Ok, so I am one of the foolish ones (and no, that doesn't hurt my feelings) who has been unable to convince his FWW to leave her job where she is a peer with OM. I understand that I need to set a boundary that I am unwilling to be in the marriage while she is working with OM. So, according to the posters I am supposed to go to Plan B? How am I supposed to do that with two very young children involved? I am not leaving the house, and I doubt my W will.

I am on the verge of exposing to her company's HR Dept. with the hope that they will fire one or both of them. But I would rather she leave of her own accord, so I'm continuing to pressure her to do so and I now have SH applying some pressure too. I've asked her parents to apply pressure as well. My plan is to give it just a little more time, a week or two, to see if she starts looking for a new job. If that doesn't happen, then I'll expose to work, but if that doesn't get results, I'll be at a loss as I have no idea how I could get to plan B. I guess I would press for a written separation agreement that addresses custody.

Mr C

YOU are not the foolish one

your wife is the foolish one

Pep

Mr C, your plan is very sound. Hopefully, it won't come to Plan B, but as you have seen with your own eyes, this is all hopeless if she continues to work with him. You know that you will be dealing with an on-again, off again affair. I hope that you don't have to seperate, but if that is what it takes to get her out of there, that is preferable to sharing your W with the OM for years on end, I would guess.

I agree. I think it is off right now as I haven't been able to find anything by snooping and she has opened her cell phone to me. SH thought she was telling the truth too, at least about how things are right now. However, as long she works with OM she does not need any electronics to be in touch with him and they could start again at any time.

I just finished reading SAA and I am absolutely shocked by how closely the situations presented in that book mirror my own experiences. Everything my wife has said, every way she has acted is described perfectly, unbelievably accurately, in that book. It's hard not to follow the logic to the next level and assume that everything will be exactly as he says if I don't pursue NC. But, then again, it's hard when I feel like I am the one making a demand that will most likely not be met willingly and will result in my seeing the kids 50% of the time.

But mr_c, can you not see this is the certain outcome if you don't make the effort to stop the contact? Have you not read KiwiJ's thread? Months and months of recovery shot to h3ll because she made contact again. If you don't make NC a boundary, no matter what other progress you make in your marriage, you'll be where Kiwi's husband is now.

Yes, the above is true.
My WH had an A a year ago with someone he worked with.
We naively assumed he could "handle" still working there. I even wrote his application for a promiotion in the same place after the A (How dum am I)
As the year progressed, his strict NC diluted into smiling, waving, sitting together in groups etc,
and then when she finally approached him to say she was leaving he was shellshocked, felt all the old feelings coming back and wrote to her.
NC NC NC is the ONLY way.
We are now back to the very beginning of recovery. Thankfully my WH wants to recover 100% but it is still incredibly tough and we really could have done without this whole plunge back to the beginning if he or she had left.
NC Please, for your sanity and your marriage.

You need to have a plan B in place. While it w/b best NOT to resort to plan B, you s/b prepared.

Do that before you set your ultimatum. What does Steve say?

L.

I am meeting with Steve tomorrow. Wife met with him this morning, but I haven't had any feedback from her. She never initiates talking about anything.

If I go to plan B I think I will ask her to leave the home. Either way we need to get something on paper because of the custody issues.

Now I am thinking I will go to plan B before exposing to work.

Expose 1st, then plan B. Better yet, ask Steve.

L.

Steve said to keep that particular exposure in my back pocket for now. He thinks she will see the light soon and she will want to leave on her own, after a few more sessions with him. That's how I would prefer it to happen, I think it would show real progress on her part, so I'm holding out and hoping he is right.

He does have the advantage of having spoken to her and assessed where she is at emotionally, so I'm going to let him steer for a while.

MrC, what else did SH say? Can you give us an overview of your session?

Sure ML.

He asked me what my wife had told me about her session. I explained that she had told me that she and SH had figured out why the affair happened. That her most important emotional needs weren’t being met by me during the time leading up to the affair and that she allowed someone else to meet them. This happened because she didn’t understand what her ENs were, and thus failed to protect them from being met by someone else. She still doesn’t know what they are. SH seemed surprised that she didn’t go into more detail when talking with me but didn’t reveal anything to me that wife hadn’t already.

I think that if she actually believes that this is the reason the A started it’s a giant leap forward. She has spent tens of hours in individual counseling trying to figure out why the A happened, how she became someone that could do something so despicable. She did seem a little relieved to be telling me that she understood now, so hopefully she is taking it seriously.

We talked about the responsibility of love. Who is responsible for my W to be in love with me and vice versa? I learned that it is my responsibility, my actions, that would cause her to be in love in with me, and that it is W’s responsibility for me to feel in love with her. However, we both need to be receptive to what the other is giving. This interested me as I have been doing my own plan A since D-day. I am a totally different person than I was before the A. W sees this and acknowledges it, but it hasn’t changed her feelings for me. SH says she is blocking me, perhaps even subconsciously. W wonders if the changes in me are temporary. SH said that I should let her know, in subtle ways, that I cannot unlearn what I’ve discovered about myself and the changes are here to stay.

SH told me that I should continue to be optimistic and tell W that I believe we can work through this. I have been doing this for nine months, and although I can’t see it, this has had a big impact on her. It’s probably the reason she is willing to do the counseling.

Not a bad start. Next session is to go over EN questionnaires. W hasn’t looked at hers yet, but hopefully she will this weekend.