# I want to save our marriage



## devotedtomywife (Jan 13, 2012)

My wife and I are separated. For the first few months I left her alone, because we both needed space. Our relationship had gotten to the point we were fighting most of the time.

Over the holidays we spent a lot of time together. During that time, I also found out she had started seeing (and being intimate with) another man. I can't describe how painful that was to learn, but I have worked through it.

My wife and I have been talking a great deal and our relationship is improving greatly. I want to save our marriage, and I realize our communication was bad in the past, so I am concentrating on this aspect first. I want to build our friendship and slowly work back to trying to get her to think about why she loved me at one point and see if she can find that love again. I need to find a balance between staying in her life and building our relationship, and not pushing to hard and pushing her away and further into the other man's arms.

I would love any ideas, especially from women, on how to win my wife back, and how I deal with the fact that she's currently seeing someone else (she told me she wasn't looking for someone, that it just happened. She also told me that its not that serious.)

In her eyes, right now, I think she sees our marriage as over. My goal over the coming year is to change her mind.


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## Dadof3 (Mar 14, 2011)

This explains your comment on Cowboy's thread. Cuckold.

Sorry to hear this is happening to you.


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## Wildflower3 (Nov 20, 2011)

Your situation sounds a whole lot like mine, only I am you and my husband is your wife. I, too, am trying to find that balance and focus on my issues in order to rebuild a friendship that may blossom into something more. A reconciliation from separation perhaps. 

Finding that balance is rough, especially because you don't want to undo the progress you have already made. 

Do you guys do a date night? Or a date day? I am trying to do that every week, though I think I may be the only one initiating. I enjoy that a lot. Maybe she would. It puts us in a different environment, which I think makes it easier to talk. 

Ask her how she's doing. Ask her what she wants in terms of what would make her feel cared for. Don't give her what you think she wants. If I learned anything, it would be that you don't know what she knows, you don't think what she thinks, and you don't feel what she feels. I have finally, after our 15 year relationship, come to learn that my husband isn't a mind reader and my expectations of him may have been unreasonable because of exactly that. We aren't the same person, we have different needs and we couldn't expect the other to know exactly what we wanted without explicitly communicating it. 

Have you tried marriage counseling? That has helped us tremendously in the communication area. Without it, I don't think we'd have made such progress. Would she be up for it? 

Sorry I can't offer advice about her seeing someone else. That would kill me too.


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## Dadof3 (Mar 14, 2011)

Lots of threads here that parallel your situation Mr Devoted.

The advice provided is done to help the OP (Offended Person) - you to get out of being abused by your spouse (emotional, mental, financial, physical, sexual).

As I've said to others, you more than likely didn't sign up or take vows in the marriage to "take a break" and have sex with someone else. 

Thats why we advocate that a separation become a divorce. You need to respect yourself, before your wife will respect you. This living arrangement you have with her obviously isn't improving anything.

Want to here some success stories (they started out in similar situations as you, but then learned to man up) - find Timbre's threads, CanGuy66's threads, and some others out there. 

The largest benefit that comes out of following the advice is that its also the most likely to snap your spouses head out of her ass (and if it doesn't - you deserve better anyway). 

Take it or leave it. 

Wish you the best of luck.


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## devotedtomywife (Jan 13, 2012)

Dadof3 said:


> This explains your comment on Cowboy's thread. Cuckold.
> 
> Sorry to hear this is happening to you.


ya, thanks for the cuckold comment - so useful in this discussion. 

i'm trying to save a 15 year marriage with 4 children. sometimes the ego needs to be put aside. its all about priorities and my priorities are my wife and my children, not how others perceive me.


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## Shaggy (Jul 17, 2011)

Here's the problem with your plan:

You've accepted the challenge of competing for your wife's affection and faithfulness. 

She on the other hand has no reason or motivation to stop seeing the OM that she decided to cheat with.

She is going to have you taking care of the kids, and bending over backwards to be nice to her.

she is going to have the OM taking her on dates and being kind and getting her night time needs taken care of.

she will be in heaven having two guys chasing her, and her kids fully taken care of.

Why would she ever choose just you? Why would she end this situation - there is nothing not to like about it for her.

You are essentially accepting her RIGHT to continue to date other men, while still married to you.

This is a situation you cannot win. It's also a situation that is very immoral.

You're wife is certainly not going to come back to a man she doesn't respect - and there is no way she will respect a man that accepts her continuing to see other men during this time.

If she is actually interested in working things out with you - then the other guy goes away COMPLETELY now.

She is after all still very much married to you. Separation is not a divorce, and it is not a free pass to cheat. It is two married people living apart to cool down the argument.

So she MUST end all contact with the OM and any other guys if she wants to work on the marriage.

Otherwise there isn't any R going on, and there isn't any work being done on the marriage - it's is just her cake eating.

Right now she's only cake eating. Of course things have been better - she's likely having the best time of her life. Husband taking the kids so she can be freed up to date.


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## BigBadWolf (Nov 30, 2009)

Nice guys finish last is the saying. Concerning affairs and marriage, nowhere else is this more true. 

So many wrong words in your first post: "slowly", "not pushing hard", "friendship", and the blaming yourself, and the waiting for your woman to come around or whatever. 

Nothing you can do you "save" your marriage using those futile tactics would even begin to make yourself attractive again in your wife's eyes. None of it.

Understand this Catch 22 right now, and don't waste any more time being mired in it.

Study Shaggy's post, it is 100 percent correct.

So I won't repeat it because it is not necessary.

I will just say this:

Decide today to be the kind of man that simply won't tolerate his wife [email protected] another man.

Throw her sorry butt to the curb, letting her [email protected] buddy OM have to deal with her drama then, instead of just the "good parts", and see how quickly things dry up between them.

Then also see how magically attractive you become to her all of a sudden.

I wish you well.


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## HKET4511 (Jan 19, 2012)

Hi Everyone,
I am new to the site and trying to find a way to cope with what is happening with my marriage. After almost 9 years married and 12 years together my husband told me he wanted a divorce because he was unhappy. He left the night of our son's birthday party and we woke up in the morning to find him gone. He came over a few days later and said that he missed our life and that he needed to be alone right now. He moved in with him mom and left me in the house (we are in the process of losing the house to forclosure right now). It's been 5 months that we have been apart and I am absolutely miserable. I want to save our family and marriage. I love my husband very much. He completely blindsided me with all of it. When I spoke to him just before Christmas, he was angry and defensive and kept telling me "we're over with! I'm done with you" but can't seem to answer any of my questions and what the heck did I ever do to deserve this. I have been a loyal and loving wife and treated him like the king of the castle. What happened? One day he told me he loved me and then next day it was all gone. I am so lost without my husband. I don't know that there is any chance of fixing our marriage. I have repeatedly told him that I don't want a divorce and want our family. I refuse to see anybody else because he is the only one for me. He isn't seeing anyone either. I don't believe in that...I AM A MARRIED WOMAN! He said he wanted the divorce but hasn't filed. He hardly talks to me and doesn't respond to any text messages I send (even the naughty ones). When he does talk to me, he is angry and defensive. Any suggestions out there?


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