I have been in a marriage for almost three years and have a baby less than a year old. Unfortunately there is no spark or intimacy in the marriage and i just feel like friends. My spouse doesn’t feel the same, they’re still in love with me but there hasn’t been any intimacy for a long time. I met someone over a year ago who I immediately clicked with and after a few months we couldn’t stop talking to each other and have since been having an affair. I ended up getting pregnant and having a baby with my spouse, but all along feeling like I didn’t want to be in the marriage anymore. Things are serious with my lover as we have said we’re in love each other and want a future together. I’m struggling to end my marriage because we have a young baby and so much to lose, but the spark isn’t there and I don’t feel any chemistry with my spouse anymore. I have told my spouse about the lack of chemistry but not the affair as I’m ashamed. Recently the person I’m having the affair with has decided to end it, saying they want to be with me and have a future together but cannot carry on in the situation we’re in. There have been a few red flags in the affair, a lot of arguments and conflict because of the situation and when the affair was ended; immediately talked of dating others and said it’s none of my business because I’m married. I want to be with this person but I don’t want to hurt anyone and want to do what is best for my baby. I’m really struggling with losing my relationship with my lover and can’t stop getting upset. I don’t know what to do. Anyone else been in a similar position?

I am a married man, I have a wife and 2 teens. I’ve been married for over 15 years now. My wife is a good mom, but her lack of drive for success, and the mentality of being a housewife has turned me off for many years now. I’ve had a conversation with her about 7 years ago about going out there and getting her degree to challenge herself and help the family financially, I was always met with negative responses. Asking her to get a job was somewhat insulting to her and she tends to tell me I’m to blame for because I don’t like the jobs she applied to (they were not worth the time for the money) and she refused to get a job at decent places with good benefits (like Walmart or Aldi). In any event, through the years I’ve grown professionally and financially with very little financial input from her. I’ve taken care of her parents abroad as well as mine and I feel like I’ve just been a cash cow for everyone. I’ve had numerous discussions with her about my feelings and she finally decided to go out there and get a degree (because she senses I'm going to leave her) which I’m helping pay for, but for many years now I have not been connected to her emotionally, I don’t love her anymore and many things happened between us and her family where she didn’t back me up and chose her family instead. I am only married to her because of my kids. The sex is there just to take care of our needs, we don’t even kiss. During the pandemic I started trying to improve on one of the 4 languages I speak. I met someone on a language app, we started talking, very quickly moved to video conversations and we both started developing feelings. We share many goals, aspirations, and she is the complete opposite of my wife in so many levels which just draws me to her even more. She is also married. We’ve been romantically talking for 4 years now online consistently. Her husband is a macho guy who wants her as a maid essentially, she is putting her self through school with the help of her grandfather (who dislikes her husband) and is on her way to becoming a lawyer this year. I love everything about this woman. We met in person (I had a work trip to her country). We had great conversations and made love, I felt so at home with her I couldn’t believe it. I have never felt so happy in my life, never felt like this with my wife. She has never asked me for a nickel, and she’s helped me in some many ways, I feel like a different man with her. We both want out of our marriages, but I’m afraid of hurting my kids (16 and 13) and disrupting their lives. She is willing to leave her husband for me, she too has a kid (8 years old). I also don’t want to hurt my wife, I don’t love her but I don’t also want to hurt her self esteem and she also cannot support herself financially yet as she is in school till 2024 and working 1 day week for now. She knows I don’t love her like the first day we got married, we talked about it, tried working on it for a few years but it’s no use. We are both in our 40s and I am not happy with her and I feel I’d be giving up my own happiness if I don’t pursue my life with the other woman whom I love. I also feel my wife deserves to be loved, by someone who truly feels for her, not me. I don’t know what to do.

Been married for a year and found out recently my husband had been paying for nudes from internet girls been going for sensual massages all pre-marriage. Confronted him and he basically said that it was all done and I need not be worried. Naturally the self esteem took a blow and I became attracted in hindsight to a male colleague. It progressed and turned into more than friends. We slept together and he was so charming post all this like the day after but fast forward to a week later his been radio silent, no communication whatsoever always said that I’m married and this is dangerous and now after the deed doesn’t even speak to me at work. Did he just use me? I’m shattered. And disgusted in myself for letting things get this far should I op to leave the marriage as I betrayed the trust? And did he just use me and through me away like some trash. Hurt and lost.

Detected from my wife's texts that she was having an affair with her boss, starting from 2014 – 2017. She promised me to end the affair and blocked him and I believed her. All these years I didn't have any thoughts on their affair as I took her by her word and was living happily, understanding it to be a mistake on her part. Anyone can have a fling. Last month I bought her a phone on our anniversary. Out of curiosity I dialled up her affair partner's name and it showed a female name. Being asked, she told me that seeing the name I may get irritated hence she saved by another lady’s name. It was difficult to digest as the truth. Being suspicious, I asked her to give her the full truth again, suspecting it to be a lie. Then she tells me that she is just having a friendly relationship only. I was not convinced hence again asked her repeatedly but she told me it's an emotional affair only. She was lonely, unappreciated by her in-laws and her in-laws heckled her verbally off and on. She also did have the affair to rise in corporate ladder. On further persistent questioning she confessed of minimal physical contact with her boss and supposedly it was his endeavour mainly. She told me they kissed and he fondled her sometimes, only in his car and did all these physical acts more so when simultaneously driving the car himself, but didn't allow her to touch his genitals at any point of time, and she didn't in any way engage in oral sex during entire affair period and that's the full story. I couldn't believe that at all. Further information was not given by her. According to me if you have an emotional affair it's sure to end in physical intimacy. For a few days thereafter, I saw that she was quite morose as her ex-boss had abused her over the phone recently. She has been called some names by her ex-boss hence she stopped contacting him further and blocked him. As of this I called her ex-boss and we met at a restaurant. He was only trying to show that he was not responsible for her current state of mind and they were very good friends only. In between at the restaurant I went over to collect our ordered food and hence they were then alone and talking. As I kept my recorder on I found out that it started in 2011. He was threatening to reveal all. She told him that I didn't tell my spouse that actually I started the affair with you from 2011. On this note I asked her again to tell me the truth but she blocks me out by telling nothing more is there to know. Now I know my wife had lied about duration of affair too. I am deeply scarred mentally. 7 years were taken up from my life when I was thinking that me and my wife were hardworking to run the family and we complemented each other. At any point of time she didn't try to comfort me, understand me and tell me the truth. I'm frustrated, how can I take her above confession and further progress in our life henceforth? Please guide me if you can thanks for your time.

My wife and I have been together for 15 years. We are very compatible and get on well but for some years we have been drifting and not appreciating one another. We have two wonderful children whom we both adore and who we love raising together. A few years ago my wife decided to focus more on herself. Where previously I would have considered that we were soul mates it was painful to see her separate from me and I couldn’t rationalize how the desire to set up a business meant no longer sharing her thoughts and feelings with me. I realized a couple of years ago that I was no longer her priority and then about a year ago I asked if she was still in love with me. She said no, nor did she know if she wanted to stay with me. I wondered about an affair but she always said that she’s too busy and that this wasn’t her. She is obsessed with time on her own, in part because of her perception that I am clingy and also mainly because she just needs a break from the kids and her day to day life. She went away for a weekend in June with some girlfriends. She mentioned that she’d met a guy there that she used to go to school with. Because I trusted her I thought nothing of it. Sex has been patchy between us since having kids and we started sleeping together more regularly after this trip away. I just put it down to the fact that she’d had a good time and I felt happy that I had been able to support her in doing this. We spent some time with her family in France this summer. I needed to return home to work and my wife was very keen to stay in France for two further weeks. This confused me as she hates the countryside and she gets stressed with being alone with the kids. Clearly she wanted some time apart from me. Just before I left she mentioned that this guy was to visit her with some girls. Again, I thought nothing of it. While I was alone back home I think we spoke about three times and the communication from her was friendly but very matter of fact. Things were awful when she came back and she seemed very cold and distant. I felt suspicious of this guy and asked our son where they’d both slept. He said one thing and my wife had said another. She’d left her inbox open on the PC and I saw quite a passionate email between her and him and a photo of them together during the original weekend away and I knew that there had been an affair. When I confronted her, her reaction was to say I was crazy and that we have problems. I told her what I’d read and then she admitted emotional infidelity but she denied sex because she had her period at the time. I asked her why she did it and she said because he desired her and made her feel like she did when she was young. It turned out that while we were apart she spent hours and hours on her own reading letters from when she was a teenager and listening to music from that time too. I guess she’s having some kind of mid-life crisis, something that she recognized and promptly signed up for therapy with a relationship counsellor I’d located a few years ago to try to do something for our stagnation. This discovery has prompted the most amazing rekindling of our relationship. We have started to have an extremely active sex life and are close physically in a way that we hadn’t been in years. We have started to diet together and to exercise more. I recently ran my first half marathon and I have lost 15kg. We are attending a tantra course together and have two weekends alone planned plus concerts and holidays. We spend our evenings talking and planning and sharing and feeling very connected. For the last few years she has been telling me that there is no such thing as unconditional love. What this experience has shown me is that this isn’t true: that I am still in love with her and that I love her unconditionally. I have told her that I forgive her and I believe this. I have also apologized sincerely for all the million and one things that I did over the years to make her distance herself from me. She feels now that I really listen to her. Our children are so important to us, but I feel that our relationship is more central to our family now. The children see that we are in the bedroom more than before and don’t sleep with our pajamas on but they are happy to play with each other and we still do a lot with them. The one remaining cause for difference is that I don’t really know what happened between them so much as “nothing really happened”. My view is that if this is the case then just tell me what happened and let’s move on. Of course I have doubts that they slept together or at the very least shared our bed but I’d rather know that than feel that she continues to hide things from me. And I’d rather know this now than to discover this years later. Her view is that she is an individual and entitled to her privacy. I agree but not with regard to infidelity. I don’t want to bring it up any more and she has said that she won’t tell me although annoyingly that she was going to tell me. He lives in another country and I’ll never meet him. It hurts that she had him come to stay with our family in France especially that this was literally hours after I left to go home. But that’s it. She did what she did and it’s over. Things are great between us now - really great. I actually feel that she could fall in love with me again. Maybe she already has. So should I just stop wondering what happened during this brief affair or am I entitled to know?

I am so glad I found this thread but I’m horrified the amount of other men out there feeling the way I do. I thought I was alone. So sad to read these comments I feel for everyone of you! I’ve been married to my wife 10 years together 11. Same thing here just dead marriage zero sex. I can’t sleep at night I lay awake till 3am some nights wondering why I can’t even put my arm round her without her shoving me away, we have three young kids together and she already had 3 when I got with her that I went to hell and back raising as my own while she sat on iPads or her phone over the years. I’m literally physically and emotionally EXHAUSTED from lack of sleep dealing with the kids & dogs too as we have quite a few. She has a major issue with her phones even her own older kids have said it on many occasions she ignores me you have to say the same thing 4/5 times to even get her to look up even then she just says WHAT” like I’m annoying her by requiring conversation! Our sex has always been okay, when we actually do it, but sine it’s been dead I’ve asked her if there’s any issues she never admits there is. She has mega foreplay from me and loves it but gives none. Not that it matters. Of course just like many of you there’s now also zero affection in the daytime, if I try cuddle her she keeps her in front of her so I’m basically cuddling around her phone like some kind of pest it hurts so badly and if I make a fuss about it all I get is “your just wanting to get your end away” “just back off I’m trying t chill” or she refers to sex as a “chore” Any issues in our marriage any arguments it’s always my fault.not once in 11 years has she ever took the blame or changed a single thing. When i got with her she made me cut off from all my friends (I had a lot of friends) and I cannot eve have them on Facebook on the basis “they could be friends with someone I’ve slept with” because before I got with her i was on my own for 4 years and I slept with a lot of ladies, I stayed on my own on purpose after a head messing relationship before that, so I figured if I stayed on my own and learned to need NO ONE, then when I am ready to try a relationship I will not need them just want them. I grew cold on my own, I hated affection from these one night stands I blew any of them out from wanting anything more and I stayed cold and lonely in my house, just clubbing 3 nights a week and putting it about. I admit that. It doesn’t make me untrustworthy I’ve never cheated on ANYONE and never even looked in a bad away at another woman while I’ve been with my wife! But that’s her reason t cut me off from my friends. At the beginning of the relationship she said I was not affectionate and “trained me” to be cuddly, then when she see how I was Falling head over heals for her and dropped my guard, she then started to remove any threats so I was not allowed a phone for a couple of years, I was not allowed on my laptop until she was up so she could monitor what I was doing, I never had money, but slowly she started to allow these things i then started a successful online business and was making a lot of money working from home. She then moaned everyday that I was working to hard! So I packed that in!!!!! Things started to go down hill the more I gave in the worse she got, she would accuse me all the time even from going to the shop up the road, if we had days out with the kids I’d have to look at the floor Becase if a good looking woman was in sight she would accuse me of looking at her and spend the whole day angry or she would smile at loads of good looking men strisght infront of me and the kids to hurt me. So I never went anywhere I had no friends no nothing. Yet she was allowed out, she had friends she had weekends at concerts. While I baby sitted. I started to get resentful I was hurting so bad, she came home one night after drinking and we had sex… While she was on top of me she leaned down to my ear and whispered” guess what” “ I fucked someone else earlier” that was the breaker my heart felt like it had actually cracked.

I don’t even know where to start…. It all began on my honeymoon. I found out that my husband had a very ugly past. He had been with over 10 transgender sex workers, frequented gay establishments to have sexual encounters with men anonymously, would use “glory holes” to get off, has multiple accounts on cheating apps as well as transgender for rent apps. He had once posted an ad on Craigslist to try to find someone. He was completely obsessed. This was going on until a couple months before he and I met. Supposedly he has not done or even thought about any of this since we’ve been together. We’ve been together 2 years. We have been talking to a certified sec therapist. This is a sex addiction. And similar to drugs or alcohol addiction this won’t go away. There isn’t a cure. He can learn how to cope and not give into triggers if he’s willing to do the hard work. He has to take a polygraph after his disclosure letter to me. This is all done thru the CSAT. He can’t be trusted. He lied to me from the very beginning of our relationship. I should have knows all of this. Now I am here with him. I uprooted my 4 kids from our home and we have combined our families. He also has 4 kids. This is a complete nightmare.

So recently my bf and i have had some problems. One night we where with our friends and he got drunk and said he thought about having sex with his “girl best friend”. This hurt me so much, I left and went to sleep, the next morning I had brought it up and he said it was a joke and it didn’t mean anything. But that night before I went to sleep, I snooped through his phone. I’m not one to typically do this vecuase it’s a huge invasion of privacy. However I’ve had some gut feeling telling me something wasn’t right. I looked through his texts with her and found some things that broke me. She had messaged him explaining how she wanted to be with him, and he told her I was his girl on the side.

She's a great mother to our son but outside of not wanting to leave him I'm absolutely miserable in the marriage. I don't trust her as a life partner. She's great with the whole family dynamic and being faithful in a relationship but I've long thought her decision making wasn't the best or most thought out and unfortunately she's smitten by the cliche Disney princess facination. I'm a logic/data driven person whereas she makes her decisions based on emotion. This might be part to our drastically different upbringings. For context, I grew up away from most blood relatives and spent a majority of my early childhood between foster care and living with my mom's sister before a couple year stint with my mom until she temporarily abandoned me in a sober living to relapse before spending middle/high school raised by a former partner of hers that fell in love with me as a baby and decided to be my "dad" since my biological one didn't want anything to do with me. She on the other had lived with her mom and siblings, raised amongst a huge family, saw her dad frequently (emotionally unavailable but financially present father)  and was coddled by her mom. Essentially she wasn't really allowed to make critical decisions for herself so she never cared to learn growing up and whenever things got difficult she'd walk away or let someone else fix it. This I've learned definitely came as a result of my now mother in law "wanting the best for her kids growing up" but completely mind fucking them by not allowing them to make their own decisions or have much mental fortitude. Despite loving her I struggled believing in marriage and I made that clear to her. This as a result of wasting money buying jewelry for women before (mom, sister, her) for it to get lost, seeing so many unsuccessful marriages, having to spend soooo much on a ring/one day party for others to enjoy as well as someone (usually the male in my state) getting completely screwed in court when the divorce happens and don't get me started if there are kids involved. Most of our adult lives I've supported her financially paying all/majority of rent and bills while she worked in grad school. This way she could afford gas, apt. internet, insurance and her car note. Dumb on my part looking back as I wasn't making great money and wasn't the best with it but better than her working part time while in grad school. Looking back, I wish I would have talked finances with her instead of being the guy who just took care of it. Eventually we got jobs in the same city, collectively we made six figures, didn't have to pay rent, and could actually start considering saving for travel/house. Our relationship was great, I didn't have to take care of her out of obligation and wanted to build a forever life with her. Decided logically this was the best time to get engaged and start building that life together. Months out from our wedding she quits her job (racism in her department and treatment of staff). We talked about these issues as they were coming up but I didn't expect her to quit. Frankly, racism sucks but as a person of color, regardless of where you are in the US you're going to experience it, especially in university settings, so don't spend your life running from it. Mind you, we hadn't paid for the wedding yet (75% remaining). We move out of free housing provided by her old job and get an apartment. No issue with my jobs salary but still stressful month to month considering she made this choice without even having a solid savings established. Therefore I became that financial support again when she couldn't contribute to our bills or pay her own. She decided she didn't want to go back to the field she was in at university because of racism at higher paying schools. Mind you, this decision came less than 18 months after finishing grad school that took 2 years and cost her six figures in student loans. I considered calling off the wedding because it wasn't feasible to have and the entire foundation of stability I based our marriage on changed. Her dad offered to pay for the wedding and even gave her the remainder of the money for it but she used it for her bills and personal/ student debt. Not a cent went towards helping me with rent which passes me off but at the time i just shook off.. Here comes the curve ball! Despite using emergency contraception, a month before the wedding we find out she's pregnant. Due to covid our official wedding was postponed (no sweat as I didn't want one and we hadnt paid it off). Neither of us wanted to have a child outside of marriage so we got a friend to officiate for us and had a safe and very small wedding with close family only. I love our son but since the moment we knew she was pregnant I wanted to have an abortion, she didn't. I feel like shit saying it now that he's born but logically and financially it made no sense to bring a child into the world when you look at all the other issues we had going on. I talked myself into thinking and feeling like this is what I wanted but I knew it wasn't real deep down. I spend most of my time avoiding conversations outside of our son with her, ive isolated myself from friends and family out of embarrassment over my depression and involving them in a failed marriage. I have good moments in the relationship and then I'm back at hating her. Hating her for making so many emotional decisions that now I have to deal with. It tears me up because we have a beautiful son but part of me hates that he's here because if he wasn't I know I wouldn't be. I'm not crazy enough to hurt myself especially if it meant leaving my son to be raised by her or any of her family but I really feel trapped and see no way out. I know she wouldn't hurt him physically but she's indecisive and weak minded when faced with adversity and I don't want him to be like her. I know I dont want any more kids in this marriage. We've talked about it and she wants to wait until we get property and a house. I don't say much, just sit back and chuckle in my head at the fact that i definitely don't want anymore kids in this marriage and that she thinks we could afford to get a house when she has all this student loan debt. I know I should leave and deal with the whole two parent household but I feel like my happiness would cost me so much more and hurt our son than if I just stayed.

Wife met a man 6 times, would meet him at the parking lot of the gym he went to, I saw where that exchanged nude photos on Snapchat, she claims they only made out, never did anything else physical, even though it's been over a year ago and we have worked every thing out, I still find it hard to believe, she said she was willing and tried but he never would do anything, I've assured her that at this point I'm over it and it's not gonna change anything she still swears that only kissing ever happened, been married 18 yrs only time anything like this has ever happened but it's so hard to believe that a man with the opportunity wouldn't do something, thoughts?

I have a huge dilemma in which I have created. I’m in a relationship with my girlfriend of 2 years but after the first 7 months I started to have feelings for a close friend of my girlfriend. Now for the last year things have got a lot more serious where we meet up nearly every weekend to have sex and spend time together but I’m still in a relationship with my girlfriend. The relationship is great in terms of getting along, living together, she has an amazing personality and we have lots fun but there is no intimacy, it feels more like friends to be fair. With the close friend, I am very attracted to her, I want to have sex with her the minute I see her. The question is, when I’m with my girlfriend I feel happy and we do fun things together. When I’m with the close friend, physically we are amazing and have fun here and there. What do I do?

J is a great caring guy and a brilliant step dad but I feel embarrassed about him. J never brushes his teeth, rolls cigarettes in bed, always has a dirty face, he has b o. All these things are a complete turn off for me, I mention to him about it and he says he would still kiss me if I was dirty. His side of the sofa has dark marks all over it and thinks nothing of going out with dirty clothes on. I don’t think I can deal with it anymore, it’s got to a point to where our relationship is platonic rather than romantic. Does anyone else have a messy partner? How do you deal with it? Did you end up Leaving them?

My husband confessed a couple of months back of his debts he'd built up due to gambling drinking etc. Its a substantial amount but he said he had been depressed. I tried to support him and seek him help, which we separated got back and same habits of drink disappearing and lack of trust. I'm not sure what to do anymore.

I’m embarrassed that at nearly 40 I’m turning to google and the internet for answers but here we are. I’m feeling heartbroken because the guy I’ve been seeing for a few months now has just called an end to things. He lives with his partner and has young two kids. I’m not proud of it but when things began he said he was unhappy and and didn’t think he’d stay. I don’t disbelieve he’s miserable and they live as parents and not much more. He’s called time on things with me because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and thinks the only fair way would be if he was free to begin a relationship. But he feels he should stay for the kids. I'm questioning everything, including my own self worth and really just wondering if there’s any hope he may make the decision to leave or if I should just try and forget him. I really care for this man and it’s just so painful to think he’s giving up on his own happiness. Am I just getting what I deserve for being a horribly selfish person??

There are a few things going on in my life at the moment and I need help to just sort my head out. It all started two years ago. Me and my boyfriend found out that I was unexpectedly pregnant. At the time we were not practically able to have a baby – didn’t have full time jobs, a place to live etc. despite the fact that I would love to be a mom. So, after deciding together what we would do, on my 21st birthday I had an abortion (at which time he went out of the country for the football). This knocked me for six. More than either of us realised at the time. It’s only looking back that I can see that this was the start of a downward spiral for me. I changed and just began to notice everything. I noticed how he wasn’t there then on a day that I needed him. I noticed how he never complimented me or said nice things about me. I noticed how when we spoke or were sat at the dining room table, he wouldn’t look at me. I just became down and felt worthless, like I had to beg for his attention, and this is spanning over the two years since the abortion. We have had numerous conversations about how I feel in our relationship, to the point now where he says I am just hurting him. Needless to say, I started to notice how other people would make me feel better about myself. Notice how other guys would make me feel happy and build me up. I began to feel wanted, important, attractive via other people. I didn’t mean for it to happen, I don’t necessarily regret it happening either, but I had an affair. This guy is amazing. We were friends before the affair and I’ve always had a thing for him. He is my go to, my best friend. He makes me feel supported, loved, wanted, sexy – everything and more. He knows everything about me. It started out as just a bit of fun, both of us getting something from each other that we weren’t getting in our relationships, but then it soon became more. A year and six months later, I’m head over heels for him. Here’s the catch. He has been married for a year and has a child. He says he can’t leave because of the child, that he is happy with his life despite the fact that he loves me and wants to be with me in ways he can’t. I know I need to get over him and let him go because, no matter how tough it is, he does have a choice and that evidently isn’t us. He has told me how if he didn’t have his child then things would be different, but ultimately the child comes first (which I don’t knock him for). My issue is letting go. There so much other stuff going on in my life as well at this point. With lockdown suspending normal life, I’m not working so just stuck in the house. My mom has been institutionalised and is on suicide watch. I’m also noticing how she can be emotionally abusive towards my dad too. I just can’t deal with it all right now, I’m nearly at breaking point. Can anybody slap some sense into me?

I recently noticed my wife texting a lot and confronted her about it. She said it was work stuff and lied to my face, so I did a lil digging and found text messages and nude pics of her sending to him, and letters too. The guy is in prison and communicates with her a lot and she even got he got his name tattooed on her arm. What can I do and how do I approach the situation?