Everything is fine. Son is doing good and wife and I are well.

I just look back at how things finally ended with the affair and I'm somewhat confused, not that I don't like how it ended. I was hoping some of the vets could give me feedback on what happened when this all (knock on wood) ended:

For a year I was in plan A, a bloody year. Any other plan was not a possibility because our son was on a transplant list and neither of us would leave his side. She planned on leaving with OM after transplant and I figured I'd go into plan B after transplant.

Despite how horrible she was at times, I knew deep down she loved me. In the early days that the affair started I had woken up one night and she was sobbing at my side. She wanted me to hold her so tight I thought she wouldn't be able to breath. She got progressively more distant after that night. You all lived that same story...

As time went by, she seemed to come out of the fog more and more. Remember, this was over a period of a year. She agreed to NC, although she established it by calling him when I was not around. I recorded the call and she actually only said that they shouldn't talk for a while.

By d-day 1 year anniversary I'm emotionally drained. My father has passed away, my son is still waiting for a transplant call, and the wife is in NC, but still just not my wife. She still occasionally says she's not sure she loves me like she used to. I figure it will come with time.

Then the accidental contact occurred. She saw the OM in a bookstore while I was in another part of the bookstore. She never tells me about it, or what they said to each other. I do find out, however, and I call the OM. I ask what his intentions were approaching her like that. He tells me it's not my business.

He calls my wife and lets her know we talked. She becomes the defensive and manipulative person that I just cannot deal with all over again. She once again decides she should be able to go back to work where the OM also works. Yet I still hold on, the transplant is waiting, I nor she cannot leave the family.

She tells me that she 'needs' to call him. She says she 'needs' to know why he approached her at the bookstore. She calls from home, and my recorder picks it all up.

So, with trembling hands and a weak heart I retrieve my recorder that night and go off in my car to listen to the recording. The conversation of course has nothing to do with the bookstore encounter. She talks about being in front of the lawyer, almost ready to file for divorce the previous day (I had no idea). She talks about my behaviors she doesn't like, while he encourages her to end the marriage and he'll rent a house. He tells her I would only have to see my son one weekend a month if she left me. He tells her to go with him and everyone else can go 'al carajo' (to ******, it was a spanish conversation). She plays with the idea and enjoys his flirtatious comments before call ends.

I figure it's over for us. After hearing this and being so emotionally drained, I say I'm done. So I go home and tell her I heard it all, I'm done with her and we are gonna split up before the transplant. We are doing it today. She tries to spin the story. She tells me that she didn't say the nasty stuff, it was all him. I tell her to give it up, I'm done, theres no more need to discuss anything but divorce terms.

She gets in the car with our son and leaves. She's on the cell phone with the OM before she even pulls out of the driveway, sobbing as she talks to him. I call my brother and setup a place for me to sleep, I figure she'll probably go to OM's house, but I'm definately leaving for the night.

Five minutes later I get a call. The caller id says it's her. She's sobbing more apologetic, but also aggressive. I tear into the OM, tell her that I am going to forward their emails to the other university faculty (thus destroying his reputation). She turns evil, "I'm going to get you fired." she tells me. I say calmly, "Go ahead, I had another job offer just today", which was true. I hang up and get my stuff ready to leave.

I lay on the floor and pray for my deceased father to give me strength.

She calls back again, sobbing even more uncontrollably. The evil side is completely defeated. She just wants to hear my voice she says. She says my name aloud a few times, as if trying to summon me to her side. I tell her just to come home if she's so out of control. I don't want her to get in a car accident. I ask her to hang up and come home, focus on driving. She won't hang up, she needs to hear my voice.

When she gets home, she wants us, I just want to end it. Odd turn of events, imagine how surreal that was. She holds my face in her hands and begs. She tells me that she loves me, only me. She'll do anything. She says she was so mad at me for all the bad years we had before the affair, it just made her blind to her love for me until now. I tell her to call the OM now, with me, and tell him it's over. She agrees without complaining.

She calls him. She sobs on the phone, but tells him it's over. Tells him she loves her family. She gets too choked up to talk, so I take the phone and tell him that she realized she wanted to be with me, that she came home to ask me to stay with her. He is silent and she says goodbye to him.

Every other time she had tried to (supposedly) end contact with him I saw her distant and somewhat selfish. She'd be moody and withdrawn. However, after this day she never showed a single sign of that old wayward spouse she once was. Not even a sign of withdrawal from the affair. It was almost odd.

She wants to hang out with me all the time now. She misses me like crazy when I'm not with her, and she sends me cards and emails declaring love. It's been two months now and she's still getting even better. She talks of us growing old together and just living a nice simple life (something parents of a child with a life threatening disease often dream of).

I can now even talk about the OM and things that happened during the affair and she doesn't shut down. She answers my questions and reassures me. If we get in an argument, she's the first to come make up with me. When it's been a couple days since the last sf (my big need), she's there to embrace me.

The sudden change was so crazy that I still feel like I don't completely understand what happend. I am thankful as ever to see her this way.

Does this fit the standard finality of an affair? Is this a rarity? I always thought it would be months more of slow work to get her back to the old loving wife, but it actually happened in the blink of an eye. Damn this was a long post...

Well, you know my take on it. I think the whole thing was because of the terrible stress of waiting for a life saving transplant.

I hope your son continues to do well and your marriage thrives.

Thank you for the update via the question, Sundog...

Got an answer for you, then a question.

When my H finally said it's over, with that finality, that true voice he's reserved for maybe three times in our marriage...it hit me. I had the same reaction...abject need...knew I couldn't live without him...felt like I was in a million little pieces...didn't turn out the way yours did, but I had that reaction.

Now, here's my question...do you want the old loving wife back...so you can go through this again...or do you want to be a new person, her a new person, and have a new marriage?

I ask because at the point I did what your WW did...I was an addict. I know it sounds nuts. I firmly believe in love addiction...getting filled from the outside...and as long as your WW is one, she has to be filled from somewhere...which is no protection for your marriage or your heart.

Lots of internal work needed here...and there's a payoff in it for you that you'll have to find out, in yourself...why you like being her drug...instead of two whole people who choose to enjoy, love and honor the marriage, even when they aren't being filled, constantly, by their partner.

ENs are true...only the way Harley's dynamic works is in reasonable needs...your WW's are deep and extreme...and I imagination that makes yours less than average...so please know that this is the beginning...of a long road...to a great place...where you see her new every day and she sees you new every day...as is, no fantasy...no measurements or resentments...your choice and hers, equal and separate...

Otherwise? You got more of the same in different ways...

Love addicts betray themselves...by being love addicts. Not much of a step then to betray others, is it?

LA

Thanks for the replies, both of you.

I definately agree that the fear of losing our son to this disease wrecked havoc on my wife. She suffered from depression and anxiety for years, and I simply felt too sorry for myself (us) to be there for her.

She married me with the expectation that I would be different than I had been during our dating period. That I would be closer, would conversate more and spend more time with her. I, of course, thought she was marrying me for who I already was. That was the beginning of the trouble.

Am I know willing to be the person she needs? Sure, and I think I've proved it over the last year.

Part of my terms when she begged for me back was that we would read HNHN and discuss each chapter. It'll be a starting point for us to realize where we missed each other in the past.

sundog,...

there is a huge huge chasm between what we 'create' in our minds...and what really is.....

while he and her fed the fantasy....
off to a little cottage with a white fence.....

that was the fantasy....

the reality is she had a strong man...who loved her and her son fiercely and with truth...

the OM's swan song sounded sweet but the video of it was evil and empty....

your plan A worked for you....

when push comes to shove...when the rubber meets the road...

you are the one that offered what she really needs....

and it's not that he (OM) offered what she wanted...all he really offered was an escape from reality...

a hard reality you two had...

but we can't escape...
it doesn't work

and you married someone smart enough to realize that....

there are times in my life that I have engaged in actions that horrify me now...how could I have been that person..
how could I have done that....

we can change...all of us...

ARK

Why even try to understand that.

IT worked

worked for me too

HOWZAT!

ps... Just never get outta touch with what you found.

Max