Goodness gracious I want no stress in my life! I was told this morning that the ow my h was with last fall is leaving her h again! Of course I am like, oh no, please tell me my h has nothing to do with this. So, I calmly spoke with h and said I needed to ask him a few questions, and can I count on his complete honesty. He said yes. I told him I was told ow was leaving her h again and did he have anything to do with it? did he still have contact with her, call her, etc.... ? He first wanted to know where I heard it, I just said someone told me (I don't think he needs to know how, just to know I know what goes on with this person). He said he knew nothing about it, did not still call her, and yes did see her on occassion at fire dept. (they are both on it) and may talk in casual passing. He said she was at a fire school they had the other night and he did help her with something but it was only a few minutes and that was the extent of it. I then asked him if she were to try and pursue something with him what would he do? He said he does not want a relationship with anyone, he was going to stick to our agreement if he stays (no other women, etc) and even if he does leave it would not because he was pursuing a relationship with someone else. He is back and forth with his emotions right now as I am. He said he is confused, the kids are confused, he almost told me the other day to continue with the separation but did not. I told him I was confused too and that I went the gamet of emotions daily. ( I know he has a hard time trusting me because in the past I was very reactionary, if he hurt me or wasn't working on the relationship I would tell him I wanted to sep. I know he needs to see that I mean it when I say I do not want him to leave, and that I am not going to ask him to leave again. It was just a month ago I was talking divorce but I told him this morning that was me being very hurt and angry and wanting to run away from it all, that I cannot bring myself to do divorce at all.)

so, anyway, I told him that as long as he was here, I am keeping an open mind and would he please keep one too.

So, how do I deal with this? I know everyone is probably going to say I must insist on no contact but is that always possible? They are on the fire dept together and casual chat may just happen. I do think he wants me to be able to trust him and he insists he is being truthful with me. I want to make sure this ow knows that she is to keep her claws away from my H! I do not know if she is leaving her h because of another man or just because things aren't working out. I am sure you all can understand my discomfort however.

I do think we are having more honesty, slowly but surely. I do think he is noticing my changes. I do think his needs are starting to get me but understand he needs consistency. I do not believe he wants to leave just yet.

any input??? I do think he now realizes that whatever happens in this woman's life I am going to know about it, so if he were to do something I would know asap. mlhb

Mlhb,
Unfortunately I have to stick with the Harleys on this one too. I would say absolute NC at all. He is on the fence, undecided, confused, etc.
I think that NC means exacty that, NO CONTACT whatsoever. But that is my opinion. I told my WH that no contact meant none at all. She does not work with him, but does live near his work. If I found out about a contact then he would have to quit his job, no questions, no options. That is my belief and the MB belief.
But as I said earlier, it is my opinion and my boundaries, you have to pick yours and live with them.
I could not live with an occasional contact or class together. WH has proven his is not trustworthy with her obviously, and when withdrawing he told me after that he tried to break if off 4 different times, but made contact with her (either her or him) and it was back to the same old sneaky A again.
JE

Absolute no contact is the minimum requirement to restore a marriage. That is the LEAST you should expect if you are willing to stay and work on the marriage with him. Harley is adament about this. He recommends even moving to another state if necessary, to avoid further contact.

To relax your standards on this issue is to sign up for a death of a thousand cuts. You will never recover and will be put back to day 1 of recovery every time he sees her. Your marriage will never recover. You will damn yourself to a life of hell wondering about contact every day.

And I am not sure what you want your minds to be "open" about? Can you explain that? See, being "open minded" is not supposed to be a permanent state of being, but only long enough to gather the necessary facts, evidence to come to a sound conclusion. Can you clarify what you mean?

openminded to the possibility that our marriage could work out. He has a lot of walls up due to past trust issues with me. Basically what I am asking him to do is give some of my changes a chance, see that I mean business and that there is no turning back and allow some of his walls to come down. He knows what I mean when I say it as we talked quite extensively this morning. I have sent him an email ( because my H can be talked to to death, he is not a big talker and I try not to push it by every five minutes saying "can we talk?") explaining how I feel that there should be NO CONTACT and why. I will tell ya, my H hates awkward situations and I can see him having her say Hi to him at fire hall and him being uncomfortable just ignoring her. I know it sounds silly but I can see it. But I told him straight out in the email she is poison, she had no problem being with a married man with children, being married herself and that if she needs help at another fire school then let one of the other 55 firemen there give her a hand. I will be interested to see what he says. I am quite sure in his mind he feels he can separate what happened last fall from being just cordial or helpful to her now. But we all here know better. We have been doing a lot of talking and I can only take one day at a time. And only time will tell. Thanks for your input everyone. mlhb

mlhb, I am confused here. I thought it was HE who had the affair. What would be the trust issues with you then? Did you have the affair? Did I get this backwards?

Melody, he did have the PA and an EA and who knows what else. I had an EA but most of his trust issues are in believing that I want him to stay and work on things. I have a tendency, which I am working on, to tell him to leave or say I want to separate when he does something hurtful or I am not getting what I need from him, etc. I have done this several times over the years and I now realize that I do it and am committed to not doing that anymore, rather, when he hurts me or isn't filling a need I told him from now on I will face it and discuss it with him rather then tell him leave. He needs to build his trust again that I am not going to want him to leave every other day and that he can let down some walls and trust me that I actually do want him here. Hope that helps.....mlhb

Personally I think the trust issue that WS's bring up is the biggest load of crap. It's just an excuse not to work on the marriage. That what my WH has been saying for 9 months, and no matter what I do it isn't good enough. Don't let him turn this around on you. You have every right to want to be away from him during the time he is being an A$#hole. Let him prove to you that he is there for the right reasons, and if he isn't willing and wants you to do all the proving...I would slip into Plan B as quickly as I could.
Just my two cents since my Plan A failed miserably and I never did the Plan B. for me it is still all about him and what can I do to make him want to stay. F that!!!