We’ve been married for 6 years, and things have kind of become difficult over the past two. He never pulls his weight and seemed like he was already checked out of the marriage.

3 weeks ago, I got the “I love you but im not in love with you” speech. That was kind of a wake up call for me, so I started digging. You were right. He’s been seeing a girl from his office.

Since then, I’ve tried to be extra nice to him, but it just feels like I’m pushing him further away. Last night he even told me he thinks he loves her.

Help!?

I hear what you’re saying, and you are right. I already have a couple of artcles in mind for men, and I’ll move then towards the top of the list.

Thanks for the input!

You’re in a tough position, that’s for sure.

Men tend to cheat because they feel like they’ve lost the emotional connection and don’t feel respected by their wives. Their primary reasons are remarkably similar to those of women who cheat.

He’s pretty deep in the “affair fog.”

An affair is based on fantasy, and when someone is in the fog, they tend to overemphasize the negatives in their marriage – it makes it easier to self-justify their actions. The reality is that affairs are based on fantasy and lies, and fewer than 2% of them last.

That alone doesn’t help you, but understand that you’re not really fighting the relationship with the other woman, you’re fighting against the fantasy.

So…

You should start focusing on you. Go to the gym. Go out with friends.

Don’t obsess on him. Don’t say, “I love you.” Don’t buy gifts. Don’t ask for reassurances.

Do things with your kids (just you and the kids). Wear nicer clothes. Get your hair cut. Etc.

When you interact with him, your conversations should be brief and to the point. Try to stay upbeat around him and don’t get pulled into any arguments.

Don’t be needy or desperate even though you’re feeling VERY desperate and needy.

Your overall attitude should be, “something is going right in my world” even though it isn’t.

You should be cheerful and upbeat, and your actions should say that you’re OK with moving on with your life.

You won’t be doing any of that for him. You’ll be doing it so that if he doesn’t end the affair, you’ll have started the healing process.

The side benefit is that often the betraying spouse will be pulled back by these behaviors. Not always, though.

You can’t make the choice for him. *He* must make it. You also can’t “nice” him back. Any nice behaviors will be seen as manipulative.

IF he ends the affair, you can begin moving forward with rebuilding your relationship.

-Mary

P.S. You’ll also likely see quite a bit of indescision on his part. That’s normal, and if you see it, it could be a good sign. Don’t change your actions, however, unless he ENDS the affair.

We only got married in June 2011, however I have hereditary depression (major depressive disorder) and I had to make some adjustments in my medications. In December, I had a major relapse in my depression when my psychiatrist took me off of one medication cold turkey and put me on a new one, but titrated my dose very slowly due to known side effects. He became very upset because I would turn him down for sex, and we both have agreed in hind-sight that I should have gone into a hospital when I first started on the medication because I ended up isolating myself when I went on a leave-of-absence from work and going deeper into depression.

He began venting to a female friend he had recently gotten back into contact with about his feelings, and I found out later that she had been having a crush on him for several years (they were old co-workers). We have been together for almost 6 years total, and we have a daughter who is almost 3 years old. She had been telling me that she was pushing him to stay with me, that we needed marriage counseling, and that we needed to be sure that our daughter was also taken care of during this time. Not 2 days after her last e-mail to me with information like this, he lied to me about where he was spending the night and went to her house to get a break away from me. He confided to me the next day where he had really been, but lied to me about if they had been intimate or not (they had). Four days later, he spent the night again with her, yet somehow didn’t think I would connect the dots.

Also, the affair began when I finally was reaching my recovery phase in my relapse. I had already been doing so much better, cleaning the house, laundry, dishes, and everything else that I had stopped doing during my relapse. He didn’t believe that I was feeling better, and when I asked him what he thought was going on because I had been doing more around the house, he believed that I was just tired of him yelling at me to do something. I had already told him many times prior to the affair starting that I was feeling better, that my sex drive was coming back, and everything else, but it didn’t stop anything.

Now, he says he really likes her (although I know it is just lust) and wants to be with her instead of me. He says he will not end his relationship with her. They have only been seeing each other a little over a month now, yet he wants to end our almost 6 year relationship where we have a child together to be with her although he barely knows her.

I purchased the e-book “Save the Marriage” and I sent the file where Dr. Baucom is discussing how to mend your marriage after an affair to my husband, but it doesn’t matter to him.

I really want to make things work with him. He is holding things against me from when I was not in a stable state of mind, yet I remember when I got pregnant he went off the deep-end emotionally and I forgave him for hurting me back then. He says he’s just tired of it all, and it just makes me so mad because I was finally at a point where I wanted to work on our marriage problems when he lost hope in me. But what’s sad is that the affair started only 45 days from the point my relapse started.

Any pointers you could give would be appreciated, but I almost think this is a lost cause because I can’t force him to want to work with me and become a family again (although I know we’ll always be family because we share a daughter together). I came from parents who divorced when I was in middle school, and I really wanted to be in a marriage that stayed together and involved spouses who supported one another during the hard times. I wanted my daughter to grow up with both of her parents married together to give her the best opportunities in life and not have to divide her life into two halves that existed simultaneously to be with both parents.

Again, any advice is appreciated. I just hope that we can somehow work this out.

The “not trusting” could be the most telling part of your comment.

Do you know what he’s doing on the Internet? It might be time for you to invest in a keylogger. (Here’s a link to some hardware choices, and here’s a link to a pretty good software keylogger which would be better for a laptop.)

Sometimes a spouse who’s engaging in untrustworthy behavior starts suspecting their partner of similar behavior. It’s pretty common.