Your wife is a total cake-eater who admits loving the OM and is clearly only staying with you to see if he will leave his wife. What a great deal for her. If the roles were reversed do you honestly think your wife would accept such behavior from you? I suggest that you see an attorney to understand your options. She sounds like she is totally playing you and shows no respect for you or your marriage. If you do not respect yourself then who will? I wish you luck.

You don't have to give up. This entirely recoverable. Did you read my suggestions? What you are doing doesn't WORK. Are you ready to try something different?

Here is the problem. You are demanding a certain RESULT from your wife doing nothing to effect that result. No woman wants to make love to a man she is emotionally DETACHED from, but nothing has happened here to help her fall in love.

She will not fall in love until something happens to CAUSE her to fall in love.

How do you know the wife knows? Did she tell you with HER OWN LIPS? Who told you this? Have you spoken to her to compare notes? When was the last time you spoke to her?

RTQ, I think you will be much more successful if you try a new strategy. What you have tried to do is guilt and badger her into doing something she doesn't want to do. She doesn't WANT to meet your needs and doesn't want to talk about your marriage becuase it is SO unpleasant for her.

This makes things WORSE, because she has a point of comparison with the OM, who was NOT unpleasant. He didn't badger her and he didn't guilt her.

So, if you want to replace those good memories with the OM, I would strongly suggest that you work on ATTRACTING her back. Badgering and shaming won't work, it only makes the OM look all the more attractive. But if you eliminated ALL lovebusters [badgering for sex and guilting her are lb's] and worked on being attractive, you might attract her back.

She needs to know that the marriage will be DIFFERENT in order for her to take an interest in it. And I dont see anything here that is even remotely attractive.

If you would counsel with Steve Harley, he might be able to guide you to a new approach and SELL HER on it. He is very, very good at selling the idea of a changed marriage to waywards.

SECOND ITEM:

Your W believes there may be a future with the OM, which makes me wonder if the OMW really does know about the affair. The fact that he is still with his wife tells me he would never leave her for your W. The fact that your wife is hopeful gives me PAUSE, though. Because usually when an OP's spouse knows, the other OP gives up hope. Your wife is hopeful.... There is something WRONG with that picture. So either the OMW doesn't know or they are still in contact.

Mel,

You said

I think what Ready2Q is saying is that she IS IN LOVE...WITH OM. She is telling this after 5 months of no contact (if we believe that she has been in NO Contact, I doubt it).

I think what Ready is really saying but doesn't know the terminology is that she is in Withdrawal from him and in love with OM. Withdrawal is difficult because the WS does not receive love deposits while in that mode.

I really do think that he needs to counsel with the Harleys NOW so that he better understands what you are saying to him.

He cannot see past the fact that she is telling him all of this time she loves OM, is waiting for OM, and only wants to stay with him iF OM bails on her. Mel, as you and I know this can change, but HE needs encouragement, because being cheated on, and then told he is a place holder with actions to match is rough.

Ready2Quit, call the Harleys, they will guide and coach you. What they will tell you is in line with what Mel is telling you but perhaps they can say it in a way that you understand better, they are the pro's at this stuff.

And yes your marriage has a chance as everyone says, but this is going to be tough sledding for awhile.

Please think about calling and then reread what Mel and others are telling you. A second or third reading will help you see things you may have missed the first time through.

God Bless,

JL

Definately still sitting on the fence. So the next task is to knock her off the fence.

Try to remember what things you did while dating. There was a time in which she loved you. Follow the advise from Mel.

Read up to identify her needs - what needs did the OM provide that tipped the scales in his favor.

Also want to mention - you are never second place - after all you both have a child ? That is something no OM has.

Call the Harley's to get tips and some real coaching.

Living in limbo in a small town is no future and no way to live. I think there is still some unavoidable contact gonng on.

Any option of moving and getting out of that place so she can start anew and you dont have the daily triggers?

Yes, I got all that, but he is giving her no reason to DRAW TO him. There is no plan to create romantic love in his marriage, and it won't happen by magic by virtue of withdrawal. In fact, it is getting worse and I suspect it is because a) he has NO PLAN and/or renewed contact. He needs to change his strategy, because no amount of guilting or badgering is going to attract her back. It will just make the OM look all the better.

I emphatically agree that he needs to call Steve Harley. We are NOT the pros here and Steve can accomplish miracles with the foggiest sometimes!

p.s. to Ready, go read up on some of MrsW's posts to see how her H did certain things to help her fall in love again. He romanced her and avoided lovebusters at all costs. He avoided relationship talks and made every effort to be as pleasant as possible. He created a new point of comparison that made the OM look bad.

Mel,

I agree with you about the strategy. What I am saying is he is lost and doesn't understand how to deal with what has happened and what we are saying.

To put it graphically, he has been kicked in the privates, and it sounds like we are saying stand up like a man and take another kick. Not something he wants to hear or understands.

I think he needs to step back, stop relationship talks, start making plans to protect himself, call the Harley's and learn from them, and when he is not so close emotionally he will be able to better meet her needs, such as she will allow at the moment. A "loving" withdrawal may protect him and perhaps meet some of her needs or at least end the love busters.

I also think he needs to establish a time schedule in his head where he will evaluate the situation and see if even baby steps are being made. If not, then he has decisions to make.

Somehow he needs to reach out and still protect himself and he does see how what we are saying is telling him that.

JL

I agree he is lost. He needs a PLAN and a new strategy. I have confidence that he can understand just fine.

Ready, this quote from Dr Harley summarizes it much better than anyone here can:

Requirements for Recovery

just reading this post...i feel like you are discussing me. Some say do something radical to shake them up. The Dobson book "love must be tough" advocates this approach ( a shakeup so to speak). sorry to but in, thanks, gary44

"What I don't get is on one hand WW tells me she loves me, wants marriage to work, gets severely stressed and down when I throw my hands up and tell her to leave."

Can't rush recovery.

"On the other hand she says she still has strong feelings for him, can't love me like a W should love a H. So I say ok, lets end it and she says NO! Give me time to get over this, get over him."

How long has PA been over?

Because once NC is in place the WW should go through withdrawal. Lack of withdrawal after six months indicates that there must not be NC.

WW must write NC letter. Refusing to do so indicates her reluctance to break clean from NC.

It is said that seeing (even by a distance) the OM from time to time by accident when living in a small town never lets the WW go through withdrawal.

It maybe best for you to move far away from the OM. Many a recovery has been stalled because the OM still lived close.

Maybe you should counsel with the Harley's.

I think you are right on. I know some of the things Ive done (badgering, relationship talk) have hurt our chances, but I'm not sure what else to do. How do I compete with a fantasy life OM offers?

I know the OW knows, the whole freaking town knows, it made the local news when he was fired from his very public job.

I need a plan and the will to follow it. Part of me says she should be the one trying to win me and keep me. Not the other way around.

PA has been over for 5 months. There was no NC letter. Only a last phone conversation where they agreed to "go work on our marriages and if they don't work maybe we will be together". She promises she hasnt talked to him in almost 5 months.

I check cell and phone records, emails, etc but she had a pay as you go cell phone before that she promised she threw away when the affair blew up and went public.

YES, tell me what that is.

I understand how you feel. I would call Steve Harley and counsel with him. What he would do is assess your situation and give you a PLAN [with GOALS] to recover your marriage. What he does next [and he doesn't counsel ppl together] is ask to speak to your wife. He is sometimes very effective in SELLING the concept of a great marriage to the WS if she will just try some things.

The difference between the Harleys and other counselors is that the Harleys believe in a BEHAVIORAL approach. They don't examine feelings, etc, they change behaviors with the belief that feelings follow actions.

My concern for you is that you are wearing down. And the more you wear down, the more you are likely to get frustrated and angry with her and the more the you do that, the more she withdraws. You stay in a NEGATIVE LOOP that only gets worse. Couples that are angry at each other go out of their way to be spiteful.

And the angrier you get, the more attractive the OM looks.

Steve can give you a plan, give her HOPE, and THEN get her interested enough to follow a plan to JUSTLY COMPENSATE you for the harm done. The Harleys don't believe in unwarranted forgiveness, they believe in JUST COMPENSATION. Their program is very strategic and very logical.

Can you go to Radio Shack and get a voice activated recorder and hide it in her car? Do you have a keylogger on her computer?

I have a keylogger on home computer but not her work. I can check her work email. I have no way of checking her work computer for access to gmail or hotmail accounts.

This post is so ME. I am wearing down and suspecting there is still contact because of the lack of progress.