Whatever is done it is done. You can only go forward if you start looking toward the future, meaning that all the cards have to be on the table. Honesty, respect and compassion are the number one ingredients for a happy marriage. Fighting will not help, the good and honest conversation will. He needs to take this situation seriously. Wishing you all well. God bless you.

I truly did read everything, but I'm not sure if he actually cheated, but at the very least he was emotionally cheating by devoting so much time and energy to a woman he was once with. I think you made your case and it is a very strong one, he was unfaithful before, he refuses to take things seriously and he refuses to get help.

I know it is hard to decide that things are just to far gone to repair, but it does seem like that time has come.

Wishing you strength during a very hard time.

Hugs-
CK

Take this advise for what it is worth, it helped me. The first thing I decided upon hearing I had been betrayed was that the first marriage was over and I told my spouse that. There are no pictures around of our wedding and the videos are stored away for the kids to see someday on their own, I won't watch. When she asked me to stay I told her I would not wear the first wedding ring she gave me anymore as SHE had ended the marriage.

I now wear a new wedding band which in my mind represents the second relationship. I believe you only get to say those vows once in your life to the same person, so they really don't apply any longer.

If you do take my advise and tell him that you will stay only as a second relationship, then warn him also, that there will never be a third. Require him to commit to easing your mind and by that I mean he needs to understand you no longer feel married and that HE has to show you why you should stay.

There is nothing cruel about what I suggest and in fact its a pretty soft terms for someone who rip your heart open. I will add you in my prayers and wish you a long happier life.

I can't say you have actual proof of him cheating this time around, although he certainly did invest a lot of time in another woman, and in a sneaky way, too.

The bigger question is this: Do you want to babysit your husband to the degree that you are, in order to stay in this marriage? A set of rules, plus continous monitoring of his electronics and whereabouts sounds tedious and exhausting. Is he worth all that, given that he's already cheated in the past?

I hope you can get some peace with this. Living with constant uncertainty, anxiety, and resentment is a killer.

Why don't you call her and ask her yourself? Tell her from a woman's point of view and ask her wouldn't she want the truth(maybe also say he spoke negative about her)?

Why would you want to stay with someone who lies...and someone who tells you that he is not attracted to you? That is horrible. Your children deserve more too...

I don't want to stay. He would be gone by now if someone could help me but as much as they want to they honestly can't take on that kind of responsibility. Regardless if he cheated, he knew he wasn't allowed to sneak behind my back with women, lie to me, or have anything to do with an ex of any kind. He broke all of those rules. I took the monitoring software off. It doesn't matter anymore he has proved to me that he's perfectly capable of betraying me again and without much remorse either. Sure he seemed guilty the first couple days but he got over that quick. Smug, feeling he got away with it again. The last joke will hopefully be on him the day that he comes home and his seemingly perfect doormat wife and kids are gone with nothing but his stuff and the divorce papers in the house. He can fix this or feel my revenge, and I intend on going all the way with alimony, child support and if they feel there is enough evidence, jail time and a fine as adultery is illegal here. I gave him a second chance then he blew it with Maria. Now I'm kind of but not really giving him a third chance. At the absolute least I believe he was trying to cheat. His family that he was visiting said he was acting really weird the whole time and he was constantly on the phone or gone, uninterested in them, and they said him cheating made sense.

By the way I did ask her about what happened a few times. She knows my fury unfortunately so she is not going to risk her marriage. I think I should tell her husband about her affair with my husband five years ago. I want to ruin her life and my husbands. I probably need personal counseling at this point. I'm just so angry. I feel like I'm in a nightmare. I just want to wake up back to before I met him. My family shuns us because of his adulterous ways and because of my choosing to stay with him for awhile. I use to be really close to them. My friends treat me differently now too, not that I blame them too much.

I did the same thing with my husband that you're doing with yours but it wasn't once or twice, it was multiple times over a twenty year period. The last time that I realized he was cheating again, I also realized that he would never stop. Why would he, he was happy with his life and what he was doing. I was the one unhappy with my life because of what he was doing. I guess what I'm saying is make your decisions all about you. You cannot change someone who is happy being the way that they are. Good luck.

Well said, Shurlz. Coming to the realization that the cheater's behavior won't stop is painful, but is a good wake-up call. I received my wake-up call the second time my husband cheated, and I divorced him, with a heavy heart, but no second thoughts about it.

I need to have a talk with him. I plan to tell him that I do not wish to respond with I love you when he says it, wear the wedding ring or sleep with him until we've fixed this; that I have more hate than love in my heart right now, but with love there is hope, but due to the hate I cannot continue pretending that everything is okay in between the marriage counselor visits. I'll also include in my little finding today that he kept in his internet history that I missed before that he googled Mono Symptoms after he returned from his trip sick where the Maria encounter took place. I already know what he's going to say: Why would I google that knowing that you were monitoring my phone? ... Thing is he forgot that I was doing it shortly after he arrived home as he was anniversary shopping for me and admitted how he forgot. Anyway either he is a moron or he is deliberately leaving clues around to drive me crazy. Maybe he'll work on things if I stop pretending to love him. I expect not but whatever it's a temporary attempt while planning for divorce. I can't imagine plotting and planning to cheat on my spouse and of course executing the plan. Something is seriously wrong with a human like that.

I would advise you to make moves ONLY in your best interests, and not in the hopes that it will spur your cheater to change his character flaw. If you stop pretending to love him in the hopes that he will work on things, you're probably going to end up disappointed. You will have burned up valuable time that you could have been using to make real, serious, and long-lasting changes in yourself so that you will no longer accept such disrespectful treatment. I'm not saying divorce is the answer, but maybe to look within yourself to see if you can't find a way to draw a firm boundary around the type of treatment you are willing to accept from your husband or anyone else.

As I said in a previous post, monitoring his web history, email, calls, and texts will become exhausting, and is certainly demeaning to you. A determined cheater will cheat, no matter how short the leash you've put on him. He can get around your monitoring with very little effort. Do you really want to have to monitor the man you married?

I am doing it for myself more than anything, because it makes the hate and hurt inside me worse when I pretend to be happy around him when all I really want to do is pull a Lorena Bobbitt on him ;) A spouse is supposed to be your teammate not your enemy. Infidelity is very disturbing.

It is so much more than just disturbing, it is very destructive. As time goes by you begin to question your own sanity. The more you watch them the sneakier and more creative they become. It will consume you if you allow it to. I know exactly what you're going through, the pain and anger..... trust your instincts (your gut feeling) reach out to friends for strength and if you need me I'm here.

varde - the best revenge is to live happy & well, please dont waste anymore time trying to catch suspicious activity, as mentioned DO get some ducks in a row (so to speak) setup an appt. w/an attorney, first visit is free, just to research some useful information & empower yourself, then research other housing online, just to get info on costs necessary incase you decide to leave quicker then first thought, next open a safety deposit box in your name only & stash some cash to utilize, hopefully your somewhat financially independent from him to move forward if necessary.

DO NOT fall into the parental role trap, as mentioned this will only create more deception & resentment from him.....what we fear, we create......go empower yourself, your family needs YOU!

Thank you everyone for your support. It's nice to have people who understand. I just signed up for volunteer work at a government agency that I wish to work for after college. They are excited to have me seeing as how I'm going for a Public Administration degree. I sent the completed paperwork and will be starting training soon. This is exciting for me, because I can get the work experience while I'm attending college. It's certainly helping my self-esteem and is a step in the right direction for securing my family's future, which is something I'm working on so I don't have to depend on my husband's help. In the meantime I'm still keeping my current job, and will be on the lookout for a better one. I haven't worn my wedding ring and have had some of the talk with my husband. I'm trying not to dump too much on him at once as I can't personally handle too much drama at once, but I give him a little more information each day as to what I want and what I'm doing to preserve my own sanity and well-being through this crisis. I could leave him immediately, yes, but I feel that my situation is far too complicated to do that right now.

Step by step huh & in your own time.

Enjoy your new experiences.