New York ? The state’s new governor revealed Tuesday that he had affairs with several women, including a state employee. The confession came a day after he took over from former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was driven from office amid a prostitution scandal.

Gov. David Paterson said the affairs happened during a rough patch in his marriage, and that the employee did not work for him. He insisted he did not advance her career, and that no campaign or state money was spent on the affairs.

“I do not feel I have broken my commitment to the citizens of New York state,” Paterson said at a news conference with his wife, Michelle Paige Paterson.

Paterson, a Harlem Democrat, admitted an affair in an interview with the New York Daily News on Monday after he was sworn in, but his comments Tuesday indicate the couple’s fidelity problems went deeper than he first acknowledged. He is not having an affair now, he said.