I would like to provide you with a little bit of background regarding our marriage.  My husband Glen and I have been married for 6 years.  I have a 7 year old step-son and a 4 year old biological son with my husband.  On May 19, 2012, I discovered a text message on my husband's phone between him and a female co-worker that was not appropriate.  When I confronted my husband, he admitted to me that he had been having a 1 1/2 year affair with a female at his place of employment.  This female co-worker was not only a co-worker of my husband's but was also a friend of mine.  The female is also married but has since filed for divorce and moved out of her family home.  The female co-worker has been to our home for our children's birthday parties and we have been to her home on several occasions.  It is hard to believe that I spent so much time with this woman that I considered a "friend."
 
At the discovery of the affair, I asked (okay more like told) my husband to end the affair.  He stated that he did but the contact between them is continuing.  He has met her in a public place for breakfast and they are speaking on the telephone with one another.  It is my understanding that she has been pressuring him to leave our marriage, even to the point that she told him to quit his job and she would pay his child support.  He has told me that he was very clear with her during the affair that he would not be leaving our marriage.  He has told me that he will not talk with her unless things aren't going well at home. 

 
Things have been very rough at home.  I want our marriage to work out and I am willing to do whatever is necessary for this to happen. He stated that if he thinks about leaving the marriage, it physically makes him sick.  He stated that he feels that if he stays in our marriage, I will continue to suffer from the hurt that he has caused.  He is not sure if he can watch all of the hurt that he has caused.  He told me that he is going to move forward as if we are getting a divorce.
 
My husband has told me that he continues to have feelings for the other woman.  He still continues to work with the female co-worker but has been putting in many different resumes because he knows that it is not healthy for him to continue to work in that environment. 

 
I believe that this time that he is "running" from everyone, including God. He feels guilt and shame for his actions but has taken responsibility for them.  I feel that this other woman is almost like an addiction to him and he won't seek any help to deal with it.  I would appreciate any help!
 

Jennifer  

I'd like to take Harboring Hope because I am grasping to do just that - harbor hope - in a seemingly hopeless situation. I discovered my husband was cheating on me in June and only a month later, he had filed for divorce and was vacationing with his affair partner. How did I not see the signs that he had been cheating on me all this time? How could he so easily abandone our relationship of 10 years for another woman? Unlike the stereotype that comes with affairs, how could my husband abandon me, the God-fearing woman who looks like a Victoria Secret model, for his affair partner, a woman who is a follower of the world and looks like a soccer mom? Isn't it usually the other way around? As I navigate all these questions and more while grieving the sudden upending of my life, I am doing my best to keep my eyes on God and harbor hope.

I don't know where to start, so I guess I'll just start with "D-Day."  It was September 2nd at 9:02 p.m.  I had long suspected my husband was having an affair, but between two kids, full-time employment and other responsibilities, I used the excuse of not having enough time as a reason not to investigate further.  My husband had gotten a new cell phone, new bank account, and was claiming to work 5 days per week at an evening job.  He would pick arguments with me, belittle me and my oldest daughter.  At the beginning of August he moved out.  I spoke to an attorney in preparation to file for a legal separation.

My attorney asked me whether my husband was unfaithful.  My knee-jerk reaction was "no!  We're just incompatible... we just have communication problems"  But the more we talked; the more I took an honest assessment at our relationship, I knew there was someone else.  I knew it in the few moments when he attempted to be intimate with me.  I knew it when he would snatch his cell phone away from me.  I knew it when I watched him get extra "dolled up" to supposedly hang out with some work buddies while I stayed home and took care of our newborn son.

I'm trying to move past this, but it seems like I have maybe half a good day out of the week.  I'm consumed with information my investigator found on his liaison.  I'm sickened.  I tried to go to the movies with him again (something we always did), but found myself ill throughout the experience (vomiting did help a little).  They went to the movies together.  I have images of her trying to play with my son in my head and it's all just driving me crazy.  I drink a glass of wine in order to sleep without the images of them together.  I can't believe he did this to our family. 

I want to make my marriage work.  After initially giving me some stupid story of not telling me because he didn't want to "hurt me" and not ending the relationship with her because he didn't want to "hurt her" either, it seems as though he's come to his senses.  But it really hurts me that he wasted almost two years on his selfish pursuits.  I'm having a hard time getting past what he has done.  I have a hard time eating, sleeping, I dream about what they did together.  And I *still* have this nagging feeling that I don't know the whole story.

I don't know what to do.  I want to take the Harboring Hope course to try to get some assistance in starting a new chapter.  I want to learn to like and respect my husband again; to look at him and not see his infidelity.  To kiss him and not feel like he just kissed her.

I am broken and my heart and soul have been crushed. My husband has struggled with porn our entire marriage. I have cried myself to sleep so many nights I can't even count. It then escalated when he started going to strip clubs and getting lap dances. The current devastation is that I just found out he paid a prostitute to give him oral sex. He lies every time he is caught - He is only honest about things I already know or find out about.

My whole world has been turned upside down. I don't even know the man I married. I don't know this person I have slept next to all these years. He has a secret, dark life. I can’t believe this man who I loved threw 13 years of marriage to the wayside for some pleasure. It’s so unfair. God wants me to forgive and I don't know how. I loved him more than to succumb to sexual activities.

I don't know how to move past through all his lies. I am dying inside. I can't eat and I definately don't sleep. The pain is excruciating - its unbearable. I feel such despair and betrayal and rejection and loneliness - how could God love me? How will things ever be the same again? This news has literally brought me to my knees, taken my breathe away and changed my life forever. I have no one to talk to about this. His bad decisions are painted onto my life's canvas forever, and nothing can erase that reality. Nothing can wake me from this torment. The decisions he made will be our forever - will be forever the story of our relationship. I can never have a marriage where I can say my husband honored our vows or say he choose me over temptation....I loved him enough - why couldn't he love me enough? I desperately need hope.

I'll keep it short for YA! D-Day was June 6th 2011(his Betrayal). We both had an affair. I have never addressed my pain with his affair , I have spent all my time dealing with the impact of my affair on him. It's time to 'Go There' for me. It doesn't matter if your staff pulls or picks my entry, or however you do it. I will be in a Harboring Hope group reguardless at some point. It would however be a nice gift for myself because I deserve it!

The ever present, Jana

My husband of 18 years told me the day after mothers day 2012 that he no longer loved me/had any emotional connection with me and that we would both move on to find someone else because I deserved someone who could love me the way I should be loved.  He told me the kids would be fine, that we weren't the first people to get divorced and that I was a "good wife, great mother, great friend" that we were good co-parents together, BUT he wanted to be happy and he wasn't sure that he has EVER really "loved" me.  Moved out June 1st to be with his affair partner.  I was stunned.  Tried to talk with him many times.  I told him I thought aliens had come and stolen my husband.

Fast forward 8 months - He's not sure the AP is his lifelong mate, but he still doesn't know if he wants to give our marrige a try because he is worried that he won't have those feelings for me//there has been so much damage. So he won't end his PA because now he feels he will mess up HER life/ his work etc.     

Thanks!

Selene

My marriage of 23 years has always been rocky and unstable.  The emotional disconnection with my husband contributed to my clinical depression and suicide attempts, alcohol addiction (been in recovery for 6 years), years of off and on marriage counseling, and a long-term emotional affair with my ex-boyfriend.  After the affair was revealed, God restored our marriage and things were much better for our relationship.  But the dysfunction remained and it was only a matter of time before our relationship began to crumble in the face of another conflict.  For the last year we have been very disconnected, despite remaining married.  I then began to suspect he was having an affair, confronted him and was lied to.  He finally admitted the affair when I gave him concrete evidence of his phone calls and texts with the other woman.  After kicking him out of the house, there has been no more communication from him.  I feel caught between intense anger at his betryal, regret for continuing a marriage this long that has been so dysfunctional, and guilt for my contribution to the breakdown between us.  I've always been so fearful of dissolving the marriage because of lack of family support and not wanting to adversely impact our daughter.  How can I begin to recover from this devastation when I have no hope for a future?  But something has to change. And that change has to begin with me.  Harboring Hope offers me a chance to have hope for my future; a future that has nothing to do with my husband.  A future that offers more than my past.  A future that models faith, confidence and strength for my daughter so that this dysfunction is not repeated in her life.

D-day was 2 months ago.  Since then i have been trying to piece my life back together.  My husband and I have 20 years of marriage and i found out that he has been unfaithful the whole time.  I think the addictions are physical, emotional and he may have a sexual addiction too.  Not sure if there is anything out there that can help my deep hurting. He has admitted to all this and is "sorry"!  He has lived a double life for our whole marriage.  I need hope and healing desperatly!  I am so lost...I don't know what to try and sort out first.  I am hopeful by reading posts here that possibly someone has experienced some of the same kinds of betrayl and can help me start recovering.  Right now i am still in shock and stuck in Limbo...not sure what was real and what wasn't.

I always thought I was a "glass half full" kinda gal but the last few months it has been hard to see. My self esteem is shot, I worry and obsess constantly, and live in fear and sadness. I know I have many many things to be grateful for, but gratitude seems to elude me.  Small comments send me into a tirade. Counseling was helpful, but my benefits have run out. Counseling did not seem to give me the tools I need to move ahead. I think my CS is truely sorry, but I don't think he really understands how hard this for me. He brings me flowers or makes the coffee and says he is "trying" and things would be great if I "just got over it and things went back to the way they were before". He cannot seem to accept or understand that will never happen. I want my glass to be half full again!

The question "when will i be OK?" - is never far away from me. Even my dreams have turned to battles. "Full disclosure" of a 7 year affair with my friend was placed at my feet 13 months ago. Though I no longer have to tell myself to breathe, the doubts, fears and struggles are with me every day - and night. My husband came with repentenance and we are working on restoring our marriage - but 2 thoughts haunt me continually. The first surrounds the fact that the affair ended because the OW's husband discovered it - and she decided to work on saving her own marriage. So, in effect, my spouse's choices were limited, and I often feel that I was the 'fall back" and not the chosen. The second thought is integrated with the first - if I was not 'enough' for him before - how can the mess of the person I am now truly be 'enough'? Despite his attempts to convey otherwise - I just don't 'get it'. Harboring Hope - perhaps it will offer some help, some understanding - and that is the reason for entering the drawing. For all I have read/seen on infidelity - so far the odds of surving such a long term affair - where my spouse was able to carry on a 'double' life for so long - doesn't appear statistically good. My one true hope right now is that God is able to do above and beyond all I could ask or think... for indeed - it will take His guidance and healing to survive this - and to ever feel normal again.

It has been nearly two years since d-day, and yet, here I am. I need to reach out and get some understanding and guidance from people who have been there. I still have some ground to cover in order to heal. There's just so much pain to go through and while we had some counseling, I feel like I got left behind.