He Gave Me HPV: I Want Answers

Ellie:

I have been married for 23-years.  Last year I found out about a one-night stand my husband had eight years ago. He was never going to tell me and was taking it to his grave.  Unfortunately, it came out last year and I was devastated.  We are trying to work thru the pain and save our marriage.  However, I find it very hard to get him to talk about that event. How do I or should I get him to reveal the details for that night.  I feel unless we both understand what happened we will never completely move on in our marriage and infidelity will happen again.  Unfortunately for me, I contracted an STD (HPV) out of this one-night fling beneath the sheets and lied about any affair when asked. I have since been cleared of HPV but it took 6 long years.  This still makes me angry and I feel I have every right to be.

Please advise.

Every Right to Be Mad

Every Right,

You have every right to be mad at your husband’s one night stand. Not only was he careless in stepping outside of your marriage for sexual indulgence, but your husband gave you HPV, something that may be forgiven, but never forgotten.

Before I continue, I will address your husband’s reluctance to giving you details of his sexual affair. More than likely, your husband does not want to relive his one night stand, or provide you the explicit play-by-play on what happened. He might feel ashamed, or simply think it’s none of your business. Overall, what’s important is that you know :

1) He cheated on you.

2) He had unprotected sex with the other woman.

3) He gave you HPV, and that’s disgusting.

4) Your life will never be the same again – neither will your marriage.

If you really feel you need to know the sexual details of his one night stand, ask yourself why. I understand that you feel knowing provides closure and prevents him from cheating again, but there’s really no guarantee that he won’t cheat again. He might not, but either way, understanding why it happened is as simple as:

1) He had a reason.

2) He had opportunity.

3) He had a desire to do it.

4) He took advantage of all the above – and willfully so.

Tips for Dealing with Your Husband’s Infidelity:

1. His confession is telling of his character. How did your husband confess? Did he voluntarily admit this information in couples’ counseling or during a nasty argument? Exploring the manner in which you discovered this will help you reveal the motive behind his confession, whether he meant to hurt you, his back was against the wall or to start with a clean slate because he felt guilty. If his motive was anything but guilt or the desire to come clean, add “douche bag” to his list of character traits.

2. Determine what factor(s) led to his sexual infidelity, don’t dwell on the details of the infidelity. Cheaters, especially men, are always assumed to be in it for sex, but this isn’t the absolute truth. Many men report not feeling emotionally satisfied as a main motivation for cheating on their wives; plenty also report they simply wanted sex and figured they wouldn’t get caught if they dipped their hand in another woman’s cookie jar. Reasons vary from person to person, and can be a number of factors, so be sure to explore all the options. (One expert says there can be over 17 different types of affairs and motivations for affairs.)

3. Do not take his one night stand personal. Yes, he cheated but it does not mean you’re to blame. Your husband might not have been happy with you or your marriage when he had a sexual rendezvous, but what did he do to address his unhappiness? Additionally, you have had your share of unhappy moments in the time you’ve been together, but have you used this as a reason to justify extramarital affairs with other people?

4. Observe your husband. How does your husband act and what has he done to win your love and trust back? A husband who doesn’t care may be callous or indifferent to what happened, and will be hard-pressed to take action. Dismissive, indifferent and defensive attitudes may indicate an unwillingness to accept responsibility, deal with the past or move forward in holy matrimony. A repentant husband will show – in both words and actions – how invested he is in saving your marriage. He will not care if he has to face the pain in the past as long as it means there’s a chance his future includes you.

5. Don’t trust him to protect you. Protect yourself! Though I am not a doctor, and I cannot give you medical advice, I personally would not trust someone who cheated on me to protect me once they’ve given me HPV. Speak with your doctor about the best methods of protecting yourself in the event your husband steps out again.

If you have discovered or suspect infidelity in your relationship, take every action to practice safe sex. Some methods of safe sex include use of condoms and regular testing. Speak with your doctor or check out these safe sex tips from Planned Parenthood.

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Husband Cheating On Internet: Advice to Confront Online Infidelity

I recently learned that my husband has been exchanging sexual emails with a woman he went to high school with and recently reconnected with on Facebook. I learned of the emails because the woman involved shared some of the emails with a friend of hers who happens to be friends with the sister of an old friend of mine. The information eventually got back to me. I have been with my husband, who is 10 years older than me, for 15 years (married 5.5 years), since I was 18 years old. I thought we were best friends–we spend most of our time together and get along well. Moreover, while we don’t have sex as often as I think we should, it is amazing when it does occur. I’m shocked, incredibly hurt, and humiliated by this information. He admits only to exchanging “flirty” emails with the woman after she started it and says he had no intention of cheating. I have no idea what to believe, do, or feel. Please help. Thanks. – CyberCheater’s Wife

CyberCheater’s Wife:

First and foremost, I’m sorry that you discovered your husband cheating on the internet in such a horrifying manner.  Through a grapevine consisting of a friend of a friend of a friend who’s sister is an old friend of yours? That’s practically a sucker punch to your heart, especially when you had no reason to believe your husband would betray you like this.

Unfortunately you’re not alone. Many people discover that their spouses are having internet and cyber-affairs every day. Digital communication has become a gift and a curse for many relationships. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace have made it easier than ever to keep in touch with loved ones; yet, it’s these same applications that have made having- and hiding- affairs simpler than ever. With the click of a button, a cheating spouse can arrange discreet one night stands on craigslist, contact ex-lovers and engage in cybersex while pretending to innocently surf the web or check their email- and let’s not mention the ridiculous hacks, tips and tricks one can use to quietly hide their activity so that you’d never know what they were up to.

Dr. Sheri Meyers discusses Internet Infidelity

Husband’s Internet Affair & Your Sex Life – Does It Relate?

Inform your husband that his online cheating has not only destroyed your trust in him, but rocked your faith in the strength of your marriage. Advise him that you will need time to think about where this relationship is going, and expect him to immediately stop talking to the other woman.

Your marriage’s infrequent sex life could be a direct result of your husband using his sexual energy toward his internet affair, but be advised this would not be the only possible reason. Often times, an erratic sex life and infidelity don’t create troubled marriages; they’re usually distress signals indicating trouble within a marriage.

Analyzing Online Infidelity – Was It Headed Too Far?

Before you decide whether to stay or go, you must analyze the entire situation objectively. Read the emails between your husband and the other woman, if they’re available. Double check your husband’s credibility. Did he lie when he said that he was only “flirty” towards her, or was this his way of downplaying how sexually explicit he was? Does she appear to be the aggressor in this relationship, or does he play an equal role in pursuing her sexual attention? Is there a considerable component of emotional intimacy shared between these two?

Determine what would have happened if you never discovered his internet mistress. Is there anything in his emails that suggest your husband might have intended to eventually meet this woman in person for a sexual affair? If so, you’ve dodged a major bullet in your marriage.

Do Some Soul Searching

Reflecting on everything that’s happened before delivering any final decisions on the future of your marriage is of the utmost importance. You’ll need to weigh all the pros and cons of each possible choice you make, whether you decide to save your marriage or opt for a fast easy divorce. You must also extend forgiveness toward your husband; it allows you to jump-start the healing process, even if you decide to leave him.

If I Stay With Him, How Will I Know If He Cheats Online Again?

You don’t, unfortunately. Your husband may never cheat again, or he may attempt to become more discreet. If it will put you at ease, invest in PC monitoring software. Quiet, efficient and reputable keylogging programs monitor all computer activity, even if the user surfs the internet in “privacy” modes. We strongly recommend that you try Keylog Computer Spying Software, as it allows you to download and test it out absolutely free.

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Astonishing Cheating Spouse Secret

Infidelity is a painful occurrence for anyone to experience. The betrayal of a cheating husband or cheating wife drives a sharp stake right into your heart, leaving you shattered and devastated.

After discovering their cheating spouse has stepped out, many heartbroken men and women seek relationship advice. They want to understand, above all, how their husband or wife could cheat on them. “He cheated on me! Why did he cheat? How could he cheat? I gave him everything!” one wife wails to her friends.

Sex is Most Commonly Assumed Reason To Cheat…

The most assumed reason for sexual infidelity is the desire for sex, especially when the double dealer is male. “Oh, men are just dogs, all of them,” some women – and men – reason. “It’s in their nature to cheat, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

But, this “common knowledge” is actually an incredible fallacy. Yes, that’s right, I said this is a completely false “truth” about cheating. Despite what societal stereotypes report, the most common reason for infidelity is not sex. Yes, sex is more than likely involved, but the real reason is even more unlikely than you may think… and it starts in the heart.

The truth about cheating is that it’s not all sexual. Studies by experts such as Gary M. Neuman and Mira Kirschenbaum have determined that unfulfilled emotional needs, not sex, are the largest reason most people have affairs.

Most long-term relationships are built on a solid emotional foundation. Within the early stages of the relationship, the couple establishes intimacy in a comfortable environment that allows them to feel close and confide in one another. As time progresses, and the couple falls into a more routine, day-to-day pattern, they often stop putting in the same effort to maintain the emotional intimacy they shared with one another.

Sex, when it happens, doesn’t replace emotional intimacy in a solid relationship. Sex is inspired by the intimacy (and, of course, the physical connection), and further enhances it, bringing the couple closer. So, when a cheating spouse’s unmet emotional needs lead them elsewhere, sexual intercourse with their affair partner a devastating yet natural progression of their affair.

Now that you’re highly aware of how highly vulnerable unfulfilled emotional connections are to a relationship, it’s time to take action. Regularly sustaining an intimate, supportive and romantic relationship with your husband or wife is the best preventative measure to affair-proof your marriage. However, if he’s already cheated,  and you want to fix your marriage, take the time to learn how to win your cheating husband back from his affair.

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How Cheating Men Pick Their Women

When it comes to dealing with infidelity and the humiliation that comes with it, Brenda Stone Browder’s an expert. When her cheating husband, J.L. King, revealed the shocking truth of his sexual affairs on national television after years of denial, it took a lot of strength, patience and guidance for Browder to overcome the gut-wrenching pain of King’s unfaithfulness. (King, who has since divorced Browder, admitted that he had engaged in a series of homosexual affairs with other men while married to Browder while on a CNN special concerning down low men.)

After continuous soul searching, Browder eventually triumphed from the broken marriage, and discovered patterns that she and other women who were victims of infidelity shared. Her findings revealed that most cheating men usually gravitated towards women who regularly compromised their needs to put others first.

“You cannot lift someone else up unless you are first on steady ground,” asserts Browder, who has since published On the Up and Up. “The need to nurture and be there for you mate is natural- but not if it means you diminish yourself in the process.”

Browder generalizes that there are three types of women who are targeted by cheating men and explains why they’re so vulnerable to deception.

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed – The Naïve Woman

This woman is the ideal woman for a cheater. She has no life experience, and has more than likely had limited interactions with men and relationships. The dating game is new to her, so she tends to trust easily. When she falls in love, she falls deeply and is romantic and devoted to her husband.

She’s so desirable to cheaters because she’s easy to deceive; a misleading, cheating husband or cheating boyfriend wants a woman that’s easily controlled and impressed.  Inexperienced women can be easily trusting of partners, and tend not to question things their men do; even if she does raise concerns, it’s fairly easy for a cheater to twist the truth or manipulate her perception of things to keep her at bay.

Insecure and Self-Loathing – The Woman Who Has Low Self-Esteem

Women who don’t love themselves are extremely alluring to cheaters. A woman who doesn’t value herself is apt to make excuses for an unfaithful man’s behavior, even if he’s blatantly cheating on her. She will almost never accept that she can do better for herself in terms of finding a good man.

Overweight women are often seen in this type of situation. Oftentimes, she’ll enter a relationship overweight and just feel happy to have a man, so much so that she’ll release him of any responsibility to treat her and the relationship in a respectful manner. When he cheats or belittles her, she’ll blame her weight and appearance as an excuse to justify why he’s so cruel to her, and allow it to perpetuate her continuous cycle of self-loathing.

Other women may not be overweight, but for any number of reasons will feel as if they’ll never be able to find another man, and desperately cling to their no-good man by any means. Once a woman learns to value herself in entirety, she’ll realize that any “piece” of a man will never be enough to satisfy her as much as a fully devoted man is, giving her the strength to remove herself from a bad relationship.

She’s Got Something to Hide as Well – Making Her an Equal Accomplice

Like attracts like; women with something to hide may consciously enter into a relationship with a man she realizes is incapable or unwilling to be completely upfront with her. Whether she needs a man to provide for her, nurses an alcohol or drug addiction, or simply wants a tangible exchange out of the arrangement, such women will treat the relationship as a perfect enhancement to their lives.

Hollywood rumors are abuzz with scandals of celebrities who date or marry in order to cover the truth of their lives behind closed doors. Whether or not each and every story is truthful, the fact of the matter is these relationships are nothing more than business arrangements of the sort. Such an arrangement is fine between the two of them if they truly know what’s going on between them – after all it’s their business, and they’re purposely working to keep it concealed; both would have something to lose if the truth were revealed.

What Can I Do to Protect Myself from Being One of These Women?

First and foremost, a woman should learn to love herself enough to know when something compromises her beliefs or esteem. No man on Earth, not even George Clooney, is worth the trouble if his mode of operation includes trampling on your core values and rules for a relationship. As soon as you knuckle up and evaluate what you truly want and become self-confident, you’ll transform the dynamic between you and your cheating husband or boyfriend. Even if the dynamic ends the relationship, you’ll realize your value and determine the split was for the best, even if your heart feels irrevocably broken at the moment.

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My Husband Has Sex with Men – Did I Make Him Gay?

I caught my husband having a sex with another man whom I thought was his friend from work. When I confronted them, the man ran out the house but my husband told me that it was a one time thing and they are not gay. He said that sometimes he needs a little action on the side and women give too many problems and that he would never break my heart with another woman. I asked him why he felt the need to have sex with another man and he said “all men do it and have curiosities” but it doesn’t make them gay.

 Since then I have not seen his friend and my husband says he’s sorry but I cannot get the images out of our head. I can’t have sex with him anymore because I feel disgusted by what he’s done and I wonder if the fact that I’ve gained weight after having two kids has anything to do with it. My husband wants to go to counseling but I don’t know if it can help us. I haven’t told anyone what happened because I am completely embarrassed. Please help me, I’m so miserable and I’m also scared I have AIDS.

 -         Devastated Wife

 Devastated Wife:

 Words probably can’t describe the pain you’re feeling right now. It’s excruciating enough to discover your husband’s cheating on you, but the fact he’s been with another man doubles the anguish. I’m so sorry to hear that you’re going through this.

 Your husband – to be blunt – is full of shit. He wants you to go to counseling with him, but for what? Chances are this isn’t the first time he’s had sex with a man, and it damn sure will not be the last time either. I’m disgusted that he had the nerve to say he always needs something on the side and uses men so he “doesn’t break your heart with another woman.” Hmph! As if it would hurt you less to see him have sex with someone he paraded off to you as a friend! He was still lying, manipulative and dishonest – in your OWN home!

 Another problem I have with his argument is that he says “all men get curious and try it.” FALSE! Not every man engages in sex with other men, and real men, regardless of their orientation, don’t need to lie to kick it! He needs counseling so that he can fully accept his sexuality instead of keeping it in the closet.

 Honestly speaking, I think it’s best to leave him. He cannot be a whole and honest person in this marriage if you stay. Even if you guys went to counseling, you forgave him, you lost weight, and Skittles rained from the sky, it’s not going to fix the problem. He’s still going to have sex with men, and based off how you’ve reacted this time around, he’ll just take greater pains to hide his homosexual lifestyle from you.

 If by chance you feel you cannot leave him, then be advised that his behavior may never stop and ask yourself if this is something you can deal with. Can you stand the idea of never being able to trust your husband around any of his male friends and associates, or even making love to him? I don’t believe that this marriage doesn’t stand any chance of being fixed, but I will say I think the possibility is slim-to-none, especially when it seems as if he’s completely justified in acting the way he has. If you have sex with him, please protect yourself by insisting upon the use of condoms and regular visits for both of you to the doctor. You don’t know if he’s used protection with any of his partners and you do not want him to give you something you’ll never get rid of, if you catch my drift.

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30 Years of Emotional Infidelity – And He Broke My Heart

Miss Parker,

Short answer: He’s a jackass loser, a user and an emotional abuser. He has never held respect for your or anyone else’s feelings, despite how he acted. His main priority was and will always be himself; the affairs were tools to supply his selfish needs. And he was able to do this because he wanted to and you let him.

 The more detailed continuation: This guy’s been entangled in a heap of affairs all along. Yes, he was married to his wife, and you two did not have sexual or physical contact, but emotional intimacy is a core tenet of infidelity. The intimacy he shared with you was also spread out between his wife and the other women you happen to know about.  And there’s no guarantee that he didn’t have sex with them either. I’m sure he was having sex with someone, even if it wasn’t you.

A man like this will always have someone “waiting in the wings”. I’m going to compare his treatment of women to that of a coach and his sports team. He’ll always maintain special relationships with his “star players,” most especially the MVP (the wife). The other members of the team range from benchwarmers (backups) to those next in line to be “up at bat.” But in order for the game to be played, he, as coach of the team, knows he needs more than one player to win. Therefore, he keeps you all in a steady rotation and pulls you in to play as he sees fit.

Initially, I wanted to say that I was sorry that you were a victim of his emotional games, but you were a willing participant. You are as much at fault as this man is. First, you carried on an emotional affair with him for several years. It may not seem detrimental to you since sex wasn’t involved, but looking back, there were roots of romantic intimacy there that shouldn’t have been – otherwise you would have never been “more than friends” after your marriages ended.

Second, I don’t know how old you all are, but at whatever age he is, he has no business trying to move into your home… and YOU have no business allowing him to do so. You both have been doing this dance for close to 30 years, and you’ve let “chemistry” tell you that he’s making poor choices with other women.

Truth be told, you’ve made poor choices for your emotional well-being for decades and you’re moving in the right direction by dropping him. If he wanted you, he’d be with you and none of these funny things he’s done would have been an issue. You would have never watched him marry another woman; you would have been his wife.

 As for him, it’s balderdash to believe he’s “so sorry” he cannot choose between you and this other older, richer woman. He’s not sorry for anything except that he’s been caught. She’s another player on his team and financially loaded, which would benefit him for many reasons. This man is a leech, emotionally, sexually and financially, and will continue the next  thirty years of his life as he’s spent the last thirty – building false relationships with women for personal gain and leaving a trail of tears in his wake.

The best thing you can do right now, is to continue doing what you’re doing. Ignore his attempts to communicate with you, make moves to strengthen yourself as a woman and take this as a hard lesson learned that being a willing participant in someone’s infidelity, even if it’s just emotional, is simply a recipe to reap what you’ve sown.

 All the best,

 Elle P.

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The Magic Action to Help Restore Your Scarred Relationship

Throughout relationships, it is not uncommon for people to hold on to and silently grieve past hurts dealt by their loved one. Over time, resentment builds up, and, if it’s not addressed and worked through, this can lead to making either party susceptible to infidelity.

Now, you may think this is a childish assumption, that many people would not make it a habit to let “the little things” get in the way of the relationship. However, the truth is that “the little things” build up hurt and resentment over time. As they get pushed back into our minds, these pains snowball into a big, nasty and even hateful situation.

Before things get too ugly and out of hand, there’s a free gift available to help you thwart the ugliness of built-up resentment known as forgiveness. Forgiveness allows you to let go of the past and work through old hurts in the marriage.

A learned skill, your ability to practice forgiveness is influencedby your history of forgiveness. Think back on your previous history with forgiveness. Have you ever been deeply pained by someone who’s refused to forgive you? What about someone who you may have hurt intentionally, but later deeply regret betraying? Have you ever been asked for forgiveness by people who have hurt you? Have you ever felt the heaviness of holding grudges literally seem to lift from your shoulders before?

Ask yourself if you forgive easily. People who forgive easily allow themselves the opportunity to advance past their current frame of mind and move forward without the resentment they’ve held against others.

When it comes to asking for and giving forgiveness, it will be important that you and the other party come together in agreement to work things out. The offending party is usually the party that people think should start the conversation, but the offended can start out as well, initiating the conversation with a thorough explanation of how and why they were hurt by the others’ behavior.

Should one extend an apology and request forgiveness, then the offended party should honestly answer as to whether or not they can and will forgive them. Even if the answer at the current moment is no, they let the person know that there’s a possibility that forgiveness will come in time. They can inform the other party of the changes they’ll need to see over time in order to forgive and move from there.

Now, forgiveness does not mean letting someone “get away” with what they’ve done, nor does it mean this behavior will never happen again. To the contrary, forgiveness just means that you’ve accepted that the perceived wrongs have occurred against you.

Forgiveness also means that the offending party understands how they’ve hurt you and will not repeat the behavior again with the intentions of hurting you. As expert Dave Carder writes, “Change takes time. Most of us can tolerate hurtful behavior when we see that our [loved one] is working hard at changing the pattern. To the degree you can forgive, you can build respect, and to the degree you can respect, you can build trust.”

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3 Affair Components to Spice Up Your Marriage

High levels of mutual satisfaction between affair partners is one of the reason why cheating, though wrong, can be enjoyable in the moment. When you spend time with someone in a naturally spontaneous, energetic and sensual, exciting environment, it adds a spark to your relationship.

Dave Carder asserts that an affair contains three irrefutable components: adolescent sexuality, adult mobility and childhood magic. Here’s how to include these aspects in your relationship to increase satisfaction with your partner.

Childhood Magic

Childhood magic refers to freedom of responsibility and fixed routine in your life. Essentially, to capture childhood magic in your relationship, you two will have to whisk each other away into your own little world. Periodically, you need to incorporate childhood magic into your relationship by periodically getting away from your normal routine with your spouse and doing “whatever” you two wish to do. Eat what and where you want, visit wherever you wish and do whatever you’d like together.

Adolescent Sexuality

Adolescent sexuality is characterized by excitement, anticipation and spontaneity, “oblivious to the circumstances” surrounding it. Remember when you and your lover first started exploring each other’s bodies? The sex was most likely sexy, lusty, passionate and thrilling; now, not so much.

Add the sexual spice into your relationship by taking sex out of the bedroom and keep it from becoming routine. Make an effort to seduce or surprise your lover, even when he or she may not do the same for you. A quickie in your car can be highly invigorating to your sex life- even if it’s in your parked car in your driveway or garage while the children are asleep.;-)

Adult Mobility

When people have affairs, they sneak time away from their normal lives to see each other, enhancing the anticipation and excitement and increasing the feelings of appreciation between one another. Even if they only have 90 minutes and it’s 30 minutes both to and from their meeting place, the illicit couple will enjoy the precious 30 minutes they have together.

As adults, and couples, we start to take for granted the freedom we have to travel and “do what we want to do.” Travel with your partner on a semi-regular basis and get away with them. Invite your wife on a business trip with you, even if you have to spend most of the day away from her. Book a suite at a local hotel for the weekend, just to have a sense of “getting away from it all.”

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What Type of Affair is He Having? Find Out Today!

There are different forms of infidelity and cheating. Not every affair is the same, but there are several types of affairs which can be placed into different categories.

One-Night Stands

One-night stands are usually casual, unplanned hookups. Unplanned in that the people may not have known each other prior to that night, but there’s a strong potential that one or both parties had every intention to have sex with someone.

One-night stands are believed to usually involve alcohol and substance abuse. One-night stands are not an attempt to create intimacy with someone else, but are self-serving. While they can be passionate, they’re usually emotionless. It’s not uncommon for someone to experience intense remorse after a one-night stand, once realization sinks in.

Entangled Affairs

These are more long-term forms of infidelity which attempt to fill an emotional or psychological need within the person. It may last for a year or two, and sexual activity may progress later on in the relationship and not exactly at the onset. Combination emotional-sexual affairs are a type of entangled affair.

Sexual Addiction

Inappropriate early sexual exposure is at the root of sexual addiction; it eventually becomes a form of acting out. Experts state this is an outcome of sex-obsessed culture, and the behavior is the person’s method of self-medicating feelings such as shame, anxiety and depression.

Women tend to eat their feelings while men turn to sex as a form of emotional comfort. Thus, most sex addicts tend to be men. Sex is the best anti-depressant to many, at least initially. Over time, the lack of emotional fulfillment can further depress the addict, as the void they attempt to fill becomes harder to satisfy.

People who are truly sexually addicted and desire to break free will more than likely have best results with the help of a 12-step program, like Sexaholics Anonymous, or from a psychologist.

Add-on Affairs

The add-on infidelity fills a specific void in the cheater’s life. The connection is initially platonic, and can start in the workplace or while the cheater’s engaging in a social activity that his spouse has no interest in. Common leisure activities where these relationships can happen include sports, religious worship and study and even hiking or camping.

Instead of being highly passionate and seen as emotionally charged, the emotional connection observed is moreso one of friendship. It’s not uncommon for the sex in add-on affairs to be unsatisfying; usually, it’s done for the sake of satisfying the other and can be quite infrquent in occurrence. Over time, the add-on affair robs the marriage or primary relationship of emotional intimacy and connection.

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Is her man serving up more than drinks?

2 Years Later, I Still Don’t Trust Him

Concerned and Confused: 

We certainly agree that you’re concerned, but drop the “confused”. You’ve been with him for two years and found out about his infidelity three months into dating him. If you weren’t interested in staying with him, it wouldn’t have taken almost 21 months to figure things out. Suffice it to say, the time has come and gone for you to get over what happened in the beginning, especially if you want to move forward in partnered bliss with this man. Therefore, the question isn’t “how to get past” his cheating, but instead “How to re-establish trust in him.” 

You cannot accept his infidelity as a “slip”, because it wasn’t a one-time incident. Slips are moreso accidental f*ck-ups . A slip-up is when a man’s drunk and has a one night stand, or he has a no-strings-attached hookup after you guys argue. Additionally, slips are unplanned and usually come with lots of regret. (Not that this makes things acceptable.) What he had was a consistent series of trysts with another woman. He deliberately lied to you each and every time he was going to see her as well, making this anything but a “mistake.” If anything, the fact that he got caught acting a fool with this woman is the mistake. 

Since you took him back, we can assume that whatever he said and did to regain favor worked. Whether he begged for you to give him one more chance, or sent you roses everyday for a week, you decided to give him another opportunity to make things work in the relationship. It was at this point that you should have started the hard work required on your part to open yourself up to trusting him – and from what it sounds like, you haven’t, and are actually still stuck in the past, which isn’t conducive to a healthy relationship. If anything, your lack of trust and unwillingness to move forward is a black hole sucking the energy from your connection. 

You want to move past this infidelity? Here’s some tough love on how to do so: 

 1. Acknowledge What Happened. Stop trying to rationalize his sexual infidelity as a “slip”. Process it for what it was: a shameless affair with another woman that stopped once he realized that you weren’t having it. 

2. Accept the reality that this happened… and acknowledge that it’s hurt you. This doesn’t mean that you forget this happened, or use this opportunity to play the victim again. It means that you emotionally accept the reality of what your man did, and resolve to move forward maturely. 

3. Get over his job as it relates to you. Yes, he’s a bartender and may flirt a little as a part of his job, but that doesn’t mean he has to flirt or that he will cheat on you again. You tell us, aside from his job, he hasn’t given you a reason not to trust him, which is an indication that he’s doing what he needs to, leading to my last piece of advice… 

4. You Either Want Him Or You Don’t – Hurry Up and Decide. Again, 21 months … 2 years is a long time to be with someone you’re not sure about. He’s well-past what happened with the two of you, has made amends, and says he wants to spend his life with you, while in the meanwhile, you’re still trying to “get past” what happened. 

 Truthfully speakiing, if you want to get past what happened, you can and will- but only if you do the work and start to trust him again. If he’s not worth your trust by now, then it’s a clear sign that he never will be and neither of you will be happy together. With love, Elle P 

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