Ralph Brewer responds to Vaughn, whose wife had a long affair and resumed contact with the DJ from their wedding. Brewer says infidelity signals deeper problems and advises enforcing the boundary of no contact with other men, or leaving. Repeated boundary violations show poor impulse control and unsuitability for marriage.
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All right, we have another Dear DSO entry on the website, and you can submit your own story to dadstartingover.com/dear-dso, and if it's a good one, I'll answer here in video format. And today's, it's a good one. This one comes from Vaughn, and the subject is: After cheating, wife still talking to, quote, "he's just a friend." Dear DSO, in July of this year, I, a male, 46 years of age, found out that my wife, a female, age 42, W, married 13 years, had an affair while away visiting family. It appears that she has known this person for quite a few years, and this was more of a long-term thing. She apologized profusely and began going to therapy and making changes in life because she was not the person that she wanted to be. It was extremely difficult, but we have attempted to work through our issues. Our relationship is not perfect, but has been good. I made it very clear that there can be no secret friendships of any kind going forward. Recently, she came to me and said that an old, quote, male friend, the guy who was the DJ at our wedding, all caps, had reached out to her to, quote, check on her. A few years back, I caught her exchanging text messages with a DJ of a very flirty nature. She denied that anything was going on then and that they had hung out a few times, but nothing ever happened. She knew that answering this man's call would cause an issue, but she still did it, even advising me that it was good to hear from a friend and that she was able to relax while talking to him. I know she's probably lying about the past relationship with the DJ but it would possibly be a death blow to our relationship as things currently stand. She did tell me about it, which I guess I should give her credit for, but man, I am having a lot of difficulty taking what she says as the truth. This leaves me in a really strange space. Any advice? Oh, Vaughn. All right, here's the deal. If you ask, I don't know, pick like 100 marriage counselors, therapists, psychologists, like my friend, Dr. Psych Mom, who I often cite and I've collaborated with, and you said, have you ever seen a relationship survive after infidelity, after an affair? She and others like her, like Dr. Robert Glover, for example, the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy, he's a licensed family therapist. And he has told me in interviews, yeah, he's seen marriages survive infidelity. I, after speaking to, I don't know, hundreds of guys who have been through what you've been through, I can just speak from my own experience and my perspective. And I understand that my perspective was colored by my own personal experience with this. From what I have seen, long term, I have not seen a marriage survive when the wife steps outside of of the marriage. Now, let's qualify that further. Men that I talk to are typically of a certain bent, a certain disposition, where they enter into relationships with women that they probably shouldn't have been with in the first place. And they realize that later on down the line. And because of this, they see all kinds of issues in the relationship. The worst, arguably the worst being wife cheated. So the wife cheating wasn't the issue. It was just symptomatic of a lot of issues. It just happened to be the issue that hurts the worst. So for those guys, I often say, this is done, dude. You need to run for your life. This is one in a series of things, of red flags, that should have told you like, this is not going to end well. But they try anyway because they don't want to give up on their marriage. They have the, they the family, they got the money thing, they got the kids thing, and they try. And what happens pretty much every time I have a guy who tries is what you see here, Vaughn, which is they put down a boundary, they draw a line in the sand, and they say, "Wife, you cross this line, we're done. Got it?" And what a lot of these women do is they test that. It may take a year, 2 years, 3 years, whatever, but they test that line. They don't overtly say, "Hey, let me test this," but kind of subconsciously you will, or in a more vague way, they will tiptoe close to that line. And she's tiptoeing here. "Hey, male guy reached out to me. I know you have this whole boundary thing. You drew this line in the sand, Mr. Vaughn. So let's see, what you gonna do about it?" And you roundabout way tell her, "I don't like this DJ guy thing." And she just basically says, "Eh, don't worry about it. It's nothing. It puts me at ease to talk to a friend. You have nothing to worry about." Vaughn, buddy, this is a big life lesson for you. Life lesson number 1, probably should have left her when you found out about the affair. It's usually indicative of a person who just doesn't have very good impulse control and they don't have good boundaries. People with poor impulse control and poor boundaries don't make good long-term relationship material. And she's further proving the point by carrying on in these relationships. That's what she's doing, basically, whether it's a friendly relationship, purely platonic, or whatever it is. You drew the line in the sand that said no relationships with other dudes. Please just don't do that. And she's basically saying, yeah, I went ahead and formed a relationship with another dude. What you gonna do about it, dude? So what you gonna do about it? You drew a line in the sand. You made the boundary, right? She's crossed it. This is a big life lesson for you, my man. Not only in romantic relationships, throughout life you will be tested like this. You will put up boundaries with coworkers, friends, bosses, romantic partners, whatever it may be, saying, "I got a line here that shouldn't be crossed." And sure as shit, people try to cross it. It's up to you to say, told you, I told you what was going to happen, here you go. And you leave. You leave the friend, you leave the employer, you leave the romantic partner. Or you basically take the chicken shit way and say, I knew I drew— I know I drew a line in the sand, I know I put up a boundary, I know you just crossed it, but The thought of enforcing that boundary, ugh, that fills me with all kinds of anxiety and stress. And it's much easier just to kind of ignore and turn the other cheek and pretend I didn't see anything here than deal with the subsequent stress and anxiety that results from enforcing my boundary. In other words, you just wussed out. You have to tell her, hey, remember what I said? Remember about the being in contact with other guys thing? Sorry, gonna have to let you go. Just the way it is. And if she throws a fit and says, this is a friend, you're willing to throw away our relationship for a friend, point the finger right back at her. No, you are. You're telling me that your relationship with this man, your ability to reach out and talk to strange men, outside of your relationship is more important than your marriage to me, Mr. Vaughn. Vaughn, you may not know this, but not every woman is wired this way. There's a lot of women out there who, when a man reaches out and says, hey, remember me? I'm DJ from the wedding, and all this other stuff, they say, oh, hey, sorry, I don't carry on conversations with other men. If you need something, you can talk to my husband. That's a person with good boundaries. They exist, believe it or not. That's just not your wife. Sorry, dude. If you want that characteristic in a wife, you need to find it in somebody else. Because this wife has proven again and again she doesn't have that tool in her, in her mental toolbox. It's just not there. And it's probably not going to be there ever. You don't need to hang around to see if she eventually, you know, learns her lesson. And finally becomes the woman that you need, a person with boundaries, a person with a sense of impulse control. Don't hold your breath. It's not gonna happen, dude. Thanks, Vaughn, for reaching out. Thanks for sharing your story. Appreciate it, buddy, and I hope it all works out for you.
