A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:Good Afternoon,I could really use some assistance from the "experts" out there.My wife and I are each others first. July of this year we will have been together for 10 years, and married for 6. We have an amazing year and a half old child. She works an hour and fifteen minutes way, so spends a long period of time commuting, but its an excellent career.I love my wife. I'm home more often so she comes home to cooked meals, a cleanish house, we spend time together, both sexually and non-sexually, each and everyday that we are home together. I love and respect her, and try and support her in everything she does.She went away to a conference and almost cheated on me. She got too drunk, instead of a few people coming with her to a bowling alley, only one co-worker she didn't know well did. He started flirting, she flirted back, and all of the sudden they were sitting at the bar together. He started rubbing her arm, she freaked and it stopped.This is all forgivable. My wife is an attractive woman and I want her to feel confident and attractive. I'm confident enough to understand and accept that she will feel other things, and my only issue is that she allowed herself to get drunk and lose her inhibitions.She is struggling with this event a LOT. She is allowing the snowball to turn into a boulder. She spent an entire day thinking about the feeling she had for this other guy. She is sad that she liked it, worried that it means something, and scared that she might not be able to control it someday in the future. My wife in 10 years, has never had to feel this way, in 10 years no one has really made a move on her except for me, and even I didn't do it in the "hook up" way, so it confused and excited her.Again, I understand all of that. Dwelling on the feelings for an entire day is harder to forgive, but I understand. She is a very logical person, and was looking for why it happened and ways to fix it. Her suggestion was to ask that if I found someone I was attracted to, she would offer me the chance to have an extramarital event in exchange for her having one.This I want nothing to do with. I reacted extremely poorly. Shortly after this I made some major mistakes in how I treated her and almost ruined everything.We've talked a lot about her emotions and mine. I've not always been productive and neither has she, but we are in a good place for the most part. OK, so I wanted to be as complete as possible. Here is the situation I'm troubled by.My wife used to be super religious, pure, happy, and these new emotions scare her. In reality, she just isn't the 17 year old girl she was when we first met. She's matured, evolved, and become a fantastic human being. "Our song" is a religious song, but it's one of those borderline relationship songs as well. I listened to it and it made her cry. She's sad shes not that pure person anymore, she's sad our love isn't like it was. My wife isn't all that emotionally intelligent. As an example, I told her how severe her asking for us to have other partners affected me, and she said it was like asking to go sky diving to her... something she would enjoy doing but if she doesn't it's no big deal.She feels guilty for feeling the way she did, scared of why she felt it, worried that if it happens again she won't be able to stop herself, and she knows that infidelity is unacceptable for me.I want to convince my wife that she shouldn't hate herself for being attracted to other men, that I'm attracted to other women on a regular basis. I try and tell her that alcohol removes our inhibitions. When I get drunk, I flirt with anything that moves, and that's why I am careful where I drink. I know that if I can't make her understand that it's normal, that she can control it, and that she should control it, that her guilt and the newness of the feelings she is having will result in poor decision making.I'm not trying to control my wife, I will be sad if she cheats but ultimately I know I can't REALLY stop it. I just want to know how to educate my wife without her feeling like I'm trying to make her feel bad, that I don't really mean it, etc. I've always been the emotional foundation for our relationship and it's difficult to be supportive and feel the way I feel at the same time.I don't want to leave. It's not even an option. How do I help my wife help herself?
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cheated on me, co-worker, drunk, flirt, her ex, infidelity, move on, period Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (24 January 2012): I agree with some of the other agony aunts that she sounds much too rattled and guilty for only allowing what she has told you. At the very least I think she is warning you that she will cheat again. She may very well have already done it.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (24 January 2012): You and she probably should do some serious talking.She may very well have done more than she admitted to. You just never know. After the cheating, the lying, and people that "would never lie" tell some whoppers.Alcohol impairs judgement. In all areas. No exceptions. Keep that in mind, there are no exceptions, nobody, and no areas (fidelity, children, marriage, friends, etc.). Women are twice as susceptible to the effects of alcohol, ounce per ounce, as men, in general.Can you control urges, yeah, sure, unless you are impaired.But, there are problems in your marriage, or she wouldn't be doing what she did, more likely than not, and the problems aren't necessarily "you" but they are "yours" as in hers and yours because you are married.Sit down and read a bit about affairs from a reliable source, there is a lot of junk on the internet. These are good resources.http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Past-Affair-Program-Together/dp/157230801Xhttp://www.amazon.com/Not-Just-Friends-Rebuilding-Recovering/dp/0743225503http://www.amazon.com/After-Affair-Healing-Rebuilding-Unfaithful/dp/0060928174Read about alcoholism and drug addiction as well. It is genetic, it is carried from generation to generation, and it is very damaging.People who have problems with alcohol can be detected with this questionnaire if they are honest with themselves, long before a doctor can tell.http://www.lanarkleedsaa.org/pages/aboutaa/are_you_an_alcoholic.htmIf your wife is from a home where there was alcoholism, drug addiction, or mental illness, then the following may help.http://www.amazon.com/Complete-ACOA-Sourcebook-Children-Alcoholics/dp/1558749608Be open, honest, and willing to talk and listen. But, frankly, "She got too drunk, instead of a few people coming with her to a bowling alley, only one co-worker she didn't know well did." This doesn't sound like the full truth.She and a guy went to a bowling alley alone, started drinking, and whatever happened, happened. The decisions started before the bowling alley. It is a slippery slope, you get there by making bad compromising decisions, one after another, because of your own internal issues.Cheating doesn't solve the issues, it makes them all worse.Revenge cheating doesn't help either, it makes it all worse.
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A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (23 January 2012):
 You don't have to help your wife help herself, and she does not need to be "emotionaly intelligent " to help herself.
Just intelligent.
If she by now knows that, when she drinks, her evil twin comes out, an evil twin that laps up the attention the first equally drunk stranger bestows on her, and that the novelty and the thrill of that - (which is a very normal occurrence for any attractive woman : getting noticed and hit on precisely because of her attractiveness) - is enough to make her lose her inhibitions and bring her close to cheating- she could avoid drinking at all, and she could refrain from putting herself in the condition of being hit upon .
That she does not want to do that because she found this new game is fun and exciting, ah well, that's another story. She is not exactly saying " If it happens again, I CAN'T stop myself " - because it's not true. She can. She can nip it in the bud and not respond to the flirting - sober or not so sober that she may be. It's not so difficult .
She is more or less saying " If it happens again, I will chose to not stop myself, because it's fun and I like it " .
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (23 January 2012): Thank you for your response. My wife is unique in lots of different ways. I am sure that she didn't cheat on me, but I am not sure that she won't cheat on me, how can I be when she isn't. I don't think it's because she wants to, but because she is SO inexperienced with her feelings.
That's why I'm looking for help, I've already forgiven the action, and I certainly didn't let her treat me as a doormat... but I feel like there is something I can be doing to help the health of our relationship along. It's not an ego issue, I love my wife a lot, I am sure she loves me as well, and I am going to do anything I can to ensure our child grows up in a married and loving household. This can either be a blip or a shattering... I am hoping to help it be a blip.
I could stand back and let her figure it out, because it's her mistake and I am good to her. I don't think that's the role of a loving husband, especially considering she could have easily cheated and not put either of us through the stress we're going through now.
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A
male
reader, Danielepew  +, writes (23 January 2012):
 I correct myself. Wife knows the poster won't have an affair. But her saying that he "may" have one will "require" the "reciprocity" of him not complaining about wife having an affair.
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A
male
reader, Danielepew +, writes (23 January 2012):
You don't have to help your wife help herself.
It is a good thing to be a good guy and be supportive of your woman. That does not mean, however, that you will become a doormat.
In my simple eyes, all the words in this post can be summarized as follows:
Wife has a husband who adores her, cleans the home, cooks for her.
Wife goes away for a conference and says she almost went to bed with another man.
Wife tells husband -and here I will quote the poster's own post- "she liked it, worried that it means something, and scared that she might not be able to control it someday in the future".
Wife then tells husband that "her suggestion" is that if husband should find "someone [he] was attracted to, she would offer [him] the chance to have an extramarital event in exchange for her having one.
Sorry, but this sounds to me like "Wife either had an affair, or is thinking of having one" and wants to talk husband into doing nothing. Or, worse, into having an affair himself, so she can openly have one.
Poster: you don't need to reassure your wife for feeling attracted to other men. That she knows already. She's not a fool.
She is telling you that she either might cheat on you (that is, supposing you're not cynical enough -like me- to think she already cheated), and you're concerned about being "supportive"?
This is my opinion about what you should do. Ask your wife if she has already cheated on you. She will say she didn't, of course; and she may be telling the truth. Make it clear you won't forgive any cheating. Tell her that you've been reading Machiavelli and that you think her giving you permission to cheat is wonderful, that you intend to take her offer, but that does not mean you will not hate it if she cheats; that you appreciate her willingness to share you with someone else, but you have no intention to share her. That the relationship will be over if she cheats, or cheated. See where that takes you. Tell that to her while you shave your pubic hair and check porn on your computer.
Also, it is time for you to think what you will do if you eventually find out she did cheat.
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