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.

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.

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?

I’m really struggling with liking my partner. We had our first baby in the beginning of the first lockdown and I’m pregnant again. I feel like I am just going off him and I don’t know if I love him anymore. I look at everything he does and it just frustrates me. I’m struggling to have sex with him because I just don’t feel like I want too. I feel like he doesn’t treat me nice too....

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??

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?

Okay - so this is weird. Firstly I am a man and don't think they are too common on this site - could be wrong but of all the comments I have seen on here they seem to be from females - but I would welcome a female perspective if I try and give as balanced a view as possible without giving too much away. I'm not sure where to start so am a little lost... So, married for 11 years, two children, live in a lovely house very close to my sister in law and parents in law - so all three houses are close together. We went through a number of goes at pregnancy and were lucky enough to have twins. My wife would like to have four children but I don't think this is going to happen as I don't want to try and bring more children into a relationship that is already fragile - she holds this against me but it just doesn't seem right. She really really really wants more children to the point where she gets really upset when 'School mums fall unexpectedly pregnant'. I kind of say that we need to be grateful for what we have? I work full time, wife doesn't work at all - full time stay at home mum. I am really happy that I can provide for the family so she doesn't have to work but feel that she can take this for granted. I work in a pretty stressful job and also supplement my income with another company to make sure we have everything covered. We seem to live two separate lives, even in lockdown - she stays up with the kids very late watching TV and gets up very late as well. Meanwhile I hit the sack at 10ish and up at 7.30ish having breakfast on my own etc. We don't do ANYTHING together. I have been sleeping in a separate bed for three years - couple of reasons - we had a big argument years ago but also I am overweight and so snore - I'm constantly trying to lose weight but very difficult - having a good go at it at the moment. Because we live so close to the family and the way she smothers the children we don't get any time together. My wife has been away from the children one night in eight years (is this normal?). unfortunately I have been de-prioritsed over the years and feel like its the following order: Kids -> Dog -> Cat -> Hamsters/Goldfish (can't break those two apart). I effectively live in a house that I pay for lock stock as well as fund a rather exceptional life style for my wife which I think she takes for granted. I feel guilty because she does all the ironing and most of the cleaning - maybe I need to do more but just want to crash after a days work. I am on the brink of moving out but such a big decision. How will the kids take it? Where will I go? The relationship is toxic - we are like two chemicals that are absolutely wonderful in isolation but put them together and you start to get a bad reaction. There is NO intimacy, no kissing, no hand holding. I mean it's as dead as a dodo! What to do? I'm going to stop now but would welcome views from the other side of the fence as honest as possible - if you have questions I'll try and answer them as well.

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?

Hello lovely people! I wanted to share my current situation with you as it is not easy for me. I am a 23yo male currently having a relationship with a woman who is 14 years older than me (37). It all started about five months ago. We were working together and there was something between us. She is married but her husband is working outta town and is missing for a few months then he is back in here for a few months. Our story started as you can guess when he was away. I will call her B. B is a shy and innocent person. B said that she has never cheated before in any of her relationships and it is her first time doing that. She is married for 10 years and has no kids. She said that she chose him not because of love and passion but because of him being good and right for her (Beta male provider :). So my experience with her is truly amazing. The greatest sex in my life. We text all day with 'I love yous' etc. When together, nothing matters and it is a fairy tale. So we were seeing each other for a month and then her husband came back. She said that they live in a sexless marriage since a year and a half. He wants to have sex with her however she does not. Last time they had sex she cried etc. The thing is that when he came back (two months since he is here), she is still coming to my place once a week for 2-3 hours. She claims that she is staying faithful to me by not having sex to him. At the start she said that having sex with him is something mandatory, before he came back she said the year and a half sexless thing. I believe her about it as she is not that kind of person. However, she will not leave him as she is scared and also wants to have children. They tried to have child in the past but it didn't work. Now when it comes to this she is like crying and saying that she doesn't want a child from a person she is not in love with. She will also not leave him as I cannot offer her a future due to the age gap. She just wants to have both of us hooked but it is really torturing to me as I am constantly thinking about her day after day and it is freaking me out I am completely mentally obsessed and all I get is two hours a week. Her husband is suspicious of her, however, he is the beta male that wont start a fight or check on her phone. (we are texting every night before she goes to sleep while he is watching movies in the other room). I read some stuff online with similar stories and I know that I have to leave her. A clean breakup. However, I do not want to do it because everything is amazing and the love we give each other is huge. Can you share some thoughts please? Will be very appreciated.

My husband and I have been married for ten years, together almost 20. The last few years we have been disconnected. We haven’t prioritized our marriage and I slowly pulled away focusing on myself and our boys (ages 8 and 6). We seem more like roommates and get along well when we do activities with the boys. I met my affair partner about 9 months ago. We started talking and he would disclose his unhappiness in his marriage. I started liking him about 2-3 months before the affair started and my marriage seemed to get worse so we started texting and becoming intimate immediately. I feel like I am starting to fall in love with my affair partner. Our personalities are similar. We have many of the same thoughts and feelings. Both of us said we haven’t felt a connection like this, and we have never liked someone so much, so fast. We discussed how we could picture playing house together and how it’d be nice for his son, who’s 3, to have siblings. Despite these feelings I broke off the affair a week ago. I was in turmoil from the beginning, and it got worst as I told my husband I am going to see a therapist. My husband questioned if I loved him and I said I don’t know, I don’t really think so. He seemed devastated. My husband professed his love and after a long talk he told me he wants to be with me. I felt even more guilt and figured I should work on my marriage for my kids’ sake and to see if we can rekindle our love. My husband has been putting more effort by giving me hugs and kisses , asking how I’m feeling ,and cuddling. He’s been more receptive to doing at home date nights, too. I’ve asked him questions to help build an emotional connection but can’t help but think how my AP would respond, thinking he’d give me more of a response sharing his thoughts and feelings whereas my husband’s answers were more vague. My husband wants sex again and I’m not ready. Not sure if he’ll be patient enough with me. Anyway, I am sure it’ll take time to get over my AP but wonder will I truly get over him. Can I rebuild my relationship with my husband?

I’m really struggling with this. My 10 years female friend of my partner, I think she’s into him, maybe I’m wrong. Since she met me I think she tries to make me jealous. She’s asking him for helping favours sometimes, not too often. Always being touching, slapping him just in a playful way. After he helped her with this thing, she sent him an audio in WhatsApp, saying that she’s happy and she thanked him for it and at the end of it she was like: I love you, bye bye. Is this normal ?