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You have been through THREE D-Days, because you DON'T GET that the issue is not your husband "telling you" when the OW calls, but that he takes her calls AT ALL.

Until you get that, you are headed for more D-days until he leaves you for the OW.


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
The scene she created in public was a negative and humiliating experience for her and embarrassing to my H. No sane person in her situation would ever try to contact the AP again.

SANE, waywards are not sane. What OW does at this point is not near as important to what your WH does or doesn't do.

I'm afraid that you have a major gas-lighting, cake-eating, conflict avoider on your hands and that this A is far from over. YOU can only enforce your boundaries and Plan B does that. Until your WH is willing to do whatever it takes to protect you and your marriage, he is still very much wayward.


Widowed 11/10/12 after 35 years of marriage
*********************
“In a sense now, I am homeless. For the home, the place of refuge, solitude, love-where my husband lived-no longer exists.” Joyce Carolyn Oates, A Widow's Story
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IAINT, I guarantee you that if you spoke to Dr Harley he would tell you to MOVE to another town. Your H is hopelessly addicted to the OW and it is very likely you aren't going to make it if you stay there.

Here is a radio show you need to listen to because this is where you are headed:

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...........this radio clip is the typical outcome when a couple does not move away from the OP. [when they live close by] This WH, Bob, and his OW lived a mile apart and the affair has been on and off for 3 1/2 years. The BW is now divorcing him and their little boy is severely depressed. This is what happens when one ignores Dr Harley's recommendations for NO CONTACT FOR LIFE. We have seen this happen over and over again on the SAA board over the years. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3


He has told women in your position to move away, go into Plan B and let your WH follow you. That way, you win either way. If he comes, you have a marriage. If he doesn't come, you are far away from his him and his affair.

Originally Posted by Dr Harley
In spite of career sacrifices, friendships, and issues relating to children's schooling, I am adamant in recommending that there be no contact with a former lover for life. For many, that means a move to another state. But to do otherwise fails to recognize the nature of addiction and its cure.

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...


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt

Exposure 101


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OW knows that if she contacts him again, I will expose her actions to her children and to her employer.

Blackmail is woefully ineffective. The threat of blackmail is even more so.

EXPOSURE is the key to ending an A. Even when there is fallout, and all kinds of negative consequences, your M can survive all of those. It WILL NOT survive the continued depredations of contact.

Perhaps you fear that, if you expose, you will have blown your weapon, and then what happens if she tries to contact again?

It's simple - you EXPOSE again.

ITA with moving. Most people would benefit from a move if they attempt to R, and you are definitely one of them.


A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
~ English proverb



Neak's Story
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Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
When I asked him to leave after D-day, he told me it's his house too, and I could leave, but he was not leaving. When I asked a lawyer about it, he said that was true: "There is no Marriage Police", and we'd have to undergo a year's separation while living under the same roof and being "civil" while he continued to do as he liked. (Or I could move out and support 2 households.).


If there is no marriage police, what is to stop you kicking him out and changing the locks?

Thats what I did. Even though it isnt legal (here in UK) there isnt anyone to tell me not to do it.

You need Plan B!


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

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Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
She begged him behind my back to continue text msg relationship, .


What kind of woman wants a txt realtionship, instead of a real one you may ask?

Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
She is very angry with me and sends me messages that my husband is in love with her, not happy with me, and I am holding him hostage with my threats of divorce if he doesn't cease contact with her. She says my husband doesn't love me and misses her and thinks about her the whole time he's with me. .


This is a very 'competitive' OW. She enjoys competing with you. She loves that he still takes her calls while going home to you. She prob dances around singing pussycat dolls, the poor deluded fool. If you were to remove yourself from the situation in Plan B, she'd no longer have a prettier, smarter, more successful woman to compete with. She'd just be left with some bum who got ditched by his wife.

Your h knows this full well and is intent on keeping two women in love with him.

Something to think about.


What would you do if you were not afraid?

"Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind-killer" Frank Herbert.

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Melody, yes I got that from the beginning; the fact that he would take her calls at all was the crux of the problem.

If NC had been in place immediately in March, it would not have dragged out like this. Early April was the logical time for me to go into plan B; 4 weeks had passed, I had shown him my very best and he still wasn't ready to believe in me. There would have been no more D-days, just him begging to come home, now I know for sure.

Indie, your insight is uncanny. I have thought about this from all angles. OW was comfortable with her role as the other woman in other peoples' marriages. She had done it before and will certainly do it again, because that is her nature, and her daughter, Homewrecker Junior, is there to advocate for her at every step of the way.

She thoroughly enjoyed competing with me, and eating the leftover crumbs from a man whose basic needs were already being met.

H can see all of this more clearly every day now, how deep in he was, how he got there, how he'd been manipulated. NC has made a world of difference for him. The fog has cleared.

Listened to those video clips about Bob, and yes, that scared me a lot. H is determined that no one will ever come between us again.

Thank you all so much for your wisdom and insight.


Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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Update: OW is gone. H is completely transparent. He makes sure I know where he is at every moment of every day.
His old anger and resentment of me is back though. He pu
ts his own needs ahead of mine. He doesn't keep up with things that need to be done the way he used to while he was striging 2 women along
Everything is his way or he gets a defensive attitude. Everything that has ever gone wrong in his life he has a way of making me feel responsible for

22 years ago we took vows. One of the commitments he made was to be a father to my son and daughter, then 2 and 3 years old. Throughout our marriage most of our arguments have been about how he wants to handle my firstborn


Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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Do you have the book His Needs Her Needs for parents?

There's a chapter about blended families.

Have you listened to these clips?

Here's some excellent radio clips on blended families.
Please listen and tell me what you think.
Radio Clip on Blended Families
Segment #2
Segment #3
Segment #4 [/quote]


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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Thanks, Brain. I don't get much opportunity to media stream, because there are always people with me.

I am thinking I may need a private investigator to check on OW and see if she is getting on with her life, if she's involved with someone else, or if she was found some other way to stay wrapped up in my husband.

I don't know if the damage has been too extensive, now that he's has proven to himself and to me that he can keep two women in love with him for almost a year. Can loving one woman who loves him completely ever be enough for a man who has already done this?

He has been working hard to meet all my ENs. We have a few setbacks. We have disagreements on things such as what will happpen to our (my) oldest child (25) when he returns, and about willingness to raise our (my) grandson.

We have UA time at least 2 hours every evening. He has been calling me and letting me know where he is and what he's doing and who he's with at all times.

I am finally able to concentrate at work again. I still have trouble eating and have not gained back any of the 40 lbs. I lost (30 of it needed to go anyway).

He loves music. I love music. We enjoy it a lot together. Our DS 21 is a part-time musician. We are very proud of him. He gets more love and attention from my H than the other grown kids. Recently my H has uploaded some of his performances to Youtube and linked them to facebook. I am not yet comfortable with H's use of facebook, but I have his password, and he shows me everything.

This morning, he sent a video of our son's song to his old girlfriend from when he was in high school before he met me. (They had a 3-year relationship and loved eachother. It had ended 2 or 3 years before H and I met in 1989.) There was a long message thread of the two of them talking about music going back a couple of years. I had known about it. It stopped before OW came into the picture, but reading it now, it looks as though he was courting a new relationship with his old high school girlfriend, ending posts with "until tomorrow" and "stay in touch", talking a lot to her about things he could have been talking with me about. It looked like flirting to me.

I have his password. OW is blocked. He swears he's had no contact with OW since 11/9/11 and does not want to talk to her or have any other relationship with any other woman but me.

How do I know if he has other secret facebook/email accounts? I am not technical enough to intall keyloggers on everything (not to mention the expense) without his detection.

I have put my whole heart and soul into being the very best wife I can be. For over a year I have made DH the most important person in my life. (We never had initial honeymoon years together, because we have always had children.) I have been meeting all his ENs.

I will never love another man the way I love him. No one else has ever made me feel the way he does. Most of the time he downright worships me.

Should I be ready to quit?



Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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Polygraph?

He would be pleased to prove himself and do one if he has nothing to hide.







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Should I be ready to quit?
That call is up to you. But if you want to remain in this marriage you're going to need to get snooping to confirm his commitment to the marriage. And right now I'm not convinced he's committed.

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This morning, he sent a video of our son's song to his old girlfriend from when he was in high school before he met me.
redflag He has no business sending music, or anything else, to another woman.

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I am not technical enough to intall keyloggers on everything (not to mention the expense) without his detection.
You need to get busy getting technical enough. It doesn't require a lot of computer savvy to be able to install a keylogger. Go to www.spectorsoft.com and look at the eblaster. It takes very little time to install. (NOTE: Set up a new email account that your WH doesn't know about to order this - you will email confirmation from them, and they may send you updates after installation. You will also go to that email account to get the reports for what your H is doing on the computer. You don't want him to see any of this on the email account he knows about.)We can help you if you have questions on the installation, but it truly isn't difficult. And it's virtually undetectable. It is unlikely that he will find it.


D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!

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He says he'll be happy to submit to a polygraph.

Marital, thank you for your advice. I will do exactly as you suggested if I have any more suspicions.

I answered the old high school girlfriend's message about where to come see my son play music and meet our family. She had not been interested in rekindling a 30-year-old relationship, and she's well established in her own life, her own marriage, and her own interests. H was not really either; the flirtatious messages were a precursor to his emotional entanglement with his former boss OW, whom he'd been working with for three years prior.

OW is gone. There has been no contact since 11/9/11, when we'd faced her down and showed her, together, that we were in love and she wasn't getting back in, and it's going to stay that way. She lives 40 miles south, and I told her that night in front of H and all their former coworkers to "Go home and stay there." She shouted, "If you have anything more to say come say it in the parking lot." I just laughed, my H with his arms around me, and all their collegues looking on.

Yet the false recoveries of last year (esp. Set-Oct) continue to bite me with their impact, sometimes distorting my thinking. I was conditioned to believe that there was something wrong with my mind for suspecting my H had strong feelings for someone else (impossible!), and it's slowly abating, that feeling that I must be crazy for lacking the power to stop the infatuation and for lacking the precience to know that he was still talking to her. (He fessed up when I said I had eveidence; said he was ready to end the pressure of continuing contact with OW).

I used to have nightmares: I'd dream that I was in her house, taking care of OW's children, because they couldn't find her, and that she was dead because I had poisoned her; then I'd look into the mirror and see her face and not my own. I'd wake up, my heart beating fast, putting a hand mirror to all parts of my body, making sure I was really me, really alive, really hadn't hurt anyone.

That was last Sept-Oct, while he was seeing her and giving me tons of time, energy, love, and reassurance all at the same time he'd renewed contact with OW.

So sanity is relative. It is finally abating, my urges to go find OW and kill her so I won't have to worry anymore. When H pisses me off about other issues (mainly FC these days) I still want to do that. I don't like that she had such power: to instill a character issue in my husband where he was previously flawless: Needing something new, growing easily bored with marital romance had been MY character flaw! My H was loyal and steadfast, all O&H. He's like that now again. The old him isn't going away.

But to think that anyone could have infatuated him the way OW did makes me just want to wipe her off the map.

I know she's a pathetic creature, and I will not do that. I cannot go to prison. I am a responsible person with a reliable job and two young children and a grandson to raise. I have everything I need on this world, including a husband who worships me, wants me, and never left me to begin with.

I am using what I've learned here to help with PSTD and to replace bad memories with good ones. I am haunted at times while I am at work. My H gives me JC and then some. We have always had a passionate relationship that included a lot of fighting, making up, and withdrawl (always MY withdrawl not his until Oct 2010).

He told me, just yesterday, and he'd told me before in FR (when it just killed me to hear it 13 months ago while they were still employed together) that the fantasy was more about the idea than it was about the person - being with someone you've never yelled at, told off, or made felt hated by.


Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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Have you tried Marriage Coaching through Marriage Builders?

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I would like to. How would we go about doing that?

Marital, thank you for telling me what I need to do if I suspect anything untoward.

Our other priorities have consumed our energies. My firstborn child is in prison. We have a grandchild to raise consequently. We still have two young children. DH's brother's wife died suddenly.

The fall coming is bad because the kids start school. WH is underemployed and will have a lot of time on his hands. There are plenty of constuctive things for him to do, but will he do them? Last year this time he took up with OW again. He was very good at lying about seeing OW, but for the last 10 months (and for the last 21 years before OW) he has been totally honest and open about everything. (Last year he fessed up with no proof and has been unfaltering in his resolve to stay away from OW.)

But I still wish OW to be dead. That is for my own peace of mind, even though I know it is selfish.

I have asked him to write in his own hand and sign it, that he will never talk to her or see her again, even if he and I don't make it. He hasn't done it yet, and he say he'll do it, that there's nothing left there, it's dead, that there's no point.

It's for my reassurance that I need him to do this. He said it feels like a punishment. That was not my perspective at all; I am not trying to punish him. I even told him if it were me who'd cultivated a romantic relationship with another man and then gone back to rekindle it later, that I would happily write such a document just to make him feel better. He says yes I'll write it. But he hasn't.

He's always been a procrastinator about everything big. That's okay; I can live with that. But without the written promise I feel as though my life is hanging in the balance. I told him so.

I told him I'll have to move on without him if he can't do this for me. He said he can and he will, but he hasn't. OW is still alive out there. It's not in my best interest to kill her. I am not insane. But I have to be able to go to work and not worry about what he is doing while I'm not with him.


Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
My firstborn child is in prison. We have a grandchild to raise consequently. We still have two young children. DH's brother's wife died suddenly.
IAint, this is sad news and I am sorry to hear it.

Where is the mother of your grandchild? Does she have any role in the upbringing?

Where is the father of your eldest two children? How did that marriage end?


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Originally Posted by SugarCane
Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
My firstborn child is in prison. We have a grandchild to raise consequently. We still have two young children. DH's brother's wife died suddenly.
IAint, this is sad news and I am sorry to hear it.

Where is the mother of your grandchild? Does she have any role in the upbringing?

Where is the father of your eldest two children? How did that marriage end?
Thanks, Sugar
The baby's mother is in prison also.

The father of my first son and daughter still lives with his own elderly parents, moving out from time to time. XH was never able to behave in the ways a parent would because of damage due to heavy drug use from a very young age.

I married him 11/1985 and left him 7/87. The divorce was final 7/89. I did not want to abandon him, but I was 19 and pregnant with my second child, and he did not help with the first baby. He was often out and wouldn't/couldn't say where he was, slept 14 hours a day, and rarely said 12 words at a time, not interested in sex, affection, meeting needs at all. Not saying I was a great wife to him either. At age 19 I wanted more out of life for my children and myself than he'd ever be able to give me. So I packed up and moved home and got started on a career to support my children. A had a lot of help from my parents.

Last edited by IAintReadyToQuit; 09/02/12 09:55 AM.

Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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My H wrote the letter that I wanted him to, that he will never contact OW again, whether I'm dead or alive. In his own writing.



Married 31 years, 5 kids, 4 GK



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Originally Posted by IAintReadyToQuit
My H wrote the letter that I wanted him to, that he will never contact OW again, whether I'm dead or alive. In his own writing.
Good.

Did you use the NC template? Have you sent it yet?


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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