Future, I'm glad that you see that you could have been a better husband and that your wife wasn't getting her needs met. But I've read your posts, and I think that you have blamed yourself for your wife's affair. This idea seems to be really popular right now--that its the marriage that causes the affair, even though I've read that many people report being happily married when the A starts. Anyway, there are LOTs of unhappily married people who don't have affairs. Not that I think people should stay UNHAPPY. But a healthy adult will end one relationship before starting another. Maybe one affair can be worked through as a stumble, as a bad learning experience, but your wife has a pattern of this, right, from her other relationships? Hasn't she gone from one relationship into another, starting the next before the first is ended? There is a clear selfishness to having an affair--and I think that there is a certain personality type that will do it primarily for the Plan B option. That person cannot be alone and is very co-dependent. Until your wife can stand on her own two feet, alone, and deal with you as a grown up (without manipulating you for custody), then be very, very, very careful. I agree with Puppy. YOU cannot keep her from having another affair. She is the only one who can do that--and if she is trying to get control of you through this custody thing, that's a BAD, BAD sign to me. You aren't a good enough dad to have joint custody of the kids, but you are good enough to try it again??? What kind of a mixed message is that????
