..... Sorry if this is long winded but this has been an eventful span of a few months. I have been with my wife for 9 years and married for 8. For my part, I was blissfully happy and totally in love with her and devoted to her each and every day until just a few months ago. In the pre-marriage counseling sessions I was asked why I wanted to marry my wife. I did not have a good answer but the guy told me that I was marrying her and wanted to make her happy. I dedicated the rest of my life to that – just wanting to make her happy and I asked myself every single night if I had made her happy that day. We have spent the majority of our married life "overseas" and lived in Dubai and Muscat for most of that time. We recently made a career decision that we both knew would mean some personal sacrifice but would ultimately benefit the family. We talked about it for weeks and we both agreed that it was time to move to another job. When we did move, we both had somewhat of a culture shock. We knew what to expect but the psychological toll was still high. On the other hand, our 6 and 4 year old daughters were extremely happy and the lifestyle of the family improved significantly. I now have learned that my wife began an affair about 4 months after we arrived here. They saw each other at the swimming pool every day as my wife took the girls to swimming lessons (he was their swimming teacher) and they had a handful of clandestine interludes. I found out after I investigated 187 strange phone calls on my phone bill made to his cell phone. When I first spotted the calls and asked my wife about them, they disappeared immediately. Initially I left it alone. I still had doubts and I had suspected my wife might be having an affair. At times I even confronted her with it and got an angry denial and she complained that I just did not trust her. I see now that we had about a 90% score on the "signs of an affair" on this web site including the "I love you but am not in love with you" talk. My family then went away to the USA for vacation while I stayed and worked so I decided to investigate the phone calls. The investigation showed that my wife was not the only one making "unusual" calls to this phone. When those other people were contacted by security to see if they knew anything about the calls, they got repeated angry responses telling them that it was none of their business and to stay out of their personal lives. Eventually the investigation proved the calls were ours and my wife confessed that she had had an affair but that unfortunately she had fallen in love. I suspected that the OM was just someone preying on married women here because there are so few single women (We live on a camp of a major oil company in the Middle East).
Anyway, my world fell down on me. This left me in a vacuum and I went through several stages of grief – including denial. I lost 22 lbs in 3 weeks. A diet I don't recommend. She assured me that his contract had run out and that he was gone from the country for good. I followed up on that and learned that he was just away on vacation too and would be returning. My wife assured me it was all over and that she wanted nothing to do with the affair. I was still in love with her and wanted to try to work it out. I also had doubts and bought a phone call recorder and found out that even while she was telling me that the affair was over, she called and told a friend that she was desperately in love with the OM and wanted to see him. I immediately confronted her with it and packed her bags and sent her off. She went to his apartment for the night but called me the next day and begged to come back. She could not leave the kids. Reluctantly I said she could but I told her it was a bad idea.

We entered into family counseling but the counselor is not all that helpful. Even so, we were trying (I thought). Things were tense for about two weeks and then, through a strange set of circumstances, the OM wanted to see my wife so staked out the school parking lot to try to see her as she picked up one of our daughters. Unfortunately I happened to be the one in the car as she was home ill. We had a small chase and got security involved. I filed a complaint and he was immediately terminated and left the country about a week later. I thought things would be easier with him out of the picture. I was wrong. About a month after this, I came home from work early. I went into the house and my wife thought it was one of the girls. I went upstairs and found her talking on a cell phone that does not belong to us. I got it away from her and read the SMS messages he had been sending her. Before he left, he left his cell phone with a mutual friend and she eventually gave the phone to my wife. They were talking for about 4 days before I found the phone. We stayed in counseling although she also had individual sessions. The counselor was convinced that she was sincere about trying to reconcile. I was not and this made me the bad guy. The counselor did tell me that my wife was living a fantasy and that she could not possibly be in love with someone she knew so little about. She did not even know his nationality until I told her and she was stunned. The next day she explained it all away as a misunderstanding. She is in complete denial of everything contrary of what she wants to believe. To this point, it may have been unfortunate that he left the country. It might have been better if they had continued their affair until it died but it is impossible to fight a fantasy.

She said she wanted to go back home (to Mexico) to have some time to be alone and be with her family and get her head straight. I suspected she just wanted time away to try to develop the affair. I said she could go anyway. Unfortunately she decided to call her mother and confess even though everyone had told her not to. Her mother almost died as a result and told her that, if she leaves, she can never go home again. To me, it looked like she was just trying to close every possible door except the one that would lead her to the OM. She said she wanted to go to Mexico but had subsequently made that impossible.

In mid-December we left for vacation and went back to visit her family in Mexico. As we sat down on the plane, I told her that I had had enough and wanted a divorce. I had all the required papers in my hand bag. After we got there, she asked me to wait until after Christmas and I agreed. I talked to her mother and to her sister as they knew all about the situation and they begged me to give her another chance. They each spoke to her and later told me that they were convinced that it was all over and that she genuinely wanted to make an effort for the sake of the girls. Later my wife begged me to give her another chance and that the affair was over. I told her that it did not matter what she now said because her credibility was completely gone. She had told so many lies that there was no way to find the truth any more. Regardless, we did not get the divorce. Since we are planning to go back to Mexico in July, I decided I could do it then. We got back "home" about a week ago and things have been very calm. Mostly that is because sometime in the past 6 weeks, I have realized that I no longer love the woman I was so devoted to for 9 years. I feel almost no emotion for her at all. Yesterday morning I was making breakfast with the girls and my wife cam downstairs and said she was going to the gym (no necessarily unusual) but I was still suspicious. I waited about 10 minutes and then went to the gym and did not find the car. I then went around to the back side of the facility and there was the car and there was my wife talking on a pay phone. She did not see me coming and I stood behind her for a few seconds but she was not talking. I then went in front of her and took the receiver and it was the OM telling her how much he had missed her and how he loved her. She eventually hung up the phone and walked to the car and went home.

After we got to the house, we finished breakfast and then I had a chat with her. I told her that she needed to make a decision – either pack up and leave (without the children) or stop the affair and live with us but she could not have both. I reminded her that she did not love me and I no longer loved her. I told her it would never be possible for us to love each other because I now know she never loved me (her own words) and she had been making a fool of me for 9 years. I told her that I would eventually find someone else and that if she felt she could live in my house and maintain an affair, that I was free to do as I chose (I have never cheated on her yet but am now open to anything). I was not going to kick her out of the house – she needed to get the courage and take that decision herself. In the meantime, I would pretend we were a happy family and a loving couple for appearances. We then went to play tennis and I vented all my anger on the tennis balls and felt really good. In fact, the rest of the day with my wife and the kids was great. We even spent two hours last night in bed just talking about high school experiences.

Sex never lacked in our 9 years but it is now more plentiful (and better) than ever. Now that I no longer love her, I don't feel any real anger about the affair. What I do miss is love. I don't want to think I will spend the rest of my life without loving someone. The problem with my wife is not the affair. The problem I now face is that I cannot depend on anything she says to be true. I am not sure if she even knows what is fact and fiction any more. I have tried to chuck her out of the house three times and she always begs to come back. I know she does not want to hurt the girls but she has told her cousin that she is willing to leave them to be with the OM as long as she can visit them from time to time.

I don't want sympathy from anyone. I think I am past that stage. What I would like to know is if there is anyone who has been in this situation who can offer some advice. I don't love her (I don't hate her either). I think I would be happier if she left but I don't want our girls hurt either. I feel like I am dating a woman that is involved with another person too. I feel like this woman is not the one I would ultimately want to marry but I am comfortable enough staying with her until the right one comes along. I will mention that it will be logistically difficult if she leaves in caring for the girls (getting them to and from school) and I would have about a year before the company would force me to change my family status. They do not allow single men to live here with children for some reason.

The bottom line is that I am confused. I have no idea what I am feeling but, at the moment, it is really not bad. I am much happier than I have been in months. Knowing that I no longer love her has been a real blessing.

One thing I forgot to mention. They apparently had unprotected sex. Now both of us have herpes and will have, I guess, for the rest of our lives. I had wanted her to have a test after I found out but my doctor tells me the damage was already done. I was infected months ago and it just recently showed up - probably stress related.

I think roller coaster is perfectly apt for describing the emotion of being betrayed. There was a time when I could go from the highest high to the lowest low and back in less than 24 hours. The thing is, I don't know if I have reached equilibrium and am finally at peace with the situation or I am stuck in another state of denial or maybe even the eye of the storm. I feel safe at the moment and don't want to lose this point-of-view.
At times I think we are playing Russian roulette to see who flinches first - she can't take it and decides to leave or I get fed up and force her out. Neither wants to be the bad guy but each needs to try to outlast the other. Neither one wants to say "well I tried but she/he wouldn't give me the opportunity".

Yet at other times I think maybe she realizes that, even though she may be in love, that there really is no future in it for her. Maybe she is looking for a way to break off the affair and not admit (to herself) that she was wrong - maybe she is in denial. Even if she does not love me that there really is no happiness waiting for her with a swimming instructor (who is significantly younger than her BTW). I think she is afraid that, if it doesn't work out, where will she be?

I just don't understand what is going on and, since there is no longer any trust, we can't discuss it. I guess that is why I decided to post.

I will say that I have always believed my wife to be a basically good person with a kind heart. Whether she got caught up in something that spun terribly out of control or just never loved me and finally someone came along, I'll never know. I do know that nobody could ever have hurt me like she did. I never want anyone to do that ever again. I also think that maybe too much damage (destroying the trust) has occurred to ever try to think of salvaging the marriage. How could I ever trust her again?

My belief is that, if she does run off with the guy, it will destroy what is left of her. That is also not my problem any more. To be honest, I hope I can remain in this frame of mind for a while and that she will eventually get frustrated and leave. I hate to think what that will do to our children but it can't be healthy for them to be raised in a household with an adulterous wife (who continues the affair) either. What kind of role model would she be for them?

The rest I will leave in the other web site. I will add that I do have the cell phone numbers for his mother and father in the UK and am now planning on calling them. I don't expect them to side with me but I do want to do some fact finding. I would like to know if they are still married and if she truly is much older than him. If those are not true, I will divulge that to my wife. I don't expect much more but I will probably want to make sure the mother is aware of the affair and the consequences it is having (i.e. effect on the two girls). I am not doing that so that she will stay with me. I would do that because I don't think she would have a long term relationship with him and I am thinking about where my daughters are going to be spending their vacations. Regardless of whether my wife thinks she is in love or not, the emotional baggage she would carry into that relationship would poison it (IMHO).

For the moment (and as long as I have the strength) I am committed to give my wife the opportunity to try to reconcile but she will first have to give up the OM and all forms of contact and, for now, she is not willing to do that. I am just on hold until she makes up her mind. For the past few weeks I have been very consistent with her. I have made it very clear that she can stay and I will honor her as my wife and the mother of our daughters or she can go at any time but, if she goes, she goes with her two suitcases and nothing more and that it is her decision. We had that discussion yet again just a few hours ago. We are not pretending that we do not have a serious problem - we are just letting it rest (hopefully) until she can make a decision.

Well......I suspect that waiting it out untill she makes a decision will probably get you a result you are well used to. So at least you will know what to expect.

I think that you yourself are well past the "crisis" point, and I would be concerned that you yourself will have an affair. I would recommend that you also get thoroughly checked for all STD's including HIV. If you have even one STD, it raises your risk significantly for contracting HIV.

I don't have much other valuable advice for you. Others will be around to hopefully give you some advice so that you can try and restore your marriage.

Goodluck
'
Lem

bump (thought I would trump Jennifer68)

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Forgot to mention. When my wife got back from the USA and I knew about the affair, I asked her to get tested. Because of our living situation that was not a simple task. Even so, we avoided sex for a long time. I had every intention of having the test done before having relations with her but we hit a crisis and it just happened and I knew it was a mistake. A couple of months later I had a breakout and I went to get tested and found that I have herpes. The doctor told me that it would not have mattered if my wife had been tested or not because I had been infected quite some time before - possibly up to a year. I don't know how they determine that but it is what he told me so I guess she gave it to me well before D day and the stress is what caused the outbreak. That one went away eventually but I have just had another one. We are clear of all other STD's it seems. HIV is extremely rare among expats as we are checked for it each time our visa comes up for renewal.

At the moment I am pretty much following Plan A although I did not realize that was what I was doing until I just read that this morning. I am leaving the A in the past. It happened and I cannot change that. I also know my wife will be on the phone to the OM at any opportunity. I have taken away the credit cards and she has to strictly account for cash so it is not easy for her to buy phone cards but she will find a way I am sure.

I am definitely trying to avoid LB's. We did have a talk last night because she was crying and I told her that she eventually needed to make a decision but it was done very calmly. Afterward we held hands, went and played with the kids, went to bed and cuddled, had sex and then went to sleep holding hands. Even so, I know the conversation was a mistake. I will try to do my best to adhere to plan A.

I am treating my wife as the most loving and attentive husband she could ever have. Someone said on another site that I might fall in love with my wife again. I know that could happen because she is a good person. I think maybe what I am doing is putting up a defense mechanism for the time being. I know I cannot survive another round of the pain I have gone through and don't want to subject myself to that. She beat me up pretty badly. I don't hate my wife by any means. I don't think what she did was right but all people make mistakes - especially me.

I am not interested in an affair. I am also not seeking revenge. If I get involved with another woman (if ever), it will likely be years after the divorce (should that happen) because I would need a lot of time to recover from this to the point where I could ever trust another person again. The one person I trusted implicitly just made my world crumble around me.

At the moment I have two girls that are first priority and that is what I need to focus on.

do you fight a fantasy with a thong?

Have you considered phone counseling with the Harley's. I think others have done it that don't live in the USA.

Order Surving and Affair. It is a great book and a wonderful resource.

Continue to read and post here.

In order to do an effective Plan A, you must bust up the affair...without that it is NOT a true Plan A...

As moveforward suggested, I think that you would benefit greatly from a phone counseling session with the Harleys.

Mrs. W

I did have the book "Surviving an Affair" sent to me by my mother and I have read it. The first case study was perfectly suited to my situation.

I have busted up the affair as best I can. I got the OM fired and deported. He will not be able to return to this country and my wife cannot travel without my permission. The only contact they have is by telephone. She buys phone cards and calls him from any public phone just long enough for the number to register on his GSM and then he dials back. I have limited her ability to buy phone cards as best I can but she has several hours a day free time in which I cannot know what she is doing. I cannot prevent her from doing that if she can scrounge a phone card from somewhere. I am hoping that they will eventually get bored from all this and the affair will die. For the moment, she is convinced she is still in love with him.

I will add that the only unaccounted for cash is in our daughters' piggy banks and I have honestly considered counting it just to be sure she is not taking it.

Loy,

If you have a point, I missed it.

I have a rather urgent (for me) question:

Short story - My WW is still refusing NC with OM. I am doing my best to establish Plan A. The question is, which is better - telling my wife I love her or telling her I don't love her. I am not going to lie to her so don't worry. I am just wondering what is the upside or downside based on your experience?

What do I do with this information?

One of the doubts my wife had about the affair was that she is 4 years older than the OM. The OM told her that was no problem in his eyes because his mother is 4 years older than his father and they are still married.

I just got off the phone with the OM's father and he says that his wife is not older than him so the OM was obviously lying to my wife to get her to remove that doubt.

Should I tell this to my wife or keep it? Obviously the father will tell the OM about the call and, if the OM and my WW talk by phone, I am sure it will come up. What do I do?

Traicionado

I can relate to far more of your story than I want to.

Infidels lie to each other. They all do. All they do is lie to make themselves look good , and their co-infidel feel like having sex with them and flattering them. Its what they do.

There is no reason whatsoever IMO for you to tell your WW about this particular lie. she won't care. She is addicted. You can tell an addict that heroin will kill them, but they won't hear.

What is most important for you right now IMO is to establish personal boundaries and inform your WW of them.

Mine were ( and remain)

NC for ever
Transparency of activity & PORH
Protect me from hurt

Boundaries only work if you are willing to defend them. My squid wa severy bit as nasty and deluded as yours is. now she loves me and is very regretful of her actions then.

there might be some stuff HERE that might help you. Its the wonderful advice I got when I was in your situation.

All blessings.

Thanks. I had found your thread "This is Me - Bob Pure" and read that and started in in some of the links but to finish will take time.

Okay I won't share it. I have found that she has had an amazing ability to rationalize and explain every lie in the past - like not knowing his nationality, for instance. It will be interesting to see if he mentions it.

I have told my WW from day one that the only rule I had was NC. She continues to violate that. She knows that is still the deal and yet she cannot stop. I have made it as hard as I can for her but she still finds ways. I cannot monitor her when I am at work and that is when she calls albeit from public phones so I cannot trace it.

I will continue to go through your thread tonight. I have already seen one interesting key that I had but may have lost. I would like your opinion on the post about telling them you love them. During your trials, did you tell your wife you loved her or did you avoid that. Either way, what is your opinion as to the pluses and minuses. I was telling her I loved her up until recently (and I genuinely did) and I could see her almost grimace each time. I think it hurt her.

At the beginning my saying ILY angered Squid. So I backed off entirely. I told her "i care for you" and " I want you" but no ILY. She recoiled from physical contact so I 180'ed that too.

After a couple of months of that Squid ACHED for me to hold her and tell her ILY ( she told me afterwards).

But you have to read your situation uniquely mate.

And all the time I stuffed my indignation and became all i could be as a husband , a dad and an affair warrior.

Quietly.

I would have sent her away and done plan B if she had not maintained NC. mind you, I did blackmail and threaten OM as well as exposing him that may have helped my cause <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

My threads is a big un - read the advice I got, not my drivel. Its wonderful from smart folks. Take your time. It took a while for your life to get this f'ked up, take your time to recover it too.

BTW she can stop anytime she wants contacting OM. She chooses not to.

Glad to see you are getting advice from BobPure. He did an excellent job on saving his family. And his situation looked very bleak at first.

I think yours is better because you have been able to physically remove the other man. I believe he is a predator and will soon find someone else's wife.

The trouble is the phone contact. That is enough to keep her fantasy alive. But like you say, it is impossible to prevent. It's like trying to keep a heroin addict away from the heroin.

But stick with us, and you will get more input.

TC,

""A couple of months later I had a breakout and I went to get tested and found that I have herpes.""

I take it the only way you got herpes was from your WW who got them from the classy OM that she just can't get over??

What was her feeling about this studly swimming instructor that gave her the gift that KEEPS ON GIVING!! How low is her self-esteem that she is can't live without hearing his scumsucking voice.

As far as telling her you love her or not...be honest!!

She has a problem and I don't see how you can fix it.

Good luck to you.

k

On the STD, she said she thinks she got that from a boyfriend long before we were married but she was sorry that I got it. She was/is in complete denial. The OM can do no wrong. I didn't pursue it any further because a) I was extremely angry and didn't want to open my mouth for fear of what I would say and b) it was obvious it was a battle that couldn't be one. Fortunately this disclosure was revealed in front of the MC (when we were still going).

I had a serious talk with myself yesterday and I came to the conclusion that my not loving my wife has only been a defense mechanism. She can't hurt me if I don't love her. Anyway, I took her on a date last night and when we got home, I asked her to sit down so I could tell her something but she was not allowed to respond. I told her that I was sorry that I had recently been lying to her. I said that I hoped she never would have to experience the pain that I have gone through. I was not holding this against her in any way. It was my problem to deal with and mine alone but I was telling her that to help explain my actions. I said that, each time she called the OM, it hurt me very much and I had been trying to convince myself that I no longer loved her so that I wouldn't hurt any more but the fact was I was lying to her and to myself. I told her that even though she apparently never ever loved me (she did try to interject here and say that was not true but I reminded her that these were her own words and not mine and I did not let her continue), I had loved her every single day for 9 years since I first met her and I still loved her. I don't know why but I started crying. I told her that, even if my love had been based on a lie, I could not deny it. I did and do love her. Then I said we should go check on the girls. She went upstairs and cried.

I felt I needed to have that conversation because I was getting off track. My self-protection was selfish and not helpful to the situation. I think reading other peoples' posts and getting the encouragement I have gotten here well - in for a penny, in for a pound. I have to be completely honest with her. I don't know if telling her this was a good thing or a bad thing but I am not going to worry about that.

I am going to do more reading on Plan A and try to stay on that plan. The reality is that I am not doing that to put on a show for her. It is actually what I should be doing even if the A had never happened. It is what I always thought I was doing.

Make sure you are tested for all std's...even expats can get them...read what you said about aids.

I remember going to my obgyn,who was a friend of mine after I discovered my xh's affair. broke down crying in his private office...he drew my blood right then and there in his leather chair for me...and teared up too.

how to fight fantasy? with cold hard facts.

I'd personally call the OM and ask if he has herpes...say that your ww has it...and you're sure he caught it with her..or from him.

how's that for one cold hard fact?

tell OM that he can't snag other chicks with pee pee pimples! that it will make him rather un-marketable among the single women and married ones of the world. good fog busting technique I think...

I'd also let ww know that you have revealed the sex problem of her std to the om.

you'e doing a good job of exposing btw.

I remember freaking out when I got a red bump on my bikini line a few years back shortly after separating from my xh...at that time we were separated and I had my attorneyt call his attorney and request my xh take tests to determine if he was carrying something...I had tested negatively initially...but that did little for him...he was too fogged out.

ironically...

now?

the ow/w (I unaffectionately call her the "wistress which is a combo of wife plus mistress), has HPV...yea, she's got it! and she is convinced as per her "telling all to me" this past summer that my xh gave it to her.

Oh I am just glad I did not get his gifts that kept on giving!

I'd take away ww cell phone and monitor all her calls.

she is an addict right now...but in that sense also remember this...addicts CHOOSE TO USE...they sure do.

we want to label everybody has having this or that impairment or disease...before we know it in this country, every single criminal will NOT be jailed as they will have discovered the criminal has this syndrome or that illness and that they "can't help themselves".

a user CAN CHANGE IF THEY WANT TO. CAN being the operative word ok?

STD's are a big no-no here (even though they are pervasive - especially among the locals and I won't go into the details of why). They are rarer among expats because we are tested so frequently and almost never mix with the locals. Even so, since I went to the company hospital for testing, they tested me nine ways to Sunday and looked for anything and everything. Even so, I think I will still get another test for HIV in a few months because I have heard that may not show up immediately.

She does not have a cell phone that I am aware of. She could get a GSM card on the black market easily enough but I don't think she has done that since I am catching her with prepaid phone cards and calling on public phones. She is not calling from the house. I check the phone bills online almost daily and the CID is showing nothing "unusual" although I am still looking for patterns.

We are in process of getting a chauffeur. This was originally done because she had planned to leave. Now we are doing it so we can get out more and go to Bahrain for dinner, etc. (and be able to consume alcohol and not have to drive afterward) and, if she ends up leaving, I can get the girls to school without problem so it is a fail-safe plan in that regard.

I am not sure I feel like talking to the OM by phone. If I can get in touch with his mother, I will tell that to her. I do have his email address and am wondering whether I should send him that in a message. I also have all his friends' phone numbers (what I copied off his GSM) in the UK. Maybe I should call them and tell them as well (about the HPV)? Any opinions on that?