Boy, what 2long said must have come straight from God's mouth, because it answered the question that I was about to ask. Thanks. She told me yesterday that she "could not" stop seeing him, but she does not want to break up our family. She proposed that they stop the PA and just be friends. My first reaction was that that was a very bad idea. I told her that what was killing me was not that they were making love, but that they were in love. But after thinking, and reading what 2long had to say, maybe this is as much of a first step as I can expect. I don't know.<p>Any other opinions? Is semi-contact better than full contact?

Baffled:<p>I think that for your W to offer to stop physical contact is a big step. Almost more for your benefit than for hers, but definitely for her as well. For you, because you, like most of us guys, are really torn up even thinking about some OM having sex with our Ws. But for her because, once she tells this to OM and he starts whining, moaning, and pressuring her to continue the PA, his true colors will start to show through and she'll realize what she really means to him.<p>The other benefit to you, of course, is the removal of the continued risk of a STD. Maybe she hasn't contracted anything yet, but you and even she has no idea what his sexual history is, or even whether he's getting something from someone else. Cheaters are liers, plain and simple. They would certainly lie about something like that to get what they want. Even lie to themselves about the seriousness of the risk. I still don't know whether a fungal infection I got several years ago might have had anything to do with their PA before then or not. My doctor had asked me if I'd had multiple partners, and I said no, I'm married. When he said, "well, some of these can take as long as 10 years to crop up" to which I replied "I've been married for 15 years, so we can rule that out." He asked me about my W, and I said that she wouldn't be unfaithful to me. Unfortunately, by the time I'd said that, they already had had their first PA. I still don't know the details of where and when, but I intend to go back to the doctor, pull those records, and ask HIM whether what I had could have been an STD after all. If so, I will then tell my W, OM, and OMW, because it shouldn't be spread any more than it has been, if that's what it likely was. <p>Since the infection is gone, this might seem like opening old wounds to some. And it may have had nothing to do with their A. But some STDs will affect you for life, so it makes sense to be careful, even if your WWs don't believe there's anything for you to worry about - they simply won't know until they get checked. <p>I am reminded of the truly awful joke that was running around before AIDS came on the scene, which I will repeat here, not to be mean, but because transmitting diseases to your loved ones because of a stupid decision to cheat is such a cruel thing to do:
Q: What's the difference between Herpes and True Love?
A: Herpes REALLY DOES last forever!<p>Sorry about that.

Baffled:<p>I hope that my fist comment wasn't misleading. Of course, the continuation of the EA without the PA is pretty unacceptable as well, but stopping the PA is a good start. Make that clear to her, if you can. I find that my W *still* has a hard time believing that for me the EA is more insidious than the PA, at least before the PA starts, because it's what lures most women into As in the first place. But since it ISN'T what lures most men into As, her attempts to continue the EA without the PA will frustrate the snot out of the OM, and eventually she'll see him for what I think my W's OM is - a low-life horn dog! ...Okay, I know I'm not supposed to bad-mouth OMs. But I'm human too, and sometimes just need to vent!

Who says we can't bad mouth the OM?! I never saw that advice. Sure, you don't do it as an LB to your spouse, but here is the place you can vent for sure!!

Conan:<p>Hehehehehe! Don't tempt me! I've got all kinds of ammunition. Some of it real, some of it from my overripe imagination! <p>You're right, though. Doing so to WS would be an LB. But doing it too much by myself is destructive, too. Don't want to lower myself to my imagination of his level. <p>Having said that, I have no qualms about telling my W that, although I don't hate him, I have absolutely no respect for him as a human being. I had no respect for her on D-day either, but I love her, have a family and a life together with her, and so have a vested interest in rebuilding my trust and respect in HER.

Just talked to W again... I asked her if she wants to work on the marriage and she basically said no. She wants to stay together for the kids, but stay in "friendship" with OM. She feels that she will always love him, will never be able to love me again, and that we will be able to live together for the kids sake and they will never know. Help...

Baffled:<p>You have the advantage that she wants to stay with you, even though the EA is continuing. You have the opportunity now to do your best Plan A and make your M a safe place for her to always come to. The more you do that, the better off you'll be as an individual, and the more attractive you'll be as a caring spouse. Talk to your C, and work out a reasonable timeframe to give Plan A to work, then consider going to something like a Plan B, but ONLY if you are prepared for DV if it doesn't "wake her up" to the reality of your M versus the fantasy of her "friendship."<p>I hate hearing myself say things like that when I don't always feel like I'm being very successful myself, but that advice is pretty much what you'll get from others on this forum, and from this website as well. In my case, W thinks that this long-distance friendship is so harmless, and/or I'm willing, however reluctantly, to put up with their continued, sporadic private email contact, that she has nothing to worry about. She says things like "If you expect me, for one minute... ...then we've got NOTHING to work on!" That usually shuts me up (like it did the past 11 years when she felt I wasn't "listening" to her). But in the back of my mind, I'm realizing more and more that it's a problem in our M that SHE has to deal with, or I will walk. Even in my biased position, I can't possibly believe that I was 100% responsible for the lack of communication and attentiveness in our M.<p>Maybe the point of all this rambling on my part (sorry about that!) is that even when things look hopeless, they clearly aren't because: She's staying with YOU and your family, and she's broken off the PA with OM. Once again, give it time. I'm betting that the OM will get antsy for renewing the PA, and if she's thinking at all clearly she'll recognize him for what he is. <p>Good luck!

Baffled,<p>It seems to me your situation is horrible and I feel very badly for you. I agree that you need to do a good Plan A for 6 months or so, but the M your W proposes is destructive to you in the long run. Maybe you will be fine with it, but I doubt it. There can be no friend contact with the OP!! Harley is very clear about this. There are many stories on this site (and from my own life) that clearly show that continued contact with teh OP will keep the affair alive and it will prevent you from having the loving M you deserve.<p>Good luck.

Hi Conan:<p>I hope I wasn't misunderstood. The idea here would be to do the Plan A thang with the knowledge that the A is still in full swing, but hoping that his W is sincere in planning to end the PA. Thus giving Baffled a "handle" of sorts that's somewhat better than if the EA/PA were in full swing. Obviously, continued contact with OM even as a friend won't help the M in the long run, so the hope would be that she'll break off with OM before his Plan A timeframe (whatever he chooses to be right for him) is over and he has to consider Plan B.

She's modified her stand somewhat, in that she says that she wants to work on our marriage to get to the place where we are in love again. She just feels that if she breaks off all contact with him now, she will not be able to keep away from him. She says that if the continued contact is interfering with our recovery, she'll break off completely at some point. I think her idea is to wean herself off the dependency on this relationship. We'll see - I'm skeptical. But I kind of feel that this is the best that I can do at this point. Hopefully with the end of the PA, the intensity of the emotions will subside somewhat to the point where she can break it off.

Baffled:<p>That's a major accomplishment, hearing your W say that she wants to work on your M. Even with all that other "FOG" stuff she's saying about keeping in contact with OM. <p>I suggest you check out the thread "the pregnant other woman" elsewhere on this forum. It started out by a gal pregnant with MM's child who was angry because he wanted to work on his M and people here were seeming to attack her position. She believed she was in love with her MM, and couldn't understand why he wouldn't leave his family for her. Well, the thread eventually shifted to CMiranda's similar situation and position. But at some point, she came to the realization that her A was destructive to both families, and she's now in the process of trying to completely break it off (a 6-yr A with a child by OM that her H thinks is his). She's come quite a long way, and has freely discussed her changing attitudes and thinking over time. It's quite an education. You might be surprised to find just how similar we all behave, and just how many parallels there are between CMiranda's and your W's situations. I know I learned a lot about my own situation in communicating with her on that thread.<p>Good luck!

Thanks - I'll check it out. Here's a bizarre story:<p>My wife went out at 10:00 last night to get groceries for a guest we just found out was coming today. As soon as she pulled out of the driveway, my cell phone rang - it was from OM's cell phone. I answered, and I could hear him talking to my W! She had called him, and somehow his cell phone had called me, so I'm now listening to his end of their conversation. And he ends up with this "Ok, but we'll have to make it a quick one. We're famous for that... I'll be here... I'll be here". So, like an idiot, I hop in my car and catch up to her just as she's coming out of Safeway. She denies that she is going to see him (although she does admit to a secret cell phone...) and we both drive away and haven't spoken since. <p>She emailed me this am, telling me emphatically that she was not going to see him. The reason this is such a big deal is that she agreed just 2 days ago to stop the PA. So now I greatly doubt that she meant it. This is so discouraging.

Baffled:<p>Oh geez! That's pretty awful to hear. I'm wondering about whether you should have said anything to her, though, in case that party line thing could happen again and give you a means of monitoring her. Nah. Again, this is truly awful news. In the fog like she is, she probably can't see the degree to which she's compromising her own integrity, let alone how much she's devastating you in the process. <p>Thinking about it, I know what I would have done in such a situation, because I nearly ended our M the day I read that personal email my W sent to OM last month. I was really screwed up, and was pulled from the brink of ending M by the good people on this site and by making a couple of emergency calls to my ICs. I don't think I'd be living with my W at all now if I hadn't done that. Can you do something like that yourself? <p>Keep posting to this forum. Maybe start a new thread with something like "HELP!!" in the title. There are a lot of good folks out here that would be glad to help you out if they can. Some are in situations much more like yours than mine right now. <p>Take care of yourself!

Bump.<p>Baffled, how are you?

Baffled,
I went on a vacation with W doing same as yours. It was not a fun vacation. Sure, parts were nice, but knowing that she was off calling the OM was painful and it just stretches things out. She (and you) need to realize that things wont get better until the A is over. I tried to be coy and not reveal everything I knew but until she knew that her A was very obvious, she kept denying it. What finaly brought my W back to reality was telling her to get an attorney to get divorced. She talked to attorneys (5 of them) and several of them told her she didnt sound ready for a divorce. They told her, if she was talking to the attorney because her husband forced her to do it, then she didnt really want a divorce. She realized that she agreed with them. So, she realized she had to address the problem. But, until I stood up and asserted (politely)and did what was in my best interest - and the best interest of the kids, nothing got better. The A is horrible for all involved - your kids suffer because you are suffering so deeply. Even horrible for the W although she may not see it now. Either way the marriage turns out, the future guilt, withdrawal and recovery just get worse the longer it goes on. My W didnt know how to get what she really wanted and thought the A would do it. Anyway, my W was in denial that the A would lead to divorce. I was too patient, tried to long to improve things with the OM around. My advice is to assert yourself without LBs. PS: My wife is very smart, strong headed. I think her inteligence level and capability to logically reason helped her realize she wants to fix things.

Jimmy:<p>Good to hear your take on your situation. Sounds like it's more like Baffled's than mine. <p>I too have a very intelligent W. She is so certain that her continuing friendship with OM is so harmless that she won't do anything but argue with me when I talk about no contact. But since she doesn't appear to be contacting him regularly (about 6 weeks since last email from him, yippee!) I've decided to not mention him and work on our R for a while. Going to be hard, and I won't leave it "up to her" forever, but it's been enabling me to plant love units in her LBank like crazy for the past week or more. <p>Going to have to tell MC about my "plan" to not talk about OM, and at that time I'll briefly state that "W and MC both know how I feel about OM, and what I need W to do about him to stay in this M" then move on to communication issues (problem with our M). If they ask, I'll tell them that I do have my time limit, but I won't tell W what that is. Let her worry about that.<p>persevere

He 2Long and Baffled,
I sympathize with you guys. I was much more similar to your situations last year. I didnt have this web site;s advice and I'm still reading like crazy. But, my W was first EA with a contractor that worked in our house then she became PA with the contractor and then one of his buddies, then went clubbing meeting men, on and on. She called me jealous over nothing, controlling, and to be honest, I ended up providing a lot of LBs arguing, showing anger instead of hurt ( I learned the following fact sometime recently and it sounds trite it helps a lot: learn to cry instead of sitting quietly or showing anger - that is like a subconscious switch in women and many women cant help but connect emotionally with you at least on some level...they may be in love with OM, but they really dont want to hurt you - or at least thats what they say, right? LOL - its probably partly true. Showing them the pain can't help but draw them a little closer emotionally. The OM was doing to me, just what one of you suggested that you try to do to him - he was making me LB. Get the W to emotionally connect more with you and then the OM will start LBing. In my case, I think that since she was moving between 2 or 3 OMs who knew each other, that they got jealous and LB'ed. That soured her on ever developing a permanent long term relationship with any OM. <p>One thing that I did that helped me present myself as more attractive was: I GAVE UP. I went to an attorney got advice on my financial and custody situation and felt like I was ahead of the curve with her. This made me feel a bit better and helped me feel like I was doing something positive for me. I drew up divorce papers and sat on them. I went out and met some women - didnt do anything, but I started trying to build my confidence that I didnt need to stay in an abusive relationship. When I realized that there is life after divorce, I was much more calm - even tho I didnt want a divorce. I kept quiet with her about it, continued to express to her how disrepectful she was being to me and decided to ask her to move out. I had been deathly afraid of seperation because I feared that it was 98% chance of becoming permanent. It took a while, but she eventually left. (This is great advice also if you do end up divorced and have any child custody desires - get her to leave)But, Getting her out on her own made her start to realize what she would be giving up. It took her about 2-3 months on her own to realize that its not all its cracked up to be. <p>So, there's my insight. Hope it helps. One question: Have you guys shown your Ws this stuff on recovering from affairs ? Especially some of the writeup on making a marriage better than before the affair ? Also, one thing I think caught the eye of my W was only 15 hours a week. <p>Hang in there. Prayer helps. <p>We're not out of the woods yet. But, she has agreed to counseling, started 3 or 4 weeks ago and the MC said no work without loosing all boyfriend/girlfriends. But, I did a little prying and she was still talking with OM up to sometime a week ago. I sat down with her one evening and confronted her with the fact that the redial button on her phone was his number. She looked blank like "you;re snooping again" and I told her, "No more mind games, what is obvious is obvious." I said, I want a divorce (I dont, but I have taken control of my life and have chosen not to live with a liar - I'm giving her time to change - dont know how much more time. She started crying. But at the MC, i mentioned that I thought she was still seeing OM and I just said that I'm willing to work on it if she was. <p>I found this website because she said I was having an affair. I looked up Affair on the websters website and it had a link to Marriage builders. She's read some of it and lo and behold, she's suggesting that we go away for a week. Offering to move across the country. I think she likes the fact that the web site says "No anger, disresctful outbursts..." AND the fact that the site basically says that short of physical abuse, any marriage is repairable AND can get better than it EVER was before. One of her grumps about me is that I'm angry all the time. Even tho I have reason to be, its counter productive. I found a way to move from anger by learning to cry and giving up so I wouldn't care as much.<p>So, I type to much. But, I think:
a) learn to cry - it helps reduce LBs of anger and builds emotional connection
b) be strong - find ways to believe you can survive divorce and it makes it easier to do the tuff things
c) get her to come to realize that she can't have her cake and eat it too.<p>I need to go read more on plan A, B and C<p>Good luck. Thanks for your help too.

How am I? Kind of miserable. We went away for the weekend to meet my sister for the weekend. WW and sis went out for a long talk and my W barely said a word the rest of the day. Maybe that's good, I don't know. But she talked to OM on phone for a long time late last night, and now seems to feel fine. I just think that as long as any contact with OM goes on, she'll feel the same. She only is happy when she's had some contact with him. Then she's in good spirits for up to a day or two. I tell you, it's like a drug. And then she needs her fix again. When I told her that it was like an addiction, she said that made it sound cheaper than it was. But that is exactly what it looks like to me.<p>I guess I just keep telling her that at some point, I need the contact to stop and see where it goes. I'm just not willing at this point to take the risk of saying no contact or move out.

As long as your wife sees that you are taking no action she will continue to contact the OM including giving the OM a quickie whenever possible. The OM is not sticking around just to get emotional support. What you need to understand is the person that you consider to be your wife is in a fog and does not care about you. Her marriage is only the background to her love affair with this OM. She considers her OM to be her real mate and will use deception to continue seeing him. That is the reality that you are dealing with. Marriage counsellors will tell you that all contact with the OM must cease before a marriage can be rebuild. There must be zero tolerance on any contact. What is in your favor is her desire not to break up the family. Use this to your advantage by giving her the choice of divorce or working on the marriage. If she sees that you are serious it will help bring her back to reality. She may become angry and resentful but will have to accept the fact that you are not going to play a role in her fantasy. Good luck.<p>[ April 15, 2002: Message edited by: max ]</p>

Ok.. We are going through the same situation, I'm just a year ahead of you. We have the same amount of children, same ages all boys. Wife had other mans cell phone and after realizing that the OM and his relationship with my WF was more important then her marriage and family.I just knew that it was over. I belive that allowing the cell phone and her contact with other man to continue is the very worst thing you can do. Is this OM married, you might want to confront him and his wife. I know this is just a nightmare but you must stop the A from continuing. Big LB I know. But if you wait there will be "D" papers served anyway. Start looking for a good attorney and keep a log, you might want to hire a PI as well. If she can not stop her "A" and GIVE you the cell phone, write a no contact letter, then it is over. Start protecting yourself.