Yellow rose or anyone who is interested- It will be a week on Tuesday no contact. I return to work where OW (Amor) will be able to call me, or even see me. That was where we met, but she doesnt work there. I dont know what to expect but I somehow wish she will contact me. Also, I am planning to try to contact her if she doesn't. I am.

I went away with my wife to try and forget, but we ended up fighting much of the time because I am telling her how I want to contact her, I was writing letters...one 4 pgs. long before we left and one 2 pgs when we were there.

At the same time I am preparing myself because there is a great chance that Amor will reject me coldly as I did to her, or worse, not respond at all....I am very depressed, scared, holding on, needing to express feelings to Amor really badly... there is also the element of being unsure about wife and I, and was it a mistake to send the no contact email, I wonder constantly.

I have never felt so brokenhearted, my wife said she will stick by me even if I try to go back to Amor...she refuses to divorce or give up on me...she said she will not give up on me. I am desperate to contact Amor.

Ultimately, the choice to contact the OW is yours. Is it the wisest choice you can make?? No. Will it potentially destroy your marriage?? Yes. Do you honestly think your wife will wait around forever, while you 'get your life in order'?? Unlikely.

What you are going through right now is called 'withdrawl'. You are addicted to the way she made you feel. You are not in love with her, she is not your soulmate. Plain and simple...you are addicted to a feeling. Every WS goes through this. Your situation is not unique. Every time you contact her, you push yourself back to square one. If you wait this out you will discover it gets easier and easier to live without her. Give yourself some more time. Show your wife you are committed to her...heck, show your wife you respect her enough NOT to contact the OW.

Talking to her will only put you back to square one. You will just have to start the withdrawal ALL OVER again and this weekend will have been for naught.

And please quit playing this lovebusting game with your wife. Trying to infuriate her so you have an excuse to contact the OW is profoundly juvenile. This is the oldest WS trick in the book. It is also the height of cruelty to go on and on to your devoted wife about your longings for the OW. Thats like kicking the sh** out of someone and then condemning them when they scream and holler with pain. What A vile, mean little game.

You know, three years ago, I went on a crazy ride.

My husband had come home for Christmas (he is in the military) and after treating me like garbage and demanding a divorce, he called me every other week and told me that he loved me and that he wanted me to be with him. Every time I made a move to do so, he would strike out in hostility and my heart would be so broken that I thought that I would die. And. . .I thought that I was going crazy! What was so wrong with me that he was treating me like this?! (Little did I know that he had a girlfriend at the military school he was attending and he was trying to decide between the two of us. . .Hmmmmm--mother of his child who had stood by him for all those years, or fourty-ish chain-smoking woman who hated children and her husband because he golfed too much?)

Finally--after baiting me for the millionth time (I was in the military too, and he demanded that I take a chapter and get out or else he'd leave me) I made a move that I could not take back. I got out of the army and became "just a wife." Traded in my green ID card for an orange one--because he told me that that would save our marriage. Guess what? Behind the scenes, he told his OW that he was depending upon me to end our marriage so that they could be together! He DID'NT want me to make the move that he demanded of me! He wanted me to refuse him and file for divorce. He was waiting for that to happen. And all of this was taking place secretly. I had no idea.

So I went to Japan with my husband, all giddy and excited to be a housewife for the first time. . .bake cookies, sit at the bus stop waiting for my kid, spend hours at the gym, arrange flowers for lack of anything better to do. . .and here, to my suprise--my husband began treating me so horridly that I went to bed in tears every night! I had done what he wanted, so why was he purposely picking fights with me, belittling me, telling me that I was too lazy to stay in the army, telling me that I was a gold-digger depending on his money? The way he treated me bordered on severe mental abuse. I thought that I was loosing my mind.

By picking fights with me, it was a way to prove that I was the enemy. He would make me cry, then call me a baby, or a useless wimp. He would try to get me to scream at him, then tell me that I was irrational and crazy, and couldn't control my temper. In fact, I should not even be allowed to be near my son, because I was so uncontrollable. He would withraw from me, then blame me that he was lonely and that I offered no companionship. He would go out and party with his friends excessively, and when I protested, he would say that I gave him no freedom.

It was all because, as I was to find out a month later, that I had screwed up his plans. He was planning on ME to make the decision for HIM. He wanted me to end our marriage so that he could go to his nasty woman--and feel no guilt, because he was intending on ME filing for the divorce. He wanted me to be so angry with him that I would leave and make it easy for him.

I did not know about the other woman then. . .I found out shortly after he went out on ship to Australia. I was arranging the extra bedroom as an office for him, as a suprise (he had grumbled to me that he had no privacy to use his computer. . .gee, I wonder why THAT had been a big priority to him???) and when I went to set up his computer, I found all his correspondance to his girlfriend.

In their chat and e-mails, they had called me things like "Predator," "The Ex" "The Crazy Mormon Woman" and they talked about how much in love they were, how they could not live without each other, how beautiful their sex was, how their present marriages had been horrible mistakes, how they were soulmates. You know, the same ol stuff.

You know what's so funny about all this romantic emotion? It was based on this thing called "fate." It was "fate" that they had met, and "fate" that they had fallen in love. My husband was counting on "fate" to get him out of his marriage to me. Nothing could be helped, or prevented or changed by human will and descision-making. It was all fate that caused the destiny, like moths being swept away by a tornado. Poor, helpless lovers they were, only victims of their deep, unyielding passion for each other. How could I, or anything else in the world, stand in the way of true love?

It's funny, my husband is the atheist and I am the Christian. He is the one always ridiculing me about believing in "mysterious, unseen forces" to guide my life. He says that brave and realistic people use their minds to choose their own destinies, and they don't pray to "a god" to decide for them. Now how ironic is that?

I am going to just put the last two years into a nutshell. . .unlike your wife, I said "to hell with you" and left him. I didn't file--I figured that if he wanted his woman so bad, he had good enough reason to file himself, because I was aware of his affair and had left him. I went to my hometown and got an apartment, just me and the kid. We were poor, but happy. . . I guess. I saw my little son beginning life without a father, and I knew what was in store for him.

In the meantime, my husband was again angry with me for screwing up his "plans." Or lack of plans, as it was. I had left him to file the divorce. I had left him to be tempted by other women. I had left him, and people were talking about him. I had left him, and he would get into trouble with the military for having the apartment when he was now "unaccompanied." But most of all, I had taken his son away from him, the son that he had sometimes not talked to in weeks for entertaining his new lover. He was enraged--it was, of course, all my fault. Of course.

In the end, after phonecalls alternating between hostile and angry tirades of how I had screwed up his life and desperate yet unrepenting pleas for my return, I did give him a second chance. I did return--for my son. I had ended my career for my marriage. My credit had been ruined by debts I had owed the army for taking a chapter, and my chances of getting a security clearance for another job were nil. I had nothing to offer my children. I intended to return to Japan to get on my feet, until I could make it on my own. My husband agreed.

The new situation--my anger and distrust and his guilt and feelings of obligation caused him to feel a necessity to use internet porn and lurid chat rooms to find companionship. It's funny how our old friend fate fixes things. . .my husband's girlfriend had long since found a new "soulmate" to be with. Funny how easy it is to fall in love, huh? So now, he, in essence, could claim neither of us.

Let's just skip ahead two years--just the other day, my husband had come home from two weeks in the field.

It had been a hellish two years, trying to sort through all the aftermath of what had happened. But, we were still together, for whatever that meant. I had tuned into this very website for comfort, and he had pretty much used scapegoating (blaming me) to bring him comfort for two years. I busted him out every time I caught him using porn for pleasure. I threatened to leave. . .again and again (so much for plan A, it's not my bag, I guess) and it got to be that I couldn't give a rat's [censored] whether the marriage worked or not. He progressively got the hint and stopped. I made it be up to him. The ball was in his court. The decision had to be his. . .not "fate's." Tough love, I guess.

But all in all, we had grown progressively closer and closer. The affair had made me a tougher person. I guess he learned to respect me. It had made him a more compassionate person. He learned to care about other's feelings--a conscience decision to care, not one born of "fate."

Well, the other night, after my husband had dumped his rucksack all over the doorway and eaten everything in the refrigerator, he said "Let's stay up and talk." We sat down on the couch together in the dark, and talked.

He told me, with tears in his eyes, how much he appreciates all that I do, how I am a great mother, how much he has always loved me, and he loves me now even more than ever. He tells me that we are going to have a great furture together. I believe that, too.

We live in Korea now, in this cute little apartment. My husband has a great job, and I am getting ready to go back to school. At my great age, I am thinking I would like to study law. We stay up late to watch in the news in Korean together and enjoy raising our bratty little boy. I am loving life--it's tough, but it's fun.

You would never imagine how happy things are now.

The whole point of my story--take charge of your own life. Don't let other people decide for you. Don't let "fate" decide for you. Don't let your emotions decide for you. Emotions are only feelings. They don't mean much, except that they can lead you down a path that you will regret that you ever traveled when you get to the end. Believe me.

I was both a BS and WS. I live with my second family--my affair as a young woman cost me my first family. I have two daughters--one who is my beautiful best friend, but who cries and causes me to cry when we have to part ways each summer. My younger daughter still harbors a resentment towards me and nothing I do brings her closer to me. It hurts like hell.

All this because I once believed in "fate," in passion. All that was good and real and solid in my life, I traded for passion.

Please don't do the same thing.

<small>[ September 01, 2002, 09:21 PM: Message edited by: Bernzini ]</small>

Joboot

If you can't listen to people like Bernzini (wow, what a story!), YR, myself and the other WS, what do you really want to know? Isn't there anything there striking a cord or getting through?

Do not contact OW - it will only hurt both of you. After I had told OM I did not want to hear from him, he called me, just once. That set me back so much it was untrue.

Your wife is willing to give you so much. Do not betray her anymore. Whatever your issues or problems she does not deserve that. If you are not prepared to work on your marriage, than that is an issue only you can decide. If you are not prepared, end your marriage, treat your wife with the respect she deserves and then move forward without her.

Joboot, I do know what you are saying. I know when BS's here say "it's not real, it's only infatuation with a feeling you thought you had", you want to scream "of course it's real, what do you know?". It is very real for you here and now, and that is all that matters to you. I wish I could not feel anything for OM anymore. We did not row, we did not fall out, the bubble did not burst. We both just knew we were wrong and had to try and make our marriages work. The feelings are still very much there. But, big BUT, my H deserves better. I cannot continue to betray him - he does not deserve that, neither does your W.

Be strong, do not mail her. She will probably be having a hard enough time as it is. If you contact her, you will make it harder. Do you want to give her anymore grief as well?

How are you doing, Joboot? I am going thru withdrawal myself and know exactly how you feel. But time will mend the broken heart, trust me on that one. You want OW to call you or mail you, so you don't have a responsibility for the act: you've promised not to contact, so if she would - it is not fault, right?. But it is better if she won't...

Have patience with yourself and your emotions and honest with yourself. Confronting yourself is a hard work. Don't pile regret upon regret. Good luck.

<small>[ September 03, 2002, 11:04 AM: Message edited by: FarAway ]</small>

Jaboot,
If you went away with your wife to try to forget, but you spent your time writing letters to the OW & telling your wife how much you miss the OW...wasn't that defeating your purpose?

I really wouldn't call that a good try.

If your wife can go through a weekend like that, even though she fought with you, and still want you, she loves you, she's committed to you. I lasted about 2 years under those kind of circumstances, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone. And I did lose respect for my H that was difficult for him to overcome when he was out of withdrawal.

Joboot,

I was really sad to see your post. I can tell that you are still in the full grip of your affair even if you are having 'no contact'. You are obsessed with the OW to a point that you can't let your own wife have her rightful place in your life. From what I read, you are not ready to give the OW and the affair up. You are hoping the OW will contact you so that the 'decision' to continue was/is technically taken 'out of your hands'...

I, for one, hope she never contacts you again....for all of your sakes. However, you also stated that if she didn't contact you, you are planning to contact her. So...you have already made the decision in your mind to continue the affair no matter how much it breaks your wife's heart...is that right? If what you and OW have is so good and so right..how does that stack up against the fact that you are destroying another human being in order for you to 'feel good'? Doesn't make sleep come easy at night when you think about this, does it?

Trust me...this stuff will end up one day tainting and completely 'ruining' whatever it is you THINK you have with the OW.

Joboot, how could you go away with your wife...and tell her those things? I feel like you are wanting your wife to also make a decision for you..you are wanting to push her away..and into a divorce...to absolve yourself of any responsibility here. What you did was very emotionally devastating to your wife...it was cruel. I don't mean to be overly harsh on you....I am dearly hoping to get through to any part of you that is still capable of listening through the layer of fog and denial you are in about what is really going on here. I care for you and I care for your wife.....so I am talking to you as I would to a friend...

I wish you would do one thing, please have your wife come to this board...if you continue down the path you have chosen, she is going to need some help..and some friends who can walk her down the lonely painful road ahead.

I also feel that your wife's spoken decision to let you be a 'cake-eater' is very detrimental. You now have in the back of your mind "hey, it's ok to contact Amor and keep the A up, wifey says she is not giving up no matter what..."

YOU need to be a caring individual here, if you refuse to try and work on the M and you want to sacrifice the M for the OW, then get a divorce first. If you are not sure what you want, then go at least 90 days with no contact, actively working on your M, make an appointment with Steve Harley, and concentrate on your wife with all of the energy you would use on the OW......

I pray you change your mind about your intentions stated in your post.

Let me know how you are doing, ok? I will keep you in my prayers, I know it is difficult..but I also know it can be done...and your wife can inspire those feelings in you..and you in her...but ONLY if you give her and your M a chance.

Regards,

YR

Jeez, Joboot, would 90 days KILL 'ya? If you are still so in love with your OW after 90 days..with NO doubts..will she not still be there?

90 days is what an addict needs to see his addiction...Isn'tit worth it to KNOW it is NOT addiction but true love? The only way to be sure is to do no-contact...and committ to your W...If after 90 days, you are still in the thoroes of your love for OW..LEAVE YOUR WIFE!! Let HER find someone to love her the way she deserves,,

NO one deserves what you are doing to your wife.You wouldn't treat a DOG that way.Do you think she really has it coming?

I remember after my H confessed his affair, we went away for Labor Day, 2 yrs ago. Crying,fighting,him HATING me,and saying how wonderful she is. It sounds very much like your weekend..he BLAMED me...for being hurt and for wanting answers. NOW, 2 years later, he wishes he could take back that time in that hotel room...he is so ashamed fornot seing this woman for what she truly was to him..he calls her the worst mistake of his life and the memories are NOT fond..He discovered, the way you will, they were NOT SPECIAL..it was just another scummy affair,like evryone else's.

I am afraid by your absence you are back in the affair.

Joboot,

One other thing, I think Harley says that it takes 6 months for the withdrawal phase...I only suggested 90 days because I think that you will feel better if you truly do all that is suggested...BUT..you may still have thoughts of the OW..and longings up until the 6 month part. If you are having feelings and longings after that part...I would question whether you truly maintained the no contact rule.

The 90 days was only my suggestion...90 days is not what Harley recommends..he recommends the whole 6 months (180 days) from what I recall. However, if you cannot commit to 180 days, I wish you would commit to 90 days at a bare minimum.

Regards,

YR

Joboot,
Don't contact OW or even she contact you, don't turn back, now I want to tell you a true story, I was OW 11 years ago, I met my L at his work and I was just like your OW, a divorcee with a boy 12 and a girl 13, I was quite lonely where sex was concerned, he was very attractive and was good to my ego that he wanted me so much & I was not as attractive as his W. A went on for 7 months, W found out after 4 months, they ended up separated for 1 month and I had him all to myself & I was a little tired then,no challenge, just me in his world, I wanted to be a part of his life where he could proved to me that he chose me over his W ALL THE TIME & it felt good & sexy in many ways, sometimes I felt a little pitiful to his W but most of the time, I liked it. I also saw another man who was finacially secured at the same time, he was the man my children knew of, I used him financially & L as sexual needs, I made him wanting to divorce W,& he really wanted to file it,I told him NOT to do it for me, actually I wanted him to show me he could do it for me
I was very proud of him to kick W out but the fact was I did not really want him, he did not have money & he can not give me good secure life, he was really good in bed, I only met with him at my convenience, he was under my control,he listened to me, he basically lived for me, it was fun in the beginning, thinking that I had to wait for him to make money that would take another 5 years and the other man I had in hand was loaded & my children loved him though he did not satisfied me sexually as much as L, but I could live with that much better than being poor with L. One day, L was forced to leave me(he told me after 2 weeks of disapperance & I did not expect or wanted to continue the boring A w/ L) He pursuaded me & I went "what is there to lose?"We continued to go to hotel & had sex, lots of it, we never really had any commitment as I refused to have him involved in my children's lives, he was poor. W had to leave him for L broke her heart too many times, now I am living w/ this guilt for the fact that she finally commited suicide a month after L returned to me& L became devastated
& we finally ended A after 5 months later, we were having sex with W's ghost & our lust went away & there was really no love but lust,
L really believed that he was in love w/ me, & I lied to him that I did too, I only wanted good sex & love can be bought with money which he did not have, he had tried to contact me again & again & wanted to give me all his savings but he could never given us any finacial securities like the man I then married for 2 years & he left me for OW, that was first, both my children experienced the same as adults, both spouses cheated on them, I caused all these, it is esp. painful that L's W killed herself becasue I was OW...

before this happen in your household, look at OW in all the bad ways she was to you, you can do it, she might use you like I used my L, work on your M, give your W & M a good chance, be a loving H before it is too late,maybe you can try to love W like you used to, or you wouldn't have marrried her for 5 years, look at her, repent & start a new life which is right. I continue to live in grieve and still mourning on L's W, L is now bald (very unattractive)& still poor..very sad. I had married two other times both failed. Now I am lonely & I deserve all these.

Joboot,
How are you doing today? Do you still feel like you want to contact OW? Do you really think this is LOVE or just LUST? It is perhaps an infatuation
affair usually does not work out, how much do you know OW? Are you IN her life? Do you know her kids? Can you be a father-figure to them since you are so screwed up? Do you have money & capable to take care of OW & other man's kids? Is she being truthful to you? How much do you really know her beside having strong attachment to your(& OW's)sexual needs. I am speaking as an OW, I know I was never in love with my L, just the Lust and I could fake loving him with my "expressions & words" to "WIN" him from his W, do you know the kind of feeling a lonely woman could have by being the winner, esp.when one is able to make the married man divorce the W even if it did not really go through, the thought & action the man would do for you IS SO SATISFYING, sometimes I looked back, I feel like a ***** & I was. Heartless & cold just like you are to your W. Wake up, Joboot, live right for YOU only live ONCE. I don't think you really need advice, do you? You just want to let others know you are so in love, which you still believe it is called love..it is 4 letter word, all right, both begin with L, but this is LUST,& an addiction! Are you an alcohol or drug abuser? If you are/ were, please know that this is your new found addiction, whoever the AMOR OW is, she is in control of you & your mind with her body, only if she is ALL THAT! Take a look at yourself, then your W, & OW, and yourself once more, don't you feel like dirt? You NEED to get up, clean up your mess, live RIGHT before it is too late, before any tragedy takes place, do you want to live in grieve like me for the rest of the life? Is OW really worthy of you to lose W & perhaps all who support her since you are the bad guy here. I feel sorry for your W, you really can't be so cruel to her, is she prettier than your L like my L's late W, she was so much more attractive than me, yes, sometimes look is not all, but do you really want to still believe OW can give you all you want in life & make you the very "secure" man? Do you believe she is ALL YOURS? If she could have an A w/ you, she probably could do it w/ other man/men?! Joboot, be honest to yourself, you really think you can trust OW & it is really LOVE? It is what I call ADDICTION!!! That will go away, I care for your W as I was a bad woman to hurt L's W that is gone forever, can I sleep at night? NEVER! Nightmares, YES< all the time!
Be a brave man, save your M, at least try, maybe you will find what a wonderful W you have who is not giving you up, maybe there some good qualities in you that she sees & believes in. Live RIGHT! Take care & DON'T CONTACT OW!!!!

My exh was a lot like you in that the OW was constantly on his mind after he had made the decision to stop contact with her and work on our marriage. Like you are contemplating, he gave in and resumed his A. Like your w I told him I would wait for him.

He is my exh now because regardless of any promise I made to wait for him in the end it just was too painful to me to wait and watch the A and know that he was choosing to satisfy his infatuation over ending the horrible pain the A caused me. I left and never came back.

His A ended and the OW was not the be all end all of his exsistance. He had fun with her for a while but it couldn't last and in the end their mutual distrust and the taint left by their relationship starting the way it did killed their love. It ended very badly(his own words)

In the end he wanted to come back but by then I had moved on, was in the process of healing my wounds and any promises to "wait" had been discarded. I could never trust him again and my love for him..well I will always care for him but love? No. He destroyed it with the A.

Don't count on your w waiting. I truly thought I would and at the very beginning felt sure that I would always want him in my life. Continued lies and thrusting the A and the OW in my face ensured that wasn't to be. Your w may very well feel the same after a few months of this.

Tread warily and don't count on keeping your w's love if things with your OW don't work out. Wish someone would have told my Exh this.

<small>[ September 04, 2002, 01:23 PM: Message edited by: Nduli2 ]</small>

Joboot --
Don't.
It's not worth it. 18 years married here and going through the hell of discovering her affairs, and having to confess my own affairs and all the pain it is causing. Nothing was worth this. Not all the "soulmates" in the world. She had hers. I had mine. But they aren't worth this pain.
When we talk - which is sometimes more often than others, depending on what stage we're in these days -- I hear words coming from her that I said to other women. Things like "always together" and "the mistakes I made" and "wish I could be with you" and "we can make this work" and "i'm so married, but I need you." The same things I said to others hurt so much when you hear them come from someone you love.
Slap in the face, maybe, but her revelations clarified, demystified and made lucid the feelings I have for her. Now she wanders in her own fog, wondering what or who she should be with. I know she's said more than once that if she had the chance to do it over again, all those years ago, she simply would have chosen to speak up and confess her problems with me, as opposed to assuming she was going crazy and turning to other men for solace.
And I -- oh but to have those moments back!
So, no, don't do it. It's a trap you cannot afford to fall in.

Well--are you still with us, Joboot? Even if you are still in contact with OW, you should tell us how you are doing.

I second Bernzini's post...we are here to help you..even if you did 'fall off the wagon'..

Please respond and let us know how you are, ok?

YR

<bump>

Hello are you there? Everyone is worry about you huh, can you say something...my guess is you called OW, what about your W? No matter what, say something, let us help!