Quote: Do not tell your wife. You are remorseful, you understand what led you to this, you don't plan to ever let it happen again - that's enough for me. It will cause your wife untold pain if you tell her, and may keep you from ever having a good R again with her.
This makes a lot of sense. But it's not what I did - I spent most of two days writing and rewriting a letter to her, making it plain that I was still committed to her, the marriage, monogamy, etc., that I had screwed up, that I wanted her forgiveness, that I didn't need a response right away, that I was willing to move out or whatever if she needed me to...
And she basically responded by comforting me and hugging me. I guess she's known that we haven't had sex for many years, and she's been suspecting all along that something like this might happen. She even said, "you're human". So it's out in the open, and we're still firmly married, and I'm still sleeping in the same bed with her. Which is all I could have asked for.
Quote: As for the doctor - how would your wife see the doctor bills? If that is likely to happen, you could go somewhere else and pay for the tests out of pocket.
Our insurance has this annoying habit of paying for part of the bill but not all of it, so we get bills for the remainder in the mail.
Quote: HIV testing of course is the big one, and can take three months to turn positive.
Wow. Three months? Does that mean it's not safe to have sex for three months? Not that it's terribly likely, but if she were to become open it would be nice to take advantage...
Quote: How did your marriage devolve into a sexless one? What are you resenting your wife for?
We're working on the first question with yet another counselor, but this counselor does seem to be working out a lot better. I'm HD, and it's not sexless because of my initiative.
Resenting my wife? I'm angry and frustrated about the sexlessness, I guess, but I don't think I resent her. What gave that impression?
Quote: Why would you sabotage your R with your W just as it is starting to improve?
Breathe in ... breathe out ... breathe in ... breathe out ... breathe in ... breathe out ...
OK, I deserve that. And frankly, I don't have a good answer, except that the level of temptation I found in Amsterdam is beyond anything I had faced before. The women are in storefront windows, dressed like Victoria's Secret dummies, and they flirt with you. And this was not even in the red light district - I had decided to stay well away from the red light district because I know my temptations. I left a restaurant, took a wrong turn, and found myself a little over my head...
It does not excuse what I did, but I don't think that screwing up at this particular time really means I was trying to sabotage things.
Quote: Read the Five Love Languages by Chapman and start speaking your wife's love languages to improve your R.
I read it on the plane coming home, and I do think this is very likely to be helpful. I try hard to love my wife, but most of that effort is being expressed in the wrong languages.
