Almost three months ago my wife moved out of our house (13+ years with normal unresolved marriage stuff) and admitted that she was having an affair with another married man (1 year)a good friend of hers husband. She betrayed me and her very good friend. At this point She has demonstrated little in the way of remorse or acknowledgement. But she's also not blamming. In fact not much of anything is said. She initialy told me that it was just to stressfull to talk about and that I should move one.

I agreed not to add stress to her life and I would not call her which was a month ago. But if she wanted to call me I would not make things difficult for her. A safe haven. To my surprise she called weekly and we got together from time to time. I used that time to add to the love bank and tried to offer her posative mirroring. I was about to take the next step and explain to her all the mistakes I made and apologize to her for my actions. My olive branch. I was hoping that she would see that changes could be for the better. At the very least I hoped we would decide how our marriage would end not simply her decission.

However before I could offer my olive branch I discovered that her affair partner is attempting (who really knows) to break off thier relationship. He's telling his wife,family and friends. Seems his family and friends didn't respond to his moral choice the way he expected. He's also losing a better lifestyle in every sense. He's finding that all he has now is himself and my wife. The world of 2. Of course he has all the other issues - guilt, shame, self loathing etc.

My question is this.

I've begun to make the changes in me (getting ride of all the negative and the taker)to improve our relationship (adding love units when I can).

Now that she's losing her affair partner (his choice) how long will it take or what signs may I see that my efforts would be welcomed and not wasted?

She's very confussed and I suspect incredible depressed. She told me that she has no idea what lies ahead for us and my waiting around is adding to her stress. The fist sign her Giver has shown up. The thing is I'm not ready to date and I know given her situation she's not thinking clearly at this point. I responded again by saying I've added none of the current stress to her life. That if she really thought that I was causing her stess then she shouldn't call me. But I know it won't happen, she will call.

I have a second question. Is she reaching out to me by calling given I told her I wouldn't call her and now repeated that again? or is she simply looking for/using my safety zone?

Don't get your hopes up because if the OM were to seek her out again with the purpose of restarting the A(affair), she'd probably jump at the chance in a heartbeat. Why? Her feelings for the OM(other man) are still very strong despite the emotional sucker punch she received when he told he wanted to end his relationship with her and to work on his M(marriage). So guard your feelings well until she expresses an explicit desire to come back to you and work on rebuilding the M.

While I agree with TMCM in the short turn, I think the longer she's NC w/om, the more she will begin to emerge fully from the FOG.

It really shouldn't matter HOW LONG it took, if it saves your M, right? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

The conventional wisdom would probably tell you it could be close to 4-6 months/, if there is absolutely NO CONTACT, and you are doing a superb Plan A and building up the ole' LB$.

Good luck to you both.