I had a 5 month A with a family friend. He convinced me he wanted me to leave my H and start a life with him, so I did. As soon as I did, he pulled away from me and told me it was over. I was hurt, confused, and completely broken, so I confessed all to my H and returned home. Since then, the OM has continued to play games with my head, telling me I should leave my H, but also implying he wouldn't want me if I did. My therapists says he has some type of personality disorder. He is a liar and a manipulator, and I have recently established NC with him.

I am still living in a fog and struggling to find any feelings for my H. To be honest, I don't feel much of anything for anyone right now. I just feel like I'm going through the motions of life. I want to make my M work, but we had so many problems before the A, and now things are worse. I know that I have to stay as far away from the OM as possible if I ever want this fog to lift, but that is the problem. The OM lives and works one block from where I work. His kids go to the school where I work. Our sons our best friends and are in the band together. Since summer is here, I don't have to see him for about 6 weeks, but as soon as school starts again, I will be put in a position of being in the same place with him constantly - band practice, band parent meetings, football games, etc... How can I ever hope to truly get over this and move on when I will have to see the OM constantly?? Does anyone else have to see their FOM often? How do you deal with it?

Point blank, you need to remove yourself from the situation completely. Quit your job and stay away from him. It will never get better for you until you remove him from your every existance, permanately. I know quiting your job is harsh but having an A is also harsh on your M.
I had an EA. I had to quit my job and am now praying my personality demented OM stays away or I will move as well.
I feel so much better with him out of my life and you will too. They say it takes 3 weeks of wd's, then you can't even take a glance or it will set you back.
Stay away from him at all costs, period.

Quitting and moving is a small price to pay for your marriage.

also a small price to pay for your sanity

PS

a warning

ANY sentence you begin with

"yes but"

is automatically disqualified & considered invalid

BigKahuna has a similar situation with his FWS's OM. Their boys were best friends, played on the same team, were neighbors. Big K and his wife moved temporarily as the OM andhis family were moving soon. Now that the OM has moved, they have moved back.

His wife has had to change where she shops. The sons no longer hang out together. She does not go to games where the OM will be. I know that seems unfair, but it is one of the consequences of poor choices.

If moving is not an option, then you need to take every precaution to not see the OM in any circumstance.

You are making a lot of assumptions even in the presmise of this post..so I'll allow the conclusion that you are extending that tendancy beyond it as well.

Starting with the here and now.

You say you have to see FOM..I say you choose to.

Does FOM dictate your choices? Does he choose where you live/work/socialize/send your children to school?

No, he has no vote in these decisions.

What you are saying..is that you can't continue to live your life as though there had been no affair without seeing OM constantly..to which I answer..you can't continue to live your life as if there had been no affair..period.

Finding a way to remove the OM from any sort of contact with you is absoutely the least painfull choice you will be faced with..and your BS as well.

Change your assumption. Assume that you MUST not have contact..and work backward from there.

Just to clarify, When we moved, we hadn't found MB and didn't really understand the importance of NC. We moved because my wife couldn't stand the proximity to OM and his wife. She left OM while she was "in love" with him.

WHen we moved, we did it for my wife's state of mind and to just give the 2 families space to recover. I told OM it was temporary and we would be moving back home in 3 months time.

Shortly after we moved I found MB and realised what a wise decision we had made. (I made it kicking and screaming - why the he|| should I move)

We didn't have much hope of moving back home and were preparing to sell our newly renovated dream home. But then out of the blue I got a call from OM saying their home was on the market for sale. I looked it up on the Internet and my heart sank. In a depressed market, they were asking almost $40000 more than we thought the house was worth. Imagine my surprise when their house sold in 8 days for the full asking price.

So we were able to move back home. We could never have gone home if OM was still there.

Please never underestimate the power of NC to put your recovery on track. You cannot recover while there is still ongoing contact. Don't fool yourselves.