This is my first time posting but I have been on this site since early this year. My wife had an affair for six months with a co-worker which I discovered over a year ago. I exposed to the guys wife the night I found out. The affair is over. Recovery has been slow. I am just beginning to see the value in not ranting about the affair a couple times a day. I am posting now because I need help with a specific situation.

My wife had been in the habit of going to lunch with guys at the office for years. This habit has been killed as part of her extraordinary precautions (although I do not think it is extraordinary). Now I am her lunch date.

One of the guys she went to lunch with was definitely hunting for an affair when they were lunching. This was years ago. My wife ended the lunch dating with him when he moved to another office and it became an effort to lunch with him. She ran into this guy at the grocery store yesterday and he was pushing for going to lunch. He wanted to catch up on old times. There were no old times except taking my wife to lunch hoping to get some tail.

Anyway, my wife told me about the encounter. She is not interested in lunching with this guy. I'd say she was turned on by the encounter because she was very frisky last night. Maybe that was just because she felt she owned me something and I am just being cynical.

I am looking for advise on what to do with this situation. I feel like exposure is necessary to this guys wife. He is obviously actively looking for some fun outside of his marriage. I could use some help composing the message. How much do I go into the lunches and how I see his behavior and the grocery store encounter.

Your perspective on this will be appreciated.

Welcome.

What have you done to affair proof your marriage?

A married woman should not be lunching with a man alone. What are her boundaries?

Do you know this man's wife? I'm not sure she will see the risk to her marriage as you do, unfortunately. Most people don't unless they have been affected by infidelity. I'm all for educating the masses, though.

I think what you say to the wife depends on how well you know her, if at all. Were you going to contact her by mail or email?

It sounds like you would really benefit by getting help with your own marriage recovery and following the program. While it is natural to go through stages of anger and cynicism in all of this, it's important to work through it correctly so that your marriage can be better than it has ever been before - which is truly the only way to recovering after an affair.

We can help you and your wife with that!

Okay, you have somewhat of a mixed bag here.

Her "availability index" is still high enough to attract this scum-bucket. That needs some work. It might also be that scum-bucket cares not a bit about her "No Trespassing" signs, and requires an advisory visit by the landlord, aka: YOU.

Reviewing the EPs in place is a maintenance operation, always subject to adjustment according to new events. "Spilling coffee on Mr Sleazy at every meeting" would be near one end of the spectrum, just this side of "Contacting his SO and asking her to daily pack his lunch so he won't have that as an excuse to troll for affair-prone females".

On the other hand, not only did she NOT accept his sleazy "Lunch, followed by Nooner" invitation, she told you about it forthwith. I do hope you expressed your appreciation on that ACTION on her part (besides the recreational evening participation you indicated!)

Hi, LD,

You might want to change your name. If you ever post here again, you might not want it to be a constant reminder of this painful memory from your past.

Since your wife was contacted by the other man, Dr. Harley would say her "clock" will be reset on withdrawal. In a sense recovery starts over. So it is going to be very important to make sure that no such contact ever happens again, for life. Does she still work with this man at all? Is there any way you guys can move to a different town? There needs to be a bigger wall to prevent contact, because it is going to be an offense to you every time it happens.

I would definitely let the other man's wife know. I would call her so you know that any letter / email / text message you send is not intercepted, so you can know you are talking to her personally. And I would tell her "Your husband had an affair with my wife. They used to date by going to lunch together. She has broken off the affair, but I wanted to let you know that he saw her yesterday and was asking her to lunch again." Then I'd offer to answer any questions she has.

I'd let her know again each time contact occurred.

LD, have you seen Dr. Harley's video on infidelity?

[video:youtube]m8QKOUbosNo[/video]

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi1001_infidelity0.html

Lunch date, what exactly would you expose to this mans wife? That he asked your wife out for lunch? I don't see anything here to expose and don't understand the problem.

The one problem I do see is that she had an affair with a coworker. Does she still work at the same place?

For clarification, was this man from the grocery store someone your wife had an affair with? I may be missing something but when I read your post I took it as this was not someone she was involved with but did lunch with on occasion: that he was possibly looking for an affair, but that one did not actually occur with him.

Of course, it could be a hard determination. If they lunched often and she was having needs met by him - an EA could have occurred, even if never acknowledged. (Which is why clear boundaries are needed with the opposite sex.)

Also besides all the good questions and video you're receiving, have you read this?
Are Friends A Threat to Your Marriage?

Agreed. Maybe your anxiety is kicking or it was a trigger but I don't see what the problem is and what you'd possibly tell this guy's wife.

BrainHurts,

My wife has spent a lot of time on this website but I have not so I do not live your doctrine.

She no longer lunches alone with anyone other than me. She now sees me as her best friend, as I have always seen her. When something happens in her day that she wants to tell someone, she calls me.

We are spending any time we have between work, kids, and house work with each other. When we can we do the simple things in life together like cooking and cleaning. Spending time with the kids is important time for us. She says I was never spending time with the family before because I had so much house work to do. So for us to spend family time is very important to her. That seems to be one of her emotional needs. She glows when we are together as a family.

I think she has always met my primary emotional needs which is why I have always been so in love with her. It broke my heart to find out she did not feel the same. In the first six months I did everything I could to make up for having failed her. For the last year I was so angry as I realized that she chose to destroy our family for another man. Over that time I have seen her change and the strange perception she had of me and our marriage has disappeared.

My wife is very focused on Radical Honesty and Joint Agreement. That all comes pretty naturally for me. I think she felt I was very judging in the past which made her not feel comfortable being honest and including me in decisions. The last year of struggle has helped me understand her sensitivity about my expressing my opinions.

I do not know if I answered your question. It has been so long I really do not remember where we were when this all started.

LunchDate,

Does she still work with this OM or even work for the same company. Was the OM in a superior position?

What evidence do you have of this persons intent on your W, and do you have evidence/knowledge of his engaging with other W?

God Bless
Gamma

All,

I seem to have gotten a mixed bag of feedback about the lunch guy, aka "Mr Sleazy". I cannot decide whether each of the guys my wife lunched with were emotional affairs or just friends. Mr Sleazy was the only one that was definitely an aggressor. My wife and Mr Sleazy did not work with each other. They met in the halls while she was getting IT support. She apparently had to get help with something in the IT department for a few weeks. They flirted. He commented on her looks a lot. They went to lunch a half a dozen times. He brought up stories about some lunch time affair he had known about where a couple did stuff in a car at the office. He encouraged her to wear skirts and that she should shorten her skirts. She was very flattered by the attention and certainly did not tell him to f'off. He moved out of the office she works in so it was easy for her to end the "relationship".

Even though my wife told me about the encounter, t does bother me that she did not just tell him to f'off. Can I expect her to say that their relationship was inappropriate and she does not want to talk to him ever again.

I do not know Mr Sleazy or his wife. I know his name and generally where he lives so I could mail a note to his wife.

My name LunchDate is because I am now her lunch date. Having a break in the middle of her work day is important to her and I am now her go to lunch date.

LunchDate,

I cannot decide whether each of the guys my wife lunched with were emotional affairs or just friends.

It really sounds like you have never gotten complete honesty about her affairs if this is the case.

Does you W work for the same company, because if she does the word may have gotten around that she is easy.

God Bless
Gamma

Do you have unanswered questions from her affair?

My suggestions were based on the belief that he was a previous affair. In fact I think I misunderstood what you wrote.

I think you need to get the truth of her past relationships.


I see, then that sounds good!

Gamma,

I have the information about my wife's lunches. I just don't really know when the line for emotional affair is passed. My wife went to lunch and had conversations with these guys that most women would have with girl fiends. So as much as a woman gets her emotional needs meet by girl friends, my wife got her needs met but these men.

I know many couples where the wife spends all of her time with girlfriends and neglect the husband. The wife is getting her primary emotional needs from the girl friends and looses love for her husband because they are not bonding in those ways.

LunchDate,

I do agree there is a gradation of emotional affairs, I think when the EA partner becomes completely obsessed it becomes obvious.

However there does seem to be different levels I saw my W playing with herself vigorously while talking to a friend, female she is fond of, a few months back, I still don't know how to process that. Especially in light of the fact that she claims to be mostly asexual now.

God Bless
Gamma

BrainHurts,

I have all of the facts about the affair answered. But I keep wanting an answer to why and how she could do it . It makes no sense that she would sacrifice me and our children for some superficial pleasure with another man. And when I think about that I just see that that is who she is and no matter what good qualities she has I can never see our family as her number one priority. And then everything that holds my life together falls apart. And then I get angry.

You can send her a letter:

Mrs. Sleazy,

I am sorry to have to contact you about this but I thought you should know of your husband's inappropriate behavior with my wife. My wife worked in the same office as your husband. The two of them flirted and have gone to lunch at least six times. Your husband commented on her looks a lot and brought up stories about a lunch time affair he had known about where a couple did sexual acts in a car in the office parking lot. He encouraged her to wear skirts and that she should shorten her skirts. She was very flattered by the attention and did not tell him to f'off. I am not sure if anything happened beyond "lunch."

The other day (you can be more specific with exact day if you remember), my wife ran into your husband at the grocery store and he asked her out for lunch again. I am sure you can see why I would be alarmed by their exchanges. I thought you should be aware of what has transpired so you can take measures that your husband is not approaching my wife or other women for lunch dates or "dates" in the parking lot.

Please feel free to contact me at xxx-xxx-xxxx if you wish.

Regards,

Lunchdate

Depending on what Sleazy's wife know about her H she may dig deeper or contact you.

Is your WW still working with OM?