My wife has started talking to OM again after he contacted her. She has several female friends that don't share her faith, so this guy shares her faith and understands her. We have been thru Dr. Harleys plan, have done the lessons, do spend at least 15 hours a week in undivided attention.
She has promised me and his wife she will not see him, but "she needs his frienship", since he is such a good friend. This brought back all the pain and damaged the trust that was building back up. It doesn't matter to her, it seems, about what is right or best for our marriage. What she wants is what is important to her.

I did tell her I don't think I can take her doing this for the rest of our marriage and she said that she just can't promise she won't talk to him again.

She is trying to be completly honest with me, she even told me about the email she received and deleted from another of the guys she messed around with before OM. She also said that she would tell me if the OM she is conversing with suggests they meet.

I'm beginning to wonder if this marriage is going to work. I can't tell her anything. She is tired of counselors, so that is out of the question.
Any help here?

BH(me)-50 WW-38 D-20
Married 13 yrs
EAs and PAs from 5/02
1st DDay - 1/6/04
NC letter - 1/11/04
full DDay - 1/12/04
reinstated NC - 2/2/04
IM, phone contact restarted several months ago
(she didn't tell me till 10/31/04)

Capt. Bob:

So OM's wife knows of this "new" /continued contact and is Fine with it??

Or you have NO idea if she knows or Not?

My first action would be to contact OMW and tell her what is going on, for how long, and that YOU are not comfortable with it On ANY level.
She's the best alley you can have in ending any and all contact.

Then send her here....she also needs to establish some Clear and defined boundaries in her M as well.

Sounds like your doing an A+ job of not LBing (when she tells you the truth). So keep that up and perhaps she'll keep being honest.

However, I've seen waaaaaay tooooo many WS only "kind" of be honest (meaning they give you enough to make you "think" you've got the whole story....when in reality you might be getting as little as 25-30%).
Just keep your eyes open and look for ANY inconsistencies in story, time frames ect,..

And sadly, if she's been keeping contact a secret from you for "months" ...this is NOT being honest.

Sorry to hear about this. You are now back to ground zero in "recovery". You can't just pick up where you "left off". God, I am sorry for this to be happening to you.

top rope,

Not only does the wife of the OM know, but he still refuses to stop on her wishes. Both my wife and the OM are the types that you cannot tell them what to do! I was the last to know.
The OM told his wife a few months ago, and my wife told me two weeks ago. She decided against telling me right before our vacation, which I
am glad about, and the trip we took (we have planned for years) was wonderfull.

To make things even more screwed up, my wife and the wife of the OM are talking also via IM. As couples, we were friends, but the friendship was arranged originally to help the OM and my wife spend more time together, even if it was as couples. But they still talk now.

Bob, so your wife "needs" his friendship. Okay, so does that work for you? If not, you have to decide how, if at all, you can still work on your marriage knowing:

1. After ten months of working on your marriage you and it are still not her number one priority.
2. What your wife wants is you and OM and as long as she can have both she has no reason to decide between the two.

Plan A is an attempt to convince the spouse who is having trouble deciding whether or not to end the affair that the M is salvagable, that there really is something worth going back to and that they can go back. Plan A is not about being a doormat. Your wife not only doesn't seem to be not able to decide, she feels entitled not to because she is being "honest" with you. The infamous fog is very thick but it doesn't mean you can't be rational.

I have only my limited experience with my own cake eating H but I think at this point plan A would only enable your W to continue her relationship, presumably at great cost to you. One of the hardest things for me to accept was that in the end there was nothing I could do or say that was going to magically convince my H to stop trying to have it both ways -- an M and an OW! It wasn't until I chose for myself to no longer be involved in the chaos that he began to understand. The most powerful thing I ever said to him, after discovering that he was still in contact with OW after our second Dday, was "This is not working for me. I need to separate from you while I decide what I want to do with the rest of my life."

Now is the time to get real with yourself. Your W puts her needs entirely before yours or what is best for the M. Is this the life you want? She is not actively figuring out what she needs and helping you to meet those needs. She is actively seeking and accepting having her needs met by someone else---NOT just friends. NO way. And even if they were, if that friendship hurts you and your M, then it needs to be forsaken. Period.

I went through this. Many, many times. I even did two Plan B's to end the A and contact. It did not end until I could no longer look myself in the mirror and say I was OK with myself if I allowed my H to treat me that way. I did NOT want a M with three people in it. If my H just would not cut her completely out of his life, then he could not expect to continue to have me in his life as his wife. I told him in no uncertain terms. And after all that we had been through and how many months I had been trying to make the M work, I was absolutely done if this point could not be met. I would never feel safe and truly loved if contact continued. This was for ME and also because I have a young D and I did not want to model that kind of M for her. It was an internal decision I made. My H could see and feel that I truly meant it. Now that NC has been established, our M can really recover.

cb:

If contact resumed several months ago, then the A never really ended.

I would expose some more. Co-workers, extended family members. Get the OMW 2 help on her end.

This guy shares her faith? As an atheist, once a Christian, I still have great respect for SINCERE people of faith, but this guy and your W even are dishonoring their own beliefs with this selfish, thoughtless behavior.

Remember that plan A is 2 negotiate an end 2 the A. Hard 2 do if you keep discovering deceit months after the fact. Be firm with your boundaries, and encourage the OMW 2 be firm with hers. Make it clear that former A-partners can NEVER be friends. It's insulting 2 you and the OMW and it damages their integrity more, the longer it continues.

best,
-ol' 2long

Look at Everhopeful's posts, many of which are recently on Divorced/Divorcing.

For me, the absolute worst day of my life was not D-day, it wasn't the day he broke my arm, it wasn't the day he cracked my skull, it was the day I cried, "I want you to care about me more than Sophia" and his response was, "If it wasn't for the kids, I'd be long gone."

Is your W showing that she cares for you more than OM?

Cherished