FWW stopped affair nine months ago after she was discovered.

She is doing a lot to save marriage and I am grateful. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Initially it was a struggle to reach NC, but this was finally achieved about five months ago. I believe there has been no IM, email, telephone, or any other communication.

However, FWW constantly checks to see if OM is online. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="images/icons/rolleyes.gif" /> Also reads OM's away message several times a day. OM's away message usually says something like this:


1. I still love you and you know I am sincere.

2. I cannot get over you.

3. Wishing things were not this way. I cannot get you out of my mind.

You get the idea. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

She also checks the AOL profile of OM. The profile is basically a love letter to my wife. FWW reads this everyday.

I have practically begged her to stop. I made it clear to her that this is like a dagger thru my heart----------------- it is extremely painful and is a negative force in the marriage.

FWW keeps doing this and says I am insecure. She claims she feels nothing for OM and that she simply has morbid curiosity and likes to see what the next away message is going to be. In the mean time I am very unsettled by this and become a victim of the so-called roller coaster. I am unable to reach a steady state where I fell relaxed and not threatened by this constant obsessive behavior.

In the mean time my FWW blames me and says that I am slowing down the recovery by being such a pain in the rear. She believes that nine months is not a long time and maybe that is why she constantly checks on the OM. However, my concern is that I seem to become very resentful on some days and I know quite well this may lead to a disaster in the recovery process.

I also know it is not an issue of filling her main ENs which are admiration and affection. Those two are filled to the max---------- overflowing! In fact she has asked for less attention.

So what can one do at this point? <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" /> I am running out of options.
<img border="0" title="" alt="[Confused]" src="images/icons/confused.gif" />

<small>[ February 28, 2005, 08:35 AM: Message edited by: I'm-not-a-Loser ]</small>

ONE Word comes to mind here and I am bar far not the MB pro on here...


BOUNDRIES

Get it and set it....You have to set a clear boundry on this..NC does not mean going and loking up OM..

I tok my ww laptop and put it in the dishwasher....LOL I told her I needed to scrub the scum off of it...

And this is a very true story...She posts on here.. ask her....She thinks it's funny now...and we are still just getting over things and living apart.

Rememeber...


BOUNDRIES

Not a loser,


Sorry if this sounds harsh but your wife is not a FWW she is still mentally a WW. And as far as WW's go, the mental WW is the most dangerous and least trustworthy.

You have reason for your insecurity. May I suggest that you step back and force her to take the reins on your recovery.

Best of luck

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Initially it was a struggle to reach NC, but this was finally achieved about five months ago. I believe there has been no IM, email, telephone, or any other communication.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">unfortunately...

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">
FWW constantly checks to see if OM is online. Also reads OM's away message several times a day. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That is contact. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> One-way contact, but contact. Work with the pros here. You will make it! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

INAL,

Have you made an appt.to see a counselor(like Steve or Penny) yet?? It seems to me that you and your WW are still winging it and like I mentioned in my previous e-mails,you cannot do this alone and expect to fully recover.

Saying you are insecure about your feelings,continuing to seek out any and all little romantic notations and such from OM is a sign that this is NOT over.Your WW,by all appearances,may be looking as though she is doing better but behind the scenes(in her mind) things could be very different.She needs to understand that your feelings are very important here as are hers.She cannot discard that her repeatedly checking on the OM's messages affects you.That has to STOP.She is romanticizing and obsessing.

What exactly has SHE done to improve the state of your marriage?

O

Hello,

You need to read Love Must Be Tough by James Dobson. She is having contact and is still disrespecting and humiliating you. Do you really think your wife would be accepting these actions if the roles were reversed? There has to be consequences to her actions. No Contact means
No Contact. If she refuses No Contact then inform her that the marriage cannot and will not last.
If this is what she wants then it will be her choice. How can she possibly respect you if she is allowed to continue this behavior. You need to set boundaries now!

Sounds like your wife is still addicted to the admiration of the OM. I know what that feels like because I am a FWW - it is like a drug. In a warped sense, she thinks that if they aren't talking directly, that she is still following your agreement of no contact.

This is contact, and you know that right? He keeps sending messages, obviously feeling like she is reading them. NC only works if OM is totally gone and your W isn't receiving any communication from him (or vice versa) in any manner. By the way, are you certain there isn't more direct contact?

Until the OM is truly out of the picture, it will hamper your recovery. I am seven weeks into NC and I am grateful to be here emotionally. Any contact with OM would set me back and worse, hurt my husband immensely. If she wants to work on your M, she needs to stop dwelling on OM. It's diverting her from focusing on you and frankly, it's a complete slap in the face to you after everything she has put you through. You are justified IMO to think this wrong. It very much is.

Can you bring this up in MC? I think a C would be on your side on this one. Have you thought about having some time with Steve Harley in C?

Be strong about this. She is probably clinging onto fantasies about OM and the romance and hasn't really gone through withdrawls from OM fully, even after 9 months of the end of the A. Time to cut the chord.

Still kind of new at this, but your message struck a chord with me. Good luck!

I took my ww laptop and put it in the dishwasher....LOL I told her I needed to scrub the scum off of it…

I think about that all the time. Unfortunately all my kids use the computer and I need it quite often to do my job. I wish I did not have online capability.


Sorry if this sounds harsh but your wife is not a FWW she is still mentally a WW. And as far as WW's go, the mental WW is the most dangerous and least trustworthy.

I have decided to trust her and she does not deny she checks the away messages of OM. She told e that it is curiosity and nothing else. She said I would do the same if I was in her position. I ma not sure what I would do, but I know I would never hurt my wife on purpose. So I am questioning her true motives. Otherwise, she is NC, I am 99% sure.


t is contact. One-way contact, but contact. Work with the pros here. You will make it!

Exactly, but she refuses to see it that way. I firmly believe this prolongs the withdrawal. I have asked her not to do it, but she is relentless. I re-installed key logger and the very 1st thing she does is to type the name of OM to check up on him. She also checks before logging off. She knows about key logger, but she does not care. She feels that she and OM are done and that there is no harm in what she does. I don’t really want to use key logger anymore. It is a pain in the rear since it records the entire family and I have to spend a lot of time finding that key term (the name of OM).


Saying you are insecure about your feelings,

She is romanticizing and obsessing.



She tells me over and over again she liked me much more pre-affair when I was very sure of myself and that she intensely dislikes insecure men. I am not insecure, I simply want her to stop all contact. There is no way in hell anyone can be devoted to the marriage when they have someone else in mind everyday.


What exactly has SHE done to improve the state of your marriage?

She ended the affair (at least the physical part), she did not elope with OM, and she has very cooperative with everything else. Shortly after D-day was very sexual with me and seemed very sincere in her efforts to stay in the marriage. She still tells me she is VERY sincere about staying married, but that she cannot help to check OM. She tells me there is no harm in this, however, during the affair she also believed she was not harming me. So I would think this statement has little validity. Otherwise she has treated me quite well and has been an incredible wife; other than the affair I really have no complaints. IN fact I used to admirer her a lot. She was the person I looked up to in the marriage. As someone once said she was a strong pillar and supported me very well.


You need to read Love Must Be Tough by James Dobson. She is having contact and is still disrespecting and humiliating you. Do you really think your wife would be accepting these actions if the roles were reversed?




If she refuses No Contact then inform her that the marriage cannot and will not last.
If this is what she wants then it will be her choice. How can she possibly respect you if she is allowed to continue this behavior. You need to set boundaries now!

I have set a boundary and it is quite firm. If she ever re-starts the affair or re-starts communication on a regular basis I will divorce her right away. This is written in stone and at this time I am strong enough to follow thru with this-------- there is no doubt in my mind. However, I never thought about what she is doing now and I believe it would be overkill to divorce my wife because she read an away message.


Sounds like your wife is still addicted to the admiration of the OM. I know what that feels like because I am a FWW - it is like a drug. In a warped sense, she thinks that if they aren't talking directly, that she is still following your agreement of no contact.

Wife tells me that I am lucky to have a wife who had the strength to stop the affair on d-day. She cites many other examples in MB where the affair goes on after d-day. I have discussed with her the issue of addiction. She herself admitted that in the affair she was as high as a kite. She has admitted she misses the high and on many days feels sluggish with no energy.

If she wants to work on your M, she needs to stop dwelling on OM. It's diverting her from focusing on you and frankly, it's a complete slap in the face to you after everything she has put you through.

She refuses to see I that way!


Be strong about this. She is probably clinging onto fantasies about OM and the romance and hasn't really gone through withdrawals from OM fully, even after 9 months of the end of the A. Time to cut the chord.

How do I cut the cord?????????????? By monitoring her activities 24/7? I don’t want a marriage like that. To be honest, I thought that she would spontaneously stop checking on OM on her own with no pressure from myself, but this is not happening. I feel diminished by having to ask her to stop, it is humiliating!


If I put my foot down I may end up divorcing her. I truly love her and I don’t want to do that, but what else is there to do? I have asked OM to stop and he does not care.

My wife says that my constant ranting about this delays the healing of our marriage so many times I am gun-shy about bringing up this very painful issue. Whenever I say something we enter a rough period and I hate it. I wish there were no glitches, but they have been there from day one. I guess you folks are right; there has never been true NC in the strict sense of the word.

BTW, she keeps accusing me that I am simply looking for an excuse to end the marriage. Far from the truth! The last thing I want to do is end the marriage.

She says it is a DJ from my part to assume she still feels for OM even though she checks his away message several times a day.

I told her it was a DJ from her part in assuming I wanted to end the marriage.

not a loser,

After reading your followup post it is extremely evident that your WW needs no excuses, you provide them for her as easily as she checks for any remnant of her lover at every turn.

You ask for advice and when it is offered you write a thesis on why our advice doesn't apply or how well your WW is working on your "M". I could easily say that the vast majority of posters here would NOT classify you in any stage of recovery. You are deeply imbedded in the muck of an ongoing A.

My friend, it appears that the "BS fog" has almost completely captured you. Your fear of upsetting your WW is the single biggest impediment to your M recovery.

<small>[ February 27, 2005, 09:24 PM: Message edited by: Cymanca ]</small>

I-am-not-a-loser-

It seems to me that your wife, likes to play with you. If she knows you are checking her actions online, and she still does it, maybe she is doing it just to bother you, to keep you interested.
By checking every step she does, you are acting pretty insecure and inmature. YOu should lessen up spying on her so much. Its rather silly of your part, if you know she is having no contact.
Contact is a two way street, if she is just checking a profile or an away message,that does not mean she is having it. Its obvious to me she is trying to make you happy, but your constant checking might be making her sick!! Maybe if you stop checking on her, she will stop checking on the OM.

FG, there is nothing "immature" or "insecure" about catching someone having an affair. What is really immature is having illicit, sleazy affairs.

Only an insane person would afford trust to an untrustworthy person. No one has the right to the privacy to destroy someone behind their back and he has a moral obligation to monitor his untrustworthy wife in order to protect himself. There is nothing "immature" about being smart.

<small>[ February 27, 2005, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: MelodyLane ]</small>

Melody--The affair is OVER! Just because she checks profile or away messages does not mean she is continuing the affair. She cut all contact with OM . Its very inmature of his part to be checking constantly on her. He is not giving her any breathing room. There is nothing ilicit about checking a profile or an away message!!!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by FrederickGirl:
<strong> Melody--The affair is OVER! Just because she checks profile or away messages does not mean she is continuing the affair. She cut all contact with OM . Its very inmature of his part to be checking constantly on her. He is not giving her any breathing room. There is nothing ilicit about checking a profile or an away message!!! </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry, the affair may be over but the distrust sure is not. Of course its not nonsense to check up on an untrustworthy person. A trustworthy person doesn't need "breathing room" if they are acting trustworthy. They go out of their way to prove themselves.

Now, you aren't doing this man any favors coming on his thread spewing accusations of "immaturity" when you don't even know what it means. Knock it off.

...

<small>[ February 27, 2005, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: Was Sad Tiger ]</small>

MelodyLane-I think he needs to start trusting her and stop checking her every move online.
She stopped the affair on DD, thats a HUGE step on her part. He needs to give her some credit.
YOu need to relax a bit too!

After reading your followup post it is extremely evident that your WW needs no excuses, you provide them for her as easily as she checks for any remnant of her lover at every turn.

Cy:

She is not a bad woman, but at this stage she does not seem to have the will power to stop. This is strange as she was able to stop the affair on D-day even though I was begging her to leave the house.

You ask for advice and when it is offered you write a thesis on why our advice doesn't apply or how well your WW is working on your "M". I could easily say that the vast majority of posters here would NOT classify you in any stage of recovery. You are deeply imbedded in the muck of an ongoing A.

I am well aware that many here consider any contact an EA. My wife has read the board and she knows this quite well. Nevertheless it continues. What can I do? Divorce her because she checks OM's away message daily? That may be overkill! As of now she seems dedicated to the marriage. Do you honestly think I should end the marriage? That seems a bit much after all that she has done. I have asked her politely a zillion times and it is clear she does not care about my feelings. She feels she is hurting no one by this just as she thought the affair was not damaging to the marriage. Is this fog????????? This late in the game?????

I will admit that her actions do nothing to ameliorate my anger and sadness. We bounce up and down constantly and she always blames me. Sure, there are times when I may act inappropriately because of my own anger, but at this stage of the game we could be far ahead if she stopped checking on OM.

My friend, it appears that the "BS fog" has almost completely captured you. Your fear of upsetting your WW is the single biggest impediment to your M recovery.

But-------- it is hell! Every-time we have an argument and lately it is all about this obsession and her refusal to admit OM is a person with little integrity. It hurts to the core to know that she has admiration for the character of OM. It hurts more than the lust which at least I know is nothing more than an instinct.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by FrederickGirl:
<strong> MelodyLane-I think he needs to start trusting her and stop checking her every move online.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And you are silly to suggest he should trust an untrustworthy person and are not helping his situation at all.

not a loser,

I truly am sympathetic to your plight, none of this is easy nor is it intuitive. You have been given some excellent advice and NONE of it includes divorcing your wife.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sure, there are times when I may act inappropriately because of my own anger </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Perhaps you should wonder less about any WW perceived inappropriate anger and express your own justifiable, righteous anger. In a clear calm voice at each and every instance that she uses a b*ll**** line about YOUR actions delaying the healing process point out that the converse is true. This woman sounds like she has a very glib and polished " blame the victim" routine in action.

Cy:

I have tried everything and have been quite calm for some time. However any objection from my part , no matter how subtle or calm is not well received. We then fall into a valley and I become more and more unhappy until we reach another peak and then the cycle repeats itself.

I wish we could have a heart to heart talk. God knows I try every night to have that talk, but she always brushes me off saying “everything is fine, let it rest“. I am a very low key type B non-anal person. I am not one to hammer things down at nauseum. However, at times I would like reassurance that everything is going well.

This issue about the wife checking the OM’s away messages is several months old. Initially I thought she was still in withdrawal and after discussing I decided to give her the so-called space that she wanted. I re-installed the key-logger several weeks ago and noted she was still checking OM, but it was sporadic. So I felt gratified and said nothing. Then---------- I rechecked again and noted she had escalated her activity and was checking the OM a lot every time she was on. I felt something had changed. Maybe is some sort of anniversary in their relationship, who knows. The thing is that she is checking much more often instead of less and this causes me great concern.

We are going to bed and I doubt very much she will be open to discuss this issue.

Wish me luck!

I'm-not-a-Loser:

You have my sympathies. I can see what a rough place you are in. Unfortunately, there are limits to how much you can do without your WW's desire to improve your M further. Self-improvement is always a worthwhile thing, I think, but may not be enough to hold certain relationships together.

You may have already answered this, I am still a little groggy...but have you made clear to her that you percieve the constant checking of OM's online status as continued contact, and violation of NC?

One thing to be sure of-you are absolutely entitled to your feelings. In a similar situation, I was much less tolerant, in fact. After about 3 months of NC, my partner "just checked" whether one of her OM was still using a particular service that they had used to communicate. Now, I have proof that she never actually contacted him that time, but honestly it made no difference to me. If any of them are still a part of her life, however insignificant, there is no room in my life for her. I have a bit too much dignity and sense of self-worth to share her attentions with any other men, ever again.

So, in my situation, I made very clear that any time at all spent wondering about any of them...even as tiny an amount as seeing if they still post on a particular messageboard...was time that she was stealing from our relationship, and a betrayal. I was packing a suitcase for her within a couple of minutes of finding out about her "just checking". She convinced me that it was just a moment of weakness, so I allowed her to remain a part of my life. I do not regret that at all.

However, I will not tolerate sharing any part of my life, or her, with any other men any longer. Period.

I enjoy my son's conpany and my own very well. Having her here is nice, but I will be very, very happy without her as well, if she makes any more decisions that indicate even the appearance of breaking faith with me again. Without regard to how major or minor the infidelity may be. She has, unfortunately, used up all of the understanding I am prepared to give in this.

In closing, you have chosen to allow her another chance. I applaud that decision, and admire your strength of character in making it. Be aware, though, that you are perfectly within your rights to set whatever conditions upon allowing her to stay that you choose, no matter how much time has passed. She betrayed you in the most intimate way a woman can betray a man. Such actions have consequences.

You are the only one who can decide if it is worth it to stay in your relationship if she continues doing this. I wish you the very best, whatever you decide.

Know that you will not be alone in any case.

-OAK