Actually, the thing you should fear is that you will fail to make YOUR necessary changes to become a GREAT/STELLAR/HAPPY & ADORED wife.



What a great guy. Threw you under the bus. You know (maybe you don't know) .... that when your H told OM "You can have her" .... that was the LAST thing OM wanted. He wanted you for the fun & excitement of an adulterous affair, not for a lasting "obligation" including marriage. Typical. Nothing new here. Look away from OM. Look towards the man (husband) who is willing to "obligate" himself to love & protect you.


Do not call him your "boyfriend. That is an insult to your marriage, to your husband, and especially an insult to your integrity!
He was your adultery partner. NEVER call him "BF" again. Keep it real.

Enjoy your time on this MB forum.
Keep learning.
Every response has something for you to look at and consider.
Rome was not built in a day.

I am going to be busy for the rest of the day.
Keep reading/learning.
Do not give up.
Others will fill you in on the details as you move forward.

Do not start a new topic. Keep this one going.

Regards.

Since right now I am living 110 miles away from my husband and 3 miles from OM,

OH....MY....GOD!!!

Your idea of a good place to relocate after being revealed as an adulteress was 107 miles closer to OM than to BH?

We don't CARE about it being mum's place. This has to be changed immediately. Move to an apartment closer to home if moving HOME directly is still off the table.

You don't know OM's address, and can only determine same by driving over there? Stop the bull-[censored], my friend; it will not serve you well on this site. There are no telephone directories in your geography to look up his last name? You cannot ask Mum to drive past and get the number? Just get the letter written and in BH's hands, and ask him to get the address?

Wow! I mean......wow!

Pepperband
I do realize how something innocent can turn bad. If I am completely honest with myself, it probably wasn't completely innocent because of who it was, he was my first everything and we still had lingering unresolved feelings. I can say with complete conviction that this never would have happened if it wasn't specifically this OM and it will never happen again with anyone else. I have made this point with BH and he said he doesn't know if that makes him feel better or worse about the situation.
OM has been legally separated and living as a divorced couple without the divorce for over 4 years, his wife has been living with another man for over 3 years and she knew about us talking since the day we saw each other in person
I did not know they were not officially divorced until a while after we had been talking.
On the chinchillas, before his proposed solution and after much discussion about how much getting rid of them would hurt me, i did say that if I had to sell them to make him happy i would. His solution was so that he would eventually get his way without causing me pain in the process ( one I have had for12 years) after both of these conversations, he has brought up my initial reluctance to give them all up as areas on he is unsure if it is worth continuing to try

Some great advice being given but I want to add an important note about facebook. The REASON a WS should not have a facebook account is because he/she can communicate with the OP, can gawk at the OP's facebook page [yes, it can be blocked but it can also be unblocked in 2 seconds] and because the WS will remain triggered.

All of that can take place regardless of whether it is a shared account or not. I can go to anyone's facebook page, send them a message and then delete the conversation from my own facebook page. Even the dumbest WS can communicate with an OP via facebook regardless of whether or not it is a shared account. For that reason, I strongly recommend permanently deleting facebook. Facebook is a completely unnecessary social venue that only serves to cause harm.

Gloveoil and never guessed
Would you please weigh in on my post about if I should force the living situation? Legally I could move back in today but if he doesn't want me there is that more harm than good?

The affair has been exposed to just about everyone of significance in any of our lives. My parents and sister, all of our close friends, BH entire family and several coworkers, OMs family knew about it all along.

Melody and gloveoil
Yes, that makes sense. He has my password to Facebook as well as email and financial accounts, that was one of the first things we did at our pastor's suggestion but the idea of a joint Facebook account seems better tome. BH has told me he checks my FB and email several times a day.

I would nix the idea of a joint facebook account for the reasons I gave above. There is no reason to have a facebook account and so many reasons to not have it.

If I were in your shoes, I'd find the cheapest hotel the closest to my spouse, and I'd scrape up whatever it took to live there for as long as I could. (Don't use your 45 days with mom now, for goodness' sake; use it only after all else has failed.) Show by this action, this act of faith, that your husband is your first choice. It's one way that you can show him that you're "all-in."

You want him to trust you enough to take you back in? Then you're going to have to commit some gratuitous acts of trust yourself, as a first step. You need to take some leaps of faith without worrying about a safety net. Covering up -- covering your actions, covering your tracks, covering your bases, covering your bum -- is what got your marriage into this mess. You need to take some leaps of faith.

Does the other man's wife know? (I don't presume to be certain about their marital status, and if the only info you have about that comes from the OM, then you shouldn't, either; and in any case, that woman needs to be informed by a more reliable source than your OM. Remember, I was someone's "other man" once, and they'll tell their spouses as little as they can get away with telling, until outflanked by developments beyond their control & forced to do otherwise.)

OMs wife has known he was seeing someone since we saw each other in person, at some point he made an off hand remark about the someone being his first girlfriend so at that point she knew who I was.

As far as the hotel, there is honestly no way I could afford that. In our area a cheap hotel is $75 a night and right now I'm paying next to nothing to stay here. I still have to cover the difference in the mortgage and hoa on my rental as well as cover many bills BH was paying before. All of our savings are under his name and the night he found out he changed the accounts and credit cards so I do not have access to them. Knowing what I do about BH s views on money, it is also my honest belief that he would not want me to spend money on the hotel when I could stay here. I'm not positive on this part but my guess would be that if I told him that I was moving into the hotel down the street until we could get this resolved he would view it as an independent decision that would upset him and that he might also view it as the same thing as me forcing him to make the decision. I think his feelings on me spending money on a hotel would be the same as his feelings on me giving the tenants notice, he works very hard for our savings and hates to spend unnecessarily.
Would it be a good idea to try to borrow from someone to do the hotel even if I think he would have a bad reaction to it. Also, if we are able to work things out he hates debt even more than dipping into savings
I hope these don't seem like excuses, I truly want to make sure I am making the best decisions and to get the best advice I think I need to presents much information as possible

Another question - how long do I wait? Yesterday he told me flat out he needed time without me to see how he feels. Then he sent me to MB as "if you're bored read this" after reading it, I am excited and highly motivated to discuss it with him and start putting in the work outlined here. But he said he wants time away from me, so how do I express my desire and the importance of going through MB together without disrespecting his wish not to be contacted?

But how do you know this? Did you meet her personally?

he showed me some of their text conversations and I saw some comments she made on his Facebook . I did not meet her in person.

...if I should force the living situation?

Good question, as it opens up another chain of advice.

Friend, for the foreseeable future, you do not FORCE anything. Your BH right now is concentrating solely on the fact that your following your own decisions, without taking his benefit or feelings into account, is the genesis of this entire squalid mess.

You may ask, you may beg, to come home, and offer whatever conditions necessary to give him comfort in your presence, but until he says "Yes", your answer is "No".

This would be another reason why his being here would be beneficial to your joint situation. We could point out the boons of your residing at home, under his purview.

Now, get away from your Mum's.

Neverguessed
What would be your advice relating to my post a few up regarding the hotel? Other than living here, the only option would be to borrow money (not even sure anyone would lend it to me) to stay at a hotel but I am sure BH would not like it, would view it as an independent decision, and I am pretty sure it would be the same in his eyes as forcing a decision.

Okay, here's the deal.

You should explain to BH the following things:

(Independent of POSOM's location) being so far from BH is impacting your opportunities earn back his respect and esteem. So, there has to be a change somehow. Now, you have no friends in your hometown you could crash with? Can your church/pastor help you find something? If not, is there a basement you could move into in your home?

Let's make this easy: If Mum's town was destroyed, root and branch, by a tornado, tsunami, or volcanic eruption, where would you go? Okay, go THERE now.

It's getting a bit tedious giving you absolutely precise options, my friend. You are not a child; start thinking creatively about HOW to implement the advice you're provided here. At all times, your approach should bear in mind that: It is no longer about your wants (aniumals, etc). "Good enough" is no longer good enough.

The next time you have questions about "How do I do that?", instead of bringing just the question, also bring three or four possible solutions of your own design. We'll help you settle on the best.