I guess if I am going to ask the question, then I need to share. I chose to stay because I am not going to let a five months of insanity undo 22 years of marriage. I also know that if I walked away from my current marriage that I would leave a significant portion of myself with him...so I needed to find a way to make it work. We don't like conflict. We don't like to argue (which is what got us into trouble in the first place - letting things fester and not get them out). We have similar outlooks on many things. We love simple vacations, sitting on the back porch and drinking a beer on Friday night and grilling out, hanging with a small core group of friends. We are not party animals - in fact we would be considered rather conservative (excusing my recent brush with law, ahem). We agree 99% of the time on how to deal with our children. I loved all these things about us and was not sure that I could find these same qualities in another person if I chose to walk away.

We do have some differences that have gotten in our way in the past. My husband was using those differences as way to justify his A but now he realizes that our differences are what keep us unique individuals. I am more aware of some of the things about my personality that clash with his...and vice versa. We are both trying to be more "aware" of each other and it seems to be working. I chose to stay in my marriage for all the reasons outlined above plus the fact that he was a committed as I was to rebuilding and he is being open and honest and transparent.

Great question....I have chosen to stay in my marriage because I am married to my best friend. I believe in marriage and I believe in my marriage. I believe that everyone makes mistakes. Some mistakes are worse than others but it is what you do after the mistake that makes the difference. I stayed in my marriage because I have two chilren who deserve to have both their parents raising them. I stayed in my marriage because I couldn't imagine not being married to my husband. After a year and a half of working to get my marriage back on track I am happy to say I have more good days than bad. I had 19 great years of marriage. My husband had a 10 week affair that we could have let ruin our marriage but it didn't. Last week I was married for 21 years! I look forward to celebrating my 50th with my husband. I will always wish I didn't have his affair hanging over my marriage but in some ways we are stronger and enjoying our marriage more today than before the affair. Thanks for asking the question. Now I am changing from work and going to watch my 15 year old play HS soccer. My husband will meet me there and I will be thankful that we are watching him together.

I have chosen to stay in this marriage because I just have too much invested in it to give up on it. We have now been married 40 years...this happened over 2 years ago and enough time has gone by for my husband to prove that he is very sorry for what he did and knows how close we came to losing everything. I keep hoping that the saying"once a cheater, always a cheater" isn't true in our case. Because we are together, doesn't mean that I will ever forgive him...don't know if I can ever do that. That suspicion will never be more than a thought away but that's just something that I will have to live with. I am happy to say that time does heal, but it did take a good two years. I would consider our marriage "semi" happy which is something I thougt I would never be able to say. Thanks for the question.

I chose to stay because I remember how devastated I was when he moved out last December. I realized then how much I love this man. I stayed because my children love and need him. I stayed because I believe he's my soulmate. I tried to leave since dday and he's always stopped me. He truly loves me and is sorry for the pain he's put me through and is working hard to make things right. I asked him to make love to me on dday because I needed to know if there was anything still left to fight for. I knew that night that there was. I'm thankful everyday for the second chance I've been given.

I stayed because I can't imagine my life without him. It's as simple as that.

I stay because I still feel my happiest with his arms around me!

I stay because the man I fell in love with was everything I wanted in life, and he still is. He screwed up, but he is down deep a good person, and I am not willing to give up yet that that person is still there.

I stayed because it feels right with hhis arms around me. I stayed because we have 39 years of history.

I have chosen to stay for a lot of reasons but most important because I love him and WANT to stay with him. I stay because if I didn't way more people than just myself would have been affected. I stay because my first H cheated too and I choose not to stay in that marriage. I know what D is like - it's HORRIBLE and I didn't want to go that route again. (This is has become much harder than that ever was.) I stay because when I actually found out about A (which had been over a year) we were at a GREAT place. We'd been through a lot, reconnected, and were a new couple in a lot of ways when the A was revealed. If it had come out earlier, while it was going on, the out-come may have been different. And...a little part of me stays out of pure spite for OW. I want her to have zero chance to be with my H. I want to go on with my life - with my family - and HOPE that she can see us - me - WINNING! (I'm being completely honest here!)

Love - I had to laugh at the pure spite for the OW. Been there, felt that!

Actually for me it is such a complex range of emotions for why I stay. It almost changes daily - as I shift focus on why I am choosing to rebuild. This is my first marriage and I know that if I re-married that my next husband would have faults too....I've grown accustomed to all the things in my husband's personality and I would hate to have to learn someone else's good (and bad) personality traits. The grass is not always greener on the other side. My husband had to jump the fence to figure that out - what a dummy.

I will say that a week after dday and we had our first "real" discussion I told him that staying together would be hard. I never knew just how hard it would be. But the crux of it is, the difficulty remains on my shoulders - not his - because I am the one who must look at him and love him and live with him daily, knowing what he did to me...to us. Sometimes it is still overwhelming.

But when I see my daughter put her arms around his neck...or we are sitting together eating a meal....or enjoying a ballgame, I am reminded that even despite the pain that comes with this, it is worth hanging in there! I also have a much better / different marriage and that makes it possible to stick with it too. Nothing is more wonderful than a good cuddle at night to remind me why I think he is so wonderful.

I am going to catch some crap for this I bet but for the first few days, to be honest, I stayed because I wasn't capable of handling the kids on my own. I kicked him out for two days and those were ridiculously hard. My youngest was eight weeks old when I caught him. I had just come back to work. I had a 20 month old at home too. I was exhausted and scared that I wouldn't be able to provide them a safe environment without the help. I did begin the divorce process (all the paperwork is done just needs filing but now on hold). I had decided to divorce him but we would continue to remain in the same house until we could sell it. But I fully intended to be as hateful and angry as I could. I intended to keep him in a constant state of pain as deep as mine. And despite the venom constantly being spewed at him he never yelled, he remained deeply remorseful, he continued to say he loved me and our family, he all but begged for counseling, he refused to get a lawyer, he owned up to all of it, answered every question over and over and over. A couple times he finally cracked and blew up at me but I was being particularly nasty then. The amazing thing was we NEVER did this in front of the kids. I have no clue how we held it together from when we picked them up to when they went to bed.

Then the weekend came. We took the kids to the mall to let our son run around so he started talking to me realizing I wouldn't start yelling in front of the kids or in public. He asked very calmly for a second chance and for me just to give him six months (this was our 6 year wedding anniversary BTW). He said one month for every year we had been married just to show me he could change. He said he knew he had no right asking me for this. He had no right asking me to do the work we were about to do. I had every right to move on and find someone who made me happier. But then I thought about trading our kids in parking lots, weekends in a quiet house because they weren't there, holidays without them because it was his turn. I couldn't NOT try. I owed them that. I want to be able to look at them regardless of the outcome and tell them I did my best.

I'm pretty sure I stopped loving him for the first couple months. It is slowly coming back. I wish I could say it's because of a powerful undying love for him but it's not. It's because I made a vow. It's because I love my kids. It's because I am a sucker for the hard road. And it's because I do believe people deserve a chance to change.

I love the honesty State!

I stayed and fight for my marriage for many reasons. The big one I love my H.
when DDay came around we had a long talk and the biggest thing I could say to him is( you have no idea what I know tell me the truth and if I caught you in a lie I'm gone. ) That's what it takes to save us. The hard road is never easy thats why it's the hard road. I love my family and they are worth the fight to keep them.

He has worked with me to rebuild and he is truely remorseful.
17 years in Nov of Marriage is not a easy to give up on.

I stayed because to put it plainly, I love him more than I hate what he did! We have been through so much! Some my fault, some his. When he was telling me everything and showing it to me. Showing me all of the things she had sent him, said to him. When he gave me the whole sickening story, I could actually understand how it all happened on his end anyway. On hers, no way since she obviously is a very sick and pathetic lady. But I knew how much my leaving him before had hurt him. I remember seeing that pain in his eyes. I remember how he seemed....broken in many ways. So I could understand why he was so afraid of trusting me again. Hell, that is how I felt at that moment myself. I was also afraid of him hurting me deeply again. So seeing how he felt then was something I COULD do.

In the end he had already done what I would have wanted him to. He ended the relationship on his own. Even with her hanging over his head that she would tell me what they did and he was still going to possibly lose me which I KNEW how afraid he was of that. But he would have rather taken that chance and hope that he could change my mind than to continue deceiving and hurting me by betraying me and cheating. That said alot to me!

No marriage is perfect. Ours was no exception. We had our issues and this forced us to face them. We also had to do this without tearing each other apart! We were both VERY determined to heal from this and be ok again...but I also wanted more than that. Not just OK.. I wanted us to be better. I told him that after having to endure something this horrible that hurt this bad, I needed us to be better so at least something good could come from this! There were many times I wasnt sure I would get this, times I thought we just wont make it through this in tact but we did. Thank God!

It took alot of pain and alot of determination. We still will have issues come up and when they do, we tackle them head on! That is what we learned from this. Not tackling something head on, no matter how small can build to something very large and painful. I know we are very lucky to have been able to work through this and come out on the other side. We both work hard to never take for granted what we have and how hard we both worked to keep it.

I stay because I believe my H has his hurts and areas for improvement but this does not make him unlovable or unworthy of my forgiveness and love. I too had a marriage end due to infidelity. This is by no means easier, but I feel very strongly I can either go through this now with my H, or the next man or the next man. Moving on will not resolve the pain of this without question for me. What better man to heal with then the one who participated in my pain? Plus my H is a willing partner to actively pursue the healing of each of us. In addition, so many people would be affected, I think he too never realized until the OW went very public with the affair just how far reaching the consequences of his decision were to so many people. Love seems like such an understated word for how I feel about my H, its the best way I can sum up that he is I chose for all the right reasons, he is worth it now.