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**littlemoo** · 2 July 2005, 01:37 PM

Communication is the most important thing here. You obviously still love your wife so make that clear to her. Then explain that "I just feel empty inside like there is something missing or lost" and try to explain what you think is missing and/or what you think you can do about it. It sounds like you are trying to do something to change the problem at the moment which is very positive.

Perhaps your wife will allow you some time out if you explain why and reassure her that you will be faithful and will go back to her. Perhaps you could tell her where you are going and give her a number to contact you on so she has more of a concrete idea that you are not doing this to get rid of her. Is there any reason for her to expect you to have an affair or to not go back?

If you take some time out and don't want to go back then you will at least have an answer of sorts, and may well need some councelling to sort out your problems. If you do go back then you will feel that you have at least tried that as a solution and may come up with some positive ideas.

Or perhaps you both need a few days away without the children, if you can find someone to look after them for you. Sometimes having children means you can loose the relationship you had with each other.

I think you already realise that an affair is wrong and just need it confirming. While you love your wife and children and want to stay with them, don't have an affair as you risk loosing everything if you do. You say that you are moving jobs soon, so can you try and keep away from the girl so as not to be tempted by her?

If you really can't sort out whatever is missing from your life then perhaps you should consider councelling - try relate

Best Wishes
~Jo

**diana_holbourn** · 5 July 2005, 04:41 PM

Firstly, I think you can pride yourself on at least having the morals not to have given into temptation so far.

I think you should plan your next move extremely carefully, because there's a danger that taking time out, or a number of other things, could make things much worse because of the anxiety you might put your wife through, as I'm sure you know.

It could be that one of the best remedies against temptation to be unfaithful is to read stories of men who had affairs, especially those who got divorced because of it, and children who have lost contact with their parents because of divorce or separation, who speak about how the experience has traumatised them and how much they regret it. It's very easy to think in the short-term when contemplating an affair or wondering whether to leave your spouse, but ask yourself where you could be in six months' time. You may only be seeing your children once a week or less because your wife has decided to divorce you and she's got custody of them; she might be very distressed at what's happened, and that in turn may distress you; or alternatively, she might be full of feelings of revenge against you and not want to speak to you again, poisoning the children's minds against you, etc. If they don't think badly of you, they might miss you terribly and be extremely upset at the separation. Of course, your wife might not do those things, but there may be other consequences you could think of that might happen that would be nearly as traumatic that you could think of.

If there's a way you could be transferred to a different department at work or simply avoid the person you're tempted to have an affair with, the best policy may well be to take it.

There may be ways you could both improve your marriage together. It sounds as if you've tried hard already to make up for what's missing. Good for you. That shows you care. But maybe you could think of other things. How was it when you were first married? Were there things you did for each other that you stopped doing, but which it would be easy to start doing again, especially romantic little things? Has your wife told you what she wants from you, and have you explained to her what you'd like out of the marriage that you don't feel you're getting at the moment? You're obviously committed to it, baring in mind that you're making efforts to spend more time with the family. Even if you don't feel like doing that now, the fact that you're trying anyway shows you care and are unhappy about your feelings, wanting things to improve with your wife. I hope the talk you said you were going to have with your wife with the children at your mother-in-law's went well. I think the fact that you're so committed to trying to improve things, and the way you did resist temptation, mean that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself.

I may have put this on the board before, but here's an extract from a good book, about a good method of improving marriages. It's by Carole Sutton and it's called "Psychology for Social Workers and Counsellors", but the technique here is one which could be done by people on their own. It may be that you've tried something similar and have communicated a lot with your wife in this manner. But if not, this might be useful:

It can be very supportive if the counsellor can, after due discussion, arrive with those who seek his help at a shared understanding of ways in which each
partner wants the other to behave differently. It is then possible to set very simple, short-term goals. Such goals should not be over-inclusive, as in "I want him to be a better lover" or "she must be a better mother to the kids", but should be broken down into small, attainable objectives which, because the situation has been openly discussed and the difficulties experienced by each partner have been accepted by the counsellor, now seem within the grasp and hopefully the commitment of the people concerned. It is not that the larger goals are not to be sought in the long run, but that they should be reached in small, agreed stages with the support of everyone concerned.

Thus in the case of the wife who wanted her husband to be a better lover, it might be possible to clarify first of all exactly what the wife meant by this; in one case this proved to mean not that she wanted him to be more skilful sexually, but that she wanted him to be more demonstrative and more affectionate.

Once this semantic difficulty had been sorted out, it was a relatively simple matter to help this couple see that the husband had come from an undemonstrative family where overt indications of affection were discouraged, but that he himself actually felt deep affection for his wife, though he could not express it openly. Once his wife was reassured of this, things became easier, and then it became possible, with encouragement from the counsellor ... for the husband to do regular small things which delighted his wife: to bring her a cup of tea in bed now and again, to have flowers delivered on her birthday, to arrange an outing on their anniversary and so on. The counsellor taught the husband to behave more appropriately to his wife not because such things are "right", but because these partners came from backgrounds whose social customs jarred upon each other.

... Attempting to implement a plan in order to reach simple objectives will not succeed unless both parties obtain enough reward from the efforts of the other, and from the counsellor, to keep them engaged in the exercise. This is why it is very important to set simple goals initially, so as to be sure that they can be achieved, and why many counsellors now ask partners to make some commitment to the effort they are all undertaking, and even to enter into some understanding or "contract" to keep trying for so many weeks.

... Thus in the case of the husband who complained that the wife should "be a better mother to the kids" it was possible first to drain off a great deal of the bottled-up resentment of both partners in separate interviews, and then to explore gently with the couple how the husband expected his wife to be at home most of the day, just as his mother had always prided herself on doing, while the wife felt she should fulfil her family's insistence that women should make the most of every opportunity to develop and educate themselves.

Both partners had a deep sense of knowing "what was right" based on the attitudes of their families as they grew up; both considered the other contravened
"what was right" and so felt morally indignant. When this impasse was looked at in the light of what each partner in the marriage had actually learned in his or her youth, rather than in the light of the rightness or wrongness of the actual principle, it was possible to gain something of a sense of perspective on the problem, and indeed to reflect on other implicit assumptions which each was making because of how they had been socialized.

This understanding, however, was not of itself enough; although the couple conceded that each member had learned his or her attitude, this did not prevent each from still feeling "more in the right" than the other; it was therefore necessary to use the flexibility given by this new understanding to devise a scheme of planned behaviour change which carried inherent rewards for both parties. Thus, rather than the husband's insisting that his wife give up her job in order to be at home after school and in the holidays, as he had previously demanded, he agreed that if his worry about the children's being on their own at four o'clock could be allayed by his wife's going part-time in school hours, he would try to adjust his work programme to spend more time at home in the holidays. This his wife gladly agreed to, for she had thought she would be persuaded by the counsellor to give up her job completely, and was quite satisfied with the "reward" of part-time working.

Starting from this base, the counsellor helped this couple see the necessity for each partner to recognize the concession that the other had made and to behave appreciatively as a response. He helped them negotiate an arrangement in which by setting and working towards small goals, e.g. that the wife should have the husband's family to stay twice a year in return for the husband's looking after the children for a week while she went to a Summer school, a considerably greater degree of flexibility and adjustment to each other came into the marriage.

In all this, however, it was essential for the counsellor to act very supportively to this couple, working with them on the details of their "contract", offering encouragement ... to them, as a couple, when things went well, and commiserating with them, without allocating blame, when they went badly. In this way the couple moved towards offering each other a much higher level of reward than formerly, increasing the benefits of staying together and making a divorce a much more "costly" affair.

Are there new things you could do with your wife that would make your life more fulfilling, like studying something interesting together, if you have the time, or finding other friends in your neighbourhood who share your interests and could give you ideas about new things to do, who you could spend time with together, doing something fulfilling?

**diana_holbourn** · 5 July 2005, 06:00 PM

One more thing to bare in mind is that it's possible that you're falling in love with a fantasy, not with the real person the one you're tempted to have an affair with is. Do you know the woman you think you're falling in love with well enough to know about all the irritating habits she may have, and have you assessed whether you'd be able to tolerate them day in, day out? I wonder how she is when she gets home tired after a long day, or when she discovers she can't find her shoes in the morning, for instance. The trouble with falling in love is that it can make people indifferent to the bad points of the one they're in love with, ... until they're in the relationship too deeply to break it off easily and relatively painlessly, so how well her personal characteristics suit you is something you may have to take time out to make yourself consider. Becoming physical with someone can strengthen a person's feelings to the extent that they feel they're falling in love, and so they may act hastily, regretting it later. Have you had long talks with her about what she wants from life? Does she share your goals in life, your values and your interests? It's shared values, goals and interests that help a lot to keep a relationship together long-term. It sounds as if you're committed to your family and want to make your marriage work, by the things you've said about what you've done to try to remedy what's missing in the relationship, so family commitment is clearly one of your values and goals. If the other woman wants to meet you again, heedless of or thoughtlessly indifferent to whether it breaks up your relationship with your wife, it seems that she doesn't share that one, for a start! I would guess that you like children, having three of them, although of course I couldn't be sure about that one. But if the other woman wants to put her own interests first and have an affair with you, with little concern for your current relationship and how it would affect your children if it broke up, I have to wonder whether she shares that part of your personality also!

But, of course, even if she did appear to share your interests etc., you would still need to make a very comprehensive assessment of whether she was worth the risk to your current relationship, working out, as far as possible, the long-term pros and cons of leaving to be with her. It might not be easy amid all your feelings, but your feelings could change dramatically if you lose your wife and access to your children, as I'm sure you know, so try not to let your feelings deceive you into acting hastily.

It can sometimes be that the more lovingly someone behaves towards another, the more they fall in love with them. This could happen between you and your wife, if you think that more love in the relationship could be what's needed. Have a look at this story, for instance. The details probably don't fit your relationship, but nevertheless, it might give you hope about the way things could become again between you and your wife: Kindness Teaches True Love.

**charlie** · 11 July 2005, 01:20 PM

Thank you for your help in getting me through this. I say through, I supposse I am still passing, not quite there but I know I, sorry WE will make it out the other end.

I have been as honest as I dared. I'm not proud of the temptation but I know what is right and an affair was not. If I have taken anything from this, and I have taken a lot , the key points have been:
I love my wife and children more than I ever thought
I now appreciate me the way I am...well almost!
Take nothing for granted

For me the turning point was meeting with the girl, I took time out from home. I left my wife crying with our eldest thinking mummy was either having the worst attack of hayfever ever, or that she was so happy (that was his conclusion) she was crying. Anyway we met, we talked, we held each other and...I felt friendship nothing sexual, no lusting, no need to take her away,just really close friendship, like the mates we have been for years but reading the signs wrong all this time. It was as if anything I could have felt for her was just surpressed or was just not there.

I explained to her what she would get even if I could have left for her:
No money
No big house
No security ( if I strayed for her what hope for us)
No children

I think that in all of this the last two points made us realise that a friendship is the only thing we could or have ever had. I value her as a good friend and I could not do anything to lead her on and as she admitted she wants children. I was taken by her maturity, and how I feel weve maintained something that can be called special with no smutty undertones.

So at home, life is back on track as far as we can tell. We have talked, boy have we talked. Yes, I do feel that my wife knows that something has happened to me, even more so than I have let on, but it has happened and we must look forward. I can honestly say if the shoe were on the other foot I would not want all the detail.

As I have said I feel devastated that I have experienced any of these emotions to the point of wanting to act on them, but without these I would not be able to say "you only miss something when its gone but hey it hasn't gone so lets cherish it and make it work.

I will sign off now, I'm not a registered member but thanks for letting me into the family.

Love and best wishes to you all, remember life is not a rehersal...so live it!

**webmoo** · 11 July 2005, 06:30 PM

I'm glad we could help and I'm very glad you seem to be back on track with your family. It seems you've managed to turn a potentially very bad situation into a good one, and have gained a true friend out of it too.

Thanks for letting us know it all worked out - It's always appreciated to know that it makes a difference sometimes.

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