of feelings of guilt, still goes to jail even if they swear it will never happen again or that they are very sorry. Unless you think you will cheat again, no reason to tell your spouse and destroy her world. I am sure that therapist will disagree with each other on this. I now know how hurtful it was for my wife. I could have sucked it up and lived with the guilt and not have to be reminded that I cheated every few months despite our poly triad which was done in the open and with my wife's participation. If you think you cannot control yourself, you go to a therapist who may involve your spouse at the right time. If you now know how bad it feels and will not do it again, let your spouse not see so her heart cannot feel. Ethics and morality aside. Just as you do not tell a woman that she really does look fat in that dress, there are times when it is best not to tell the truth. Everyone does it in their life to spare the feelings of people they care for. It is not really a matter of degree like white lie. It is a lie and does not become good or bad based on degree.


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## Wolf1974 (Feb 19, 2014)

Diana7 said:


> I just don't get how anyone could even think of hiding something so very serious from their spouse. I just haven't got it in me to act that way.


Probably because you have character. Cheaters don’t have such things so it’s very difficult to relate to them


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## leon2100 (May 13, 2015)

No and Hell No... and deny! deny! deny! (for got to add these last three)s


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## leon2100 (May 13, 2015)

in my 75 years on this earth and 52 of those married, I have seen many cases of men who cheated on their wives.... never told them... and continued married and both lived very happy lives. I seen those who have told their wives and remarried and yes, they too went on to have happy live. One size doesn't fit all. 

I always thought the person who confesses has less concern about the other person and more about his own guilt. But, I could be wrong.

This idea of not having secrets may work for some but not for all. I have secrets from my wife and she has secrets from me. I Know! we acknowledge it to each other! For 52 yrs it's worked for us... but I could be wrong.

During various times in our 52 yrs, marriage has been a game, a business, a partnership, an arrangements, a competition, but as we approach the end... its been damn exciting. The mystery keeps it exciting and fresh.

If my wife ever cheated, I wouldn't want to know! my ego couldn't handle it!


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

leon2100 said:


> in my 75 years on this earth and 52 of those married, I have seen many cases of men who cheated on their wives.... never told them... and continued married and both lived very happy lives. I seen those who have told their wives and remarried and yes, they too went on to have happy live. One size doesn't fit all.
> 
> I always thought the person who confesses has less concern about the other person and more about his own guilt. But, I could be wrong.
> 
> ...


 I think there are many of us like myself who believe in honesty and openness in marriage. Also many of us would far far rather know if their spouse had betrayed them in this way. To me its not a marriage if there is deception and lying about something so very important. I have no need to keep secrets, why would I, I am a very honest person. 

I know a lady who found out 17 years after her husband had cheated. She was devastated, not only because of his actions but because of the 17 years of lies and deception. Years later she was still struggling to trust him not surprisingly. She feels that her whole marriage has been a lie. I don't know if they are still together. 

Not telling is the cowards way out.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

Wolf1974 said:


> Probably because you have character. Cheaters don’t have such things so it’s very difficult to relate to them


Clearly. :surprise:
I couldn't sleep at night if I was lying and deceiving my husband in that way. 

To all those who are saying, don't tell, you clearly have a very different idea of marriage than I do. Its not easy to own up, it takes strength and repentance, far easier to find excuses not to, but that's a total cop out and its called being a total coward. 
You cheated, there are consequences, yes one of them maybe that he leaves, that's what happens when you cheat, but put you big girl pants on and tell him.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

I honestly don't understand why anyone would be shocked if they treat their spouse poorly and said spouse becomes vulnerable to someone else.

I get that this is an unpopular viewpoint, but if I basically refused to have sex with my hb and threw him a hurry up and finish once a month how could I be shocked if he became vulnerable to someone who wanted him?

I'd like to think he'd be strong enough to walk away, but if he wasn't its not like I had no part in anything.

I mean, yes it would hurt but we both took vows to each other. This guy has already crapped on his vows.....hers was just bigger.

Here's what i think is the biggest reason to tell him: you can't address anything until you do. He needs to be able to make a decision with his eyes open, and if for some reason he wants the marriage he needs to know that this is what it's come to. He knows you're unhappy with the lack of sex yet has done nothing about it. Maybe, assuming he wants the marriage, this will wake him up. 

If he doesn't....well then he can find another woman that he won't have sex with. Maybe that'll work better for him. 

Or maybe for whatever reason he doesn't want sex with you...... but if that's the case the odds of fixing it are not good. 

You two just sound incompatible.

Tell him and let the chips fall.


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## Malaise (Aug 8, 2012)

@drifting on

I would add @tears


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

I think all of us would want to know if our spouse was cheating ; IMHO that us just a given.

But that doesn't doesn't always mean that immediate disclosure is always a beneficial or productive thing to do.

This marriage has multiple levels of issues and while all of us would would want to know the split second our spouse's pants hit the floor, that doesn't mean that her immediate and full confession will be of any benefit to her BH or to the marriage. 

It would just make the readers if this forum feel better and feel that justice was being done. 

Now, does this means she keeps her little secret as wicked little grin and a pat on her own back as she pulls the wool over her H's eyes and relives the glorious and wildly exotic escapade over and over in her mind while her H is non-the-wiser???

No, she has some serious heavy lifting to do if she wants to have a healthy and productive marriage. 

But my point here is not to keep this as a delicious and deceptive secret and fraud - but rather to seek out professional guidance and approach this mindfully, methodically and with specific sets of objectives in mind. 

This marriage is already on fire. Disclosing the hook up on the fly is essentially throwing a big bucket of gas onto that fire. It will explode out if control and may never be recoverable.

What needs to take place here is a mindful and methodical plan for addressing and dealing with all of the issues plaguing this marriage.

Then during that process if it looks like disclosure is a real-world necessity, it can be addressed in a methodical and controlled manner with a specific objective in mind. 

The question that needs to answered here is will disclosure of this event be of any benefit to the BH, the OP and the marriage. And if so, how can it be done so that it is effective and beneficial vs just throwing gas on a fire.

The question is not will disclosure make other people's wants for justice feel better.


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## fotf17 (Sep 25, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> He's 36. We were together 3 years before we got married. It wasn't sex all the time then either, but it was significantly more than now and he even initiated it. After we or married and I got pregnant, basically all intimacy stopped. The pregnancy he wanted. Then the second one right after. And it's not like I got fat and sloppy. I'm the same weight and build now that I was pre-pregnancies.
> 
> He won't go to a doctor about it. He won't go to a therapist on his own. In previous conversations, he's agreed to marriage counseling, but never sex counseling. He just always says he'll do better and never does.
> 
> I don't know why. But honestly. It breaks me almost every day to not feel wanted but to want him. Both physically and emotionally. It breaks me to feel like he doesn't want me but we have these kids that HE wanted. I'm not saying it makes what happened ok. But I'm broken almost every day.


I won't judge you here, or assume you're a awful person.

For you current question (to tell or not), I don't think it's entirely productive to harp on how things were before - you should never have had your one night stand (you obviously know this), and should have addressed the problem before hand. You said you tried countless times to get him to do something about it, but he refused. You should have looked to separate before the ONS, then. But that's a lot of "should have's." They all add up to "didn't."

Your marriage is/was clearly incompatible - you had needs, and he has refused to make an effort to meet them. (As someone who craves physical affection, I empathize with and can understand that.) That's obviously on him - as a spouse, he owes it to you to actually try, not just give lip service. BUT that's still not an excuse to cheat. 

That all being said, you absolutely should tell him. As a human being with a shred of decency, you ought to tell him. This will either be a (1) kick in the pants to get him to address his issues, or (2), the first domino in what will ultimately end your marriage. And I'm not so sure you'd be entirely unhappy in either case.


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## VladDracul (Jun 17, 2016)

Diana7 said:


> You cheated, there are consequences, yes one of them maybe that he leaves, that's what happens when you cheat, but put you big girl pants on and tell him.


Unless you're giving him a "**** or get of the pot" message, telling him is not likely to improve your romantic life with him. Chances are however, his attitude toward sex will continue and one day, out of frustration, you'll blurt it out and will have likely slept with others. And who can blame you. And only you know the degree of fulfillment you got from the other man despite the temporary "buyer's remorse" you now feel. Your husband knows the romantic expectations in a marriage and its his choice whether or not to give some priority to his wife, fulfilling his "duties" as a husband. 
Bottom line, I think I'd tell him and give him the opportunity to get with the program or get out. Seems a win, win, for you. Why spend the next 5-10 years or more pigeoned holed waiting for him love you like you want.


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## Married but Happy (Aug 13, 2013)

We discussed this (and many other serious issues) before we married, and on this topic agreed that we would not tell each other because we would not want to know - as long as it were likely we'd get away with it. On the other hand, we're poly, have an open relationship (where we do disclose when we are seeing or want to see other people), so we're not typical of most couples. In the OP's situation, with her dysfunctional sexual dynamic with her sex-avoidant husband, we'd just split up anyway, and not confess in that scenario either.


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## michzz (Jun 6, 2008)

The best marriages incorporate the ideal of informed consent.

What does that mean?

It means "we" are in this by agreeing to the terms of the marriage vow 
"we" took at the start.

It also means that either of us decide that "I" cannot abide by that agreement, that we discuss changing the agreement.

It also means that if either of "us" decides to introduce the risk of exposure to STDs, that respect for the other should kick in and that person must tell the other that they've risked their health unilaterally.

OK, notice how dry and legalistically I posited the answer above? That was on purpose. I wanted to address the marriage contract part of the relationship.

Seems cold and lifeless, right?

Now, onto the guts of the marriage. The better or worse part of it.

We all get the happy "better" part. But the horrible "worse" part? It is a matter of degree.

Examples of stressors I personally have endured that I feel are reasonable:


Poverty
Who does what chores.
Child-rearing issues
Where to live

I have another list of things I do not think are reasonable:


Cheating
Violence
Abuse
Boozing or drugs
Theft
Lying

All I can say in the end to the OP, that as a man, realizing that my ex-wife had another man's spunk inside her as she later was intimate with me--on many occasions--is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my 59 years.

It damaged me forever; emotionally, physically, and sexually. I mean that with no exaggeration. Her affair resulted in my throat cancer years later since she infected me with an HPV strain that causes it.

Let that sink in. My ultimate demise will be the result of me being intimate with a secretive wife who couldn't be bothered to let me know that she was intimate with another man. If she had let me know? I would not have cancer today, I'd never have been intimate with her again.

Informed consent is important as a way to protect one's health and emotional well-being.

The irony of all this is that the HPV cleared from her body, but not mine.

Cheers.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Diana7 said:


> Clearly. :surprise:
> I couldn't sleep at night if I was lying and deceiving my husband in that way.
> 
> To all those who are saying, don't tell, you clearly have a very different idea of marriage than I do. Its not easy to own up, it takes strength and repentance, far easier to find excuses not to, but that's a total cop out and its called being a total coward.
> You cheated, there are consequences, yes one of them maybe that he leaves, that's what happens when you cheat, but put you big girl pants on and tell him.


It's not just marriage. How can you have a good life if you don't live an authentic life. 

Think about these WS, lots of times they say they desperately love their AP and yet they don't have the motivation to spend 100% of their life with them. When I am in love I want to spend my whole being with that person. Not these people even their AP gets half. They also spend the other half their time on their BS. So in a sense they cheat even their AP out of having a true relationships (not feeling bad for the AP but it is true.)


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

lifeistooshort said:


> I honestly don't understand why anyone would be shocked if they treat their spouse poorly and said spouse becomes vulnerable to someone else.
> 
> I get that this is an unpopular viewpoint, but if I basically refused to have sex with my hb and threw him a hurry up and finish once a month how could I be shocked if he became vulnerable to someone who wanted him?
> 
> ...


I could see not being shocked but many times WS get some therapy and realize what they were feeling wasn't the truth. Even so it doesn't excuse the cheating, in the same way if someone is in your face yelling at you it doesn't give you the right to punch them in the face.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> I think all of us would want to know if our spouse was cheating ; IMHO that us just a given.
> 
> But that doesn't doesn't always mean that immediate disclosure is always a beneficial or productive thing to do.
> 
> ...


Whether she likes it or not her cheating is the primary issue that is plaguing the marriage now. It doesn't go away if it is never spoken of.


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## TDSC60 (Dec 8, 2011)

I have not read over every response to the original post so if someone has already mentioned this, I apologise for repeating.

Having a drunken ONS with a person who was basically unknown to you raises the question did you use protection? If not, you have to get tested for STD. Keep in mind that some of the more serious STDs don't show up on a test for months after the encounter. 

So if your husband approaches you for sex, you either tell him the truth or deny him or possibly expose him to a serious disease.


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## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

Wintervalley,

I think it also needs to be said that in spite of what you did, I do feel empathy for your situation, and perhaps other posters do too.

Speaking for myself it feels like I was not just being invalidated as a man but that I was invalidated as a human being when my marriage turned sexless. 

Oftentimes too the lack of a real or believable explanation only makes things worse as you watch the years of your life pass away, you wonder if you will be too old for sex by the time they get their drive back. It leads to a desperation for love and passion that just gnaws at you. 

Having said that, I don't condone what you did and also believe you need to confess without minimizing or omission but I understand why you did it. Honestly even making out with some woman would be a dream for me now but the consequences are too high. 

Tamat


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## Malaise (Aug 8, 2012)

TDSC60 said:


> I have not read over every response to the original post so if someone has already mentioned this, I apologise for repeating.
> 
> Having a drunken ONS with a person who was basically unknown to you raises the question did you use protection? If not, you have to get tested for STD. Keep in mind that some of the more serious STDs don't show up on a test for months after the encounter.
> 
> So if your husband approaches you for sex, you either tell him the truth or deny him or possibly expose him to a serious disease.


I'd like to know how many people in a drunken ONS have the prudence to wear protection. 

I'd guess that most , if not all, just go at it.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

sokillme said:


> Whether she likes it or not her cheating is the primary issue that is plaguing the marriage now. It doesn't go away if it is never spoken of.


Look back at my previous two posts, I am not saying that it should never be spoken of.

I am saying that it is part if a bigger picture and should be addressed as part of a comprehensive plan under professional guidance.

And that is assuming that the disclosure is determined to be of a greater benefit.

If after thorough evaluation she decides she doesn't want to remain married anyway, then there is no point of disclosing.

If when approached with a demand for MC, her husband declares he doesn't want to work on the marriage and is cool with divorcing or simply living as roommates and coparents, then again there is no point.

I am not saying to never disclose. 

I am saying do not disclose as a knee-jerk reaction to a sense of guilt.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> Look back at my previous two posts, I am not saying that it should never be spoken of.
> 
> I am saying that it is part if a bigger picture and should be addressed as part of a comprehensive plan under professional guidance.
> 
> ...


I agree. If she wants to end the marriage then don't disclose no point.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

sokillme said:


> I agree. If she wants to end the marriage then don't disclose no point.


And if she truly does want to save the marriage and have it be a reasonably healthy and happy marriage, the there is A LOT of very heavy lifting from both the OP and her H. 

Her hook up is a component of those issues, but it is just a component of a large and complex dynamic. 

Disclosure of the romp may or may not be beneficial to the big picture and the ultimate outcome.

Coming to that decision point needs to be methodical, with a purpose and under professional guidance.


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## Malaise (Aug 8, 2012)

michzz said:


> The best marriages incorporate the ideal of informed consent.
> 
> What does that mean?
> 
> ...


 @michzz

What was her reaction when you told her this?


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

I would have left a long time ago! Being a sexless single? Sure.

Being a sexless spouse? Hell no!!

OP, it is good and bad that you are conflicted.

It shows you have real feelings for your husband and also that you are upset with yourself for your behavior.

Unfortunately, you are in a nearly sexless marriage and that is just cruel.

Make sure to keep your marital issues separate from your infidelity.

The infidelity is all yours to own. The sexless marriage is his bad decision.

They are two separate issues.

MC was a must before your infidelity but now your bad choice needs to be added to the soup.

Be brave and see if you can work it out.

Seriously, do not have sex with your husband until he knows about what you did and that you were tested.

From everything you have said, shouldn't be a problem but you need to fess up if you want to work on your marriage because if he gets better on his end, sex will be on the menu again.

I can't honestly see your situation getting worse. You need to get laid!

Having a husband and children with all the responsibility that comes with and no nooky???!!!

Bad all around!

Own your ugly and see if your H is going to own his(again two different issues). If he won't start knocking your brains out, you need to move on.

It can be hard to think when your emotions are messed up.

Take a deep breath and have something soothing.

Be calm for when your H gets home.

Has he ever been known to lose his temper badly?

Don't want the kids around but if you could be worried about your safety, best wait to fess up with the counselor present.

That is another thing. Without coming clean with counseling, it will not be very effective.


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## michzz (Jun 6, 2008)

Malaise said:


> @michzz
> 
> What was her reaction when you told her this?


It evolved over time from complete denial, that I must have done something to get exposed. to then saying she never intended to hurt me, to utter shock when the cancer arrived a few years after parting.

She still doesn't own up to infecting me directly. However, when I said I would not be paying her any more support, (thousands!), she didn't fight it.


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

oldshirt said:


> I think all of us would want to know if our spouse was cheating ; IMHO that us just a given.


Nope, not all. I told my wife I do not wish to know. For me, the most fitting punishment for her cheating is to live with the guilt. I want her to take the secret to her grave. I see no reason to allow her to alleviate her guilt at my expense. Why? So she can claim to be open and honest with me? A little late for that. She should have done that on the way up to the guy's hotel room. At least that way I could have planned an appropriate reception for her when she got home.

But then again, I don't expect my marriage to ever be satisfying. I guess if I had a good marriage I would want to know so we could work together to address whatever made her vulnerable to someone else's attention.

But OP has a crap marriage. So no need to punish her spouse by throwing his inadequacy in his face. I advise her to tell him she can't stand to remain married to him and is filing for divorce. If he offers to work on things, tell him it is too little too late and she is done and gone.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> And if she truly does want to save the marriage and have it be a reasonably healthy and happy marriage, the there is A LOT of very heavy lifting from both the OP and her H.
> 
> Her hook up is a component of those issues, but it is just a component of a large and complex dynamic.
> 
> ...




I agree with most of your posts here on TAM, but I'm not sure I can back this one. From my perspective, if I attended MC and my wife told me all that I did wrong, I'd say ok and start to work. But if I found out later that she cheated, I'd be pissed that I'm doing work and she was busy banging other men. Wait, bad example, I lived that!! My point being this put a huge dent in my marriage. I mean the car is now totaled and I'm standing with parts to fix it. If OP wants her marriage she should have an appointment with the MC before she even gets home. She then tells her husband MC was a long time coming and at the first appointment the ONS is revealed. 

All of the problems must be laid out first, then they are prioritized and worked on from there. Obviously her "mistake" is first. After all why work on the other issues if OP's husband can't get past the cheating. What if the ONS is revealed later after months of MC and then once revealed the husband cannot get past the infidelity? Why waste everyone's time and money? 

Op I understand you are not liking the position you currently find yourself in, but you chose to be in this position too. Your husband withholding sex is wrong, and all that time you begged for change and sex, you chose to stay with him. Your husband is not innocent, but I know of very few people who deserve to be cheated on, if any. If all you said to OM is that you are married to stop him isn't much of a shut down. To go from a simple touch on the back to a bedroom isn't much more of a defense. Your husband will have issues in these areas, as do I. My wife fell for comments, yet I always said how beautiful she is, OM says it and it's off to bed. This is why I say you have resentment, and your husbands bad behavior has allowed you to justify what you did IN THE MOMENT. After the deed is done comes the questioning of yourself. 

What do you think your husband will do if you tell him? Have you told your own parents? Have you told anyone besides here? Best of luck.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

drifting on said:


> I agree with most of your posts here on TAM, but I'm not sure I can back this one. From my perspective, if I attended MC and my wife told me all that I did wrong, I'd say ok and start to work. But if I found out later that she cheated, I'd be pissed that I'm doing work and she was busy banging other men. Wait, bad example, I lived that!! My point being this put a huge dent in my marriage. I mean the car is now totaled and I'm standing with parts to fix it. If OP wants her marriage she should have an appointment with the MC before she even gets home. She then tells her husband MC was a long time coming and at the first appointment the ONS is revealed.
> 
> All of the problems must be laid out first, then they are prioritized and worked on from there. Obviously her "mistake" is first. After all why work on the other issues if OP's husband can't get past the cheating. What if the ONS is revealed later after months of MC and then once revealed the husband cannot get past the infidelity? Why waste everyone's time and money?
> 
> ...



You may disagree with me but the things you are saying aren't really all that far off from I said.

My position is for her to consult a professional on her own first (IC) and then let the professional prioritize the issues and work with her on developing a plan.

And that plan may or may not include disclosure of the romp at all depending on a wide variety of complex issues.


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

wintervalley said:


> *What exactly did you find introspectively?* I've asked my husband numerous times what I can do to help and he never has a reply. So I'm just wondering *what you found that helped you *so I know where to start since he has no help for me.


In reading MW Davis Sex Starved Marriage she points out that almost all the time it takes two to destroy a marriage. That people do a kind of devil dance or downward spiral where they each pull back and emotionally check out of their marriage. She also points out that one partner can change the dynamic in a relationship so that change is possible. That partner can not insure positive change will happen, but they can change the dynamic. M.W. Davis also shows how you can change your own life and fix yourself and how to implement 180's to change the marriage dynamic.

You need to understand that you can't force your H to change.

In reading Chapmans 5 languages of love, I learned that my wife was an act of service and quality time love language person and I was touch and words of affirmation. That meant that when I wanted to express my "emotional (not sexual) love" for my wife, I would touch her hand, her shoulder, hug her, etc. She misunderstood my wanting to physically say I love you and told me to stop always "pawing at her body to get in her pants." When I wanted to express my emotional love for my wife, I would do so in my love language of words of affirmation. My wife told me to "stop buttering her up to just get in her pants."

She rejected my expressions of love and that hurt deeply.

I learned from Chapman that my wife learned from her mother that the cooking a husband a hot meal when he got home from work was an act of service and her highest form of saying "I love you." When I would get home from work late, without calling and the dinner would be burned, she was beyond anger, as if she had told me she loved me and I had slapped her in the face. When she yelled at me, I would gobble down the dinner and race to the living room and hide before the TV. That destroyed her quality time at the dinner table and just made her more angry.

We were each saying "i Love you" to our spouse, but couldn't hear it and made the other feel unloved by rejecting the expressions of love.

Ultimately, I tried to do "acts of service" such as more chores around the house. She felt that they were just my doing my fair share of the shores no matter how much I did. I read Glover's No More Mr. Nice Guy and realized that my "chore acts of service" were really a covert contract to try to get the emotional codependent validation I needed from my wife. It took a lot of 180 trial and error, but ultimately I stumbled upon a couple of rituals that helped make my wife feel loved and cherished in her love languages.

I bring her coffee in bed in the morning as an act of service that has nothing to do with chores. We then drink coffee together and wake up together and discuss our respective days. She starts her day with quality time and an act of service. She starts her day feeling loved and cherished.

At night I always come home by a certain agreed upon time or I call even if I will only be 5 minutes late due to traffic. I also when I get home, start making the salad as that is not the "hot dinner she is cooking as an act of service. Then when she gets home from work, and the salad is completed, I will become the assistant to the chef. I will chop vegetables for her to add to the dinner she is cooking, I will get an appropriate bottle of wine, I will stir things so she can do more creative aspects of dinner preparation. In short, I do support things so she can express even great love through her creation of dinner. Then when dinner is ready we will talk over the kitchen table and discuss our days.

At the beginning and end of each day I provide her with acts of service and quality time so she feels loved in her love languages. Now that she feels loved and cherished she is more willing to express love to me in my love languages.

That was when we started to go to a nationally known sex therapist for counseling. Ultimately, after a lot of hard work my wife realized that if sex was not part of the marriage, it would end and she didn't want it to end. It took about a year to make enough progress from when I started to realize my role in the troubled marriage until things improved to the point that we both committed to rebuild our marriage. 

One of the things that our sex therapist did was to have us visualize what we felt a good marriage would look like in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years and focus on the future and making a good marriage.

Good luck.

P.S. A couple of the hardest things I had to learn were that (1) my spouse wasn't damaged goods that needed to be fixed (we just needed to negotiate a new set of expectations and promises to each other) and (2) I had to let go of all my anger at being the victim of a frigid wife, before I could understand that it wasn't all her fault and that I also needed to apologize to her for what I had done to help destroy our marriage.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> You may disagree with me but the things you are saying aren't really all that far off from I said.
> 
> My position is for her to consult a professional on her own first (IC) and then let the professional prioritize the issues and work with her on developing a plan.
> 
> And that plan may or may not include disclosure of the romp at all depending on a wide variety of complex issues.




I think non disclosure while going to an IC or an MC would be a huge disaster. Just the ethics alone should have you feeling you should report that therapist to the states licensing board. No matter the complex issues, advocating to lie, disregard trust, and not informing one of infidelity to be abhorrent to the betrayed spouse. Health insurance portability and accountability act prevents the therapist from disclosing the infidelity, but to then advocate from admitting the infidelity is ethically wrong. Therapists are not to be advocating for such behaviors.


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## Dyokemm (Apr 24, 2013)

Wolf1974 said:


> Probably because you have character. Cheaters don’t have such things so it’s very difficult to relate to them


I also cannot fathom how a person can do it.

And I don’t mean not telling.....THAT I understand, though IMO it is just pure selfishness.

What I can never understand is the twisted logic where the WS ACTUALLY convinces themselves that their silence about so heinous a betrayal is really a noble self-sacrifice where they will ‘carry the burden’ for their poor, innocent BS.

What a load of crap!

But the amazing thing is they really believe it.

I have said this before......a lot of human beings, for the most part, DO NOT live their lives according to true principles and values.

Instead, many people decide what they want to do first, then twist logic to justify that choice as the ‘right’ thing to do.

Personally.....I do everything to avoid such people in life, or if possible remove them altogether.

They are untrustworthy......and a convenient set of circumstances away at any moment from stabbing you in the back.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

drifting on said:


> I think non disclosure while going to an IC or an MC would be a huge disaster. Just the ethics alone should have you feeling you should report that therapist to the states licensing board. No matter the complex issues, advocating to lie, disregard trust, and not informing one of infidelity to be abhorrent to the betrayed spouse. Health insurance portability and accountability act prevents the therapist from disclosing the infidelity, but to then advocate from admitting the infidelity is ethically wrong. Therapists are not to be advocating for such behaviors.


That is not for any of us to determine. 

If you think that all therapists and counselors always urge the WS to disclose to the BS, you would be quite mistaken. 

In IC the client is the paying customer requesting the counseling. The IC will advocate for the best interests of the client and not necessarily for any 3rd parties. 

In MC the client is often the marriage itself and not necessarily either of the spouses as an individual. 

In cases where the IC believes that disclosure is of no benefit to the client or may bring the client more problems or even danger, they will often not advocate discloser. 

And I imagine that there are some specific instances where even an MC will not advocate disclosure if he/she believes that the disclosure will bring more harm than good to the marriage or personal danger to any of the players. 

Therapists/counselors are not the moral police or enforcers of moral principle. They have professional and ethical standards, but those standards and ethics are not necessarily the same as former BS's on an internet forum. 

After peeling through the layers and assessing the comprehensive overview of the OP's situation and issues, an IC may or may not believe that it is in HER best interests to disclose. 

If he/she does believe it is in her best interests to disclose, then he/she will help her formulate a strategy and plan for how best to do so that will have the greatest chances of success for her objectives. 

If he/she does not believe it is in her best interests for whatever reason(s), he/she will help her formulate a plan for how to move forward with life and deal with her feelings and complexities of the situation. 

That concept may be repugnant to people who self-identify with the BS, but it is what it is. 

The bottom line is there are situations where disclosing a roll in the hay at an out of town wedding is not in anyone's best interest when looked at in the big picture.


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## toblerone (Oct 18, 2016)

winter, first you have to admit you were open to the possibility of cheating on your husband long before it happened.

You purposefully put yourself in a situation where it could become a possibility, and you purposefully made it happen.

Before you planned to cheat on your husband: did you ever take the time to find out why your husband doesn't want to have sex with you?


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

toblerone said:


> winter, first you have to admit you were open to the possibility of cheating on your husband long before it happened.
> 
> You purposefully put yourself in a situation where it could become a possibility, and you purposefully made it happen.
> 
> Before you planned to cheat on your husband: did you ever take the time to find out why your husband doesn't want to have sex with you?


That question was covered. She is bending over backwards trying to find out what is up with him.

Her cheating only muddies the waters more but she absolutely has been doing everything she can, short of drugging him, to get him to have sex with her or go to a doctor or counselor to figure out what is going on.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> That is not for any of us to determine.
> 
> If you think that all therapists and counselors always urge the WS to disclose to the BS, you would be quite mistaken.
> 
> ...




While I understand all you have written above I still stand by what I said. You are assuming OP's husband would be violent, when nothing of violence was ever mentioned. It's a classic straw man argument. As for OP she has only said she was in a sexless marriage, nothing about abuse, nothing about his details as a father. Had there been any abuse or the fact he was a poor father I think it would have been brought up. I will tell you I have knowledge about therapists and the medical field. The use of deceit is an absolute last resort. So again, if you find a therapist who advocates for deceit, you may want to find another. They usually don't last very long in this field by advocating what is the easy thing to do. Why? Because no healing is ever done by continuing and advocating to deceive another. Who is to say that a year from now OP reports to the licensing board that she lied because her therapist saw it as the best answer. If no violence detected that therapist will be in a bad situation regarding their license.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

drifting on said:


> While I understand all you have written above I still stand by what I said. You are assuming OP's husband would be violent, when nothing of violence was ever mentioned. It's a classic straw man argument. As for OP she has only said she was in a sexless marriage, nothing about abuse, nothing about his details as a father. Had there been any abuse or the fact he was a poor father I think it would have been brought up. I will tell you I have knowledge about therapists and the medical field. The use of deceit is an absolute last resort. So again, if you find a therapist who advocates for deceit, you may want to find another. They usually don't last very long in this field by advocating what is the easy thing to do. Why? Because no healing is ever done by continuing and advocating to deceive another. Who is to say that a year from now OP reports to the licensing board that she lied because her therapist saw it as the best answer. If no violence detected that therapist will be in a bad situation regarding their license.



You are putting words in my mouth that I have never said. 

I have not said one word about violence or the husbands fathering abilities. 

All I said was that therapists/counselors do not always insist on disclosure for every single incidence of cheating. 

I assume that most of the time they probably do advocate disclosure in real world practice, but that is most certainly not an absolute or an across-the-board thing. If they believe that it won't be of benefit and/or that it may cause more trouble, they will most likely not advocate it. 

That's all I said. I didn't say a single word about the OP's H being violent or a word about his fathering ability or lack there of.


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## skerzoid (Feb 7, 2017)

Have you threatened divorce? What he is doing IS grounds for divorce. Sex is a basic human need, and he is being abusive. I don't defend your cheating, you chose poorly, but he needs some sort of treatment, whether medical or mental. If not then your having him served may get his lazy ass in gear. Whether he can perform or not, that is a basic "duty". I feel for you.


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## VladDracul (Jun 17, 2016)

drifting on said:


> Your husband withholding sex is wrong,


My observation is that the phrase "withholding sex" is usually used in the wrong context. "Withholding sex" is a temporary state where a spouse may be mad, sick, et cetera, and doesn't feel romantic at the moment or a short period of time where sexual desire returns when the crises is over. Often the phrase is used as a euphemism for, "my spouse has no sexual desire for me". 

Regarding this guy's culpability in his wife's sexual "misdemeanor", my thoughts are found in the agreement and expectations of marriage itself. Reasonable sex frequency, among many other things, are expected to be an integral part of marriage, with the exception of prior knowledge or understanding. As under contract law, if one party breaches the contract, the other can seek remedies. My caveat is that oftentimes the remedy is finding a subcontractor rather than canceling the entire contract.


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## x598 (Nov 14, 2012)

lifeistooshort said:


> I honestly don't understand why anyone would be shocked if they treat their spouse poorly and said spouse becomes vulnerable to someone else.
> 
> I get that this is an unpopular viewpoint, but if I basically refused to have sex with my hb and threw him a hurry up and finish once a month how could I be shocked if he became vulnerable to someone who wanted him?
> 
> ...


"don't understand why someone treats their spouse poorly and said spouse become vulnerable"


LTS i completely AGREE with that viewpoint. However, here is the fatal flaw in that logic. Most waywards that come here are looking for ways to SAVE their marriage. That right there alone tells me their description of their horrible neglectful spouse is inaccurate, over blown, or flat out false.

It been said from others on this site, and i completely agree......why hide it? I mean just up and quit and go have all the sex you want! these cheaters and their affairs if they REALLY were about anything other than an escape or fantasy, there would be considerably more divorces than there already is and with a lot less drama and fighting about it.....just run off with MR or MRS wonderful and be done with it. Instead we see the waywards coming here blame shifting, minimizing and so forth.......lets cut through all the BS......the fact that the OP wants to stay with her husband says it all.


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## samyeagar (May 14, 2012)

x598 said:


> "don't understand why someone treats their spouse poorly and said spouse become vulnerable"
> 
> 
> LTS i completely AGREE with that viewpoint. However, here is the fatal flaw in that logic. Most waywards that come here are looking for ways to SAVE their marriage. That right there alone tells me their description of their horrible neglectful spouse is inaccurate, over blown, or flat out false.
> ...


The drawback to singleness is that one finds them selves responsible for them self, their choices, their decisions, supporting themselves, lack of safety net. Self sufficiency is a terrifyingly high price for some people to pay.


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

There are many reasons why people cheat. None of them are valid reasons to cheat. For those who are dealing with difficulties in their marriages and they cheat due to not having their needs met, the WS should have done something to change the marriage or left the marriage rather than cheating. If someone isn't getting their needs met in the marriage, cheating isn't the answer, but that doesn't negate the fact that someone was wrong in the marriage.

Not all WS who cheat rewrite history. Some of them sincerely were trying to resolve the problems in their marriage, but finally hit a wall and made a fatal error by cheating. This brings about a situation where the WS who wants their marriage to work comes here and tells their story. The cheating doesn't change the facts. They were responding incorrectly to the difficulties in their marriage and now want help. Unfortunately now the adultery has added another layer to the marriage problems.

Assuming that the OP has rewritten history is pointless. Ask questions to see if there is more to the situation and get to the bottom of it, but don't automatically assume that the cheating spouses story is a complete fabrication.


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## WonkyNinja (Feb 28, 2013)

It is all fairly irrelevant now as the TAM attack pack appears to have successfully chased off another person that came looking for impartial advice.


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## TheDudeLebowski (Oct 10, 2017)

WonkyNinja said:


> It is all fairly irrelevant now as the TAM attack pack appears to have successfully chased off another person that came looking for impartial advice.


Impartial advice was given. Some people even attempted to defend a WS here. Truth is you are going to receive a lot of harsh criticism when you engage in an affair regardless of the relationship forum you choose to visit. 

Blaming TAM members for voicing their criticisms of such a cruel act and scaring off the OP is nonsense. If she didn't cheat and was asking about the relationship issues, the advice would certainly be different. When you cheat, you are going to receive the criticism you deserve for your poor choices. Its not TAM member's fault that some posters run after given harsh truths about their actions.


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## Jessica38 (Feb 28, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned.
> 
> Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> 
> ...


Yes, you tell him. Here’s why:

You’ve broken your marriage vows and your husband gets to decide for himself if you are worth the excruciating pain of humiliating himself through reconciliation. The fact that you haven’t moved mountains to get home to him during this crisis tells me you probably aren’t.

Your decision to betray your family means that your children get to know exactly what their father is dealing with by either choosing to reconcile with you or choosing to preserve his self-respect by leaving you.

If you do not tell him, it will destroy the intimacy between you.

If you do not tell him so he can implement extraordinary precautions to keep this from happening to his family again (if he chooses to R with you), you will do it again because you have horrible boundaries around the opposite sex.

You both deserve to recover from this, even if your husband decides to do it without you. It’s his choice, not yours.


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## David51 (Sep 12, 2017)

I preferred to be blissfully ignorant


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

David51 said:


> I preferred to be blissfully ignorant


That may be true, but you cannot keep secrets about your relationship while simultaneously having a deep, intimate, truthful relationship.


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## David51 (Sep 12, 2017)

CynthiaDe said:


> That may be true, but you cannot keep secrets about your relationship while simultaneously having a deep, intimate, truthful relationship.



So if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? 



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

David51 said:


> So if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?


Of course it does. And when a spouse cheats on his/her spouse, it makes waves that deeply impact the relationship. Usually the betrayed spouse is left wondering what is wrong, but they cannot put their finger on it.


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## Dyokemm (Apr 24, 2013)

David51 said:


> I preferred to be blissfully ignorant
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


I respect your absolute right to choose this......

But I hope you realize it is a MINORITY choice in the population.....and not just about infidelity.

Almost any person would want to know if a co-worker was badmouthing them, their employer or the police were investigating them, if a criminal was embezzling funds from their bank accounts, etc......and these things PALE in comparison to whether their intimate partner is playing them false.

That said.....I actually do personally know someone who always shared your opinion on this.

I don’t understand it.....but I can respect it as a choice for YOU.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

WonkyNinja said:


> It is all fairly irrelevant now as the TAM attack pack appears to have successfully chased off another person that came looking for impartial advice.




If you are including me in the "pack" then I guess I'm beyond a reasonable doubt guilty. However, the OP came here saying she has owned her cheating, yet did nothing but blame shift. She claimed that it was a mistake, when clearly she made a choice. A male hand touched her back and she immediately said "I'm married". Next thing she knows she's in a bed having sex and fell on a sword. Morning after she realizes she wants to save her marriage all the while blame shifting to her husband. Then comes to TAM to determine if she should even announce this mistake. 

I called her out on her choice, hoping she could learn before going back to her husband. It was my hope she wouldn't tell her husband while basically blaming him, that would go over like a lead balloon. Op had choices her entire marriage and those choices were to stay. Nothing changed in her marriage, she stated so, and her husband was wrong in my opinion. Yet she still chose to stay, but now is deciding to hide her cheating or tell her husband. I said if she wanted to divorce then don't tell and file once she was home. If she wanted her marriage, which I believe she wants, then she needs to tell her husband. 

If OP has decided to run away from TAM, well so be it, that is also her choice. Although I wouldn't doubt she feels as if she were attacked, hurt because nobody can see the "victim", and couldn't garner much support. I didn't think any of my posts were attacking, although sometimes people respond harshly when told the truth. Truth is she cheated, may feel used and regretful, but I can't see it as shaming. She was given good advice in my opinion by many here, @oldshirt gave great advice although I disagree, but still she got good advice.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

David51 said:


> I preferred to be blissfully ignorant
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


So you are ok being married to someone who is deceiving you to such an extent?


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## Malaise (Aug 8, 2012)

David51 said:


> I preferred to be blissfully ignorant
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Ask @michzz about that.


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## aine (Feb 15, 2014)

There is no such thing as blissful ignorance. You may not know but the ramifications will become apparent. Cheating and lying about it is like a hidden cancer that eats away at the fabric and foundation of the marriage, something gives eventually and usually the marriage will either muddle along or collapse. No marriage can survive willful deception. The betrayed party will know in their gut and if the WS has any humanity, guilt will surface.


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## Malaise (Aug 8, 2012)

aine said:


> There is no such thing as blissful ignorance. You may not know but the ramifications will become apparent. Cheating and lying about it is like a hidden cancer that eats away at the fabric and foundation of the marriage, something gives eventually and usually *the marriage will either muddle along or collapse. *No marriage can survive willful deception. The betrayed party will know in their gut and if the WS has any humanity, guilt will surface.


And you'll have no idea why, being blissfully ignorant.


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

CynthiaDe said:


> That may be true, but you cannot keep secrets about your relationship while simultaneously having a deep, intimate, truthful relationship.


Not all of us are trying to have deep, intimate, truthful relationships.

That is a great aspirational goal. But not always achievable. Some people, once they realize it is unattainable in their current marriage, promptly divorce. Some people choose to muddle along. For those of us who choose to muddle, ignorance may well be more blissful than knowing. If I know in my heart I am going to stay with her even if I know she cheated, I would rather not know she cheated.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

I didn't run off. I just opted to stop responding for a bit as I've noticed a lot of the responses assumed a lot about me, my marriage, my husband, and my life. And they just seemed to be from a lot of bitter, emotional, cheated on spouses. 

So I'll address some things. And yes, I am sure many of you will think this is me further not taking responsibility for MY MISTAKE, but so be it. 

My husband is not violent. At all. At least not with me. He is a wonderful man who emotionally, whenever I need him, he is there. Which is why I fell in love with him, married him, gave up my career and life basically to be the mother to his children, followed him to a place I do not want to live in any way, and continue to tell him that he needs to change or the next time the kids and I visit family, we won't be coming back, but we always come back. 

My husband also doesn't seem to care one bit about my sexual needs, no matter how many times I tell him about them and the grave consequences they are creating for our marriage. 

I am not a pathetic woman who doesn't divorce her husband for fear of having to take care of myself. I have a MWS from a highly respected university, I own a business, I currently generate income for our home as a SAHM by nannying another child, and I have 9 years experience as a journalist, photographer and videographer. If we were to divorce, there would be no fear of the unknown or how I'd survive. I would manage quite well for myself and my kids. However, currently, in my marriage, I am a SAHM because that was the agreement WE made when we got married. Along with a few others that he has abandoned care for. 

To say it's a choice not a mistake is showing a clear misunderstanding of the English language. A choice can be a mistake. They are not mutually exclusive. Don't be so stupid and try to nitpick at words to make yourself feel better about shaming someone. 

To say that the history of my marriage has no bearing on the mistake I made is like saying that a poorly performing employee had no bearing in the choice of the boss for firing them. Choices are made by influence. Am I saying that justifies what I did? Absolutely not. But. There was cause for my actions, I didn't just fly 4,000 miles from a flawless marriage, drop my panties in the middle of a room of men and say 'who's taking up on this?!'. Not even remotely close to that type of situation. 

The fact that I have not 'moved mountains' to get back home to my husband is a stupid thing to say. To change our flights (mine and my 2 kids') would cost more than we can afford on top of the fact that my husband works full-time and this week at work is an incredibly stressful and tedious week that has him bringing work home. So for us to come home early at all would actually be a huge inconvenience and stressor to him when he mentally prepared for having this week as a work only week. Then to suggest that I tell him of my infidelity on top of that? Yes, I can see where that would be suuuuuuper productive for us all. 

I agree that I did something horribly wrong. And after quite a bit of sage, logical advice that didn't seemed like it was fueled by the anger of their own betrayal, I have done a lot of reflecting on my marriage, my time away from my husband now, our time together before we were married, myself, and our life as a whole. I've actually already set up IC and then from there, she will recommend the best MC for us. But, in my reflection, I found that there is a lot more than just these past 3 years that needs to be addressed, to include his own wandering self during our dating years. Maybe I had latent resentment from that? Who knows? I don't at this time. I just know there is a lot to my situation that before this happened, I hadn't really considered to be as catastrophic as it apparently is. 

I love my husband. I do. He is a wonderful man and a wonderful father. Though. After these past few days, I find myself asking if we are just really good friends who made two super cute babies, or if we are married couple. And thanks to those on here who gave real insight on how to delve into that thought process and how to approach it AFTER having made a mistake that could derail it all.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

You are good friends, not a married couple. 

Can you live like that?

Have you considered asking him if he's ok wth you getting your needs met elsewhere? If he says no then ask him why considering he isn't interested.

Tell him you'll be discreet and won't bother him again. 

Be warned though that this route will likely cause you to fall for someone else.

Either way you're delaying the inevitable.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

No, not a word said.
Not tearfully plead.

If you want to make a go of a marriage broken.
Then do so. This was a revenge affair.

Revenge for his coldness, his indifference.
If he snaps out of his doldrums, his freeze-her mentality.
Then the go becomes a good.

What you did was not right.
And it was not left of center.
It was on the middle of the crux.
The crux that lies dead in his head.
And in his crotch. An impasse.
An impasse that does not rise to the occasion.

I would work on him, as planned.
Try to bring him and his flesh stick around.

If that fails, and it likely may.
Then say goodbye, call it a day.

And never admit what you have done.
He got what he deserved.....
And so did you...that one drunken nights fun.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

lifeistooshort said:


> You are good friends, not a married couple.
> 
> Can you live like that?
> 
> ...


I can't live like that, and I've told him (in one of our talks about this, I asked him if it felt to him like we were just living together and he had a live-in maid, cook, shopper, nanny, secretary and accountant because that's how I felt it was). 

But here's the thing. I WANT to be his wife. I WANT us to be a married couple. For some reason, I keep telling myself he will all of a sudden get horny. But realistically, does this ever happen? And I really mean that as a question. 

Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for? Because other than the sex situation, I love being his wife. I love him. I love our family. And I honestly don't see a life of coming home to him but getting my sexual satisfaction elsewhere as being something that either of us could handle. Oddly enough, right?


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## Holdingontoit (Mar 7, 2012)

wintervalley said:


> I can't live like that, and I've told him (in one of our talks about this, I asked him if it felt to him like we were just living together and he had a live-in maid, cook, shopper, nanny, secretary and accountant because that's how I felt it was).


Then leave.



> But here's the thing. I WANT to be his wife. I WANT us to be a married couple. For some reason, I keep telling myself he will all of a sudden get horny. But realistically, does this ever happen? And I really mean that as a question.


We all want many things that are never going to happen. Your situation.



> Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for?


Very close to never. Unless he has a medical issue. If he has typical male levels of testosterone, and no major physical ailments, but nevertheless has very little sex drive, then whatever psychological issues are blocking his sex drive are immensely powerful. For him to do the work to overcome this, he would have to really really really want to change. Does not seem like he does.

I know that is painful for you to read, because you really really really want him to change. And it hurts that he doesn't want it as badly as you do. That he doesn't want to stay with you badly enough to be willing to do the work. It hurts. We get it. I get it. My wife was raped. More than once. She seems to have zero interest in sex. And zero interest in doing the work to want to have sex. I guess she doesn't love me enough to want to do this to make me happy. I guess I have given her no reason to think I would leave over the lack of sex. And if I was willing to leave over the lack of sex, she gives every indication that she would let me leave rather than do the painful work to regain connection to her sexuality. It hurts. ALOT.

But that is reality. And we both wish it were different. But it isn't. He may well love you. But not enough to do the work to keep you. Now the question is whether you love yourself enough to leave. I do not. I hope you do.


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## hope4family (Sep 5, 2012)

wintervalley said:


> I can't live like that, and I've told him (in one of our talks about this, I asked him if it felt to him like we were just living together and he had a live-in maid, cook, shopper, nanny, secretary and accountant because that's how I felt it was).
> 
> But here's the thing. I WANT to be his wife. I WANT us to be a married couple. For some reason, I keep telling myself he will all of a sudden get horny. But realistically, does this ever happen? And I really mean that as a question.
> 
> Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for? Because other than the sex situation, I love being his wife. I love him. I love our family. And I honestly don't see a life of coming home to him but getting my sexual satisfaction elsewhere as being something that either of us could handle. Oddly enough, right?



Going to give a none biased (m vs f sex drive) sex answer as a man. My drive, is my drive. My girlfriends drive is her drive. The two arent the same. I do not expect her to change. It doesn't work that way. However, if my needs weren't met. I'd go. If we were married and she decided to bait and switch, i'd either go or end up diving so deep into my hobbies she will go. 

I wouldn't expect him to change his stripes. He never had a reason, he probably had consequences, but they weren't enough. The consequence shouldn't have been a ONS, I don't think he deserved that. But according to you he did play with fire. Rather then divorcing after a ONS the answer should have been divorce because you have needs and his action is all talk. 

I feel bad for him. I was cheated on. It sucks. My advice to you is that you now work on you, and either way, don't do it again until you are officially divorced would be my best advice. I hope you both can get past this and have a happy relationship. But it sounds like what you want, is not realistic for him or not how he views a marriage should be.


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## Cynthia (Jan 31, 2014)

wintervalley said:


> But here's the thing. I WANT to be his wife. I WANT us to be a married couple. For some reason, I keep telling myself he will all of a sudden get horny. But realistically, does this ever happen? And I really mean that as a question.
> 
> Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for? Because other than the sex situation, I love being his wife. I love him. I love our family. And I honestly don't see a life of coming home to him but getting my sexual satisfaction elsewhere as being something that either of us could handle. Oddly enough, right?


If he naturally has a low sex drive and no physical or emotional issue that is causing it, then absolutely not.

If there is something physically wrong with him that can be corrected and he willing to first get it checked out and second do what it takes to correct it (two very big ifs), then yes.

If there is something emotionally wrong that he can face and work through to correct it (again very big obstacles that most people will not face or work through), then yes.

From my experience and observation, people don't change unless the way things are isn't working for them or they are serious about personal growth. If your husband finds that losing you is worse than getting to the bottom of the problem and he does what it takes to resolve it, he can overcome it if it's either physical or emotional/psychological. Otherwise no. 

It comes down to a basic issue: You have to be willing to lose your marriage if there is any hope of saving it.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I didn't run off. I just opted to stop responding for a bit as I've noticed a lot of the responses assumed a lot about me, my marriage, my husband, and my life. And they just seemed to be from a lot of bitter, emotional, cheated on spouses.
> 
> So I'll address some things. And yes, I am sure many of you will think this is me further not taking responsibility for MY MISTAKE, but so be it.
> 
> ...


Could you live with lying to him and deceiving him? The easy thing would be not to tell him. The much harder thing would be to be honest and tell him the truth and accept the consequences.


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## lifeistooshort (Mar 17, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> I can't live like that, and I've told him (in one of our talks about this, I asked him if it felt to him like we were just living together and he had a live-in maid, cook, shopper, nanny, secretary and accountant because that's how I felt it was).
> 
> But here's the thing. I WANT to be his wife. I WANT us to be a married couple. For some reason, I keep telling myself he will all of a sudden get horny. But realistically, does this ever happen? And I really mean that as a question.
> 
> Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for? Because other than the sex situation, I love being his wife. I love him. I love our family. And I honestly don't see a life of coming home to him but getting my sexual satisfaction elsewhere as being something that either of us could handle. Oddly enough, right?




No, I understand. You love him and want him to want you.

A lot of men have the same problem. And fwiw I don't think I could just scratch an itch either.

It's possible for him to change if he's got low T or a raging porn habit, otherwise this is likely what you've got. 

Are you sure it's not either of these?

Search his computer history.

.


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

wintervalley said:


> I didn't run off. I just opted to stop responding for a bit as I've noticed a lot of the responses assumed a lot about me, my marriage, my husband, and my life. And they just seemed to be from a lot of bitter, emotional, cheated on spouses.
> 
> So I'll address some things. And yes, I am sure many of you will think this is me further not taking responsibility for MY MISTAKE, but so be it.
> 
> ...


Have you confessed yet?


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## wilson (Nov 5, 2012)

wintervalley said:


> Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for?


NO, it won't get better.
NO, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I have to be blunt. The best you can hope for is some minor improvement, and it will likely involve constant reminders and discussions. It is extremely unlikely you will have a satisfying sex life that meets your needs with your H. If you decide to stay, you should come to terms with having a sexless marriage and "take matters into your own hands", as one might say.

One alternative might be to see if you can get your intimate desires met by cuddling alone. That's not sex, and he should be willing to cuddle regardless of his mood. If he's not even willing to cuddle, that's a pretty big indicator that this marriage isn't going to work. But if he is willing to cuddle, you might find it partially satisfies your physical needs. And there's always the chance it leads to him getting more in the mood.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

GusPolinski said:


> Have you confessed yet?


I don't fly home till Saturday. Though, I can say that beyond the asking if I should, I won't be sharing the outcome. Though I am already set up for IC which will move into MC.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

OP, dark secrets have a way of popping up in the future. Look at Toolate131's thread "almost 4 weeks into seperation" under "Going Through Divorce or Separation". Although he in fact blurted it out what you think is a secret now has funny ways of being discovered tomorrow. Once trust is lost it is hard to regain.


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

GusPolinski said:


> Have you confessed yet?


 Exactly my question.

And a second question, what's an "MWS" degree?


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

wintervalley said:


> I don't fly home till Saturday. Though, I can say that beyond the asking if I should, *I won't be sharing the outcome.* Though I am already set up for IC which will move into MC.


Why not?

Either way, you seem to be pretty aware of your husband’s shortcomings, and until you’ve afforded him the same consideration, you have no right to expect or demand more of him than what he’s currently giving.

IOW, the confession should occur either _before_ MC or during the initial session.

Before would be better.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

GusPolinski said:


> Why not?
> 
> Either way, you seem to be pretty aware of your husband’s shortcomings, and until you’ve afforded him the same consideration, you have no right to expect or demand more of him than what he’s currently giving.
> 
> ...


I agree. I would be horrified if a man I was married to cheated and didn't have the guts to tell me himself before any decision was made on marriage counselling. Telling someone something so devastating with another person there is just plain mean. I would hate that. 
He may not even want marriage counselling once he knows, or he may want time to think and process it before agreeing to MC. Either way you need to pluck up the courage and tell him. Unless you are a very good liar he will know that something is wrong anyway.
Of course he may find out from someone else anyway and that will be even more painful. 
One thing about my husband's ex, at least she told him about the OM and that they had had sex together. She was honest at least.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

Rubix Cubed said:


> Exactly my question.
> 
> And a second question, what's an "MWS" degree?


Master's of Wildlife Science.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

GusPolinski said:


> Why not?
> 
> Either way, you seem to be pretty aware of your husband’s shortcomings, and until you’ve afforded him the same consideration, you have no right to expect or demand more of him than what he’s currently giving.
> 
> ...



Well, I feel that from here, with the feedback I've gotten here, from here it's an internal situation that my husband and I need to work on, not something you all need an update on.

I've afforded him plenty of considerations based on his shortcomings. So I'm not sure what you mean I should afford him the same consideration.

And, based on what my IC and I go over and decide, that's how I'll handle going about bringing my husband in on this. I've seen from both sides those who wish they had known and those who wish they hadn't. So it's clear there isn't a blanket right answer, and whichever route I choose, that is for my husband and I to navigate. 

But who knows, maybe I'll be back later asking on how to move on as a single mom with two kids. Or how to repair a marriage after a ONS. Who knows.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> Well, I feel that from here, with the feedback I've gotten here, from here it's an internal situation that my husband and I need to work on, not something you all need an update on.
> 
> I've afforded him plenty of considerations based on his shortcomings. So I'm not sure what you mean I should afford him the same consideration.
> 
> ...


Have you got it in you to lie to him and deceive him for the rest of your lives? I just couldn't live with myself if I did that.
What makes you think you need IC?


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

Diana7 said:


> Have you got it in you to to him and deceive him for the rest of your lives? I just couldn't live with myself if I did that.



I guess I'll find out. I'm not making any decisions until one, I get home, and two, I talk to an IC first because if it does become something that is disclosed, I'll need some guidance from a professional on how to communicate things to him. But, the first thing to find out is if this is even a marriage worth saving from my end and worth going to MC.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

Diana7 said:


> I agree. I would be horrified if a man I was married to cheated and didn't have the guts to tell me himself before any decision was made on marriage counselling. Telling someone something so devastating with another person there is just plain mean. I would hate that.
> He may not even want marriage counselling once he knows, or he may want time to think and process it before agreeing to MC. Either way you need to pluck up the courage and tell him. Unless you are a very good liar he will know that something is wrong anyway.
> Of course he may find out from someone else anyway and that will be even more painful.
> One thing about my husband's ex, at least she told him about the OM and that they had had sex together. She was honest at least.




I was in MC, over four months, working on what my wife said were my shortcomings in the marriage. Then, BAM, her confession although at home at not in the office, came. In all honesty, probably the closest I have ever felt to wanting to inflict bodily harm to the point of death. What wasn't understood was all the work I was doing, self reflecting, looking deep into my core, effort expended to become a better spouse and person. All blown up because she gave herself to another. 

OP, you may hate me, hate what I'm saying, hate that it was a choice, that's all fine. Don't expose or expose, do as you wish. What you haven't thought of is what your doing to another human being. You say so much good of your husband, accept his flaws, then dumped on him in such a malicious way. This isn't my pain, my trigger, or even anger responding to you, it's a human being watching you like a cat as it toys with its prey. Those are your actions and have nothing do with me, I strongly urge you to look in the mirror and say you are doing the right thing. Best of luck.


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

drifting on said:


> I was in MC, over four months, working on what my wife said were my shortcomings in the marriage. Then, BAM, her confession although at home at not in the office, came. In all honesty, probably the closest I have ever felt to wanting to inflict bodily harm to the point of death. What wasn't understood was all the work I was doing, self reflecting, looking deep into my core, effort expended to become a better spouse and person. All blown up because she gave herself to another.
> 
> OP, you may hate me, hate what I'm saying, hate that it was a choice, that's all fine. Don't expose or expose, do as you wish. What you haven't thought of is what your doing to another human being. You say so much good of your husband, accept his flaws, then dumped on him in such a malicious way. This isn't my pain, my trigger, or even anger responding to you, it's a human being watching you like a cat as it toys with its prey. Those are your actions and have nothing do with me, I strongly urge you to look in the mirror and say you are doing the right thing. Best of luck.


Like I said above, the first step is my counseling to see if this is even a marriage worth saving on my end. This situation has caused me to do a lot of reflecting and thinking and to be honest, I can't say whether or not I consider us married or just friends right now. I love him. But is it in a way that a friend loves someone, and we happen to have kids together? I don't know that right now. I acknowledge that I need to figure my **** out before piling **** on him. Which is why an IC is scheduled and from there, we will talk MC. 

I get what you're saying. But, I also feel that people just keep responding to comments they like and can relate to without reading the rest of things written...


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

So gently saying, you come home and greet your husband.

You: hi honey were home. You aren't going to believe the mistake I made!! 

Him: hi, glad to have you home!! What is this mistake?

You: I went and sex with someone after the wedding!! Can you believe what a mistake that was? I can't hardly believe it myself. 

Him: spins quietly and walks out the door.



Step one is realizing you had a choice, not that you mad a mistake, an oopsie, or whatever you try to call it. As I said I say this all gently, but it's not a mistake and your further stating it is only reflects on your empathy and remorse.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I guess I'll find out. I'm not making any decisions until one, I get home, and two, I talk to an IC first because if it does become something that is disclosed, I'll need some guidance from a professional on how to communicate things to him. But, the first thing to find out is if this is even a marriage worth saving from my end and worth going to MC.


Why do you need someone to tell you how to tell him? You sit him down when you are alone and you say I have something to tell you. Then you tell him. 

You both need to decide if there is a marriage worth saving. He cant do that until he knows the truth.


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## Jessica38 (Feb 28, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> I didn't run off. I just opted to stop responding for a bit as I've noticed a lot of the responses assumed a lot about me, my marriage, my husband, and my life. And they just seemed to be from a lot of bitter, emotional, cheated on spouses.
> 
> I’ve never cheated and neither has my husband in our 15 year marriage.
> 
> ...


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> Like I said above, the first step is my counseling to see if this is even a marriage worth saving on my end. This situation has caused me to do a lot of reflecting and thinking and to be honest, I can't say whether or not I consider us married or just friends right now. I love him. But is it in a way that a friend loves someone, and we happen to have kids together? I don't know that right now. I acknowledge that I need to figure my **** out before piling **** on him. Which is why an IC is scheduled and from there, we will talk MC.
> 
> I get what you're saying. But, I also feel that people just keep responding to comments they like and can relate to without reading the rest of things written...




From your posts I am confused on many areas, much of it being intimacy. You have said you want far more intimacy from your husband and its around once a month. Based on this intimacy is important to you and a way of feeling loved. To your husband, intimacy may have a mediocre value but yours is higher. You have had many discussions with your husband regarding intimacy, nothing changes. You have begged for intimacy, still, nothing changes. Have you asked your husband why he does not appear to want intimacy with you. It's been asked in this thread but I haven't seen your response. 

Infidelity is a selfish act, an act that only you can figure on why you did it. In marriage you marry what really is your best friend. You describe your marriage above as living with your best friend. Now you need time to figure out what is best, best for you, your children, your marriage, and finally your husband. Each item is separate, just as I stated above, and I'm guessing but pretty sure that is your order. This is not good, number one should be you. You need to be at your healthiest to be your best. Number two is your marriage, yes, your marriage comes before the children. The marriage is the biggest component when it comes to the kids. Your marriage needs to be healthy so this in it can flourish and strive to be their best. 

Your husband is third in this order, and yes again before the kids. The relationship you have is subconsciously watched by your kids. They learn from your marriage as to how relationships work. They learn from the parents how to be in a relationship by what they see your marriage as. Lastly comes the kids themselves, they need a healthy mom, dad, and a healthy marriage to flourish and thrive. When I hear someone say the kids come first I laugh, they don't, but that doesn't mean you won't do anything for them. 

You now will go back home and have some difficult issues to work out. Yet you are unable to consult with your best friend, can't get any advice from your best friend. You will seek out IC and allow them to help you navigate a situation that is most difficult. This person may say to expose the infidelity, or just bury it deep within yourself. But if you can't, to what length do you go to keep it hidden? What if it begins to affect your health? Because if it becomes years down the road, the deception is now far worse. Your husband may be able to accept the ONS, what if he can't accept the deception? In my case two and a half years my wife lied, that's not just something you get over. Worst is that you say this is your best friend, so you lie to your best friend? 

From what I'm seeing you treated your husband, kids, marriage, and best friend with some very irrational behavior that could cause great harm. How you navigate this is your doing, but I hope it's with greater thought then what you displayed so far. This isn't shaming you at all, this is what you have done on your own. This is what you never thought about until after you cheated. There is no blanket answer of telling or not telling, some want to know and others don't. You know your husband best, what do you think he would want? Do you think he would want to know? You are a grown woman, one who is capable of making decisions, would your husband want to know? You don't need IC to help you decide whether or not to tell him, you know him. You don't need to tell him in therapy or MC, you do need to decide if he would want to know. 

I hope the best for you and wish you luck. By the way, I know the definition of mistake. The definition of choice is, an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Your two possibilities were cheat, or not cheat.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

OP, you don't need a IC to tell you to be honest. That is the consideration a human being deserves.


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## syhoybenden (Feb 21, 2013)

You give counselors altogether too much credit.

They're just people. They don't all agree with each other.

AND some of them are just godawful incompetent hacks.


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## David51 (Sep 12, 2017)

syhoybenden said:


> You give counselors altogether too much credit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




My wife saw a counselor who told her that she was not responsible for my orgasm and went on to explain that is She was satisfied and I wasn’t then that was my problem. Reminds me of the old sexual sitcoms of the Guy getting off and then going to sleep......mow adays women have vibrators but what about the man.....? I should have sued that counselor instead I found other relief to that allover hungryfeeling.....problem sol ed!



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I guess I'll find out. I'm not making any decisions until one, I get home, and two, I talk to an IC first because if it does become something that is disclosed, I'll need some guidance from a professional on how to communicate things to him. But, the first thing to find out is if this is even a marriage worth saving from my end and worth going to MC.


A lot of people would be able to answer that question without needing to wait and find out. 
I think that cheating is bad enough, but not owing up has to be one of the worst things you can do to them. It takes real guts to be honest and own up, but I think you are going to put it off and off, giving the counselling as an excuse, and then not tell him. That's sad.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I can't live like that.
> 
> Does a man ever go through not being sexually driven, then all of a sudden, get his drive back? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel to look for? *Because other than the sex situation, I love being his wife. I love him. I love our family. And I honestly don't see a life of coming home to him but getting my sexual satisfaction elsewhere as being something that either of us could handle.* Oddly enough, right?


And I love the way you look at things.
I hope this guy wakes up.

On men: It is one thing to be horny.
It is another to be "able" to act on it.

Two case hardening points. two major culprits: Major Willing and Private Able.
A ton of fine print, fine capillary cooperation.

Little, tiny protesters, working in his chemical factory, 'they', key players on strike.

I do not like cheating and deception.
I dislike misery even less.

Send him to his PCP and have his T checked.
I suspect it is iced.
Iced T.


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## Dyokemm (Apr 24, 2013)

wintervalley said:


> Like I said above, the first step is my counseling to see if this is even a marriage worth saving on my end. This situation has caused me to do a lot of reflecting and thinking and to be honest, I can't say whether or not I consider us married or just friends right now. I love him. But is it in a way that a friend loves someone, and we happen to have kids together? I don't know that right now. I acknowledge that I need to figure my **** out before piling **** on him. Which is why an IC is scheduled and from there, we will talk MC.
> 
> I get what you're saying. But, I also feel that people just keep responding to comments they like and can relate to without reading the rest of things written...


Winter Valley,

This doesn’t match what you just posted above about wanting your BH to want you and wanting your M.

I cannot see how those words can coexist with saying you don’t know whether you consider yourself truly M at this time or just friends who share kids.

I am very glad to hear you have scheduled some IC......because the contradiction in statements above shows you really need to get some help working through your realization of what you may have just done to your family.....you need help processing it......its the only path to a healthy future.

And your BH will need to go through the same processing of what has happened so he can find a healthy future too.....whether it is with you in a new M where he realizes and commits to making positive changes to your M so this situation never arises again.....or it is healing away from you on his own because he can’t recover from the betrayal.

This is why you need to tell him.....

He has a right to decide what future is better and more healthy for him as well.

Keeping him in the dark will only serve to keep him in the same bad place he was pre A with his choices and behavior.

And you dragging him to MC to work on his problems and the damage they have done to the M, while hiding the devastation that is the result of your choices, as if he ALONE is responsible for the M being on its last legs....well that would be flat out evil IMO.

Please don’t engage in that level of hypocritical blameshifting.....you seem like a better person than that.

Good luck.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

A good test of your husband's intimacy problem: tell him you cheated. There should then be about 3 days of hysterical bonding (with sex 10 times a day). If he doesn't respond that way, he is abnormal and you should call it quits.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> I guess I'll find out. I'm not making any decisions until one, I get home, and two, I talk to an IC first because if it does become something that is disclosed, I'll need some guidance from a professional on how to communicate things to him. But, the first thing to find out is if this is even a marriage worth saving from my end and worth going to MC.


I think this is the right course of action at this time. This is powder keg with potentially life-long ramifications. It is best to approach it mindfully, methodically and with the guidance of a neutral, disinterested professional rather than going off half-cocked and driven by emotion and guilt. 

Keep in mind many of the posters here are BS's and identify with your BH and are more interested in you getting your comeuppance rather than any kind of long term plan to minimize the chaos and pain whether the decision is made to divorce or reconcile. 

There is time for thoughtful contemplation here and for devising a methodical plan. Let cooler heads prevail.


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## Dyokemm (Apr 24, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> I think this is the right course of action at this time. This is powder keg with potentially life-long ramifications. It is best to approach it mindfully, methodically and with the guidance of a neutral, disinterested professional rather than going off half-cocked and driven by emotion and guilt.
> 
> Keep in mind many of the posters here are BS's and identify with your BH and are more interested in you getting your comeuppance rather than any kind of long term plan to minimize the chaos and pain whether the decision is made to divorce or reconcile.
> 
> There is time for thoughtful contemplation here and for devising a methodical plan. Let cooler heads prevail.


I think for most posters, it is less about her getting some ‘comeuppance’ and much more about not seeing her BH put through THIS scenario:

BH gets dragged to MC and put on notice with an ultimatum that he either changes his behavior and fixes his faults, or WW will file D.....in other words blamed for the entirety of this mess.....while being kept completely in the dark about the devastation his WW has wrecked on the relationship with her betrayal.

BH fixing his issues is indeed something that would need to be addressed if OP’s M can be saved......

BUT, her selfish betrayal needs to be dealt with openly and honestly also......her choice is NOT BH’s fault.....why she chose to do this cannot be layed at his feet.

And if he is going to need to put in hard work to address his problems, he needs to make that commitment to the hard work required knowing what his WW is capable of........it should be his choice as to whether such a commitment is worth it to keep a M with a traitorous partner.

If he simply gets dragged to MC and beaten over the head to change without being told the truth of his M......then OP will more than likely be in for a NASTY D and exposure should her BH ever discover her ONS at a future date.

I can think of few things that might enrage a BS further than being blamed in MC for problems in a M combined with demands to change or lose the M....only to later discover the secret betrayal of their WS.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

Dyokemm said:


> I think for most posters, it is less about her getting some ‘comeuppance’ and much more about not seeing her BH put through THIS scenario:
> 
> BH gets dragged to MC and put on notice with an ultimatum that he either changes his behavior and fixes his faults, or WW will file D.....in other words blamed for the entirety of this mess.....while being kept completely in the dark about the devastation his WW has wrecked on the relationship with her betrayal.
> 
> ...



People are looking into their own chrystal balls here and making a lot of predictions and assumptions about MC that may not be the reality. 

Everyone is assuming that he will be bombarded about his faults and told to straighten up and fly right "or else" and that the A will just get put on the backburner or even rug swept all together. 

That is not necessarily how it may go down at all. 

The IC can help her get her thoughts and priorities and personal options and plans in place and if the decision is made to move forward with the disclosure taking place under the mediation of MC it can be done in a manner that is mindful and under the mediation of professional who has dealt with this kind of thing many times for years and has the education, training and experience on how to mediate this kind of situation. 

If she walks through the door at home, drops her bags on the floor and blurts out she ^*(#ed some other dude, how is that any better? 

Neither she nor her H have had any training or experience in disclosing affairs or working through the minefield that follows - IC's and MC' have. 

If you and your Uncle Joey are tearing down an old building and stumble backwards and fall on a rusty spike and you have a spike impaled in your rear end, who do you want to remove the spike, a surgeon in a fully staffed and equipped operating room or your Uncle Joey while you are laying in a pile of rubble?


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

I want to add one other thing. I have been trying to visualize myself in the BH's position in this scenario. 

If my wife came home and told me she got down with some stranger at a wedding over the weekend, I would kind of assume she was telling me to assuage her own guilt and that she was afraid of me finding out some other way and was trying to get to me first. 

And as I said above, neither my wife nor I have any training in the disclosure of affairs or where to go from there. 

At that point all bets would be off and it would be anyone's guess how things would go from there and there would be a good chance that the tempers would start flying and things could be said on both sides that would just throw gas on the fire and explode out of control. I don't necessarily mean physical violence but when you're dealing with that kind of emotionality, y'never know. 

However on the other hand, if after awhile she approached me about MC in calm, matter of fact manner and I found out in MC that she had been seeking IC and working through all the layers for a period of time and have devised a plan to address this with a professional MC and had been putting in that time and energy and expense to address it appropriately and with professional guidance and assistance - 

-I would take her 1000 times more seriously and we see that she that she was putting in the heavy lifting and taking agency and responsibility for her actions. 

Now whether the ultimate decision to reconcile or divorce would depend on a multitude of factors over a period of time. But I would see that she was taking the situation seriously and was affording me the respect of delving into her own matters first and seeking professional assistance and guidance first before dropping this bombshell on me. 

There are 1001 things that can go wrong if she walks in the house and blurts out she banged another dude on her own. 

She is more likely to counterattack him with his poor bedroom performance on her own once he starts attacking her than she would under the guidance of a professional MC.

To me this just seems obvious to seek professional guidance in all phases of this situation. 

I truly do not understand why so many think this is a detrimental course of action.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> People are looking into their own chrystal balls here and making a lot of predictions and assumptions about MC that may not be the reality.
> 
> Everyone is assuming that he will be bombarded about his faults and told to straighten up and fly right "or else" and that the A will just get put on the backburner or even rug swept all together.
> 
> ...




Provided that the MC or IC don't advocate to lie due to "danger" or "harm" as you said in previous post. Then the husband goes to MC and corrects his faults under a lie that he will possibly not discover or discover down the road which will in turn bring upon a swift divorce. As I have stated, I was in MC for over four months, all the while being told my shortcomings. I worked extremely hard even though my gut had suspicions. When d-day came, the devastation even deeper, think about it for a minute, how would you feel? This isn't something a therapist is going to smooth over and the husband accept well. His wife cheated and he deserves to know so he can plan his wife accordingly, there is no good way to nuke a human being.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

Ok. @oldshirt

We get it.

Lying, dishonesty and non informed consent are how you roll.

Selfish behavior compounded by lying to manipulate others to do what you want is the best solution for you.

Simply fantastic marriage advice, please write a book about how lying and manipulating your spouse to get their non informed consent to get what you want out of them is such a wonderful way to live.

Mind blowing.....


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

I wonder how the betrayed spouse will feel manipulated into IC/MC after the fact. Manipulated and humiliated. Assuming he does not ask why are we doing this now? Perhaps puts 2 and 2 and zeros in on the wedding and asks what is going on ? Most people are pretty sensitive to their spouses being away and coming back with sudden changes and demands. If he asks did something happen that I should know about is she to lie in order to protect HIS feelings?


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> I want to add one other thing. I have been trying to visualize myself in the BH's position in this scenario.
> 
> If my wife came home and told me she got down with some stranger at a wedding over the weekend, I would kind of assume she was telling me to assuage her own guilt and that she was afraid of me finding out some other way and was trying to get to me first.
> 
> ...


I don't think this is bad if she is doing it with the intent of full disclosure.

She definitely better not play house in the meantime.

He deserves informed consent for anything involving himself with her.


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## Broken_in_Brooklyn (Feb 21, 2013)

OP, seriously. Put on your big girl panties and just tell him straight up what happened. The ones you took off behind his back. He deserves to know straight up sooner rather than later. Yes, it will be ugly and it will be uncomfortable for you. Too bad. You will survive and so will he. Yes, it may cost you your marriage. That's what happen's when someone cheats. You make it worse for him by manipulating him further.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

ConanHub said:


> Ok. @oldshirt
> 
> We get it.
> 
> ...




Wow! 

No where have I ever said anything about lying or manipulating. I recommended seeking professional guidance before making any decisions or taking any definitive actions. 

Don't put words in my keyboard.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

drifting on said:


> Provided that the MC or IC don't advocate to lie due to "danger" or "harm" as you said in previous post. Then the husband goes to MC and corrects his faults under a lie that he will possibly not discover or discover down the road which will in turn bring upon a swift divorce. As I have stated, I was in MC for over four months, all the while being told my shortcomings. I worked extremely hard even though my gut had suspicions. When d-day came, the devastation even deeper, think about it for a minute, how would you feel? This isn't something a therapist is going to smooth over and the husband accept well. His wife cheated and he deserves to know so he can plan his wife accordingly, there is no good way to nuke a human being.


Again, do not put words in my mouth that I did not say. I did not say that the MC or IC would, could or should perpetuate an on-going deception or fabrication to pull one over on her BH. 

I said to initially seek IC to peel through her layers of issues and to assist her in formulating a plan for going forward whether it be attempted reconciliation or packing her stuff and hitting the road. 

If the decision is made for reconciliation, then I believe that a facilitated disclosure under the professional guidance and mediation of a trained professional will have a better chance of keeping the destruction and chaos to as little as possible vs her just blurting it out on her own as soon as she walks in the door. 

As you said yourself, there is no good or painless way to nuke someone. It is my personal opinion that a facilitated disclosure under professional guidance will have less destruction and fallout than her just blurting it out when she gets home.


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## janebarrett581 (Feb 21, 2017)

First off, back off yourself. Everyone knows being cheated on sucks. 1st marriage, sexless. Didn’t tell him, 3 kids involved. 2nd marriage, cheated on. Sucks too, probably worse. But.... I felt like I deserved to be punished from the first cheat as I kept it in. But my actions going forward were affected by my initial self-hatred and feeling unattractive and respected by my first husband who was never going to truly love me the way I needed him too. He never loved me the way I needed. Looking back with 20 years life experience I didn’t have before, I’m glad I never told him. I left him and the world didn’t understand why I destroyed my perfect life. But at least no one disrespected me for cheating and the me now does feel bad for cheating but not even understanding why. My first husband would never love me how I needed him to. He never would. 
Next marriage, went for the exciting type and loved him insanely. Because it was insane to live him. He slept with the same girl throughout our 2 years not married and three years I was married him. 

He was never going live you the way you want and need. This 2nd marriage made me lose my dignity, my money (he gambled) and my full-time status as a Mom. We split and it hurt that I was never going to be enough and that the whole time I was the ‘public’ love of his life, she was his love and they got married and have been together since. 
Third marriage. He loves me the way I needed and I live him the way he needs. Is it perfect, not after 14 years. But, I am secure with him. He worships me physically and I know I am respected by him.

No, there is no villain here. Please don’t beat yourself up and cause more harm. Weather you tell him or not, he probably will not fulfill you as you need. We all deserve to have a husband besotted with touching you. It’s sexy. It’s wonderful to feel desired and secure about your return feelings. You reward him for his worship if you.

So, I’m older now, in my fifties. Some people can live without their needs fully met, others are can and pay whatever price they have to to get what they need.

Don’t tell him until your head is on straighter. Who cares whose fault it is. We all can be the cheater and the cheated on. Take your time and THINK. Your heart will force you to decide eventually if you can live without a man who loves how you look, think, feel and taste and can’t get enough of it. I have another child in my third marriage. Fist and 2nd marriage were high earner executives but my besotted husband is pure working man. You may never understand your motives until late when you realize what you needed. You are not a bad person.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

And let's all take a moment and come back down to Earth a little bit here. 

I realize that there are some crappy IC/MCs out there just like there are bad plumbers, bad roofers, quack doctors and ambulance-chasing lawyers etc etc.

But I really do not believe that an MC worth his/her weight in beetle dung is going to be some kind of co-conspirator in some kind of long-term plot to defraud the BH and get him to change all his ways to the OP's satisfaction and then either mention the A as an afterthought or cover it up completely. 

I suppose it could happen just like we could all get hit by a bus or something, but I do not think it is such a risk that it justifies not seeking professional assistance for this complex and potentially destructive situation. 

My assumption here is that if the decision is made to seek MC and attempt to reconcile the marriage that the A will be the lead-off issue to address and deal with. 

And again, any MC worth their salt will give no quarter to screwing strangers at out of town weddings and that the OP will be held accountable for her actions. 

I think people are taking a little too much of a 'worst-case-scenario' or sky-is-falling assumption here. 

Until an MC is shown to be quack, let's give the benefit of the doubt that the MC is a sincere professional who has the best interests of the marriage in mind and is not going to be a co-conspirator to pull off some kind of fast one on the BH.


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> That is not for any of us to determine.
> 
> If you think that all therapists and counselors always urge the WS to disclose to the BS, you would be quite mistaken.
> 
> ...




And then we run into this again. If the IC says don't disclose, what will you wintervalley? Disclose or not? If IC says it would be a danger or harmful, do you go ahead with MC? Do you have your husband fix his issues but then keep the cheating hidden? What if he finds out somehow? What then, deny so you can get your marriage the way you want all the while deceiving your husband. That would be pure evil in my opinion.

ETA: @oldshirt, quite the contrary to what you just posted. She should expose when she gets home so her husband can make an informed decision about his marriage.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

I don't need a counsellor or anyone else to tell me that lying and deception of any sort in marriage is wrong and dangerous. Let alone about adultery.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

drifting on said:


> And then we run into this again. If the IC says don't disclose, what will you wintervalley? Disclose or not? If IC says it would be a danger or harmful, do you go ahead with MC? Do you have your husband fix his issues but then keep the cheating hidden? What if he finds out somehow? What then, deny so you can get your marriage the way you want all the while deceiving your husband. That would be pure evil in my opinion.
> 
> ETA: @oldshirt, quite the contrary to what you just posted. She should expose when she gets home so her husband can make an informed decision about his marriage.


It's not contrary at all. 

In my earlier post I was talking about some general instances where an IC/MC may not recommend disclosure. Those things may or may not be the least bit relevant in Wintervalley's situation. 

If/when Wintervalley sees an IC, they will peel through the layers of her specific situation and her issues and then formulate a plan of action based on her specific issues, conditions and objectives. 

None of us can guess what exactly will take place in their sessions because we do not know a lot of the background issues in Wintervalley's life or all of the dynamics of this situation and none of us are professional counselors or therapists.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> And let's all take a moment and come back down to Earth a little bit here.
> 
> I realize that there are some crappy IC/MCs out there just like there are bad plumbers, bad roofers, quack doctors and ambulance-chasing lawyers etc etc.
> 
> ...


You come down yourself. I have been personally involved with MC and the results of infidelity, lying and recovery for over 20 years and your assertion that deceit is warranted, your earlier posts, is flat out wrong.

I have seen very good results, often reconciliation to a healthy marriage, with perfect honesty no matter how ugly.

When someone has the total truth, they often respond from a position that is no longer that of a victim and usually show mercy.

Deceit and dishonesty have always resulted in less than desirable results and often very negative ones.

This isn't conjecture. I have personally been involved with and seen this play out over and over again with many couples.

Counseling is a must for OP but she needs to be straightforward with her husband.


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## ConanHub (Aug 9, 2013)

oldshirt said:


> Wow!
> 
> No where have I ever said anything about lying or manipulating. I recommended seeking professional guidance before making any decisions or taking any definitive actions.
> 
> Don't put words in my keyboard.


You very clearly said there are some instances where infidelity is better kept a secret and never disclosed.

Want me to find your quote or do you forget that easily?

Someone already quoted what I am talking about a couple posts back.

Remember when you posted that statement?


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

ConanHub said:


> You very clearly said there are some instances where infidelity is better kept a secret and never disclosed.
> 
> Want me to find your quote or do you forget that easily?
> 
> ...


Yes, as I said in my last post, I was talking in generalities and not this specific situation.

And yes, I imagine there are instances and situations where an IC would not recommend disclosure.

I have no clue if the OP's situation or her OP will fall into that catagory or not, but I am sure there would be situations out there where disclosure would not be recommended.

MC is a little different and I would assume that the vast majority of MC's would recommend disclosure sooner rather than later in the vast majority of cases. But I imagine there are exceptions there too.

And again, I have no clue whether the OP's case would be an exception or not. I assume it would not be an exception and I assume her MC would recommend disclosure but I really have no idea what will go in behind those closed doors. 

Please keep in mind that I am not urging her to keep this a life-long secret, nor am I urging her to try to pull a fast one over on her BH.

I am recommending that she seek professional IC before making any major decisions or taking any definitive actions. 

What takes place in those sessions and what decisions are reached and what actions are taken following that is between a professional and a client. 

I know some of you strongly disagree with that.

But that is what I think is her best course of action at this point in time. We'll see how things play out. She may do something completely different once she gets home.


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> And as I said above, neither my wife nor I have any training in the disclosure of affairs or where to go from there.


 Exactly what kind of training do you think it takes to be honest? This is pure manipulation. 
a.k.a. "How can I word it so I don't suffer the consequences of my actions?"




> Wow!
> 
> No where have I ever said anything about lying or manipulating.


 So a lie of omission is not a lie to you? If an MC/IC advises to not disclose, then that is a lie of omission ... period.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

Rubix Cubed said:


> Exactly what kind of training do you think it takes to be honest? This is pure manipulation.
> a.k.a. "How can I word it so I don't suffer the consequences of my actions?"
> 
> 
> ...


Ok this is just getting silly. I believe I have been clear in expressing my opinions and thoughts. 

I have advocated her seeking professional counseling and guidance.

What discussions and strategies and plans that take place from there are between a professional and their client based on the specifics and details of that particular situation.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

And for all you honest Abe's that always have 100% truth and disclosure in all things at all times - 

You hear a thump in the night in the house and you go downstairs and turn on the light and find a drugged out psycho holding a bloody ax standing in the middle if the living room.

He asks if the kids are home and where their rooms are.

Do you immediate tell the truth and give full disclosure or do you evaluate the situation and consider other options before deciding on a course of action???

(And for the love of God, please don't take this as me saying a psycho with an ax is the same as a cheating wife and I am not saying her H is violent or dangerous. I'm just saying there are times and situations where immediate, full disclosure is not always the best course of action)


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> Ok this is just getting silly. I believe I have been clear in expressing my opinions and thoughts.
> 
> I have advocated her seeking professional counseling and guidance.
> 
> What discussions and strategies and plans that take place from there are between a professional and their client based on the specifics and details of that particular situation.


 Nah, stuffed shirt, the silliness is your equivocating.


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> And for all you honest Abe's that always have 100% truth and disclosure in all things at all times -
> 
> You hear a thump in the night in the house and you go downstairs and turn on the light and find a drugged out psycho holding a bloody ax standing in the middle if the living room.
> 
> ...


 That has got be one of the most asinine attempts at equivalency I have ever seen.

p.s. If the ax murderer was in my living room he'd be leaking cerebral fluid far too fast to talk to me.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

Rubix Cubed said:


> p.s. If the ax murderer was in my living room he'd be leaking cerebral fluid far too fast to talk to me.


So now who's equivocating???

That's not telling him the truth at all. 

So now you *are* saying it is ok to not always be forthcoming with the full truth.

(My apologies to the mods if this gets reported. I couldn't help myself LOL ).


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> So now who's equivocating???
> 
> That's not telling him the truth at all.
> 
> ...


There is no way you can be this stupid / pedantic.

Sorry for the threadjack.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

Rubix Cubed said:


> There is no way you can be this stupid / pedantic.
> 
> Sorry for the threadjack.


I take offense at that assertion. I can so be be that stupid and pedantic! LOL. :-

But I shall leave you with the last word should you choose a rebuttal. 

I have expressed my thoughts and opinions clearly and I have done so thoughtfully and respectfully. 

It is others that leapt to giant conclusions and put other words in my mouth and that have resorted to name calling and insults. 

If the OP wants to read my *actual * words and message, she is free to do so and she is free to either follow what bits of info she believes apply to her or she is free to disregard all of it.

I realize this is a very sensitive topic for many people and I have tried to have respectful and compassionate discourse. 

But there are realities in the world that don't always feel good to everyone, and one of those is sometimes total disclosure isn't always best first course of action. 

I don't know if immediate disclosure is in the OP's best interests or not (because I am stupid and pad antic apparently) because I do not know all the details of her home and personal life, and that is why I recommended consulting a professional and seeking that person's input on the matter.

What happens behind those closed doors in confidence with that professional is between them. 

With that, there is nothing more I can say here until the OP returns with an update.

You and the others that disagree with me may have the word on this topic.


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## Rubix Cubed (Feb 21, 2016)

oldshirt said:


> It is others that leapt to giant conclusions and put other words in my mouth and that have resorted to name calling and insults.
> 
> If the OP wants to read my *actual * words and message, she is free to do so and she is free to either follow what bits of info she believes apply to her or she is free to disregard all of it.


 Myself and others quoted your posts with your exact words in reply to you. I think that stands on it's own and isn't anyone putting words in your mouth. We went by what you posted, if that wasn't what you meant, then you should have posted what you meant instead. Simple.



> I take offense at that assertion. I can so be be that stupid and pedantic! LOL. :-


 I digress. You are correct sir, I was wrong. LOL.


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## BadGrammar (Oct 29, 2017)

wintervalley said:


> Here's the situation. Married for 3 years. Two kids. Planned.
> 
> Right after we got married, he stopped doing any sexual advances in our relationship. I literally have to order him to have sex with me. We've talked about how it's a problem A LOT. He just always says he doesn't know why and he'll do better.
> 
> ...


First time posting here, but I have been following your thread. I am curious about a few things. How long were you together before marriage? Did you have a healthy intimate relationship with your spouse before marriage? You mentioned that you have 2 kids "planned". Were they conceived in the traditional manner, or through IVF or some other means? Was your sex life healthy before the kids? I do not want to be insensitive... but is it possible that your spouse is simply not attracted to you sexually? If so, I would guess that your impulsive behavior was not impulsive at all. It was a desperate action based on the very understandable need to be desired. 
I was married to my ex-wife for 15 years. When we met, we enjoyed passionate lovemaking. However, as time went on, this waned. I loved her dearly (and still do), and was dazzled by her intellect. To this day, I pine for the pleasure and excitement of our conversations. However, even before marriage I realized that I no longer found her sexually attractive... and I made the grave mistake of marrying my favorite friend.


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## MAJDEATH (Jun 16, 2015)

oldshirt said:


> Rubix Cubed said:
> 
> 
> > p.s. If the ax murderer was in my living room he'd be leaking cerebral fluid far too fast to talk to me.
> ...


I would be totally honest with the axe muderer: "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, cause you are about to meet him." And then pull the trigger.

Seriously I see folks advising both sides of the infidelity problem:
1) by withholding the truth that you cheated, you are selfish and not giving your spouse an opportunity to make an informed decision regarding what he wants to do, going forward

2) by telling the truth that you cheated, you are selfish and only telling him to dissuade your guilt about what you have done, and put the blame on him for driving you to do it

Either way it seems, the WS is selfish


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## wintervalley (Oct 22, 2017)

BadGrammar said:


> First time posting here, but I have been following your thread. I am curious about a few things. How long were you together before marriage? Did you have a healthy intimate relationship with your spouse before marriage? You mentioned that you have 2 kids "planned". Were they conceived in the traditional manner, or through IVF or some other means? Was your sex life healthy before the kids? I do not want to be insensitive... but is it possible that your spouse is simply not attracted to you sexually? If so, I would guess that your impulsive behavior was not impulsive at all. It was a desperate action based on the very understandable need to be desired.
> I was married to my ex-wife for 15 years. When we met, we enjoyed passionate lovemaking. However, as time went on, this waned. I loved her dearly (and still do), and was dazzled by her intellect. To this day, I pine for the pleasure and excitement of our conversations. However, even before marriage I realized that I no longer found her sexually attractive... and I made the grave mistake of marrying my favorite friend.


We were together 3 years before marriage, one of which I was deployed. We looked at that year apart, and us remaining faithful to each other and wanting each other, as an indication that we felt the same way about each other. 

Our sexual activity was healthy. Though, upon reflection, I have realized it was all still my initiation (when we would go to bed at night, I would put his hand on my breasts or vagina as an indication that I wanted sex, and he would 'initiate' from there, and I was more aggressive then in making it more than just missionary than sleep). I think that in the happiness without kids (I'm not saying I'm not happy with my kids, but since back then, I still had my career and life, the things like the lack of being ravaged without indication didn't seem as aware as they do now) kind of covered that up. Which is a large part of why I'm saying I need IC to decide if this is something I see worth saving before giving him the choice to see if it's something he finds worth saving. Because from the entirety of the relationship, his stance on sex has seemed to be clear, I just never absorbed it till now. Which is 100% on me, even though I've made it clear since day 1 (from things like nightly initiating sex to giving him sex toys for his birthday) that sex is a large part of life for me. 

I've asked him before if it's me. And he just always says he doesn't know. So. I don't know. But. I know we will soon find out!


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## BadGrammar (Oct 29, 2017)

WV,

Are you absolutely certain that he was faithful during your deployment? Upon your return, was your love making frequent and passionate for a time? Or... did you feel he was just going through the motions?

I would like to clarify something about my last post. When I put forward the possibility of your H not being attracted to you sexually, I did not mean to imply that you are most likely unattractive. I am sure that is not the case.
My ex-wife is pretty, elegant and brilliant. For most men she would be seen as a real catch. While our marriage thrived on an intellectual level, sex became infrequent and then non-existent. The odd thing is that we never even fought about it. For years we lived together as partners but not lovers. Traveling, throwing parties, etc. I am certain she never had sex outside the marriage... and honestly, if she had I would probably have been relieved in a sense. I felt that she deserved to be desired and fulfilled sexually. Unfortunately, I simply could no longer see her in a sexual light. Outwardly, we were a happy couple, but inwardly we were just complacent. 

That said, I do believe that you must tell him.

BTW, thank you for the selfless act of serving our country.


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## David51 (Sep 12, 2017)

This sounds an awfully lot like a man pretending to be a woman.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## BadGrammar (Oct 29, 2017)

Did you tell him?


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

BadGrammar said:


> Did you tell him?




You might be wasting your time, she has already said she won't tell the outcome. Might be busy for a while trying to find an IC that says not to disclose.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

wintervalley said:


> I didn't run off. I just opted to stop responding for a bit as I've noticed a lot of the responses assumed a lot about me, my marriage, my husband, and my life. And they just seemed to be from a lot of bitter, emotional, cheated on spouses.
> 
> So I'll address some things. And yes, I am sure many of you will think this is me further not taking responsibility for MY MISTAKE, but so be it.
> 
> ...


A good friend doesn't lie to their friend. They don't brake vows. He may be a good friend but as long as you keep this a secret you are not one. Assuing you are going to stay or even worse try to have marriage counseling and not even talk about this (like that is going to work). He will find out one day and it will brake him. 

Read this if you have the guts. This is the pain you are setting him up for. Tell me that you can be a "good friend" and do that.


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## Diana7 (Apr 19, 2016)

drifting on said:


> You might be wasting your time, she has already said she won't tell the outcome. Might be busy for a while trying to find an IC that says not to disclose.


Surely most people are quite able to make the decision to do the right thing without having to get a counsellor to tell them what to do?


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## WilliamM (Mar 14, 2017)

I would tell my wife.

She better tell me.

Check these threads and I am willing to bet you will get the sense that people think being lied to is worse than the actual affair. Constantly I see mention of how horrible it was to be lied to, how that was the worst part of it.

In my case, when my wife had an affair, it was the lying that blew everything up into the horror it became for her.

I think lying is worse than anything. If you lie to your husband, I think things can only be even worse.


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## wmn1 (Aug 27, 2014)

TheDudeLebowski said:


> I don't see where she said they are in a sexless marriage, she said he doesn't initiate sex. Many marriages out there consist of lots of sex where only one spouse initiates.
> 
> Add in the fact that she is in a state of mind to try and justify her actions in any way she can to ease her own guilt, I dont see why anyone can jump to the conclusion of a sexless marriage. All she said is he doesn't initiate.



I agree with you Dude. Many of the others misread what she wrote. She is the initiator of the sex but she never said it was sexless.

I am sure it may be now. There is never an excuse for cheating....

Again, I agree with you and disagree with some of the man blamers here


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## wmn1 (Aug 27, 2014)

sokillme said:


> A good friend doesn't lie to their friend. They don't brake vows. He may be a good friend but as long as you keep this a secret you are not one. Assuing you are going to stay or even worse try to have marriage counseling and not even talk about this (like that is going to work). He will find out one day and it will brake him.
> 
> Read this if you have the guts. This is the pain you are setting him up for. Tell me that you can be a "good friend" and do that.


great and truthful thread to read sokillme


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

@wintervalley

I am not a butthurt BS. I was a WW for many years in my first marriage. Regarding mistake vs choice... The simple truth is that if you keep choosing to make the same "mistake", it stops being a mistake and becomes, simply, a choice. Another simple truth is that MC is useless if you're not completely honest with your therapist and your spouse. In other words, if you're not going to confess the affair, don't bother wasting money on MC


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## drifting on (Nov 22, 2013)

Diana7 said:


> Surely most people are quite able to make the decision to do the right thing without having to get a counsellor to tell them what to do?





I agree with you wholeheartedly, but wintervalley said she will take the advice of the IC, and that should scare most people. We all know there are plenty of IC that just may tell her to bury it.


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## blahfridge (Dec 6, 2014)

drifting on said:


> I agree with you wholeheartedly, but wintervalley said she will take the advice of the IC, and that should scare most people. We all know there are plenty of IC that just may tell her to bury it.


Yes, very true. My H was in IC during the year we were in crisis because of my EA. He acted the complete aggrieved spouse even though his affairs had been rug swept by both of us for many years and he had never told me the truth, admitting to only one affair at that time. He told me his C asked him many times why he didn't just leave me during that year. He finally confessed just this past August to numerous affairs spanning years. I asked him if his C ever told him that he should tell me the truth and he said that she kept the focus on what I was doing and told him that since his cheating was in the past it didn't matter anymore. Unbelievable.


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## Barth (Aug 9, 2017)

The issue of sex or whatever is a red herring.

The issue is one of honest or tranquility.

Do you and he want to live a lie?

As for me, when faced with wrath on earth or damning my eternal soul with a lie, I've always gone with the wrath on earth option. It tends to blow things up, but they were going that way already. So, in a sense I catalyzed the inevitable.

In your case, you may find you have a mutual interest in orgies... who knows?


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## Young at Heart (Jan 6, 2015)

wintervalley said:


> .....Our sexual activity was healthy. Though, upon reflection, I have realized* it was all still my initiation *(when we would go to bed at night, I would put his hand on my breasts or vagina as an indication that I wanted sex, and he would 'initiate' from there, and I was more aggressive then in making it more than just missionary than sleep).
> 
> ..... back then, I still had my career and life, the things like the lack of being ravaged without indication didn't seem as aware as they do now) kind of covered that up. Which is a large part of why I'm saying I need IC to decide if this is something I see worth saving before giving him the choice to see if it's something he finds worth saving. Because from the entirety of the relationship, *his stance on sex has seemed to be clear, I just never absorbed it till now.* Which is 100% on me, even though I've made it clear since day 1 (from things like nightly initiating sex to giving him sex toys for his birthday) that sex is a large part of life for me.
> 
> I've asked him before if it's me. And he just always says he doesn't know. So. I don't know. But. I know we will soon find out!


It sounds like you are coming to an awareness of yourself and your H. 

IC will probably help you better understand yourself.

I would also suggest that you figure out what it is that you want for yourself in the future. When I say that I am thinking long term.

The ST that helped save my marriage had us visualize and vocalize what we wanted in our marriage in 10 years, 20 years out. Now that we have been married 46+ years, it would be nice to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary with our children and grandchildren to show them what is possible. Of course if marriage is hell, that won't happen.

When talking to you IC get them to recommend a good ST for couples counseling for you and your H. You might also want to ask your IC about what a mid-life crisis looks like.

Good luck.


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## jinkazama (Nov 5, 2017)

I am a long time lurker on infidelity forums
So let me tell you one thing 
After reading a lot of cheating stories now my ultimate conclusion is that there is no valid reason to cheat.If someone is going to cheat on you they will cheat no matter what is the sitution of your marriage.


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