My husband is caught up in an affair. I found out about it and left him for about 5 months. During this time he visited me and eventually moved back in. After a year of frustration I found out that he was still involved with the girl. I asked him to stop. He said ok but it continued. I got very frustrated and wanted him to take me seriously. I packed up and I left the state, hoping that it would wake him up (we also have a 10 year old child). He called me extremely frustrated that I left him. Professing his love for us etc. Anyway long story short. He lied about it being over. I am back home now visiting for summer break and trying to reconnect with him but today I found that he is still tied to this woman. He says that it is hard for him and that without me being here to meet his needs, and having her available doesn't help. He claims to want to restore the marriage but (we've had a very rough time before this started) he doesn't even know how to express love to me anymore. He knows that it is the right thing to do to stay and he says that he still loves me. I really love him too. I'm afraid that maybe I made a mistake moving so far away. Where I am I have a good job, and a peaceful comfortable place, but I am terribly lonely and my daughter and I both miss him. Should I move back so that I have to opportunity to show him what he would be missing? I wish that I would have found thie site before I moved away. Can this be fixed?

Is the affair over? If yes, perhaps so. If no, then nothing has really changed. If nothing has changed, then nothing will change.

His call. Enjoy your job and new state and make sure your daughter gets to see a lot of it on the weekends.

God Bless,

JL

Why can't he move to where you are? You can meet his needs and OW won't be available.

I like the way he blames you not being there for his affair.

is the affair exposed....

is he willing to go no contact if you move back and become 10000000000% transparant in all emails....calls and contact...

is he willing to go to pro marriage counseling if you move back....

what has he brought to the table..

have you read about the principles of this site...
that include plan A and Plan b..

who is the OW..is she married...does he work with her
is he willing to quit working with her..
does she have children
has he exposed himself to her children...

is the affair exposed to family..etc


ARK

I am very new here (not facile with the ins & outs of MB) and I come from the other perspective (I am the WS), but I strongly feel that he has taken absolutely no steps to end his affair. Your moving back home would be another sign to him that it is ok to continue the affair. If he is serious about ending his affair and living his life with you, I think he should show that commitment by moving to where you have moved, not the other way around.

Thanks for your response. My husband has a lot of issues with bad judgement. Sometimes I feel foolish for still loving him. Anyway he can't move to where I am because he is on probation for a year.

The affair is not over. I just found that out yesterday. I will speak to him today to see if he is willing to end it with no contact. He met the other woman at work but he no longer works there. He has lived with her for a little while during separation. He says that if I were here he would work with ONLY me. He is more than willing to move away when he is off probation. He has been exposed to the other woman, perhaps she just doesn't care that she is messing with a married man or perhaps he has lied to her too (saying we are over, especially since I haven't been around). This seems impossible to me but this website inspires me to try. I will introduce him to the principles today. I met the OW once. She was pretty upset that he had been lying to her. I think that if she knew that he was still persueing me that he would lose love tank points. She is pretty volitile and I think that she will lose points when she curses him out etc. I was thinking of telling him that if he agrees to counseling, no contact, and total exposure that I will move back. What do you guys think?

The affair is not over. He is afraid to trust me (he says) to meet his needs. I guess she has been filling in very well. Anyway I feel like he doesn't want me but he says that is not the case but he won't make a choice. I've requested NC but he is not in agreement(yet), says he needs time to think. Does this mean I should go on to plan B. I'm afraid to go back home with no contact with him. Won't that just push him closer to her? While I've been in town, I haven't had much opportunity to see him (unlike Christmas when I was home). He says that at that time he was not seeing her anymore but since then he has started back. He says that she had left him alone and he persued her. I feel like he is avoiding me now because he knows what he is doing is wrong and doesn't want the guilt that he feels looking at me and his daughter. And since he persued her he doesn't want to hurt her again after convincing her to take him back. He is always angry when he is with me. He is angry because I left him. He is also angry because I didn't meet his needs. We didn't know what we were doing when we got married (6 mos. pregnant) 1 year of dating. Anyway he says "Why now? Why are you willing now to do what it takes?" "I needed you to do it then." "How do I know that you are going to do what you say?" "I need a guarantee that you can make me happy." He has the same questions for me that I have for him. I do admit that I did not cling to him when we were first married, I did not stick up for him when my family talked about him, I did not care for him as I should have. But I also did not have all of my needs met and I didn't cheat so I do also know that it is not my fault that he cheated, it was his choice,but I did make it easier and I would like the opportunity to try to meet each others needs now. He just won't take the risk. Both of us hare having major trust issues.

Shortly after my Dday and while WW was still in secret contact with OM, she begged me to move away - go to another country - put all this behind us - so that she could forget about OM and all the memories of this place.

I thought about it. I thought it mught be a way to possibly save the M.

I decided to stay. I told WW that if this place was too difficult for her that she should leave.

I told her that my DDs were happy and safe, in good schools and had a life.

I told her that there was no guarantee that moving from here would save my M or that she wouldn't just cheat again.

My WW had ruined our family.

And she wanted to keep ruining it. Everything was about her and what she wanted. She gave no care about what was best for the rest of us.

I'm glad I stayed. I guess what I'm saying is that it seems to me like WH is stil trying to manipulate you. He gets you to breach your contract. He gets you to cancel your lease. What does he offer in return? Sorry. I'm just not buying it.

WS' are slow learners so keep it simple.

Tell him so far what he has said is pure babble since his statements are all about him. Let him know when he can put the family 1st (including you), you can consider reconciling. Otherwise, he best be with the cursing skanky OW, because he has lowered his standards. You and your daughter deserve someone who is NOT a WS but rather your real H and father.

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Read SAA & HNHN. The OW will soon wear him out. Right now she is settling for being an OW eventually she will want to step up in life and steal, steal your title and squeeze the life out of your child. The WS will help her do this. Do you really want t/b around such an evil person?

L.

I reread your last post more carefully. He has blamed you for his affair. You even believe it is your fault (because he has convinced you). He says that he cheats because you don't give him what he needs. If you go back, he'll cheat again and - guess what? - he'll still blame you. Until he can accept that the affair was his choice - that he is responsible for his own actions - that only he is responsible for making himself happy, I don't see much hope.

What I do see is that at least one of you has a very twisted sense of what relationships and marriage are all about. Counseling would be a really good plan. Because if you save your M right now, you won't have saved much. What you both need is something very much better. But you need a map to get there.

Will being gone with no contact really help?(Plan B) I've been gone a year, with contact and he has gone back and forth. Sometimes willing to work it out then other times when his life is bad (depression issues) amgry at me for leaving. He says that he understands why I left but at the same time he thinks that I am wrong for it. I want to save and change this for me, for him, and for our child. I just don't want to be destroyed in the process and I am tired of the pain. I am tired of waiting, but can't bear to quit. I feel like by leaving I just pushed him closer to her. I've already dedcided that if he doesen't agree to no contact with her that I am going back. I'm just wondering how NC will affect this. I am not staying here if he is not offering anything. I agree with counseling but can we do that over the long distance (I live 600 miles away). And he'll probably still be seeing her. How effective is counseling when the WS hasn;t given up OW? Should I just wait out the probation and pick this up again when he can leave? He has said that he wants to leave. He said I should go back and honor my contract, he wants to keep in touch and we did this year. I came home 2 times, Christmas and now, and we talked almost everyday. With that contact he still would not leave OW alone. I guess that I'm not sure of MB's principles epecially Plan B., but my plan certainly didn't work. I am very confused, frustrated, desperate, lonely and sad. I feel like there is no saving this. Thank you for your comments. I will consider all. Sorry that this correspondence is all over the place.

Until NC is firmly established, MC is a waste of time and money. For now, all you can really do is IC.

I'll go back and read this again in a few minutes. It's not as confusing as you think.

Piojitos, You seem to have a lot of advice, not for just me but also for others. What is your experience if you don't mind me asking? Are you in plan A/B/Recovery?

I may be on the verge of recovery. My family is away for the summer so this is a very difficult time for me. Let's just say that my imagination sometimes allows me to think WW may be secretly in contact with OM. Empirical evidence would indicate otherwise. After my Dday, I had about 6 months of lying, cheating, stealing because WW continued to violate NC. Once we had NC established, I had another six months of living with a wet rag. Then things started to get better. Then I had an abbreviated Plan B and my WW seemed to get serious about making changes.

My big mistake was staying in Plan A too long. By the time WW wanted the M, I no longer did. So it has taken me a few months to try to re-engage in the relationship. I'm not quite there yet. If we can survive the summer without incident, I might be in pretty good shape.

stuckey,

I'm on a fence here. Do you think you might make two lists? One lists for the reasons you want to save your M and another list of the things preventing you from doing it? I think it might help to break this thing down into smaller blocks. I'm concerned that your H sees that you are finally about to make a life for yourself and he is trying to suck you back down into his quagmire. Has he ever in his life valued marriage and valued you as his wife?

In the very beginning he did, he was very sweet and worked very hard (1st 2 years). Then something happened. We were living in an apartment in a bad part of town. I never experienced anything bad but anytime I told anyone that I lived there they had negative reactions. I was 6 mos preg. when we married. I began to get nervous about where we lived. His mom decided to move to TX. She offered her house to us for rent. He said no because he and his mom didn't have the best relationship but I pushed. So he gave in. He was the only one working and our rent was higher so things were tight. His mom was struggling in TX and needed to increase the rent (we were paying a discounted rate b/c we were family). We couldn't afford it so she was pushing us out. When my mom found out she offered to let us live with her for a while and save our money. It sounded good to me but not to him. He was not presenting any alternate plans. So I told him that I wasn't just gonna sit there until his mom put us out and that I was moving home he could come or not. He came. My mom has never liked him and spoke against him until the day of the wedding. He didn't feel comfortable nor accepted by the family. She is also bipolar, and when we moved in I guess she went off her medication or something. One day she went off on him over nothing. Ranting and raging through the house calling him all kinds of MF's and SOB's. I was used to this kind of behavior because of my childhood, and I just ignore it and even was in denial about my mom's illness (thought she was just hurting from her divorce). He went into the kitchen to confront her. It got really ugly and physical. Now everyone in the family hated him - my mom quickly spread the word form her POV). He left but I did not. We reconciled about a week after that. That's when everything changed. That was 8 years ago. It has gradually gotten worse and worse. I have recognize the damaged that choosing my family over him caused him and us, and I have apologized and tried to make things better but I continued to spend a lot of time with family without him and I refused to move away. So that is when our relationship began falling apart. He and I have talked a lot about this. We have talked it to death. I don't feel that he has forgiven me for not trusting him to take care of me and not clinging to him. Since then I have gotten saved. I have read many book on marriage and have tried to apply what I've learned in my life. He has not gotten saved and continues to live a worldly lifestyle, which put a larger gap between us. But since I've been gone he has tried to get into church. He has called me and urged me to pray for him, and us. He has told me not to speak anything negative concerning us. When I initially left, I had not intended to return, but he pulled me back in with his desire to "change his life". He did cut off his relationship for a while but it didn't last. He said that when times were tough he had to talk to someone and that telephone conversations weren't doing it for him (I live 600 miles away). I haven't gotten a response to my Plan A NC appeal yet. We are going to talk more today. My biggest concern is that my distance is putting the nails in the coffin. But there are no guarantees that if I stay things will work out and I'm tired of not having stability for my daughter.

I left my husband last year when I found that he had not ended his affair. Unfortunately, I didn't know about Plan B and I kept in contact with him via phone and Christmas visits. I moved 600 miles away. When I left he fell on hard times. He even had to live in his car (he had been neglecting his responsibilities as provider and couldn't even support himself with the little bit of money he made) anyway he lost the apartment. On a few occasions I sent him money. I talked to him and encouraged him that he could overcome his struggles and that he would be a better man once he stood on his own two feet. When I came home Christmas, things were good. He said that his affair was over. He had a place. He had a car, and had a job that paid better and he was keeping it. We spent two weeks together and seemed to get along well. I went back home happy thinking that all was on the upswing. But he struggles with depression (my diagnosis) and when he got down he began to call me and say he needed me and that I should be there for him. (he tries to solve his depressions with sexual relationships) Anyway he said it was too hard to be faithful. I told him I would be there soon(summer, I am a teacher) and to just pray for help and discipline from God until I get back and then we could talk about a plan for reconciliation. Anyway I came home this summer and he was acting angry at me. He was distant. I find out that he is back with the OW. I tell him that if he would let her go with no contact I will move back home and we can work through our issues with a counselor and MB books. He declined. I am so pissed. He says he is not saying no to me he is saying wait (Wait for what?). He needs to handle this himself and he won't be rushed (blah, blah, blah). Why is it that when I left he begged me home, Made all kinds of promises etc. but now that I am offering what he said he wanted he is backing away? I don't know if I can deal with this rejection. How do you handle it when the WS chooses the affair over you? What really makes me mad is that when I originally left I wasn't planning on returning. He played me. Started going to church, started talking positive, said we needed to pray together for our marriage etc..and I fell for it and got pulled back in like a fool. I really don't want to be divorced but I'm not sure if I can handle this one. Any advise?

In general terms, I think you need to stop rewarding bad behavior. He says he is continuing his A because you are not there. So you decide to breach your contract, reneg on your apartment lease and move back home. Then he says he cannot be rushed into breaking off the A. So you scramble to find a way you can accept this (church, MC, etc.). When the dog poops on the carpet, you don't give him a biscuit.

This A is not your fault. You are never going to be able to change yourself into something that will make this A go away.

I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of being alone. I was afraid of being afraid. I think fear may be your biggest enemy right now.

I think that you are right. I am afraid. I am afraid that this can't be fixed. I can't imagine starting over with a new person, yet I am 32, and don't want to be alone for the rest of my life. How did you over come the fear?

So the advise is to stop being afraid to go on with my life. Execute plan B and don't break it. I'll be getting How to Survive an Affair when I get home. Maybe it will help. Is it helpful even if only one spouse is reading it?

Really good question. Not a simple task. But the first thing you have to find out is what it is you are really afraid of.

Are you afraid of losing the love of your life?
No, that has already happened. Nothing to fear there.

Are you afraid of being alone for the rest of your life?
That's not going to happen.

Are you afraid of change? the unknown?

I decided that in spite of my fear of the unknown, I would be far happier taking the chance of finding someone who truly loved me than staying with someone who loved someone else.

Funny thing was WW was even more afraid than I was. Once I cut her loose, she decided she didn't really like it.

I had to be willing to accept whatever came. I got to the point where I decided that anything was better than what I was living. It took me quite a few months to get there. Too long.