Actually, we do understand.

If you want to hang out and just get support for your own personal healing, feel free.

If you change your mind down the road and want to try saving this, you couldn't be in a better place.

Larry, get yourself to your doctor and get anti-depressants prescribed as soon as you possibly can. It’s important; it’s vital. Also, find a good professional counselor for some individual counseling. Please, Larry. Do these things tomorrow. Your young daughter deserves a full-time father. Do these things and we’ll talk later, okay?

Larry - I don't have any advice for you, but the others on here have given you good advice. I guess everyone who posts on here has gone through something similar one way or another - including me.

I don't know why, but it always makes me feel better to know I am not the only one going through something like this. Keep that in mind and try to do the best you can.

Hang in there Larry and do what Longhorn said as far as seeing a doctor and counselor. I started taking AD's about 2 mos. ago (never would have thought I would have done that) and started seeing an IC about a month ago. They both help - a ton.

I posted a response to you some days ago on the JFO forum, before I realized you had also posted here. My post was pretty much what Longhorn said, but he said it much much better than I did.

Please read this thread - The ultimate price of BS meekness/ WS fence sitting

Tonight my wife moved out of our bedroom to the spare bedroom. In a way, I'm relieved. But mostly, I am depressed. My depression is the reason she left our room. Told me to quit whinning and live with it. She's not speaking to me. At least she can't lie to me when she's not speaking.

We are talking thru email and it's ugly on her end. Everything I read about my wife's reaction was spot on. SAA nailed it on the head. So I'm not too surprised by the crap that spewed from her mouth. I will go out tomorrow and buy 2 copies of SAA, one for me and one for her. Won't give it to her for a while though. She will probably throw it at me.

I am also going to get some help. Longhorn, I really appreciate your help. Maybe I can help someone else in the future. And I can't believe it came from a Longhorn fan. I'm a big OU fan and I work for them too. Boomer Sooner.

I got to be able to stand up against WS. I told her that this marriage will not work if the OM is still her life. UGLY! But at least I was prepared. Still hurt though. I also gave her a date. 5/06/2007. That will be the date I give up on the marriage.

I don't want to do this. I'm hoping that a professional can help me. What I need for now is to feel better. I need me, my kids need me and my wife needs me.

Can you believe the cruise is still on? More to come. I gotta go spend another sleepless night.

Thank you to all for your support!

Larry...

Larry, your wife has one valid point. You can't be depressed all the time, whining and needy. The anti-depressants will help, but they take a while to build up in your system. Get to your doctor today, pardner. While you wait for the meds to kick in, use this anonymous forum to vent and for support. Also, you can get busy doing things that will support your marriage and make it better instead of letting things deteriorate.

How's that list of exposure targets coming? Don't delay on the exposure, Larry. Exposure is THE best tool you have to shock the affair into extinction. Get control of your emotions, take a big breath, and go talk to people. Your WW wants this cruise. Good. Expose to the hospital administrator, human resources director…whoever is appropriate…make sure your children know, run through the rest of your list and then take your WW on the cruise.

Dr. Harley recommends a long getaway for the spouses to reconnect and, while it’s not going to be perfect and in line with Dr. Harley’s recommendations, the cruise might just give you and WW a break you can use to good purpose. Don’t wait until after the cruise to expose, Larry. That would be perpetuating a lie.

Hang in there pardner. Things are bad, but once you begin nibbling away at the mountain of pain and confusion, it begins to erode on its own.

Larry - One other book I would suggest in addition to SAA is "Tough Love" by James Dobson (Focus on the Family guy). The premise of that book is not being a doormat and not putting up with all the crap - being "tough". That book has helped me too. Good Luck.

Larry, people here will support you, they will put their experience to work for you, they will comfort you, professional help can guide you but as I am learning myself, ultimately YOU are the one who has to do it. Don't wait one more second!

SW

Larry-

Have a good cry then pull yourself up and be a pleasant, cheerful SOB. Act like you haven't a care in the world. Live by Longhorn's post about bargaining- don't do it.

Use this time to improve yourself (see Plan A) and at the very least you come out of it a better person.

If you curl up the corner in the fetal position you haven't got a chance.

sorry you're here, but glad you're gonna take action..we're a strange little club here, but we're good people and will help you out.

dynamics of this affair? hmmm. I am in healthcare. I see patients every day and do know that sometimes they get attached to us. I have certain patients who will not allow any other person in my specialty to see them but me. when I had to go and run the secondary hospital site's dept for the last mo. and a half, I had two of my repeaters come ove there scheduled to see me. And then sure...I have male patients who are admirers.

what it's all about...your WW is feeling the effects of hero worship, that is it plain and simple. and maybe a little hysterical bonding.

what does she do exactly? what area? what did this guy have to be a patient? just wondering so I can maybe give clues into busting it up...even moreso.

most likely, this guy came along, felt vulernable due to whatever brought him into her care, and saw her as somebody saving him....thus the hysterical bonding element. and he probably fed her ego like crazy. I had two patients recently ask me out. One brought me flowers a year ago. and another one tried to ask staff members/hospital and docs if I was attached...went around asking about my personal life. I was kinda wierded out though.

since maybe we can see that he fed her NEED FOR ADMIRATION...how are you working dude to fulfill that need? I might suspect it is a top en for your WW.

Also...let's work on exposure. get all the dirt on OM. married? family? and most definitely at HER work...why? HE MAY COME IN FOR FOLLOW UP VISITS....and that needs to be made aware to staff. inappropriate professional behavior and opens her job place up to sexual harassment potential suits.

expose the work too.

just expose and get it out there.

find out as much as you can about om. and do the suggestion longhorn said to do about the tape recorder. get the minirecorder and make sure to keep the volume up high...gets better recordings that way. if you can afford it, i recommend a private investigator. that way her trysts with the om in the parking lots can be documented.

and NO to the kids around OM

PROTECT YOU KIDS AT ALL COSTS...KEEP OM AWAY!

stay tough. you can do it. either way you will get help to recovery. hopefully we'll help you recover your marriage.

but at the least, we'll make damn sure you recover yourself and for your kids <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

all our best. keep up the good fight.

and remember...THINK DO NOT REACT...keep emotions at bay b/c it's best to be driven not by them, but by our thinking brain during a time like this .

Today I did something I thought I never do. I got help from a professional. I saw a mental health counselor today. And it helped. She told me what I wanted to hear and some I didn't want to hear.

The plan of attack is pretty simple for now. I have to get myself together. My emotions have won. I can't save the marriage in my current condition. You all know exactly what I am talking about. I am now having anxiety attacks. Scared the crap out of me. I didn't know what they were. Now that I know, I can handle them a little better.

Tomorrow I see my doctor for anti-depressants. That will help. But until I get control of myself, I can't save the marriage. That's my first priorty. I'm not thinking rationally. I cry at the drop of the hat. So I go on as best I can.

Another thing I need to do is quit reading her email. That's tearing me apart. It's pretty graphic. I have a stack of emails 2 inches thick. That will be enough evidence if it comes to that.

And the last thing to do is the cruise. We will go on the cruise as a family. This will either make or break the marriage. But I told WW that this doesn't change anything, but I won't worry about the marriage until after the cruise.
Not the best choice for some, but the best for me for now. My counselor thought it was a great idea. So we'll see.

By the way, WW and I are talking again. But she still sleeping in the other room. Through all this, we are still very good friends. So I know there is hope for this marriage yet. But the worst is yet to come.

More later

Thanks,

Larry...

I'm glad to see you doing some things for yourself, Larry.

I can't help but wish you could expose this obscenity without further delay though. You know, exposing at the hospital is probably going to kill it dead, right? From my point of view, the best way to reduce the anxiety would be to remove the source of the anxiety--the adultery.