Question I have been married for 8 years and have three children. I have left and came back to many times to count. The most current separation has lasted 14 months and in this time I have met a woman that I have grown to care for.
Both my wife and I have committed adultery during the marriage, but I feel guilty leaving her with three small children. My wife is intelligent, hard-working, attractive, and is wonderful in bed. The new lady is older, not as sexually active, and not as hygienic as I would like, but she is an "escape" if you will from the reality of home.
I miss making love to my wife, the way she smells, and the way she holds me. But outside of the bedroom, we seem to have so many different issues that we disagree on. She is very head strong and I am very controlling.
We had/have a great life. Both of us are gainfully employed, well-educated and we have three beautiful children. I don't want to stay just for the sake of the children, but I don't want to be alone either. What say ye?
AnswerHi Pete~
I say that you should try to work it out with your wife if at all possible. In order to do this though you have to give up the other woman and stop physically cheating with all other woman, the same for your wife. If you want to try and make a go of it, then you have to make that decision to give it one last shot and make it work. If after this, it happens to not work out and you wish to go your separate ways, then by all means do so. But you owe it to your wife and your children to try to make it work. I'm a firm believer in that a person should try to do everything within their power to say the marriage before they leave it. That means trying to get along with your partner, go to counseling, make changes in yourself and try to improve your faults, etc. Before you have a right to give up and move on with your life. Otherwise, if you leave now and don't try to work it out, then you're not going to have any closure to this marriage and it WILL carry over into any present and future relationships you might have with other women.
You need to sit down with your wife and have a serious heart to heart talk with her. She needs to know exactly how this is affecting you. And what you're willing and unwilling to put up with in this marriage. With counseling you'll also be able to figure out what lead each of you to stray and become involved with other ppl. There's a reason for that and why it happened. Generally when a spouse cheats it's b/c something was/is lacking in the relationship, no communication, affection, attention, attraction, love, etc. You must figure out why both of you did this and try to work on it. If you want to be committed to each other, this is the only way. By not communicating with each other you're not paying attention to the wants, needs and desires of your partner. That's a must in every happy, healthy and fulfilling marriage.
Marriage is about compromise and even sacrificing things for someone you love. Marriage is also a constant work in progress. It's about two ppl working together doing teamwork, sharing your thoughts, hopes, dreams and struggles together in life. And all the ups and downs you endure together can make the bond that you share even that much stronger.
If you want to remain committed together, then you need to do that. If not, then you're wasting each others time, money and energy by staying together by living a lie and that's unfair to you both you, her and the children. You can't pretend to be something you're not in life. It just doesn't work out in the end. Talk to her and make a decision to either re-commit to each other, or start the process and begin moving on with your respective lives w/o each other. Otherwise it's just going to get that much harder to leave each other as time goes on. And it'll affect those precious children that much more. You owe it to her, yourself and those children to make a decision and stick with it. Whatever decision you ultimately make though, it's not going to be an easy one, that's for sure.
