Losing my mind when he leaves the house - Marriage Builders® Forums

So, I have gotten to a decent emotional state after dealing with my husbands affair for almost the last year. I found out about it within a month of their relationship beginning. However even though he said it was over it continued with him denying it was going on for almost a year if it is over but over a year if it's not. My issue is I freak out when he leaves the house. The problem is when I knew he was having the affair he made up every reason to get out of the house. Now I just believe that is what is happening even though he says it's not. But you can't believe a liar. Anyhow, I don't know how to begin to feel ok about it. I freak a bit during the day because I work and right now he is looking for work but my work keeps my mind busy enough. At the end of the day no matter what I do my mind is not busy enough.

Did you expose his affair to family and friends?

I'm sorry for your pain. How long have you been married?

Where did your husband meet his affair partner?

Yes it's been exposed and he met her while working - he used to sell cars and sold one to her. She knew he was married but he lied and told her we weren't getting along or living together when we were really living a normal married life together. And we were getting along fine except he kept starting arguments once he met her. I knew something was wrong less than a month after he met her and after about a month he said he didn't want to be with me but didn't tell me why. I asked him to stay for 30 days to see if we could figure out what was wrong. That was last June. We are still together but every time he told me it was over with her it wasn't. She thought he was going to leave me for her and kept asking him when. (He told me that during our many recent conversations when I asked lots of questions.) I think it might be over now but am so paranoid that I believe it might not be. He doesn't go anywhere when we are both home. When I am at work he is looking for a job, a place for us to stay (we live with my mom now because EVERYTHING fell apart) and trying to sell stuff we don't need and work on a business he would like to have. But that is 8 hours a day where his time is completely unaccounted for. I do ok now but used to have to rush to the bathroom in a panic of tears before. But if he wants to go out when we are both home I freak. I think I will be ok until about 10 minutes after he leaves and then I totally worry and want him to come home. That is why he is just not going anywhere but that isn't healthy. This has ruined our life but we are still trying to piece it back together. I love him very much and I think he truly does love me although I don't believe he was loving me when all this was going on. That is NOT what love is. I hate the AP so much if I saw her I would probably harm or kill her. Not healthy I know but that is how I feel.

I guess I feel like there is a lot of advice on what to do but not much on how to deal with different feelings and how to handle some situations. Joint agreement is great but sometimes you can't agree and not agreeing on something is unhealthy.

Who has this been exposed to?

Who on OW's side has this been exposed to?

Have you told your children?

Please tell us in detail what has been done on this list.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.

Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends

How long have you been married? Any children? Is this a first marriage?

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Originally Posted by MrsRMN

I guess I feel like there is a lot of advice on what to do but not much on how to deal with different feelings and how to handle some situations. Joint agreement is great but sometimes you can't agree and not agreeing on something is unhealthy.

MrsRMN, the policy of joint agreement teaches you how to reach conclusions that make you both happy. I realize it is hard to believe, but it is only hard to believe because you don't have those skills yet. Once you have those skills, you would be amazed at how easy it becomes to reach decisions that are good for your marriage.

Can you be more specific about what "feelings" and "situations" you don't think the program deals with? Maybe we can help you with that.

Originally Posted by BrainHurts

Please tell us in detail what has been done on this list.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.

Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_done____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

done_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

no - we did a video on my phone and I sent it to her - she wouldn't believe anything if he didn't say it - _____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

__yes and no___The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_yes but again what I don't know.....____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_yes and no____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

__yes___Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

__yes___Spend leisure time together.

__yes he left 3 different jobs because I asked him to___Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_yes ____Avoid overnight separation.

__yes but I don't push it___Allow technical accountability.

___yes__ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends

People who know:

My mom and sisters
His mom, dad and sister and her family
our kids and their spouses
our church pastors and board members
the OW sister and some friends

We have been married 25 years have 3 kids and almost 5 grandkids.

I think it is a great policy. I just don't know if my husband will truly abide by it. I'll try though. I told him though that I didn't want to do anything very deep right now because I have horrible PMS. So we are just trying to enjoy each other's company etc until I get my period then we will resume discussions. I get too emotional with PMS.

Originally Posted by BlindSighted2013

I'm sorry for your pain. How long have you been married?

Where did your husband meet his affair partner?

Thanks. He met her at his job when she came in to purchase a car. I don't see any indication of them meeting sooner although when I talked to her she eluded that they did meet sooner.

I do not have the book surviving an affair. right now we barely have enough money to survive. We are living with my mom right now but need to move out but can't find a place that will take us because our credit tanked over the last year. I had a breakdown and lost my job, and asked my husband to leave his. He left his first job which was 90 minutes one way to go to a dealership that was about 30 minutes away but it was also closer to her house. Then I asked him to leave there and he went to another one but that was about 20 minutes from her sisters house where she spent a lot of time. Actually she had a place to stay in every area he worked and would follow him around. Now he is not working but is looking for work while also trying to start a business. But if we can't find a place to live we are moving to Arizona to stay with his mom for a little while while we get on our feet. I will not follow right away because I have a good job. He will first get settled and in the mean time I will try to get a job there and move when either he has one or I get one.

Originally Posted by MrsRMN

__yes and no___The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

Could you explain this?

Originally Posted by MrsRMN

I do not have the book surviving an affair. right now we barely have enough money to survive. We are living with my mom right now but need to move out but can't find a place that will take us because our credit tanked over the last year. I had a breakdown and lost my job, and asked my husband to leave his. He left his first job which was 90 minutes one way to go to a dealership that was about 30 minutes away but it was also closer to her house. Then I asked him to leave there and he went to another one but that was about 20 minutes from her sisters house where she spent a lot of time. Actually she had a place to stay in every area he worked and would follow him around. Now he is not working but is looking for work while also trying to start a business. But if we can't find a place to live we are moving to Arizona to stay with his mom for a little while while we get on our feet. I will not follow right away because I have a good job. He will first get settled and in the mean time I will try to get a job there and move when either he has one or I get one.

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Originally Posted by BrainHurts

Originally Posted by MrsRMN

__yes and no___The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

Could you explain this?

I think he has done some things. He has blocked her on his Facebook since I found out about this but on Valentines day I found out he had a secret account to chat with her. I asked him to delete it and he did. So, just because he says he's not doing something doesn't mean he isn't doing it. He created that account on Jan 6th, 2 months after he said things were completely over and they weren't. It's just that I kept finding his ways he was communicating. Until Valentine's Day he had lied about the type of relationship it was telling me they were ever only just friends and that he wasn't seeing her etc. The secret FB account though proved they were more than just friends because you don't ask your friend why you don't sexually enjoy certain positions when having sex together.

Anyhow, he deleted his email that she knew about and the one that he used to set up the secret FB account. But I don't really know if there are others or not. It takes about a minute to set it up and I stopped checking his stuff because I just grow tired of being the cheating police.

She is blocked on his phone but he found a way to contact her and I made him change his number like 3 times. It's weird and maybe someone knows how this works. He gets incoming text messages that show up on our bill but there are no outgoing text messages. He has Skype to message me at work if he needs to contact me - we use it at my job, But whenever I look at that I am the only contact.

I'll answer more later. I have to go right now.

all is good DH just wants to take me out!!

All avenues that he used to facilitate the affair must be closed.

He needs to not have Facebook at all and a dumb phone or no phone at all.

What spyware do you have on his devices? He is very used to having a SSL (secret second life) and so you must keep spyware on all his devices. His affair was long and entrenched and he kept contacting her.

Has he provided just compensation to you?

Have you both been tested for STDs?

Did you expose to her parents?

Facebook is going to be an affair trigger which reminds him of her so it should be deleted entirely. A dumb phone sounds like a good idea.

I think he is motivated to do whatever you can enforce, but his addiction will fill any wiggle room you allow.

However if he is skypeing you, he could just as easily Skype or email her using other accounts.

It may be an idea to use a polygraph to discover if there are any other avenues of contact and let him know he will need to sit polygraphs in the future and the only way he will pass them is to abide by no contact. If he fails one, it's separation.

Some people get the work log in details and log in remotely.

Do you have any spyware installed on him? GPS on the car, VARs etc?

If you are snooping and things are coming up clean, he isn't stopping places to talk to her on a burner phone for example, then you will feel so reassured that snooping will become boring.

Originally Posted by MrsRMN

__yes but I don't push it___Allow technical accountability.
]

There should be no need to push it. He should be falling over himself to provide you with transparency. He should know anything less, after what he's put you through is a deal breaker.

I get the impression that you view your very natural wariness as some sort of problem to 'get over'. However your gut has been right every time.

You will feel just fine when everything is affair proofed and your spying showing you proof of that.