SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have a problem. I need some serious help and lots of advice.

I am a habitual cheater. My BS and I have been married for 13 years and together for 18 years. In that time I have had multiple affairs and no matter how much I want to change or stop I don't know how.

My first affair was 8 years ago with a co-worker and it was a full fledged affair that lasted for months before my BS found out and I broke it off, professed my love and stopped my A. Things were bad between us for a long time but they did get better, and right as they got better I had and emotional A with on old friend I knew when I was very little. I snuck around behind my BS back because I knew she would not like me hanging around this OP. BS found out about that an I stopped, and we tried to go to a marriage counselor who didn't help at all and kinda made things worse then they were before. This happened in 2010, and I had cut off contact with the OP until about 8-9 months ago when I stumbled across here via Facebook and re-opened the lines of communication, and once again hid it from my BS. There was never any physical contact we never even saw each other face to face but we had been communicating via text for months and there were a few sexual jokes that were tossed out from time to time but we had been friends since I was about 6 years old and I never thought of her in that way. Then 3 months ago, I started another A with another co-worked and it quickly got out of hand, there was never any physical contact but there was a lot of sexting going on and a few pictures that were sent to me and my BS found out about that one night. I again professed my love and told her I want to work things out. She kicked me out of the house and then asked me to come back. We started going to a marriage counselor again and we both really liked this one. I cut off all contact, wrote her a no contact letter and I am about to start a new job to get away from that, all the while still communicating with my long time friend (the other OP) about what was going on and getting her advise. I had not said anything to her or come clean about my other EA with my long time friend until just a few nights ago, when she just happened to intercept a text message she sent saying happy st. Patricks day. So now everyone is up to speed, I have no idea what to do. I have cut off contact with the OP's, I am still going to the marriage counselor and he knows whats going on, he still thinks there is a chance to work this out given what he has seen from both of us. I have come clean about what has been going on I know my BS doesn't believe me and rightfully so. I am being affectionate and trying to be close with my BS, but every thing I get is telling me she is done, she stop wearing her wedding rings, she won't look me in the eye, she is completely unresponsive to my attempts to be close and affectionate all of which I understand if the roles were reversed I'd probably be the same way. I am just waiting for her to ask me to leave the house again, and I am freaking out, can't sleep can't eat, totally going out of my mind.

I really do love and care for my BS and i do want to work out my marriage, and I know you guys are all gonna say if I truly loved my BS I wouldn't have done any of these things. So what the hell do I do. I am so afraid to lose some one I have know and been with for more then half of my life, not to mention we have 2 children together. I so want to change who I am at the core and stop repeating my past over and over.

Please be kind and offer your advise, If you are just going to be mean and nasty that is not what I came here for, I beat myself up enough over my actions and believe me I hate myself and myself worth is about as low as it could get right now.

FOL,

I think you are still hiding the entire truth from you W. I would suggest you dig deep and disclose every dirty little secret. I was guilty of the trickle truth. Withholding information was torture on my W.

You need to tell your wife everything you can remember. Create a timeline, include every bit of information you can remember. Tell her where you met, what interested you, what actions you took, what words you spoke. If there is any information you think would hurt your W and you do not tell her, you are not finished with your A. In order for you to be done with your A and move on, you W needs to know every detail.

Once all has been disclosed you should feel disgusted with yourself. You should feel the want/need to improve yourself.

You will never be able to satisfy your wife until you have satisfied yourself.

Welcome Full. I am glad you have found us.

What was going on in your life when you started the affairs? Were you stressed? Bored?

Please be kind and offer your advise

So do you want just kindness and soft words or do you want the hard truths on how to fix this situation? Because you really can't have it both ways. Fixing this shit is going to be hard work, the hardest work you have ever done, and if you are not up to the task, you may want to figure that out now.

Welcome to SI, the best club you never wanted to be a part of. There are awesome people here on the wayward side, this journey will be hard, but the best one you will ever take if you choose to get honest with yourself.

Please be kind and offer your advise, If you are just going to be mean and nasty that is not what I came here for, I beat myself up enough over my actions and believe me I hate myself and myself worth is about as low as it could get right now

Believe it or not, you could very well go lower. The mean nasty things that you think people here might say may seem mean and nasty to you, but like TG said, they are probably the truth, which you may or may not be ready to hear. If you do get something nasty or mean, then please PM a moderator to let them know, and they will make an evaluation of the situation. The Wayward forum is probably more heavily moderated than any of the other forums here on SI.

Have you read around on SI? Have you checked out the Healing Library? There is a link in the little yellow box in the upper left hand corner of the screen. And yes, there is a section in there for Waywards too.

So, why did you cheat? Why did you keep the EA a secret and restart it after your BW found out?

Stick around, post, read, learn.

ETA (that means edited to add) There are a couple of things to keep in mind...one is the phrase "you can't heal what you won't feel" and the other thing is that if something causes you to react (meaning if you view something here as mean or nasty), then that is probably something you should look at more closely.

[This message edited by BaxtersBFF at 7:47 AM, March 22nd (Friday)]

Welcome to SI fulloflies. You will gain much knowledge here. And also you must realize that R usually takes 3 - 5 years, so put them boots on and strap them tight. And yes, there is a chance that your wife just doesn't want to R but you need to work on yourself no matter what the outcome of your M will be.

What have you done besides professing your love to your BS? It takes so much more then that. As you are well aware, that means nothing to her anymore. I would start by reading the following links.

Things that every WS needs to know.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=324250&HL=37775

How much does my BS hurt?

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=327446

The Life Boat:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=354101

I would also recommend a couple books "Emotional Affair" by Gary Neuman and "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. They will both open your eyes to what you need to understand - boundaries.

So I did take some advise from you posts and told my wife everything that had taken place. I know she thinks there was more but there really wasn't, and since I spent so much time lying to her over the years there is no way for me to convince her that what I am saying is the truth. I know I shouldn't get upset about her not believing me but I just cannot help get upset when I know I am not lying and am accused of doing so. She walked out of our last counseling session saying she has had enough and can no longer continue living this way, not knowing whats real and whats not real, having to look over her shoulder the rest of her life. I fucked shit up real good, and I am now left with nothing but the shattered pieces of my life to try and pick up and move forward. I really don't know what to do anymore, my life has totally spiraled out of control and I feel like I should just check out from this life all together.

[This message edited by fulloflies at 11:40 PM, May 13th (Monday)]

Welcome back!

No, there isn't much you can do to convince her she has all of the truth now. Trying to convince her of anything shouldn't be your motivation right now. Just breath and take care of yourself, as in keep yourself healthy right now.

Have you been able to figure out why you cheated?

Hi FoF

I am a newbie here - only a couple of months out of my dday. I have found the truth from members on SI invaluable - even when tough it hear - it comes from a loving place. They've given me massive guidance on the first steps of R.

Just a note of encouragement really - my BS initially did not believe a word I said - why would they - we've been shown to be absolute liars?! But through consistency and revealing every single detail - they are slowly begining to believe that what I've told them is not just a version of events - but the truth. So, hang in there ... Ive seen mine come around and although v v early days, he does now believe he knows all the truth of the A.

There is more then one reason behind why I decided to cheat, and to try and explain every last detail could take awhile, but in short, I was bored with what was taking place in my marriage, I felt like I was not getting the attention I needed from my BS, I don't think I was ready to commit to a life long relationship when we got married to begin with. We had a child our first my daughter when I was only 18, and I did what was the honorable thing and stayed with her and 3 years after she was born we got married. While I had many girlfriends before my wife, she was the first one I ever had sex with. Because we had our first child so young I felt like I never got the chance to do what most people get to go through, I worked while I watched my friends go to college and party and live life so to speak. So those are the main reasons I feel like I went down this path. There is also a lot of emotional baggage that I carry with me. My father and I never had a good relation ship as most teenagers and there parents butt heads a lot. I watched my two older brothers go through that " right of passage" and they came out on the other side and were able to make there peace with my father, I never got that chance, My father died when I was 17 years old in 1996, I was the person who found his lifeless body the next morning after he died. My father use to call me an asshole and said I had no respect for him, his house, etc etc, and there was a lot of hate between us, even though I know deep down there was love. I know for a fact that there was nothing I could have been able to do to save him the night he died, but I knew something wasn't right that night, and I did look for him in my house that night, and I wasn't able to find him. I had the chance to open the door I found him behind that night, and maybe there would have been something I would have been able to do. I have never been able to let that go, I have never been able to let anyone get too close to me after that either. I was a hippy happy-go-lucky person, and the next morning after I found him who I was died that day. I still have not been able to forgive myself, and my mother and my shrink have told me that I have punished myself ever since, not allowing my self to be happy, to constantly question everything and never let anyone get too close to my heart again. Those pictures in my head, of trying to lift my fathers cold lifeless body up and watching blood drip from his mouth have never gone away, they have just become less frequent. * months after that, my grandmother passed away further pushing me into a place were I would never let my self get too close to anyone. I dove deeper and deeper into drug use, I was already smoking pot at that point which was part of why my father didn't see eye to eye. Then in December of 1997, my daughter Kalie was born. I cried when I saw her for the first time, she was beautiful and she brought some of that joy back into my life, a long with a ton of responsibility for an 18 year old. I went to work and there were day that I was gone for work from 6 am until 8pm, I missed her first words, her first steps, I missed a lot to work to make ends meat, while my wife who was still my girlfriend at the time like I said we got married when my daughter was 3 years old, she spent months on end staying at home taking care of our child. Maybe there's some resentment there, having no choice but to bust my ass for my child while she sat at home and got to see her and witness all the steps she took in those early years. My daughter is now 15 and in high school, but in mind she will forever be 6 years old. I could go on and on but for the moment I have said all that I really want to, thinking about those times is very hard and I am embarrassed to say I am fighting back tears while typing this.

That is a great post. I don't know if you see it, but you have a lot of potential in you.

I'm sorry about your father and you having to find him that way. I'm sorry that you don't remember your daughter's early years. But you know what? You can recover from this.

In your words I am seeing some first steps. Please be patient, and be persistent. There are answers, and you know your own story better than anyone else. Take each trauma, each resentment, and work through it. There is a better place, and it will likely involve your BW and your DD, as long as you step up and take responsibility know as an adult that you were so young to take on.

Hang in there and commit totally to your M. Being a serial cheater as you said, I imagine it will be hard for you to resist the urge to seek out another A, especially with your W being so upset with you. Find the strength and stick it out till the end, hopefully forever. I do believe you can truly love someone yet still cheat on them. I love my BH, but I was deluded and made terrible choices.

Just curious, you said you have two children but only really mentioned your 15 yo daughter.

You're damaged from your relationship with your father and his death. Being damaged from trauma doesn't excuse our behavior, but you were dealt a very tough hand at a young age. You've made mistakes, but you also manned up and provided for your family, when a lesser man might've walked away.

I got married at 29, to a 39-year-old man I chose and fell in love with. So I can't pretend to relate to your situation. One of the reasons I finally strayed, was that I missed that "new relationship" rush, which I haven't had in 16 years. But I had it plenty from age 18-25, so I was just being a selfish a-hole. Still working through my feelings.

Cry. Don't hold back, embrace life with all its highs and lows.

Good luck.

Yes, I do have a son as well, I was getting there but I had to stop writing before I got that far into my story. My son Rowan was born when my daughter was 6 years old, and thank god for that, she was such a great big sister too. Even tho she was only 6 at the time she did help us out with what she could when he was just a baby. But again, just like the last time, I worked she stayed at home, and I missed a lot of his first steps as well. Right around the time he was a year old is when I started my first affair. My bs had spent her time focused on our two children and at that time the 4 dogs as well, I felt like I was low man on the totem pole and began to actively seek attention else where. So I did, and I had a EMA with a co-worker for several months before my wife found out. The whole thing was so fucked up, she found out the night before my son was going in for surgery to have a growth taken off the back of his skull, thankfully the growth was not cancerous. We started going to a marriage counselor at that time, who really wasn't much help, she had it in for me the moment we walked into her office, and after 5-6 sessions I had had enough of her man hating ways and told her off and walked out of her office. My bs and I worked on our issues on our own, and we did make it through that patch in our lives together. My son is now 9 and is a normal wild boy or " Boy: a noise with dirt on it" fits him to a T.

[This message edited by fulloflies at 10:57 AM, May 15th (Wednesday)]

Just like my posy says, why do i do what I do? I know I have been given more then enough chances to do the right thing and give back some of what my BS wants/needs, but there's always some part of me that just cant let go of old ways, and doing what's good for her and not myself. I never thought of myself as a selfish person, but the longer time ticks bye, the more and more I see what a stupid, selfish, cold hearted prick I am and have become. At what point did this happen I find myself asking over and over again. I do not like the person I have become, I know I am the only one who can change that, yet I feel helpless and powerless to do so. The things that have been asked of me are so small by comparison to the damage I have left in my wake. Yet they seem so big all the time. Why do I fear change and not embrace it, how can I just flip a switch in my mind and feel and think complete opposite in the same minute. Why do I flip flop back and forth, I try to do the right thing, but by who's standards am I to be judged.

I love, truly love my wife, but I am constantly doing things no matter how small in my mind that upset or hurt her with out even thinking.

I don't think I deserve another chance, and maybe this is just part of the everlasting path of self destruction that I have been traveling most of my life. Distraction, self destruction, always so focused on the negative and not enough on the positive, taking for granted those whom I love and watching them suffer at my hands. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why after so many chances to do what I know is the right thing do I cower in fear and end up causing more pain and more hurt to the ones I love and myself, why can't I just fucking snap out of this.

I am so unhappy with out her, and just as unhappy with her, does that sound right to any of you? Everything makes me mad and angry and sad and disappointed all at once, I feel so crazy and out of control.

I have completely destroyed my BS with the same bullshit over and over, I say one thing and do another even tho I try so hard nothing seems to change, nothing seems to matter.

I am going out of my mind, filled with grief, filled with rage and anger, filled with sorrow and despair.

I'm not asking for sympathy or empathy, just needing to vent and I just have no other place to do so.

What are some things that you're good at?

Honestly, I really don't know anymore.

It just seems like you're spiraling a bit. You have to stop that cycle.

As crappy as you feel, you are the only one in control, so it is a decision that you have to make. And in this case, the decision is whether you're going to get over yourself enough to save your M. Because that's exactly what you stand to lose if you can't find a way out of the spiral.

All I know is the pain and hurt left on both sides from the fall out of my actions, I just want to let go of the past and move forward but day after day after day I am constantly reminded of all the shit I have caused and it seems no matter what I do nothing improves it only seems to get worse. Lack of sleep, not eating, as if we don't fight enough in the waking hours it carries over into my dreams when I do finally get to sleep. I am at a loss, and I feel lost. I honestly don't know what the hell to do anymore......

I know I am in a downward spiral and I don't know how to stop it, I can pause it for moments at a time, but it always seems to keep going down down down. Every aspect of my life is changing, home, work, family, its all just too much to deal with all at once. I wish more then anything I could roll back the clock and turn right when I turned left, but I know whats done can never be undone. I wish I could stop seeing things in just black and white and realize how much grey there is. I wish I could stop the violent self destruction but I just don't seem to be able to snap myself out of it. BLAHHH!

Have you shown her this site? You express yourself really well in writing. Do you have trouble expressing your feelings to her face?

I hate to speak for my BS, since I've unfairly disparaged him to my xAPs (I am so sorry). But for two weeks post-DD he was mercurial. Swinging from one mood to the next...somewhat in shock I think. Reading the resources on this site, and my posts and others, he said really helped him. Nobody's making it through this alone.