I don't suggest that you take this approach. I suggest instead that you talk to her about the behaviour you've noticed above, and respectfully request that she delete his contact as part of the NC agreement. I suspect that her withdrawal will only be drawn out longer if you don't take this step. What if six months down the road the OM decides to say "hi"?

BTW - have you configured her IM s/w to keep a history log?

So the instant messenger thing. Is it just a way for her to get over it without actually "chatting" with him. Is it her way of checking to see if "he" may try to chat with her. Or her way of testing her self control? Or my way of being overly obsessed?

yes it keeps a history of events not actually context of chats. It would show if a chat had taken place, but no details aside from time and date.

It keeps hope alive for her. "Is OM looking for me? Does he have something to say to me? How is he doing?"

You check here for words from us CD, she does the same, but with the OM. We are here to help your M as best we can. The OM is there to hurt your M if he is still around at all.

Good point. What I am saying is, if he never initiates contact. Will she eventually start thinking , OKM isn't looking for me. He doesn't care for me as much as my H. Keeps hope alive but could it also eventually dissolve that hope when he doesn't respond as she expects?

Real simple:

If there is NC then your wife will start to feel in love with you agian in time. It takes longer than we want it to, but it does work this way.

If they don't contact each other your wife's feelings will fade for OM. She misses the high of the A and would love to have that feeling back from time to time.

How was the motocross event? Great family fun. Keep doing these types of things and doing stuff with just your wife. Let her feel a little more connected to you with each "date" you two have.

Here is the thing. Your WW is a recovering ADDICT. This messanger status thing is troubling. Don't ask her permission, but keep putting up boundaries to prevent contact. Delete it, or block him, or whatever it takes. Contact is what is going to hurt your recovery efforts, not pissing your WW off because you put up boundaries. Quit being afraid to enforce boundaries. As a recovering ADDICT in WITHDRAWAL, you don't want her to be parading around with drugs in her pocket and just hope she doesn't take them because one day when she is feeling down and weak, she may just slip up if her drug is readily available. PREVENT THAT FROM HAPPENING!

Good to see you have power Jim!!

My power was out for about 18 hours on Friday night into Saturday.

Ya know,
I am going to bring this messenger issue up. I am going to ask her to delete his name. Also the 4 pics of this freakin snake from our computer. Also has three pics of him on her cell.
The last time I brought something up regarding his shirt to be exact. I lost it let her have it loads of LB's , demands and DJ's. She called him the next day! Because she was "upset" and wanted to let him "know" I had his home and work phone #'s. I
Found out that she called him and called her immediately with my new found info. Let her have it again. Told her it was very selfish of her. I also said it was nice to know that she was capable of protecting someone that she cares about.
Now I bring this up tonite. I am sure it will get heated, I will take it personally and launch into her again.How do you guys avoid losing your cool. I really feel like I got the shaft on this whole ordeal and now I am the one kissing her A$$ to fix everything.
Don't get me wrong I know my behavior led our marriage into the weak state it was/is in. Just feel like there needs to be a chance to get my issues out there without worrying that she will "run" to her OM.
This past weekend was really nice we had a good time together and I was hopeful, aside from the msn messenger status changes nothing she did upset me at all. I don't want to make her feel like she gets in "trouble" all the time. Especially after such a nice weekend spent together. I guess i am just hoping I can wait it out to see how long it takes her to decide to delete these things on her own.

Ok, you know better than to LB.

You can say things like

"Honey, by you still using msm messenger as you are, it hurts me deeply. I feel like you are not giving us a chance when you do this. I don't want you and OM talking anymore because I feel disrespected when you do. I'm asking you to get rid or his pictures and the msm account. Will you do that for me?"

Very calm and cool. You don't have to be a doormat, but you don't have to leave your M in jeopardy of her having contact agian either. Very fine line here I know. You show calm and respect, but your boundaries also.

Why must you bring it up? What do you need to ask permission for your WW not to walk all over you. Just delete it and don't even bring it up. It's not worth talking about it. Just do it. I don't want to come off the wrong way here, but GROW A PAIR! You are well within your rights to do this. I deleted everything from my WW. I deleted his number, emails, threw away pieces of paper with his contact info, CDs he burned for her, and blocked his email address all without asking. Do you know why? Because if I asked she would have said "no," and then we would have argued, and she would still have all that crap. She didn't even say anything about it when I did all that. You don't need to ask permission to enforce your marital boundaries.

Yeah - you could do that too.

I see where your coming from CD. You want your wife to do all of this stuff, not you. You want her to feel that same as you do about the OM. That will come in time, as long as there is NC, but not right now. CD, stop coming here for help and answers. You don't want to, you like the help you are getting or atleast you can talk to people who understand your problems. Makes you feel better right? What if you thought you were in love with this place? Then how hard would it be to stop coming here? It would help if someone took away your computer wouldn't it? Take away her means of talking to the OM.

Your wife let you toss OM shirt so why not these things too. After you are done tossing them, blocking them and deleting them then you can state that those are part of your boundaries - NC!!!

Asking her to do it herself is just setting yourself up to get hurt. She is going to cry, kick, and scream about it, you are going to get hurt by her throwing a fuss over giving this stuff up, you are going to LB, and then you are going to come on this forum and post about what an awful conversation it was an how you don't know if you can do this anymore.

Spare yourself the heartache. Just do it yourself. It is easy to avoid LBs if you just do it yourself and if she start an argument, just walk away. Problem solved. Part of recovery is you making the changes necessary to prevent this from happening again. Failing act to protect your M because you want to avoid confrontation will only leave your M open to this happening again.

My WW threw fits about me checking her email, phone and bank records, and purse at first, but she's used to it now and doesn't complain anymore because she knows it won't keep me from doing it. That's my boundary and there is nothing she can do about it.

screw it all. I am going to tell her that either "she" does what needs to be done or she can get the he(( out! She can't take our kids out of state she can fend for herself, see where the love of her life is now. He probably has a number of other flings going on .

If I have to constantly monitor my wife to protect myself, I don't want her. She doesn't care I feel like I am kissing her A$$ . Like a freakin pu$$y . This showing love and caring for someone so selfish and not gettting any kind of help fixing our marriage is old.

You know if you leave it up to her, it won't get done. You obviously have a lot of work you need to do on yourself if you want to save this M. Let go of all that resentment. It will only lead to LBs. What about your children? You need to be strong, do what needs to be done, and continue to work on yourself for them if no one else. Just think of this as an investment. You are sacrificing now in order to have a happy future. You seem to be making excuses to not do the right thing. You need some IC. You need to make some changes. You need to let go of all this anger. You need to work on meeting your WW's ENs and avoid LBing. You need to do this with no expectation of reciprocation. After withdrawal your WW will start following your example. Things aren't always going to be hunky-dory in your M, so you need to learn to suck it up when things get rough. You can get through this.

You only have to do this for a few months. It took about a month and a half of struggle to finally get my WW to stop contacting OM. It has been over a month since the last contact, so I think I'm finally in the clear.

You are the one that said you wanted to save your M. Well guess what, it is work. We told you it wasn't going to be easy. Put your taker in check, so you can keep the family together. After withdrawal is over, you will have the chance to build a happy M. Now is just the rough time in between. M2L was saying the same thing 6 months into his situation. After the 7th month, his WW finally got it and started to work on the M. Now he is happy as can be, and it was worth his efforts.

I am calling her at lunch in 5 mins. wish me luck.

cd... you are getting advice that is right on the mark. Believe what you are reading.

The pull of the addiction is STRONG. You cannot leave temptation on the doorstep. It must be banished from your property. The pull of a "romantic" addition is stronger than that of alcohol or nicotine. It is wholly consuming. The only cure for the symtoms of withdrawal in a healthy combination of NC and time.

Even contact with an inactive IM account has a horribly strong pull. She waits, eager just to see him type something, anything, to get her fix.

I'm with Jim on this. Eliminate all the "trappings" that keep her enslaved. My WW was just as bad. She hung on to believing the OM would "white knight" ride into her life and save her during 6 months of "attempted recovery", in which she called him only a half dozen times, and he NEVER called her ONCE during that time. The fantasy stayed alive in her head for the full 6 months without seeing him in person once. That's how freakin' strong the fantasy becomes.

You must keep your Taker on the shelf even beyond the time her withdrawal is complete. The times my WW did call the OM were RIGHT ON THE HEELS OF AN ARGUMENT WHEN I ENTERED INTO A FESTIVAL OF LOVEBUSTING! We, in effect, can drive the WW to the OM by our actions. Make no doubt about this!

Stay in Plan A and learn to disclipline yourself to maintain your COOL during any kind of interaction with your WW. One love buster can undo 10-15 positive deposits you make in her love bank.

No, it's not fair. No, it's not fun. No, it sucks. No, it's not easy. No, there's no immediate payoff. Yes, we must be crazy to put our lives on such a restricted menu of behaviours to draw our wives back into our marriage. Or wait, maybe that's the unconditional love we offered when we took our vows? Yes, that's it. We do this because we love our wives like no other, and will do what it takes, through thick or thin, better or worse, to save our marriage. Unconditional love.

There can be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, if one is willing to do the work hard enough, long enough to succeed.

I have always sensed that YOU are that kind of a guy.

Keep plugging away!

SD