A
male
age
36-40,
*roubledlovestory
writes:I need help!Ive been married for four years to my beautiful and amazing wife. But . we there was a time in our marriage that i didn't pay any attention to her, or make any effort for her, i completely took her for granted. ... i eventually pushed her into the arms of another man. the emotional affair never made it to be physical, she ended it immediately after she told me. she said the attention, and the feeling to actually be needed felt good. and eventually it got out of hand.She never physically cheated, but it felt like it. i couldnt hold her, or touch her, from my anger.but i soon got over that.she tried everything she could to get my trust back. gave me passwords to everything.,email fb, etc. we got some counselling and things started to look up for us. but then i began to feel down and depressed , thinking that since she cheated, the only way id get over it was to cheat back.. and thats what i did. I had sex with a close friend to us both. afterwords,,, i cant even describe the regret i felt . i immediately told my wife. and she left me. i dont know what to do.What i did did NOT make me feel any better, it made the situation a thousand times worse. she wont talk to me , its been three weeks , Ive wrote letters, texts, emails. explaining everything, and begging for her forgiveness, but all she says is that shes gave our relationship everything's shes got to make it work , then i plan to cheat and throw it all away, is something she cant forgive. Im a horrible person i know... i dont deserve her.but i cant live with out her...some please help me, how can i get her back ,, if there is a away????... please, please help!
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (19 June 2011): The love dare book.
A
female
reader, chocoholicforever  +, writes (15 June 2011):
While it was wrong for your wife to have an emotional affair (I think she should have left you instead because you were absent from the marriage and not putting any effort into it), I do think that she has suffered more in this marriage than you have.
You've suffered the hurt of betrayal from her emotional affair which is very understandable.
However, she first suffered from your emotional abandonment of her. Then when she re-committed to the marriage, she then suffered your betrayal. And it seems that you deliberately "one-upped" her in your betrayal by making it physical whereas hers wasn't.
Her emotional affair occurred during a time when you were emotionally absent from the marriage. Your cheating occurred during a time when your wife was fully re-committing to the marriage, giving you all her passwords etc. So in a way, your betrayal outdoes hers.
I can understand why you would feel betrayed, and you have every right to because I think she should have left you when you were neglecting her instead of staying married to you but having an emotional affair. but I do think that when all is said and done, your wife has suffered more than you have in this marriage so I can understand why she would now leave you.
I dont' think you can get her back, I think you should try to accept it and try to move on, and resolve not to make these mistakes in your next relationship. Some times people have to learn from making mistakes in life by losing a relationship due to those mistakes, and this goes for both your wife and yourself.
Try to tell yourself that it's better for YOU as well, if she doesn't come back. Imagine if she did come back to you. What do you think the next few months or even years will look like? You're no doubt still seething with jealousy and resentment over her emotional affair - that didn't go away, right? But now she would also be seething from your emotional abandonment of her AND your physical cheating.
I have a strong feeling that even if you did manage to get her back, it's not some thing you would want, ultimately. your life would probably get a lot worse than it is now. Some things can't be repaired (and mistrust due to infidelity is often one of those issues) and to even try will cause more collateral damage so some times it's better to cut your losses and move on.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): Both you and your wife need to grow up and stop playing games.
You both cheated and u both hurt each other.
Your wife may not want to admit it but she introduced the 3rd party into your marriage. Fool that u were you "showed" her didn't you?
Cheating is wrong and u Both need to catch a wake up. Also plse tell your wife that emotional cheating is just as bad as sexual cheating.
Two wrong never make a right!
LoveGirl
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A
female
reader, angelDlite +, writes (13 June 2011):
 give her time to be angry. she maybe angry at herself too and thinking that if she had not had her emotional affair then you wouldn't have gone and got a revenge f***. her emotional affair was in the same league as your sex-cheat, coz she probably had more FEELINGS for the guy than you had for your female friends so now you are EVEN in my book. you gave her a chance when she did what she did, it is now only fair that she should give you a chance. ask her to come to counselling again. you really need to rewind though back to the cause of her emotional cheating that started all this, there must have been something wrong in the marriage back then, get that sorted and then start afresh. oh and make sure you tell her you've been an idiot
x
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A
male
reader, freeme +, writes (13 June 2011):
 I can't add much beyond what the others have told you, other than to chime in, in agreement, that you have made a very poor decision, and now you must face the consequences.
You have to change your thinking from "How do I get her back?" to "I don't deserve her".
Expect this to take a few years to recover from. You should really try to learn something about yourself from it, and hope that what you learn gives you an advantage in future relationships.
Leave her be, give her space. It's done. Try to move on. Time heals all wounds.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): I read this just shaking my head, I cannot believe what you did. Your wife did not even cheat on you, yes she emotionally 'cheated' but that was only a cry for help as she was unhappy with you ignoring her. You used what she did as an excuse to cheat, you actually went out and had sex with a friend.
How low can you go? She was telling you she was unhappy, she regretted talking to that other man but at least she had some self control and didn't have sex with him. I promise you right now she is wishing she did sleep with that man and she may go back to him now.
You do not deserve her, I tell her to start a new life without you.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): Let her go, dude. be a man and accept that you screwed up and it's not reversible so now you pay the price as is only right. Your poor wife, you have shattered her trust completely, betrayed, hurt and insulted her, how can you even have the gall to be asking how to get her back? you're still being selfish, you haven't learned anything if all you're concerned with is your loss.
if your sister or daughter was married to a guy who did what you did, would you recommend she go back to him?
And of course you can live without her. You lived before you met her, didn't you? Not trying to be flippant here, but just saying, you don't "need" her to survive. And if she has any self respect she won't get back with you anyway so you should accept this and start the process of moving on and rebuilding your life. tell her you're sorry but show her that you've learned something by accepting her decision and not pestering and harassing her to take you back.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): Oh dear :( It seems like you wanted to hurt her like she hurt you but talk about double standards !! She had an emotional affair because you were neglecting her and she ended it before it got to the physical stage because she didn't want to lose you, So you do the worst thing possible and sleep with a mutual friend... The trust is completely gone here, your tit for tat tactics have gotten you nowhere. I really don't think you deserve to be forgiven for your childish behavior, but MAYBE your love is strong enough to overcome this dilemma but you are going to have to try so hard to get her back and it will take her a long time to respect or trust you again, things won't be right for sometime. If you want her back don't give up, but put yourself in her shoes..! would you forgive you ???
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A
female
reader, west country juilet +, writes (13 June 2011):
the short answer is that you cant get her back. The longer version is that it will take a damn sight longer than three weeks for you to convince her of your sorrow. you must first give her space to hate you, and then slowly try and get reaquainted. it will never be able to be like it was before, but maybe you can have something different that in its own way is just as good, or better.
cheating violates trust, and both of you were in the wrong - and trust cannot be gained overnight. hopefully if you are both willing to make it work you'll be able to work on getting what you had going again, and after that you should be able to learn to trust each other again.
dont smother her with your 'i'm sorry' speeches, give it time and it will come back if it is meant to be. do the small thoughtful things, but big blown out gestures that you think are romantic are usually just a pain in the arse and a big embarrassing. do the things that she would have forgotten you knew about her - if she has moved out, send her her slippers if you know she hates cold feet, or maintain your side of the jobs around the house so if she comes back she can see you are still dedicated to your life together.
sorry dude, there is no quick fix to this one, and its gonna take a lot of time and effort on both of your parts. hopefully though all will be okay and i wish you the very best of luck.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): She cheated on you and you cheated on her. Its equal now.
Only you weren't sure that she had sex with him. It could hurt her. But sex or not she did cheat. Otherwise what's the point of being with "another man".
So you should talk to her and tell her it won't happen again as she cheated on you and you did too. It doesn't matter who did first. The thing is that you did. So its equal.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): Wow what an eventful marriage you have had - and all in 4 years!
First, stop taking all the blame yourself, your wife didn't have to seek 'emotional' support elsewhere to make herself feel valued - she could simply have told you how she was feeling made you listen and talk - it was a poor excuse on her part and you were right to feel uptight
Second, what you did was very wrong and again there was no reason to cheat - as you now know only too well
I don't know if you can fix this, to me the marriage sounds as if it was built on shifting sand not solid rock - give her time n space - and yourself also - then see how you feel
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A
male
reader, soul83  +, writes (13 June 2011):
Hold on a muinute. Let's address the issues one at a time. You are quick to blame yourself but do not forget what your 'lovely wife' did to you by cheating on you. OK when a partner treats you badly, you have a choice. You can stay and work things out or you can leave. Unfortunately it's easy for the third option to come about - just cheat. Cheating is bullshit. There was no excuse for her to start an emotional affair on you. she should have left first.
That put the final nail in the coffin of the marriage. She lost respect for you and no longer cared about you or the marriage. You tried your best to get over it and try to hold things together but they were never the same again right??
See, we have the ability to remember the painful things that happen in our lives. So even if you two worked things out, you both would still carry resentment.
It wasn't fair for her to leave you after you sought revenge but it also wasn't right for you to revenge her. What did it prove?? How did you end up feeling?? How would you feel knowing that she was still by your side?? Could you ever feel the same way about each other?? I doubt it!
You both broke the sanctity of marriage. Nothing can bring you two back together now. For the love of god, get yourself some therapy and turn your life around. Grow up and don't stoop so low as to play games in love - revenge has no part of it and if someone forsakes your love, just be mature and walk away. It's like childhood games. I hope you two didn't have children involved.
Try to learn your lesson from this and make it your goal to earn yourself some integrity and honesty from this point on. You lost all of it through what you did. Will it be likely to follow you around in your mind for the rest of your life? Probably. But you will eventually work through the guilt.
It's sad to see that you both fell out of love and decided to do such hurtful things to each other. I know the pain of love too well but have never cheated. Never will. If someone cheats me, I will let them go. I couldn't live with the guilt personally.
You have a lot of lessons to learn.
I'm about the same age as you. I just got married and things are still very rough between my wife and I. But I doubt we would cheat on each other. She did get too close to a male work colleague last year but that has passed and we moved on. Even two months before the marriage I moved out but came back the next day. It left a scar on our marriage but I think if we can learn to get along better, things will work out. At the moment I feel a bit manipulated by her and we are both hurting. No relationship these days is immune to damage. There are many fights etc. I still question my wife's commitment to me and how much she loves me. I think she is still affected by me moving out.
We need to work hard rto strengthen our relationship if it is salvagable otherwise I fear we will end up a sad statistic like you.
Now after telling you straight the facts as I see them, I think it's time for me to sympathise a bit. The end of a relationship (and particularly a marriage) is the same feeling as death. It can take a particularly hard toll which is why I suggest you take a break from your wife and go and see a professional or consult decent friends to support you. You're gonna need it! Don't do what I did last night when I was devastated after our bad fight and sat outside thinking about ending my own life. Please don't do that to yourself. I'm ok now. I realised how much of a dick I was being to myself. Noone is worth doing that to yourself.
Good luck mate!
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (13 June 2011): If you love your wife as you say you do (rather than "needing" her to stay with you for self-centered reasons) then you should let her go and not be trying to get her back. If you truly love her, you would respect her feelings and have compassion for how she is feeling and what she's going through and realize that it's abominable to expect her to come back to you.
Please try to have some compassion for your wife. First she feels completely neglected by you when you were ignoring your marriage and taking her for granted and making no efforts at all - do you know how hurtful and lonely and emotionally damaging this is?? Your spouse is suppose to be your best friend, not someone who barely acknowledges your existence. It's actually emotionally abusive. No wonder she fell into the arms of another man because she was so weakened by your emotional abuse of her. (that's not to say it was right for her to cheat, I think she should have left you back then instead).
Then when she confessed and you agreed to work on the marriage, you then blindside her by deliberately and premeditatively cheating on her and going further than she went too. You actually had sex with someone else, putting your wife's health at risk.
I'm sorry but this just doesn't even compare to her emotional infidelity. You decided to have sex with someone else, because you couldn't deal with your wife's emotional infidelity, which in turn was caused by your initial emotional abandonment of her.
furthermore since at the time of your cheating you were in counseling and actively working on trying to repair the marriage from her infidelity and your abandonment of her, by then you really should have known better than to cheat on her for your selfish reasons, you have no excuse to not have brought up your inability to handle your emotions to either your wife or your counselor. Your infidelity really can't be considered a mistake born from weakness and desperation as was your wife's infidelity. You're was born out of selfishness.
Don't you see that it's really too much to ask her to even consider coming back to you? Your behavior in your marriage up til now has shown that you are driven primarily by your own needs and wants and have little regard for her. And by wanting her back you're still showing complete disrespect for her. Perhaps you need to really think long and hard about what it means to be married, and if you have what it takes to be a husband, to anyone.
You have to take responsibility for your actions and accept the consequences of the poor choices you've made in your marriage, so that you can learn from it and grow and make better life choices in the future.
If your wife were to come back to you, I don't think you would learn and grow as much as a person. If your wife came back to you, what would you have learned? Your subconscious might feel that see it's OK to be selfish in marriage and do whatever makes you feel good even if it's at your wife's expense because if she leaves all you have to do is freak out and beg and cry a lot and she'll eventually come back. You won't change as much and learn from your past mistakes and you'll continue to mistreat her. You need to take responsibility and accept the consequences of your mistakes and resolve to not repeat them again - in your next relationship. your wife has a right to protect herself and if you care about her at all you should respect that.
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