Topic : 12/26 Cheating Disasters

These 'other woman' need to be held accountable for their part in destroying lives. This is what I see Noelle trying to do. She is calling a spade a spade. The other woman said she felt bad for what she had done, yeah right!!!! She has felt so bad that Robert was not her first married man she has gone after!!!  She has not processed what she is doing or why she is doing it. She has a pattern to her behavior. She can go in and destroy lives and then walk away.  It seems her 'quest' is to get a married man to succome to her advances of exciting sex. Her 'high' is getting that man to choose her over his wife. This is a sexual addiction. This is exactly what Christine B did to my life. The purpose is not to 'live happily ever after' with my man, it is for her to have the power over him and win the game. These women are sick and have an addiction. They need help, or they just keep going on to the next man that is vulnerable.

 I don't know when discovery day was for Noelle, but she has every right to be angry that some woman has invaded her life like this. Recovering from infidelity is a process. I understand her rage, but she needs to contain it away from her children. Her anger is really the outward showing of hurt and sadness. I'm sure she's very scared to show her vulnerable side to Robert of being sad and hurt. The great thing in this is that Robert is showing real remorse and hurt for what he has done to his family. Because of this, this couple has a chance of rebuilding their marriage. They both now have a opportunity to change the issues that we all put on the back burner in our marriages, because we don't want to rock the boat too much. There is good help out there for recovering from infidelity. But first what needs to be done is both people need to decide they want in the marriage and willing to work everyday at rebuilding the marriage. Communicating his needs/her needs, counseling, marriage enrichment programs, support groups are all part of the healing process. Find out the why's of Robert looking elsewhere for validation. Noelle and Robert I know you guys can make it !  Don't throw away 20 years and one great family. Start anew rebuild from today, change what you can today, and do your best for each other tomorrow. Sadly we can't change yesterday, even though we would give almost everything for that 'innocense'  back in our marriage.

My sister,whom has been married nine years and has a beautiful three year old daughter, found out that her husband was having an affair with a woman he worked with last April. According to him,it lasted about 6 months and was not physical. My sister does not believe him and

thinks that it was sexual. She made him quit his job after her husband told her it would be a temptation to contine and to work with her if their marriage continued to nave problems. He quit but ended up going back to another car dealership owned by the same company because he was unable to find a comparable job. My sister is a mess, she has become obsessed with this, She worries constantly  and does not trust him to be out of her sight. It is affecting every aspect of her life and is affecting her ability to function as a person and a mother. Although I don't know what really happened or if it would happen again I do know that unless she can accept  the fact that it happened and go on with her life her marriage will never work. 

She refuses to forgive or forget but wants her marriage to work. I have spoken to her about getting some therapy, but she doesn't think it will help. It's gotten to the point that I am tired of trying to help her because she refuses to do anything about the situation except dwell on it.

Her emotional health continues to worsen every day as I imagine her marriage does. How can I help her to deal with this or move on? She refuses to do either.

Noelle needs to get over her anger. She will not make things better by her behavior. Dr. Phil is absolutely right in saying that she will damage her family. What he did was wrong but Noelle needs to help make it better. My question is this: Dr. Phil wrote that at no time is Robert helping the situation by letting Noelle beat on him. So, he leaves the house. Well, what else can one do when someone is verbally abusing them and they have no where to go or the kids will be home from school soon and need to be fed, etc? Give examples of how not to allow the other person to "beat" one down. I left once and when I came back, I was locked out of the house and had to call the cops.

Does anyone feel that a woman who has had an affair with a married man and is now happily married to him have the right to be happy considering what she (they) have done? They are working very hard to be better people and parents, do they deserve a chance for real happiness?  Any input?

I totally agree with you.  The man/woman should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. Remembering that there is no going back to the way things were before. Not even after the forgiving/forgetting and helping with counseling.  At least not in my case, because the actions my husband took affected my kids and especially me and who I am.(or who I used to be).  I've been married over 18 years and my husband was also cheating on me with a co-worker he denied it, of course,until one day he decided to just come clean.  But I already knew. (Its that gut feeling you get  in the pit of your stomach) Especially when he's getting late night phone calls on his cell(blocked) regarding work or when the cell phone rings and he either doesn't  want to answer it in front of you or cuts the call short.. Or even worse (I hated this) he would walk out of the room to talk on the phone about WORK.  He would get defensive when I would bring up these issues , it was just me being jealous he told me.  Anyways, after several months of this going on and me hounding him that I had a gut feeling , he finally confessed and cut all ties with this co-worker (she no longer works there) We are currently working on our marriage and family, he regrets and apologizes every day for letting this happen. He tells me he'll never ever do it again.  But in my mind he took my trust and especially that TRUE LOVE , I felt when I  fell in love with him  and he put it aside for another women. Theres no going back on that because your heart never forgets what it felt or what it  went through. Now the only thing we can do is take it day by day to regain that trust  and love that we once had.  So think twice about  what your losing and how long it's going to take to make it up.

This whole affair is a mess, full of the "he said she said" gunk that comes with it. We don't  know if the other woman (OW) actually HAS herpes --  she claims no, but I tend to think yes.  I also doubt this is the first time the husband has strayed. 

But the main issue here is saving the marriage, so my point was that the wife needs to realize a lot of her fury should be directed at the man she married - this way, the couple has a shot at working through the crisis. (I understand why she wants to redirect, though -  it's a lot less scary than having to see such ugliness  in your husband's character.) 

As long as she heaps most of her anger and blame on the OW, her powerlessness to 'fix' the problem (in this case for the wife, The Problem =  The Other Woman) will keep feeding  her feelings of  impotent rage. There's no way out in that scenario.