Hello there :-)
I'm Peter, the betrayed husband.
I�m 36, she�s 34, married for 13 years, with children aged 6 and 3, we are living in Italy.
I'd like some opinion on these topics:
- What kind of her effort I should ask before knowing she's really committed to reconciliation?
- In the meantime should I try to rebuild my own life (also dating) trying to override the sentiment of remorse?


The story
06/2011 I start feeling my emotional need where not matched, and I asked more of her time for the family and for me. We were together way less than 15 hours per week, let alone the hours of undivided attention. My request were ignored, she continued working in optional non paid overdue work, to maximizing her career opportunity. I continued to complain. I also started feeling alone in my need and I proportionally stopped to fulfill some of other emotional need (mainly affection).
12/2011 She started an affair with a colleague. They work in a hospital, night shifts and monthly abroad conventions together. Whoaaa what a dream life :-)
7/2012 Discovery day
8/2012 I made my offering of forgiveness, and talked about a mutual plan to rebuild our marriage. Now I know I was silly to think her remorse should be enough to let her end the affair.
9/2012 She confessed the affair was still going on. Started therapy, both us individually, and also couple therapy. The couple therapist approved my need to move out. We ended the couple therapy. Exposure to families.
10/2012 I moved out and I stopped to fulfill all the other emotional need she continued to ask me. I dated briefly another woman. I then fall in depression for months.
02/2013 Not any sign of reconciliation. She stated the relationship with the other man was going well.
03/2013 Depression almost ended: I recovered a good control in my life, I ended my individual therapy, I started dating again and let her know about dating.
Since then she periodically try to talk about reconciliation, she asked me to stop seeing my female friends, which I did. She never followed entirely: I always asked her to think about the kind of life that would prevent our disaffection. But she always returns on how I should be different, without offering any meaningful compensation. She lied repeatedly about the end of the contacts with the other man.
The other man is already divorced, for cheating with another colleague, has children.
For the 4th time she says she ended contacts with the other man. And this time (as always) I feel she could be telling the truth. BUT I still feel her huge ambivalence and I'm pushing the paper for filing the separation. In Italy you need three years of separation before ruling a divorce.
Anyway today it seems I can't enjoy my life outside of the primary family, feeling always a sentiment of remorse, even in the best time I can get.
I'm not a liar and when she asks about my details I speak the truth. But she proved not able to handle the truth, and the news about me rebuilding a life put her in sabotage mode, lied about the end of contacts with the other man, just to let me stop see other woman. She never offered any contribution the reconciliation. Every time I understand she lied I suffered a lot. I just feel to be manipulated to satisfy her possessiveness. I ended my female friendships, but this was enough to move her out of her ambivalence.
Should I continue going out with my female friends? Some of them would like to go further in knowing each other, but as I said, I don't like to lie, and if I had a real change to rebuild my family and my marriage, I'd grab it without looking back. Howbeit friendship's opportunities flow easily.

The kids: we consulted with professionals, read books, and we are quite good collaborating for the kids. We decided not exposed the children to the cheating concept. I see them weekly. They spend the nights in my new apartment. But I see their fatigue growing day after day. I really feel we are letting them down. They don�t understand. They never saw us fighting. They want both of us with them. They were perfect, lovable and loving. Now they are insecure, slightly regressing. Kids� thoughts make me cry always, even now. But I can�t give them a father so lame to live with a cheating wife.

Again my doubts are:
- What kind of her effort I should require before knowing she's really committed to reconciliation?
- In the meantime should I try to rebuild my own life (also dating) trying to override the sentiment of remorse?

Thank you very much for the participation in this wonderful forum.
And thank you to anybody who read all my long post.

Best Regards

Peter

Do not date.
You are not an available man.

Are you and WW American expats?

We are both Italian.
She sees her friend every day.
Why I can't see my friends sometimes? :-)
She doesn't seem to progress toward anything.
She is ambivalent as always. I risk to wait for her my entire life.

Do what you want. This is Marriage Builders.

Peter,

Dr Harley, the founder of MB and expert on recovering marriages after infidelity compares a cheating spouse to a drug addict or a drunk. This means that right now your WW is addicted to the thrill and rush of the A and is in a fog/fantasy world where she gets to have both of you. Your first step should be to do everything in your power to destroy this affair, including exposing the A to everyone who has an influence on your WW and the OM including their work management, colleagues, his friends and family and her friends and family. There are examples of the exposure letters on the site.

You have to be the sane non addict in this equation because your kids deserve better than both their parents off selfishly dating people they are not married to. You are STILL married and until the divorce is over you should not have any dates or relationships with other women because that makes you just as bad and foggy as your WW. It is not fair on your kids and it is not fair on the people you date.

There are far easier more moral things you could do to brake up the A and fight for your marriage like plan A where you show your wife what she would get if she was to give up the A by basically meeting all her emotional needs and showing her a path home. Or Plan B, where you cut all contact with your WW in order to show her what life without you would really be like giving you the space to recover from the injury she caused you by having this A. Both plans are on this site and neither plan involves dating while still married.

The choice is yours either fight with all your might to recover your marriage or give up and call it quits. It's time for you to commit to one of those choices. Having no plan is going to cause more pain and suffering for your children and they are already going though enough.

Trust me I'm half Italian and grew up in Rome and have a father who was married that had an A with my mother and I was the result, there has been nothing but pain and misery caused by my father who all he does is sleep around and destroys families. He has several kids all over the world and has nothing to do with any of them as he's too busy thinking with his nether regions to care about anything else.

Thank you. I appreciate your point of view. Maybe I was hoping for a little more comprehension, since the name of the forum is �surviving an affair�, and I�m emerging in these weeks from a deep depression.
Anyway, I understand your suggested rules, which I was reading since August. And I applied them with all the strength I was able to use. Exposition, Plan A, Plan B, moving out. Nothing changed her mind in six months. And I thought that entitled me to try dating.
The only thing that moved her was knowing I was having other women. But her ambivalence remained.
In your opinion how long should I had to wait before dating?
You know the loneliness and the low self-esteem that come from infidelity. And you know that successfully dating can be consolatory. I never lie, to anyone. But I agree with you that I need to be legally separated before dating again. I�m fixing that detail in few days. But I don�t think that a piece of paper will help me with my remorse.
The other question remains:
What kind of her effort I should require before knowing she's really committed to reconciliation?
She says not spending nights out implies she has to renounce to her career. This is a fair compensation for my pain. Should I wait until she hypothetically changes her job? And until then I should continue with the silence therapy of plan B?
Three days ago she asked me to help creating momentum in the reconciliation. Today she worked in the same team with the other man, didn�t returned my call and texted she was busy working. She is never involved in emergency procedure. Is she crazy, still putting her job need before my emotional need?
We talked about in on the phone few minutes ago. I told her that as reconciliation test she performed way too [censored] for the reason mentioned above.
I exited my depression only when I was able to commit myself to rebuild my life, and cut her out of my thoughts.
Thinking about her, or about reconciliation and more than anything her words about reconciliation at first trigger my depression, an unemotional lethargic state where I don�t bother to do anything. Usually in this state I try to measure the sustainability of their claim, finding very few actions to back her statement. I get hurt and I go back committing myself to rebuild my life, cutting her out. When I feel stronger, my perception return to feel the good part of her fluctuation and the circle restarts.

Peter, I would try using Marriage Builders concepts. So far you have not. For example, moving out was a major mistake. You can't very well save a marriage if you are not there. If your car is broken down, do you go in the garage to fix it or do you go to Cleveland?

The second glaring problem is that she works with the OM. What does MB say about that? And what does MB say about men going into Plan B? You say you have been reading here and following this program but I see no sign of it.

Also, dating while married is called ADULTERY. You should not date until you are not married.

Peter, the reason she doesn't progress towards anything is because there is no goal here. If you set a goal, gave her conditions for return, then you would have something to reach for. If she won't do those things, then you should just divorce her because this is hopeless.

What you should demand is this:

1. She leaves her job and ends all contact for life with the OM

2. She finds a job where she won't be working wild hours and won't be tempted to have an affair

3. She gives you complete access to all of her phones, email accounts, computers,etc. she should lead a completely transparent lifestyle

4. Restore the romantic love to your marriage by following the MB program

If she won't do these things, this is hopeless and you should just get divorced. Because this is what it will take to recover your marriage. Just reconciling without a plan will be a plan to fail.

We know lots of people date when separated from their spouses but that is not the marriagebuilders way.

Here, you feel the lone-ness and loneliness of being separated to ultimately build your own soul into a stronger, more amazing thing.

While a wayward does not cooperate to rebuild the marriage, you rebuild yourself without romantic entanglements with any other person.

You do that until you don't need another person to be a full person. Until you can be more selective about future mates and/or you reconcile with your wayward spouse IF they ever step up to the plate and show you by actions that they mean business to rebuild.

(by the way......everyone is sexual and loves romance so you are not unique in that regard)

This is not a pick and choose program. You're either all in or you're out.

Follow the guidelines or your marriage will whither away.

Ok I agree my dating was a mistake.

Peter
I am confident you have not followed the program accurately if at all and here are some simple check lists,

Exposure wise

Who did you expose to and how?
Did you expose to their employer?
Did you expose to the OM friends and family and colleagues?

PLan A wise

You can't plan A well if you have moved out
Men should plan A for 6 months yet you are 6 months from discovery and have mentioned trying plan B etc.
What type of things did you do in plan A?
Do you know what your wife's top emotional needs are and how did you try to meet those?

Plan B wise

Did you give your wife a plan B letter?
Did you have an intermediary in place?
Did you go total radio silence on her meaning did not talk to her or see her and had ZERO contact?
Did you give her a list of requirements she had to do before you considered talking or reconciling?
What were those requirements?
You are clearly talking to her now so plan B if there ever was one is over. You should not talk or see your WW until she complies with your requirements for reconciliation including after divorcing. Plan B is for LIFE.

So you see you really have not followed any plan and it is very obvious that right now there is no hope for your marriage. The way to brake your wife's addiction is not to go out and find yourself a drug as well, do you see how that sounds really silly when you put it in real comparison terms?

Thank you Pepperband, MelodyLane, reading, Justthe3ofus and NB28. Some replies:

Exposure wise

Who did you expose to and how? Both of our families and friends.
Did you expose to their employer? No
Did you expose to the OM friends and family and colleagues? No

PLan A wise

You can't plan A well if you have moved out. The couple therapist suggested that I moved out of the house, due to my dangerous anger bursts.
Men should plan A for 6 months yet you are 6 months from discovery and have mentioned trying plan B etc.
What type of things did you do in plan A?
I tried a plan A from July to September. She really needed affection, and I started meet it again. Plus I offered my forgiveness I acted really calm and comprehensive from the beginning and for the first 40 days after the DDay. But when I discovered she continued cheating, well, I changed, uncontrollably. I needed to separate physically from her.

Do you know what your wife's top emotional needs are and how did you try to meet those? I always provided a lot of emotional needs, and always asked about her feelings and needs. At a point I know started blocking affection, which I restored in my try of a Plan A.
She'd also need validation about her intellect, but it was really hard spending so little time together, in every project we shared her effort was so small the results were not so outstanding. And this leads me to express some Disrespectful Judgments.

Plan B wise

Did you give your wife a plan B letter? yes
Did you have an intermediary in place? I hadn't the gut use intermediary for discussing about my children. The policy started as a text only, and only about the children. After a while also phone was condoned.
Did you go total radio silence on her meaning did not talk to her or see her and had ZERO contact? I was able to do for only two months.
Did you give her a list of requirements she had to do before you considered talking or reconciling? The initial requirement was too mild: let's talk about a life style that could be make the both of us happy.
What were those requirements? I realized the real requirement yesterday: change your job/career. No more nights out. This is a real pity because she earned a good job position that very few women have in Italy, and I was really proud of her. But this position required a lot of nights out. And really too much overtime. I had similar position for myself, years before, I had temptations, but I was able to change my conduit in a natural way in order to avoid pitfalls. All that occurred naturally, without affairs or without her jealousy. She started working only few years ago, and when I saw her a little distracted she reminded of myself. I was sure she would understand by herself what a silly game could be flirting at work. Big mistake :-) I really trusted. I think she the only person I completely trusted in my whole life.
I tell you one thing: I can't image myself checking the phone calls, or email of anyone. Let alone my spouse. This one of the many marriagebuilder dogmas that I can't accept easily. Maybe the whole concept of limiting the freedom of another person looks insane to my point of view.
You are clearly talking to her now so plan B if there ever was one is over. You should not talk or see your WW until she complies with your requirements for reconciliation including after divorcing. Plan B is for LIFE.
I can agree. I think I will talk to her again in these days and than I'll try to come to back to not talk to her. But from my point of view with so young children involved this is crazy.

So you see you really have not followed any plan and it is very obvious that right now there is no hope for your marriage.
Please take into account my anger bursts.
The way to brake your wife's addiction is not to go out and find yourself a drug as well, do you see how that sounds really silly when you put it in real comparison terms?
I agree. But when I started dating I was 100% sure she was happy with the other man, I was just trying to asses my strenght. Anyway I agree.

Peter,

I know you have tried to make things better but consider that many people here HAVE followed the plan to the letter and have successfully recovered their marriages or had a personal recovery. There are a lot of BH on here right now and many of them are fighting the good fight and most of them are getting the results.

I am a BW and have been recovered for 2 years even though the A happened 5 years ago, I spent 3 LONG years doing a tailored plan and it didn't work. This plan is accross the board no exceptions or alterations. The road to recovery is a narrow one any deviations will lead to failure, frustration and disappointment.

Get yourself in the right mind frame, fight for your family or quit, you can't be somewhere in the middle because that does not work.

First step is to EXPOSE the hell out of this A. Especially work managment, the OM friends and family and colleagues. Do it without giving her the heads up and using the templates on here. There is no reason that you have not done this already. Is the OM married? Does he have kids?? If yes to either of those immediately expose him to his BS or girlfriend.

Second protect your children, contact a lawyer and see what you can do about ensuring that the OM is NEVER around your children,

Get yourself the help you need including anger managment course and antidepressants if needed.

You have no where near plan A ed enough. You need to plan A for longer before you go into plan B. the better you plan A the more effective plan B.

Please remember that your WW thinks she is happy with the OM but she is far from it, the reality is that a man who makes a move on a married woman does not respect her and sees her as easy, he will loose respect for her (especially as he's Italian as well) and eventually this fantasy bubble will burst leaving nothing but pain and misery and a broken family in its path.

Are you ready to do this?

I need to add some details.
She says she not in love anymore with the other man, but they will travel together one week (starting tuesday) and another week in June.
My heart and my mind seem to explode: how on earth she could say she is interested in a reconciliation and avoid to take into account the suffering I have from their travels together.
Is she so dumb? Or so insensitive? Are those Disrespectful Judgments?

reposting.

Ok,
I really have to thank you.
You are helping a lot.
A question about exposure: she said the relation is over.
It might be. I don't have evidence of the contrary.
NOW I think I should expose the affair more, following the DDay.
But should I complete the exposure within the working environment now?
For the MelodyLane repost: I 100% agree.

How long do you think I should wait for an answer before getting divorced?

I would wait about 10 minutes. And I would expose the affair at work. It is still active.