Unfortunately I have been lurking here for about a month. My anniversary (August 19) had been a day without much talking or any affection. I gave her her present and she said that's nice. Later when she went to bed I followed her and told her it was apparent that we had a problem did she want to talk about it, she thought for a minute and said no she thought she wanted a divorce. I tried, probably to hard, to talk her out of it for the next month. In that time I did a lot of self evaluation and honestly realize how I have treated her. I have ignored many of her needs and taken advantage of her for most of our 9 year marriage. This only got worse when our son was born, he is now 3. She assured me at the time that it was because of me and how she felt but there was not anyone else, however there was a relationship that she would probably pursue in the future. She moved out the end of September and into her own apartment. We rotate my son between us where we each have him for 3 nights. The comment on having a relationship that she was going to pursue sent a red flag up with me so on one of the days that I had my son I dropped him off at the sitters and headed to work like normal but drove past her house to see his car in the driveway. When I contacted her to see if she was now ready to talk to me honestly she said I guess you drove by this morning. I said yes will you answer some questions and she didn't want to. I called again later and pointed out that I could just have the plates run to find out who so we talked for a while then.
She has obviously been having an E/A for a while and I assume was in a hurry to move out so that she could turn it P/A with more of a clear conscience. She tells me that this is not rushing things, she has just had more time to get over us since she was thinking about it for 3 or 4 months before I found out.
I really believe that she think she is being honest with herself and everything she is saying is real. I am trying to prepare myself for that to be the case, I just don't want that to be the case. Before she moved out I asked her one night if she could tell that I realized how I had been and I wanted to change and was changing. I was told "did I ever ask you to change, there is just nothing left". I asked her if she thought that a 9 year marriage, 15 year relationship and a 3 year old son might be worth a little more trying all she could say was "I've tried for years" and the sad thing is that she is right, I was the bulk of the problem. Now I am left wondering if this is fog, or for real
The only bright point is that I have convinced myself that I am going to come out of this a better person regardless of if I can get her back or not.
Thanks to everone for the support that just being able to read hear and realize that I am not alone has been. I have to rush off and spend a few minutes with my boy before she leaves town with him for the weekend. I will check back here later.

too late,

It is probably not too late at all, there are lots of opportunities I see in your situation.

First off, I would run out this weekend and buy Surviving an Affair and His Needs/Her Needs by Willard Harley and read them. If you can't find them, order them off this website. They have fast, cheap shipping and you will get them quick.

Secondly, I would start Plan A right away. Plan A is a program of attraction designed to attract your wife back into the marriage by meeting her needs and avoiding lovebusters. She won't let you meet most of her needs now, but you have to look for any opportunity to do nice things for her.

It would help if you could understand what needs the OM meets and try to meet them. What do you think happened in your marriage that led to this? What was your marriage like?

I suspect that your W left because of the affair and that it was in play some time before she left. Even though she has moved out she is still married and is completely WRONG in having an affair.

And lastly and most important is exposure. I would find out who the OM is and see if he is married. If so, you would need to expose to his W. In the meantime, you should expose this affair to her family, your family and friends. Exposure puts great pressure on the affair and often hastens its end. It puts the affairees in a position to justify their actions - they quickly see how ridiculous they sound trying to justify the unjustifiable. Having to go through that takes away all the fun and fantasy of the affair.

Anyway, that is a starting plan of action that will get you on the right path. There are no guarantees, of course, but this should give you a fighting chance.

Another thing, who is paying her bills?

I probably do need to buy the book. I have read and re-read everything that I can off of this site and any other place that I could find. As you said, meeting her needs is near impossible at this point as she does not want to be around me. The closest I can come to a bright point is an occasional smile when we exchange the boy and I am playing with him. The primary need that I believe was going unfulfilled would be attention, we had both been busy with work, a high energy child and a competive hobby on the side. What the correct priorities should be got messed up and stayed that way for to long. I know who the O/M is and have not been shy about telling people, but I can only push that so far as they work for the same company and she could lose her job for seeing him this taking away her ability to provide for the boy if I can't get her back. She did agree to go to a couple of M/C sessions with me, I think that her mother talked/guilted her into it, but after defending me to the counselor and saying I was not as bad as I made myself out to be she managed to convince the counselor at the end of the first session that there was no hope. The counselor just said "well, I'm sorry I couldn't help you two, would either of you be interested in I/C? I declined as I was not overly impressed with her work up to that point. Since I have been to a different C to help with working on my self.
Paying her bills is not much of an issue as she works, doesn't make much less than I do, and was able to pick out her apartment and set up to fit her budget, not to mention that I am paying support just as if it was a final deal now. In addition to emotionally neglecting my wife, I had done the same to the boy, he is giving me another chance (you've gotta love kids) and I intend to make the most of it and see to it that he is taken care of. It is just so sad when we pull into the drive and he say's "daddy, I didn't want mommy to move".
Thank you for the input

Well I just ordered the books, now I just wish that they were here.
I need something to stay busy. I just keep a replay of different things that she has told me going through my mind. The one that makes me the most confused and concerned is when she told me that with what I have learned and if I am serious about changing whether she is around or not (she says that she believes me that I am) that she feels I will be able to make somebody really happy. She even says that she is somewhat bitter over the fact that she was with me for all the bad if I am going to change now and somebody else gets the good part (I suggested that maybe she should stick around for the good part). I later found out that she gave her mother the same speach except that when she said I would make someone happy she added that it wouldn't be her.
I never thought I would find a situation that could make me miss going to work of a morning. I am quickly learning to dislike the weekend.

tl:

Exposing at her workplace, since they work 2gether, is a GOOD idea. It will anger her, and one of them may lose their job, but that is one of the consequences of making bad, selfish, destructive choices like having an A.

Make sure that when you expose, you do so without anger. No lovebusting. Penny Tupy has a sample exposure letter on her discussion forum at:

http://saveyourmarriagecentral.info...44008616&f=303002716&m=238106042

Check it out.

Your si2ation is pretty normal for these things. There is plenty of reason for hope for a better marriage as you work through the plans outlined in SAA.

best,
-ol' 2long

tolateand lost,

I once come across one MBer that has similiar situation like your and also almost simliar in age and has a son too. He keeps plan A and last month her FWW asked him to move back in. Now they are in recovery <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> . I try to get him here ... his screen name I think is BecomingAMan .

You want your M ? fight for it. Learn about MB as much as you can <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> and have faith. If you can't salvage your M at least you will salvage your sanity and future R.

-rh-

It is good to hear someone say that there is hope, that is not what I have gotten used to hearing lately.
I agree that exposing at her work would be a good idea, unfortunately I can't. I told her at one point I would not do that and although it may cost me on this one, I am one of those people that stand behind what I say I will do. That being one of my redeeming qualities (she even told the M/C in the one session that she went to not to question my sincerity, if I said it I meant it)not to mention I have to be able to live with my actions at the end of the day and hurting her ability to take care of my son would not be good for that.
The best that I can tell from what information I have, E/A probably started in July. She claims that questioning our M started around May. I realize that my emotional neglect of W made her vulnerable for this, but I am amazed by how fast she is moving to end the M. I probably never would of expected A if she would have at least pretended to be willing to try to reconcile.
Sorry for the long post, but after 15 yrs most of my friends are mutual friends of W and although they are willing to listen to me, you can tell they are very uncomfortable with it.

Things are still in the gutter as WW says she still sees no hope for us and has no love for me. I received my SAA and His Needs Her Needs books in the mail today so it is time to start reading.
I have already gone against what I probably should have done in that I have e-mailed her many articles on D and EA. While WW told me tonight she still doesn't believe that this is the cause of her having no love for me she did e-mail me today to tell me that she was reading everything that I sent her and just wasn't sure how to respond. She also told me tonight that she does see how the R she is in now started as an EA, this is the first time that she has admitted to it being an A of any type. I have thought all along that the reason she was in a hurry to get out was to turn it into a PA as she had rationalized to herself that if she was out and said we were through it was ok. I have tried to get her to go to IC, told her with a sleepover boyfriend anytime that she didn't have the boy this soon after leaving I felt that she had to have some issues and even if it didn't help us I thought that it would be good for her. She hasn't even had an open honest conversation about all of this with her friends that helped her to move out of the house, the ones that know that she has a boyfriend I told. I mentioned that my insurance and another program through work would cover the C and she said that she was going to talk to someone.
While WW isn't saying anything I want to hear, it appears to me that she may be starting to see a little bit. I'm hoping that just admitting it is an A will lead her to see that she is going against her own morals and convictions.

It sounds good that she is willing to read some things about infidelity. Stay in Plan A, and get on with your life. You may be surprised at what happens.

I understand that time doesn't stop, but how do you get on with life when you are trying to bring your marriage back together. I have seen a therapist a couple of times, started going to church and turned my spiritual life around and been to the Dr. and started AD's. I have replaced some of the items that my house no longer had in it and spend all of the time that I can with my son and try to make it quality time. However to get on with your life is more like planning for the future and I have no idea what the future holds. While waiting on my WW return or the end of the mandatory waiting period and D papers to be served it feels as if my life is just on hold. To make matters worse from that standpoint the seasonal hobby that occupied so much of my time and helped to leave WW needs neglected ended for the year the week that she moved out. I have spent most of my free time reading up on A and M restoration, M improvement. At this point I just focus on the fact that even if I can't bring her back I will come out of this disaster a better person than I was when it started. That is even a strange outlook for me, I have always been the eternal pessimist.