Expert: Laura Giles - 12/5/2011

Question
Hi,

I have been married to my husband for 12 years.  We were in the process of adopting.  One day I was going through his laptop and found Pictures and sexual emails.  The girl he had been writing to was his ex wife's BF for the past 2 months.  He had also been writing to his ex wife... not sexually, but this had always been an issue with me (she had cheated on him many times in their marriage) and she had never left us alone.  I asked for years for him to get her out of our lives, but was told just to ignore it and she would go away. A couple of years ago he had wrote to her.  Which was the first time that I know he had wrote back to her.  He said that was the only time until she wrote again when this all started.

After finding out about this emotional affair, I had to let the adoption full through, as I could not bring a child into this situation.  We went to marriage counseling.  

Then six months later, again I found out that a week after I had found out the first time he had started writing to her again.  Only this time he did everything at work, so there was such a small chance I would find out.  He had lied to the counselor, to me, to our family, and just did what he wanted.

We have two children and I do not want to put them through a divorce... they both had a hard time with the adoption having to finish.  I also love him and do know that apart from this he is a good person..

He swears it is over.  That he was so selfish and never looking at himself, and now he realizes how selfish he was and that he will never do it again, never hurt our family again, that he was weak.  How do I believe this?  So many lies before. so I am finding it so hard to move on.

It has been 10 months since I found out the second time, and I still can not get the betrayal out of my head.  

He had always been selfish, as in never helping with anything, and I am so the opposite, but now he tries really hard, but is it enough?  Will I ever get over the hurt, deceit and betrayal?

Can we make this marriage work and if so HOW???

Thank you

Answer
Hello,

It appears that your counseling has been ineffective. Whatever you were doing to "get over it" was not working. So you need to do something different. My suggestion is to have complete transparency. If you have access to all mail, email, accounts, cell phone messages, etc. you can verify that he's behaving himself. It sucks to be under a microscope, but unfortunately, his behavior made it necessary. The more you see that he's trustworthy, the less need you will feel to check up and doubt.

I would also suggest that you work on whatever weakened your relationship making an affair possible. The other woman gave him *something* he wasn't getting from you. I am not saying this to blame the victim. I am saying that strong relationships don't tend to fall prey to affairs because when you are happy where you are, there is no space in your life or your heart for anything else to come in.

It sounds like you are saying that your husband is trying to meet your needs now. Let him. Tell him what you need. The more he meets your needs and shows that he is trustworthy, the less that this incident will matter. But it can't just be about him making it up to you. You have to meet him halfway. I know that doesn't sound fair being that he's the one who was out of bounds, but each side has a part to play in recovery.

Sincerely,

Laura Giles