Also, if you had fond feelings for him once, you can again. We had another poster, Suzette, who tried working with her OM for years. She said all the same things you did. And she had multiple "relapses." The affair was on again, off again for years.

That is exactly what happens to a recovering alcoholic who hangs out in bars. The sting of the last drunk eventually wears off and he drinks again. It is just the same with affairs.

Good point - I feel sick mainly because I don't want to have to tell my H that I had to interact with my coworker and I also don't want to be reminded of my past bad decisions. I meant I don't have any good feelings towards him. And maybe you are right that even I cannot recover because when I do see him, I am reminded about the past and I am not moving on myself.

Trust me that we are right about this. Dr. Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders, says this and he has been saving marriages from infidelity for 45 years. He says recovery is "impossible" unless all contact ends. IMPOSSIBLE. I have been on this board for 14 years and I have NEVER seen a marriage recover if there was still contact. I have seen many divorces and resumed affairs when this advice was ignored.

This is not a matter of opinion, but a matter of FACT. Dr Harley discusses it with this caller to his radio show: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=652

Oh, and changing the name of the affair to "business contact" never has worked for anyone. NEVER. That is the oldest trick in the book.

I also want to get opinions on my leaving my job - right now we are comfortable with money, if I leave things could shift in that regard. Will he resent me for this even more, if I don't find a new job ASAP?

I have been looking for 10 months and have not gotten an interview yet. I think we would be ok for a while with only one income but because the affair caused a bunch of problems, now will I be adding additional problems to the marriage and make it even worse?

Here is the only opinion you will get from this site - if anyone tells you otherwise, they are giving you bad advice:

here

STEP ONE is no contact for life. You can't ever go to step two until that happens. You have not even entered recovery. Your marriage is a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.



You are adding DIVORCE to the probable outcome. The longer you stay there, the more crippled your marriage becomes and the less likely recovery will be.

If you are here to opinion shop for ways to circumvent Dr. Harley's program, you will be disappointed because the purpose of this forum is to help people follow his tried and true concepts. NOT to look for ways to ignore them.

You ignore this advice at your own peril..

There ain't no "maybe" about it. We are not just giving our own opinions here. Dr. Harley has actually successfully counseled couples who have recovered their marriage and knows what works and what does not.

100% of people on this forum who do not follow Dr. Harley's plan do not recover. That's going back for years, now.

You need to talk to our husband about the lifestyle changes you will need to make in order to rebuild your marriage.

The most important thing is to leave your job, but I suspect that you might need to move house, also, to avoid any possibility of running into your affair partner. If you both live within travelling distance of your jobs, then surely it is possible for you to run in to each other in the neighbourhood, or shops.

If this is the case, you and your H need to make plans so that you can buy a new house, far away from the current one, without relying on your income, which it might take a long time for you to replace. Indeed, since you had a workplace affair, your not working for a while would be good for your marriage, and your boundaries.

If you do not live close enough to risk running into him, it would still be good for your marriage to have a fresh start, and to stop relying on your income.

So, you need to tell your husband that leaving the job is not negotiable and must happen right away. Tell him how unhappy you are at having to meet your AP under any circumstances (limited, infrequent, not talking; the circumstances do not matter because they are painful). Tell him that you are no longer willing to put your marriage at risk by seeing this man, ever again. Tell him that you want to make a fresh start in a new area, and you want to explore ways of moving to a new home where you will not have to rely on your income to survive.

I'm asking you to focus on protecting your husband, because I know how he feels, whether he admits his feelings to you, or not.

My H continued a 5 year EA, using the workplace phone, with no meetings in person, for 5 years after his 3.5 year PA ended. Eventually, when I discovered this, he had to retire in order for me to know that workplace contact was no longer possible. He took a big drop in income, but we adjusted and are comfortable. We did not have to move house, as his AP lived in another country, but I would have moved house and faced unemployment rather than go through another day knowing that workplace contact was taking place, and he was lying to me about this. Recovery was just not possible while I lived with doubt, suspicion and uncertainty.

You are not lying to your H as my H was to me, but your H does not know that for sure. And worse; he does not know when one of those carefully controlled meetings will turn into a re-ignition of the affair. He must go through each day, and try to sleep each night, knowing that you had strong feelings for that man, and that you spend your days at work wondering whether you will see him (even though you don't want to see him)and recovering from having seen him at a meeting.

That is no way to recover. Your husband cannot recover like that, and so your marriage is doomed, even if you stick to your agreement about meetings and emails.

If your marriage is more important than your standard of living, give up the job. If you won't give it up, you are making a very clear statement about your priorities.