being honest about contact does not mitigate the damage from contact. If I am "honest" with my husband every time I take a drink, will that make me any more sober? No, it won't. Being honest will not stop her from being triggered and will not stop the affair from resuming.

ONLY NO CONTACT WILL ACHIEVE THAT.

You need to move, KGaa, if you really want to protect your marriage. Keep in mind that every sighting will put her back to day 1 of recovery and will likely result in a resumed affair. It is unrealistic to imagine you can recover your marriage that way.

If I go to the bar and get drunk but I am "honest" with my husband about it, will I be sober?

Does anyone have the answer to that?

Kgaa, your marriage has already been hit by an affair so it is not convincing when you try to sell us on the notion that your wife can be trusted. It only reflects a serious lack of understanding of the nature of affairs. Your wife has weak boundaries so you won't get far trying to tell us she can be trusted in high risk situations with former lovers.


Entire article at: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html

How to Survive an Affair chapter in HIS NEEDS, HER NEEDS
p. 177

...I have seen husbands build new and wonderful relationships with their wives but then go back to their lovers after five or six years of what appeared to be marital bliss. When I ask them why, they inevitably tell me they miss the woman terribly and still love her. At the same time they stoutly affirm they love their wives dearly and would not think of leaving them.

I believe a man like this has told the truth. He is hopelessly entangled and needs all the help possible to be kept away from his lover and stay faithful to his wife. I often recommend that a man once involved in an affair come in to see me every three to six months on an indefinite basis, just to talk about how things are going and to let me know how successfully he has stayed away from his lover. He must resign himself to a lifetime without her. HE MUST CERTAINLY NOT WORK WITH HIS FORMER LOVER AND SHOULD PROBABLY LIVE IN SOME OTHER CITY OR STATE. Even with those restrictions the desire for her company persists...

No, the other option is to do what Dr Harley recommends and what many, many others here have done: MOVE. You should not be taking chances.

You already have taken chances and you can see where that got you.

Ok..I dont trust her word BUT i am giving her thechance to prove herself and provide just compensation...

"Proving herself" misses the point entirely. You were hit by a car playing chicken and becoming a better chicken player is not the solution. The solution is to GET OUT OF THE ROAD. She failed before and she will fail again in the same environment.

YOU MUST CHANGE THE ENVIRONMENT THAT LED TO THE AFFAIR.

What you are doing is sending the alcoholic into the bar and saying "I am giving her a chance to prove herself." She is less likely "prove herself" though if she is in the bar. The solution is to get out of the bar; ie: change the environment and make sure she doesn't run into the OM again.

Living in a small town where it is easy for her to hook up with her lover reflects a lack of understanding of the nature of affairs.

If recovering your marriage is your goal, then not trusting her and giving her the chance to prove herself are things that need to be in place.

However, these things are not enough. You also need to remove any condition that led to the affair in the first place. That condition, in the case of your wife's affair, was a simple 'crossing of paths'. That's all it took. This condition remains as of today. This condition needs to be removed or that risk remains.

If you want her to pass that test, you should move. She can't "prove herself" if she lives in the same environment as the OM. Again, you must change the environment.

Two red flags I see:

1. Your wife hasn't posted in a couple of days.

2. When asked, she avoided the question about moving, twice.


AM

She hasnt posted because she said all has been answered and we now neex to work on recovery....she says she knows what her work is to do and she was never crazy about telling hef story to tje world and unknown people to hear harsh commenta in return. She says some things have helped but she would like to focus on the books and what dr. Harley says not some inknown people that look down on her..she says she feels bad enough about the A and doeant need salts in the wounds....

I am very concerned about your situation, kgaa, and so are the others here.

How far away does the OM live from you?

And do you have spy resources in place that your wife DOES NOT KNOW about?

No ther resources in place...i've run out of options..OM lives near center of town about 15 min away...she is aware of his house location and him hers....bad thing is that OM parents live about a mile south of us...When i brought this up to W she said the Om told her during A that he didnt see parents much...i have not seen him there much...our. ity is about 300k but small enough that you cross the same peoples path every now and again...please people..i do want to give W credit for trying the right things i've asked...she is a very stubborn perosn at times..she just has he mind set on trying to fix this and get us back. Besides what i've done and she agreed to do what else can i do?????? Shes giving me nothing to think or see anything different. Ru guys saying that unless we move our marriage will fail? NOBODY ever makes it in the same town as their lover? I guess if we come home to visit they could run into each other also? Right? Tell me what to do and request of her so i can geta grip on this....

I would most definitely move. And in the meantime, I would strongly urge that you put some spy resources in place that she doesn't know about so she can't circumvent them. Ones that she knows about will be of no effect.


And you wouldn't know it she did do something different, though. As long as she knows every spy resource you have, then you have no way of knowing what she is doing when you aren't looking.

Sooo. When she did something wrong as a child, did she stop talking to her mother when her mother said something she didn't want to hear?

I understand that we are strangers. But we are strangers who have SURVIVED THE SAME EVENT. She should be desperate to hear our thoughts. For her to run and hide concerns me. That tells me that she may not be as committed to recovery as you might think. That tells me that she may be thinking "Okay, I screwed up. Get over it already!" NOT GOOD. She's sweeping it under the rug.

I am exhausted. Without going into detail, I have run out of spy tactics....I do this kind of stuff in another arena for a living and beleive me I exhausted all those efforts catching the affair in the first place...I knew what I was doing and I still do...If I wanted to catch her from this point on, I surly could amd she knows it...I dont want to continue to have an "open case" on my wife. Its simple..I told her if she ever looks, speaks or references the OM again..I GONE, dont care why, where or how it all came about. I cant go on conducting a full fledged investiation on my wife..I did that to discover the A, and beleive me I went to great lengths. As far as the OM..cross my path, and I think he'd consider relocation. I feel like I am in a bad situation witha bunch of books on how to try and save my life as I knew it. No crap I cant trust her, got that point when I diacovered an affair. But what does giving her a chance mean. If ahe is really that in love as described here with the OM why on gods earth wouldnt the smart thing to do ia let them be together. W understands her screw up and does not resist anything i ask. So what ive gathered is tell W were moving and until I can find a job cross my fingers and hope that the two mad lovers dont see eachother at a red light or something.

Just consider that every time she drives by the OM's parents house she will be triggered. Every time she drives close to his house she will be triggered. The more triggers, the greater likelihood the affair resumes. She even realizes she will be running into him when she offered to be "honest" about it.

How does she feel about moving away?

I don't know what this means. Please explain this to me. Does this make you feel better? That OM doesn't see his OWN PARENTS much? Bull. She needs to lose this if she wants to save her marriage. Stubborn doesn't have a place in a healthy marriage. I'm not saying anything of the kind, and you know it. I'm saying that the conditions that facilitated YOUR wife's affair are still in place and need to be eliminated. No, that won't happen. Because you will be wise enough to know that your WW will not be out of your sight while you are visiting your relatives.

If that is what it takes for you to know what she is doing when you aren't around, then that is what it takes. However, one doesn't have to conduct a full fledged investigation to know what their spouse is doing at all times. I know what my husband all the time we are apart and it is effortless.


It doesn't mean that you continue to send the drunk into the bar and hope for the best. It means she changes the environment and STOPS going into the bar.

Dr Harley is REAL CLEAR on what it takes to recover a marriage, and one of the first steps is changing the environment that led to the affair. THAT MEANS MOVING AWAY FROM THE OM IF NEED BE, IN ORDER TO AVOID CONTACT:

You need to understand that you will need to snoop on your wife until you are at a point where you feel safe.

I had my husband wired for sound after his affair. If I could have tracked his thoughts I would have done so. I did what I needed to do to feel safe - 'trust' did not factor into my equation at that point.

As you go through recovery this need to feel safe becomes less as your spouse continues to show complete transparency. You aren't there yet.