It's realistic to be disappointed when you are looking forward to something that doesn't happen.

Anyway to find a back up in case it happens again? Is your sitter able to come at a different time to make up for it?

Kiss and I need to find a new sitter since my DD went to college. I checked out Care.com but didn't realize that there is a monthly fee. I might have to just pay the expense. What are your thoughts on dealing with the site and the potential sitters?

We have had really a really good experience with it. You can do what I have done and just sign up for one month. Long enough to post a job and get a few qualified people lined up. After that, you don't need the site unless you need someone else.

She canceled 2 hours before she was supposed to come. She is now fired. We do have several backups so we have asked someone else to start coming on Tues and Thurs.

Just make sure you always do it respectfully.

I know when we had incidents like this I'd frequently find myself quite upset later on and learned to attribute it to my natural feeling of disappointment - and not take it out on my wife!

We had another good date last night. We went to a place that is along the green way, has a great view of the city, and has live music on the patio outside. We were able to eat, talk, listen to the music, and watch the sun set and the city light up.

Things were kept light and fun.

W asked my mom to babysit for us Sunday afternoon. That made a LB deposit with me! And of course we have Saturday date night coming up. This will be our third week of getting our UA time up to an effective level.

Fantastic, FtF - especially the fact your wife is now lining up babysitting.

Thought of you when I heard this.
Radio Clip on Financial Disagreements
Segment #2
Segment #3

I'm struggling with figuring out what specific EPs need to be in place for us after listening to mindmonkey's fWW on the radio show today.

"Eliminate the conditions that lead to the affair".

OK, how do I figure out what those were exactly? I mean a lot of stuff went on during the A.

For example, it was a workplace A in a public school. Was that a condition? She met him in the evening at least once while pretending to be grocery shopping. Was that a condition?

How can I distinguish between things that made the A possible and things that were just everyday type of things?

I feel like if we are going to move forward I'm going to have to make peace with her working again.

Ok she met him in a school, but how did they get to know each other? Were they in meetings together? Go to lunch? How did they meet each other's needs.

Have you read GloveOil's story? He met the OW in the church choir. They started practicing together, staying late and started having IC.

Have you read SAA? Jon and Sue? Sue met her AP Greg when working on a committee together and they would do projects and meetings together and privately.

You two need to build your marriage to where you are each other's favorite person/best friend/RC.

I don't know if I have the exact answers to these. I was told so many different stories I'm not sure which one is true. I would get told one thing and then I would discover something else and then the story would change.

I'm pretty sure he worked across the hall from her as much as two years prior and they talked in between classes. I don't know about after school. At some point she was eating lunch with him but I don't know if this was before or after the A started. At least once they went on a fieldtrip together and sat together on the bus talking. They were together on teacher work days. No idea about meetings other than the meeting all teachers went to once a week.

I felt this way too. But let me qualify that feeling. For three months without her working we were getting 25 hours a week UA time. During the later parts of this time it was 100% (and consistant) enjoyable for both of us. Today there is no one we would rather spend time with than eachother. We are consistantly meeting all four of the intimate emotional needs DAILY (maybe skip one every handful of days). Only then did I feel safe with her returning to work.

My thought on your situation is your W is not in love with you yet. She actually seems pretty far from it. How's it going to be any better when she starts to work? I really think you have to be in better place before you introduce ANY additional complexities in your R.

You know FC better than anyone though. As an honest question: Why do you think her returning to work is required for you to "move forward" as you say?

Maybe it will improve her state of mind. She doesn't like being home with our daughter all day.


Because she wants to do it and I've never said to her that she couldn't work again anywhere. All I have done is be honest about her suggestions on returning to work in the same job she was in before as a school teacher. I believe that environment contributed to the A in the first place. For sure the profession has higher rates of infidelity than other types of work. I wouldn't be happy about her working as a policeman, traveling salesman, flight attendant, or <cough> in a hospital either.

Thanks, I got a chuckle out of that. Yep, it was a hard call for me, but we did change venue quite a bit. fWW is at a day procedure facility without doctors. Just goes in, puts the patients to sleep and makes sure they don't stop breathing. No time for gossip and no doctors playing flirty. Maybe not a complete change, but a step in the right direction.

Don't mistake me. I KNOW some women (mine included) would go nuts at home all day everyday. We were doing well when she started back up (yesterday) but I had a feeling her state of mind would go south (and take our M with it) if she didn't start work ASAP. I will say - and we're only two days into it - it was HARD having her go back. Not so much that I'm afraid she'll cheat again, but because there's a pretty big hit to the UA time. We had some RC yesterday (four mile run), I made a good dinner, the kids cleaned up, and I helped DS9 with a pretty dumb school project. By then, W was beat and my hopes for some SF quickly evaporated...C'est la vie. Maybe today will bring better luck.

Funny you mention flight attendant. Before I knew what W was capable of, I always thought she would make a good one. She's very procedure oriented and cheerful. Now...over my dead body.

We're all capable of having an affair.

Wow, I really read that wrong the first go-around!

100x agree. Sad I had to learn this the HARD way. So many of us (including the WS) have to.

Famous last words: "I would NEVER cheat on my W/H. What kind of evil person does that?"

Answer: Anyone without appropriate EPs.

True. And why I remain empathetic to my fWH. Because it coulda been me.

Agree x1000

It coulda been me also, if the right person had come along to meet the right needs....we both exposed ourselves to this and didn't protect our M.

Well, we decided to stop the monthly sessions with Dr Chalmers and instead do the online course. We purchased the accountability coaching as well.

Right now we have a few issues to still work through. One is the issue of my W wanting to get out of the house during the day and away from being a SAHM. It is driving her crazy and contributing to her depression. Another issue is that we need to bring in some more income to support all of this going out on dates and hiring babysitters.

So the obvious solution is for her to get a job somewhere during the day. The trouble there is finding something that is good for the marriage and at the same time can bring in enough money to cover the cost of daycare.