First contact was September 24, 2001, two weeks after first kiss -- a kiss I didn't know about but only that Sophia had called Tom on the day of the World Trade Center bombings and said "I need a friend." I sent an e-mail which Harley answered the next week. He said to call the woman's husband. I played the tape of the program to my H who became furious and then said he wouldn't have contact with Sophia if I didn't contact her husband. I agreed.
BIG MISTAKE. Second callw as on April 22, 2002, when I called at the end of the show because I didn't want to be on, he talked with me and again said to call the woman's husband. I literally pressed down on the phone button and lifted up and called the woman's husband that minute, and the affair came to light because the now enlightened and alarmed husband got the truth from his wife.
I won't go into the details of why I didn't follow his advice the first time, but what I ended up doing was listening to the show and calling in -- getting my voice go over the air -- about every other month as we went through two marriage counselors.
Finally, last month I sat my H down, told him that I was ending MC with a woman who was telling me he was a narcissist and I should plan on a long-term separation and said you can try MB or not. He decided to try MB.
I found the advice very helpful. It was contradictory with what I was getting from the IC I started getting on 11/6/01, and Tom was completely opposed to counseling with "that clown." More or less, I had to get to the point of deciding I was not willing to stay in THIS marriage.
You can get the 1-800 number to call from
www.marriagebuilders.com under MARRIAGE TALK RADIO. Thursdays are usually lighter for calls. They rarely have no calls, but they often can spend quite a few minutes with people -- like 10 minutes. You may need to wait almost the whole hour, but I usually didn't. The radio broadcast is only in the Twin Cities area and is on a Christian radio station. Being a Catholic from a Minneapolis suburb, I figured there was little risk people I knew would recognize my voice, and I decided that it was worth the risk to talk with him.
I find Harley quite able to figure out what is going on. I certainly didn't think my H was having an A, and he knew it right away based on my e-mail. He has seen patterns of behavior from years of dealing with people in bad marriages.
<small>[ January 27, 2004, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: broken heart and arm ]</small>
