My wife of 14 years nearly had a nervous breakdown about 3 weeks ago and after forcing the issue she informed me that she had been fantasizing about having an affair with other men for the past several years. At one of her conferences about 5 years ago she got drunk and put herself in a position to act on PA but claims she came to her senses at the last minute and ran out of the OM's hotel room crying. Also during this time she was fantasizing about having an affair with a married coworker(again she never acted on) and claims that those fantasies ended with the birth of our first child.
With the recent confession to me, I found out that she is currently fantasizing about an EA with a subordinate that she works with(again). I have been reading extensively on this site ever since and have found alot of extremely helpful information to repair our marriage. I am currently trying to implement a Plan A but I have some major hurdles that are hindering the process that I need help with.
Of course, once she revealed these fantasies (the "wake-up call"), she gave me all the usual WW excuses like "I should never have gotten married.." and "I'm so confused..." and my 2 favorites "I'm not physically attracted to you..." and "I'm not sure if I really love you..", you get the idea.
Anyway, what makes my situation unique is that my wife works in a highly specialized field as well as all of the other people she works with. Since the object of her fantasies is someone that works under her, she can't really forge a relationship with the OM without putting her job in jeopardy. When she first told me about the fantasies, I had wanted to speak to the OM and find out if he had the same feelings for her(and also to confirm what she was telling me and that no PA had taken place). She took this idea (unfortunately) and ran with it and ended up telling her subordinate her feelings and found that he had feelings for her as well even though he is married with 2 kids. She claims that they both mutually agreed not to act on the feelings, knowing that they both would stand to lose their jobs and families, etc. but of course I'm not sure if that really is enough of a deterant or not. I have already told her that I am committed to meeting her emotional needs that had been lacking after 14years and a child. We had fallen into the same old boring routine and were both just going through the motions as of late, but there was never really anything I did that could justify her actions (other than apathy or lack of attention).
After the initial shock and anger, I retreated with my daughter to my mothers for a week and a half. She nearly cracked under the pressure of me leaving and ended up going to the emergency room with an anxiety attack and they ended up prescribing an anti-depressant and a sleep aid to restore some balance in her. They also recommended she see a counselor and she has just started that as well. After I came back we have had several good discussions and it seems that she is being open and honest with me about her feelings but still claims she is confused.

So my question is this: How can I recover the love in my marriage if the fantasy man is still on the scene and may be for some time? He has apparantly been looking for another job for some time, but because of the specialized nature of their field, it may take quite a bit of time for him to move on.

I have been working hard to give her more attention and we even went out to dinner alone last nite to spend some quality time with each other. I plan on continuing to improve meeting her emotional needs but I feel like I am doing all the giving and she is just taking. I have told her that I want her to give me some input on what I can do to improve the marriage but either she doesn't know herself, or she hasn't told me.
I know it's impossible to include all pertinant info here so if I left something out, please ask and I will provide it as best I can.

The big red flag (among others I see) is that your wife had this big breakdown while you were gone with your daughter (which you probably never should have done).

If your wife and this OM didn't act on their mutual attraction, then why the breakdown? Seems to me that there is more than meets the eye here, and it's unfortunately very rare for 2 people (married or not) to admit they lust for each other and then not act upon it. I would be very suprised if she is not already deeply emotionally involved with this man, if not physically.

Don't leave the house for a week and a half. That's practically dangling the temptation of an affair in her face.

Because your wife admits to fantasizing about this, I think you have much more than just an affair to worry about here. You should really get started with a professional to see what deep rooted issues she has going on. If you don't take care of the real problem, you may get rid of this current OM, but another will soon take his place.

Please consider call the Harley's. Their information is on this website and they can do much more for you.

Start to snoop on your WW. There are some good information on the Just Found Out forum on how to do this. Where is Longhorn with his great spy links when we need him?

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...&PHPSESSID=

some spying info

I agree with the others that there is more going on here. I would start some intensive sleuthing because I don't believe you are getting the correct story.


This will likely evolve to a fullfledged affair in the near future if they continue to work together, if it hasn't already. It was a huge strategic mistake to tell him she was attracted to him. But now that it has been done, you can only hope to control the damage. She should not be working with him at all, given the circumstances.

I've done some snooping already and I don't really think anything more is really going on. I have scanned her cellphone already for signs of repeated contact, but there is none. She accounts for her time during the day and others at her work would be aware of any inappropriate contact between her and her subordinate. BUT, of course it is very difficult to believe that nothing more is going on.
Assuming that she really is trying to stop these feelings and that she hasn't crossed the line yet into a PA, what should I do to try and get her back on track. I have been implementing a Plan A for the last couple of days and we have been having some very good talks about our relationship and what we can do to improve it. She just went to her first counceling session yesterday and felt like it did her some good even though it was mainly a background session. Emotionally, she is still very distant from me and we have been sleeping separately since d-day, about 3 weeks. She keeps saying she needs time and space and I have told her that I am willing to give her those as long as she is emotionally engaged in working on our relationship. She is planning to go out with one of her girlfiends tomorrow nite after work and I reluctantly agreed to it. I know the friend she will be going with and felt that I could confirm that they were together.
Should I allow her to do this sort of thing during this time? Can I really ask her to give up her other friendships to devote more time to us during plan a?
I know that if I informed the OM's wife that it could easily result in both of them being fired, which I don't want to see happen. The main reason being that my wife currently is the sole financial provider for our family and I have devoted myself to raising our daughter until she starts school (next year).

During these talks that we have had, she says she needs to work on fixing herself and this desire she has to seek out attention from other men. She feels that she needs to fix herself first and then work on our marriage, but isn't it possible to do both at the same time? Currently she is fairly hesitant to contribute anything to our relationship and I wonder how long my sanity will last while she tries to "fix herself". I feel like im hanging in limbo while she tries to sort this stuff out and I know I can't keep up my plan a tactics indefinitely. How long do I keep up the plan a stuff? I know that its a personal decision, but maybe people out there can give me a general guide?
I feel extremely taken for granted in all of this. I have followed her all over the country and moved almost every 5 years while she pursued her career. I was 100% supportive of her the entire time and my career allowed me to easily follow her where we needed to go. When my job took a major downturn about 5 years ago, we started talking about starting our family and we both agreed that we wanted to have a major role in bringing up our kids. I reduced my hours at work and left altogether during her pregnancy to prepare for the rigors of childcare.
Shortly after the birth of our child, my wifes workplace shut down completely as the company she was working for was consolidating. She spent the next year unemployed looking for a new job and she took over the child rearing duties while I pursued a new career to earn some money to make ends meet. Her new job ended up taking us back to our hometown where both of our families live, although most of our friends have moved on or have their own lives now.
Since our return I guess you could say we both got into a rut in our marriage. That isn't hard to do considering that we have been married for as long as we have. But I have still been diligent in taking care of all the domestic issues while I raise our child and she has continued her career. I would have said before all this that we had a wonderful working marriage, but apparently these fantasies of hers have been getting stronger and somehow she ended up just going through the motions instead of telling me how she really felt and what she really needed. I can't help but wonder if a swift plan b with a total separation to make her realize how much support she gets from me wouldn't almost be better than what I am doing now. I can't get over the feeling of being taken for granted, and she doesn't seem inclinded to tell me she knows how much I really do for her. I only know that I truely believe (and always did) that she is my soulmate and that I don't think I could live without her...

I really hate this feeling of helplessness...

I hate to be pessimistic as I don't feel that way about what you have written here and really think with the right plan your M can be recovered.

BUT, in case it can't you need to be documenting everything in order to protect you and your daughter from what we hope doesn't become a full fledged wayward wife. Financially, custody, etc...