Knowing about contact misses the point entirely. Having the ability to reach her means the risk of affair resumption always exists. Your knowing does not negate the damage that is done by the triggers his contact will cause. If you know he called, then so what? That does not stop her from contacting him another way when her feelings are triggered. And it doesn't stop him from using another phone to contact her.

As long as he has her phone #, he is free to contact her and affair resumption will be high risk. Why take that risk?

You are making strategic mistakes all along the way, I am sorry to say.

BIG MISTAKE.

All it will take is one phone call, and every bit of progress you have made will be trashed. Affairs have resumed because of such simple contact ... it's happened again and again.

Your wife is like a drug addict, and the OM is her drug of choice. She may have every desire in the world to get away from him, but she still will not be able to resist him if he contacts her. And the temptation to contact him will be too great for her.

You are playing with fire.

I'm sorry to say that you are not going to make it unless you start taking these steps seriously:

I promise you, Marv, you are talking way too much and listening way too little. It sounds like you want to quickly sweep this under the rug and get back to business as usual for your marriage.

THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.

Nothing less than a complete change in outlook and lifestyle will fix this.

The life you led before led your marriage to this disaster, and unless you become much, MUCH more educated than you are now about how to have a good marriage you are going to be right back here within a week with more wounds more hurt and more disaster.

Please, PLEASE start listening to Dr. Harley's radio show - it's like a class and you will learn what you need to know. Get the book Surviving an Affair and actually read it.

You have a long way to go before you are out of the woods. You are not "in a good place." You are whistling in the dark (and you are in the middle of the street about to get mowed down by a truck).

And what is being done about her traveling job? I hate to say it, but it seems you are going to have to go through the School of Hard Knocks because of the mistakes you are making. You have a small window of opportunity to turn this around and seem hell bent on forfeiting all of your opportunities. Most people are not that fortunate. They don't even HAVE opportunities to forfeit. YOU DO.

I would implore you to put aside your own foggy inexperience and follow a program that does work. Your plan will not work, I assure you. You are playing chicken with your own marriage........FOR NO GOOD REASON.

While that SOUNDS nice, the reality is that what you are experiencing is the "honeymoon" phase of feeling relief and happiness that you two have decided ot stick it out....

My ex H proudly exclaimed to everyone who would listen after we decided to recover and were doing a GREAT job of meeting each other's ENs: I am more in love with Susie than ever before!! That didn't stop him from having another affair a couple years down the line. Because appropriate EPs had not been implemented.

Once the honeymoon wears off, the reality remains that you have not changed the conditions that led to your WW's affair, you have not properly exposed it and you are focused on distractions that will not lead you through to recovery.

We know because we have seen this time and again. The plan is all here for you to follow and really recover your M, but the path is narrow. Cherry picking does NOT work when it comes to recovery after an A.

I agree, he's not going to make it....

Another one to add to the list who think they know better and can deviate from the plan.

Sigh.

EXACTLY!!

Do you ever Plan on following the MB plan to kill her affair?

You might want to read this thread.
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2219392

A few things that helped me:

1. The book Surviving an Affair. Checklist extremely beneficial.
2. Listening to Marriage Builders Radio.
3. The insights from the volunteers on Marriage Builders Forum

My wayward wife promised she wasn't trying to contact the other guy. Once I exposed the infidelity I found out she had continued pursuing him. Yesterday Dr Harley compared the fog experienced by wayward spouses to a Heroine addict. I experienced it first hand. It is so true.

Good luck.

There is a narrow path to recovery.

Just an update. I have read through what everyone has said. Honestly, the nay-saying hurts my personal recovery more than it helps, but oh well, people will always have an opinion/belief on what the best option is, thus this website does have a central core belief to it. Nothing wrong with that. And there is certainly nothing wrong with the methods as I'm sure it has helped out numerous amounts of people. I've discovered the methods overall are not for me on a personal level. But I do enjoy getting things off my chest and at least processing my thoughts whether people agree or don't agree.

We are on the path to recovery and we are blazing our own path. We've used numerous re-sources to finalize our path. We call it the "Path to Recovery and Prosperity." We don't simply want to recover, we want to thrive.

All money, all phone records, all e-mails are all accounted for both sides. No contact has been made or will be made. This is due to her already breaking it off with him before I discovered the affair (I saw the e-mail and the date). And also after the fact it came to light that he has physically abused his wife in the past. Though not surprising as an affair is a form of emotional abuse imo. He has had over a dozen affairs according to his wife. It also came to light from the wife via a PI that he was also seeing another woman during the same week my wife met with him. He literally would see other woman during the morning/day, and my wife at night at the hotel, while telling my wife he was going to work. That's a day time talk show level mind bend. Funny how the world turns.

She has faced her actions head on with humility and realizes what a dangerous environment it really was with a violent person and what might have happened if she said "No" while she was there.

Some of her family knows what is going on now and they have been encouraging. We've shown a unified front on all sides, which is helping greatly. We do have our reasons for exposing together, which run much deeper on a psychological level for what we have experienced with each other for 10 years that simple typed sentences won't convey. But we know it's the right choice and so far it has made every day better and better.

My spouse has also initiated getting numerous e-books, audio books, etc on how to deal with the aftermath of infidelity. We listen to them on a daily basis together, take notes, and discuss afterwards.

We have also used the emotional needs questionnaire. We fill it out again each week with simple adjustments after taking notes all week long on how we feel. Each night we tell each other what we loved about the day or what could be better. Thus we formulate a plan that night and put it into action the very next day.

We have scheduled literally 40 hours per week of alone time together and we follow that to the T. We have times scheduled out, as she wanted full days accounted for in a complete fashion.

We also have a list of triggers for both of us to avoid. This has helped immensely.

In the end, I would venture to say our hands on recovery is probably more in depth than majority of recoveries are. Is it perfect? No. Will it work? That remains to be seen. I have yet to find any process that is 100% guaranteed to work.

I do want to thank everyone for their thoughts, comments, suggestions. Know that I do read them, I do think about them, good or bad, and it does actively help shape my decisions. I will continue to update bi-weekly on here as long as I feel the need to.

Has your wife given up travelling for work?

Marv, the purpose of this forum is to help posters learn and implement Marriage Builders steps. Since you have decided not to use this program, we will be locking this thread. If you change your mind and decide to use the program, let me know and I will unlock this thread so you can receive assistance. We wish you the best.