Calling it an "emotional affair" is so pathetic. Its the last vestige of a cockold unwilling to face the realities of his life, his wife, and her infidelity. Calling it emotional is a more substantial way of saying phone sex, but less real than blatant cheating.

After all if her emotions were really involved with any one of you, she wouldn't be doing it in the first place.

I read your letter and thought, "Wow. That was my mother." For the duration of her 20 year marriage to my father, my mother had affairs with any man who gave her a compliment, including her doctor, lawyer, college professors, business partners, and finally left my dad for her legal partner. In the end, it devastated our family.

Here is what cheating does to the psyche of a child (and when I say cheating, I mean all forms of flirting and actual sex, it really doesn't matter): cheating makes a child feel worthless. The amount of energy that the cheater puts into the chase, the phone calls and chaste lunches are enormous. Cheating subtracts time from your daughter, it is really that simple. BUT, your wife is too selfish to care, her own need for attention is too great.

You might think that your daughter is well-adjusted now, but she will come back at you with a vengeance in 20 years. Your daughter will either turn out like her mother and suffer for years unable to connect fully with a partner, or will turn out like you, in an unhappy relationship with a cheater.

Though my dad has apologized to me for not protecting us from our mother, my mother has not taken any responsibility for her actions. Selfish to the end.

I truly hope that you don't try to "win" this one. Protect your daughter. Protect her.

The marriage counselor, like so many, sounds bananas. Both of you might better benefit from some kind of individual therapy to really examine your own role in this particular tango. We tend to repeat patterns in relationships until we understand and take responsibility for our own actions and emotions. It strikes me as odd that your wife's first husband began drinking because of her emotional affair. Drunks who blame their drinking on their partner are looking for an excuse, usually. That goes double for men who blame their wives for beating them, as her second husband did. What are you looking to excuse, Green?

You've had several failed marriages between you and your vivacious wife. You apparently still have some love for one another, share a business partnership and a child. Makes sense to at least try any get to the bottom of this and, hopefully, change the dynamic. If nothing else, it might make for a less internecine, acrimonious divorce.

If I were you, I would set the timer for a year. Draw up a rigorous list of partnership demands together, first of which would be to demand utter and complete honesty and open communication, meaning absolutely NO deception, lies, subterfuge, evasion, hiding, OR sneaking, spying, private investigations, etc. Also, no affairs of any kind during this time. Make it clear what's on the line: everything -- the marriage, the law partnership, custody and the well-being of your kid.

Your wife sounds like a wayward teen who is trying to get away with what she can, when what she really needs to be given strict limits and made to realize where you stand. This is how you show you care, by taking stake in your relationship, confronting the truth of your relationship, and not by letting her get away with anything without consequences. Yeah, she's an adult, you're not her parent, and all that -- but she's acting like a child, not like a wife or a mother.

I cheated in my early to mid 20s on several lovers. Finally, I got caught and was thoroughly humiliated. My boyfriend let me describe my weekend in great detail, over a romantic dinner we prepared together, before calmly telling me that the friend I claimed to have been visiting had called looking for me. That was our Last Supper. It taught me that I didn't want to risk cheating again. Later came the man I fell head-over-heels for (and unfortunately he also for me) while I was living with someone. This time, I didn't cheat, broke off contact and was accused of having a guilt complex. Still, I was utterly consumed by the thought of him. It was a shock to realize that you don't actually have to do anything, really, to be unfaithful to a partner. The problem is deeper, within. Patterns of secrecy, clandestine activity and emotional subterfuge were ingrained by my family and an illicit relationship early on.

"I was Your Wife" got it right. People can and do change, but change takes courage and unflinching honesty, has to be wanted, comes with difficulty and takes time / reinforcement. Hope it works out for you and your family.

Marriage is about a lot of things, but quite often it boils down to compassion and the willingness to give freely above and beyond the absolute minimum that the laws of the State, or common decency, or feminist principles, or paternalistic Scripture may require. If these two could just reach out and communicate, get off the high-horse of mutual indignation and talk openly about their emotions and fears and hopes--... about what they wish life together could be like down the road--then it's just possible they could regain the honesty, trust, and mutual comfort they have lost.

At the time, my stepdaughter was 12 and my stepson was 10 - this was two years ago so they are now 14 & 12, respectively.

Please get it right. The guy is a pussy. Punching the other guy is a waste of time. Planning ones divorce carefully and stealthfully is a good use of time.

But frankly, if this woman is "in love" and ruining her marriage and NOT having sex, there's even more wrong with her (and the men).

The truth is, this is a woman who thinks she needs two men in love with her. I don't think it has a lot to do with her loving anyone-- but being loved. And what that means is the more misery and chaos she causes, the more she feels loved. Ergo, she's just going to cause LW more and more pain, because that's what she needs to feel whole.

If this were just one time, or even ten times, maybe she could be helped or maybe the threat of the end of yet another marriage would get her to realize what she's doing. But it's been so long, with three husbands-- it's got to be the pain-causing that is the pleasure to her.

I'm a firm believer in sticking with it, in accepting that everyone makes mistakes, in waiting out bad situations because they usually do, with patience and love, get better. But she's not going to get better. She's never going to feel loved unless she's making everyone else miserable. I'm sure that she's in many ways a lovely person, worthy of actual love... but for whatever reason, that's not what she wants. She doesn't feel right unless other people stick with her even if she hurts them-- then she "knows" they love her.

Time to cut her loose. You're never going to hurt enough to make her feel secure, but by God, she's going to keep trying. Get your daughter out of this mess before she learns that pain means love.