Ok...I will try to keep this from becoming a novel. Basically my situation is this.

In early June, my WH began making a lot of comments about a female coworker. She was having relationship problems and facing a possible move across the country with her boyfriend of 6 years with whom she has a 1yr old daughter. She was pretty distressed and used my husband as a counselor for her problems. He said he felt sorry for her. He kept talking about her frequently since she was asking him questions about his "Christian" faith and he would ask me for ways to answer her questions.

Two things made me very suspicious about this relationship: First, my WH mentioned that another female coworker started a rumor that he was going to divorce me for the OW. He acted pretty insulted over the comment and joked that if she knew the subject matter of their conversations (i.e. Christianity), she wouldn't have started such a false rumor.

The second thing was that he became very saddened over the idea that the OW was moving away and stated that he wouldn't have anyone to talk to when he went to work. He wanted to buy her a bible with her name engraved on it (though he never thought to do that for me) and suggested that we as a family spend some time with her and her daughter before she left.

I became quite alarmed and asked if he "had a crush" on her. He at first denied this and then said that he would, in fact, date her if he weren't married. I was devastated over this comment and said that he shouldn't keep talking with her. He replied that his admission meant nothing and that he couldn't avoid speaking with her since they worked together.

I asked him if he still loved me and he affirmed that he did and we were very close and affectionate for the next three days. Then on 6/28 he became grumpy and mopey. I asked him what was the matter with him (knowing already that he had deeper feelings for the OW than he was admitting). He said "nothing". The next day we got into a major argument over the whole thing and he admitted that they had kissed at work that day. I almost passed out when he spoke the words I was so shocked.

He left that night and did not return until 3:00 am. The next day he was gone all night and did not return until the next day. He admitted that he drove to another state to see the OW who was visiting her sister there.

I actually called the OW on the phone and asked her to give us some space to work out our marriage. She agreed (falsely) to do so, but maintained contact this whole time. She said that she wants to be with my husband and that he and I are very different people.

I immediately exposed his A to his mother, my parents and attempted to leave a voice mail message for one of his other coworkers to find out how long this had been going on. He became enraged that I would expose the A to his coworkers and moved out to live with his sister and her boyfriend. So on the 29th of June they kissed and he was gone by the 2nd of July.

He successfully erased the voice mail message, but his coworkers found out anyway. His boss scheduled meetings to discuss the "rumors" and has even involved the HR department. All of our friends and family know (my WH has even been telling people, though he is not remorseful in the least). He says that he is a "bad person" and "selfish". He also says that divorcing me for the OW is the only way for him to be happy.

It has been a month now and he has contacted an attorney, but says it's too expensive to use one. Instead he will do the paperwork on his own and allow me and my attorney to work out the details. He has refused any attempts I make at reconciliation and attended only one marriage counseling session. He stated that he did not go to counseling for our marriage, but to basically help me get over him.

So I am at a loss as to what to do now. I am simply waiting to be served while he is busy dating the OW. I am a 7 month pregnant stay at home mom and we have a 2 year old son together. I am completely crushed over the fact that he would do this to me and our children and is moving so quickly to dissolve our marriage.

There seems to be nothing I can do to stop it. I unknowingly implemented many of the plan A options, but it seems that my WH is bent on divorcing me. He has made comments that he misses being home and misses my son (though he does not miss me). He says he stopped loving me as much about a year ago and didn't realize how much he didn't love me until the OW came along.

I've been praying non-stop and doing what I can, but my question is: Where do I go from here?

BS- 30 (me)
WH- 30
M- 10 years (together 14)
DD-6/29/07

Your WH is addicted to the feelings he is getting from the OW and their relationship. A Relationship not muddied by kids, responsibilities, bills, dirty diapers, familiarity, history, etc. Get Surviving an Affair and His Needs/Her Needs and read them. Read up on this site.

Have you exposed OW (to her boyfriend, the father of her child to let him know that she is wrecking a home with two small children and dragging his child along with her, her family, friends, etc.)? IF not do so immediately.

I would get an attorney and get my ducks in a row to insure your and your kids financial protection regardless of WH's decisions (maybe a temporary court order with child support, spousal support, use of the home, etc). Give the WH some reality to his choices to go along with his little fantasy. OW is a user and loves the fact that she has your WH as a built in daddy and finanical provider.

Other help will be forthcoming. I am so sorry that you find yourself here especially pregnant and with a beautitful 2 year old at home. Don't trust anything your WH says or does right now.

Welcome. You are doing all of the right things in exposing the affair. You just missed the other woman's boyfriend. Be sure to let him know what is going on. You also need to contact the HR department and let them know your husband is planning to divorce you to be with his co-worker. Ask for their help in separating them. And yes, your husband will be very angry, but he will get over it.

Also be sure to secure your finances by seeing an attorney. Men in the midst of the addiction of an affair can go somewhat crazy.

Then Plan A is your starting point. That is where you show him what a great wife you can be, with no disrespectful judgements or angry outbursts. And stick with us, we can help you through this. The chances are excellent that he will realize his mistake and come back to you.

I truly thank you both for the support and encouragement. I have seen an attorney already and so has my WH. He was very depressed after the meeting and realized he is pretty much financially ruined for the next 2-3 years.

I will be returning to college to finish my degree in 6 months (I have one year before I can obtain my bachelor's degree) and he will have to support me during that time.

I'm amazed that with all the reality checks going on here he is still adamant about getting a D.

Also, I can't reach the OW's boyfriend as I only know his first name and that he is now residing in North Carolina. The OW broke up with him after he had already moved to stay here to be with my WH. She told me over the phone that she hadn't loved her boyfriend for a long time and that it was over between them.

Also, the HR department already knows about the A. Though I'm not sure if all the details were given (i.e. that WH is Divorcing me) since my WH is the one who "explained" the situation to his boss after the rumors began. Should I call the boss directly and speak to her about the situation to give my point of view?

Yes. Let the boss know that you are contacting him to make sure he is getting correct information. Inform his boss that the WS has been trying to justify the A and the OW is helping him to do, very much to the hurt of your family. Let the boss know that you are pregnant and a stay at home mom with a young child. That the association with the OW is dangerous for the welfare of you and your family and that the WS has been mentally and verbally cruel to you since the A has gone full force.

Then thank the boss for his time and say you respect he will do the correct thing. You must then leave it in his hands.

What are the separation laws in your state? Can you secure your finances? Just because he s/b taking care of you financially doesn't mean he will. The OW will be dependent on him financially now that often a WS will support the OP vs his own family. After all, he already has been disloyal in other areas. So don't assume he will keep his word at all.

JMHO,
L.

Sara, the others have given you good advice. Start by exposing the TRUTH of the affair to HR and to anyone else your H may have told. Waywards lie about affairs.

Secure your finances and make sure you are protected.

Your next step will be to do your best to find out why you grew apart on your marriage and try to breach that gap by attracting him back. You mentioned you are pregnant, this can be a prime time for the onset of affairs because the H feels left out. [not an excuse, but very common]

Your H mentioned that he loved to talk to the OW. Is conversation one of his top emotional needs?

I will post an outline of the key tactics of Plan A, but I would strongly suggest that you order Surviving an Affair by Willard Harley [you can order it cheap on this website] to get a better understanding of the dynamics of adultery. Much of what we tell you will not make sense until you have read this book. But, yes, you should be in Plan A.

I would communicate directly with HR. Let them know that the office affair is threatening your marriage.

Think of your husband as being a drug addict. That is why he is being so irrational. The affair is very new, and as he gets to know the OW, it should end. It is hard to keep a fantasy alive.

While you need to protect your family financially, you also need to stall any divorce. How fast can a divorce be obtained in your state? Is your state a no fault state?

I would get a financial agreement in place before your husband changes his mind.

In the meantime, be pleasant and cheerful, and don't make disrespectful judgements or have angry outbursts.

How were things BEFORE the affair? If there was anything he complained about, start making changes.

The Carrot and the Stick of Plan A by Pepperband

The carrot of Plan A


Meeting your wandering spouse's emotional needs.

Making "home" a warm and inviting place to be.

Placing emphasis on what has worked in the marriage.

Showing consistent self improvement in areas where previously lacking.

Stop lovebusting behaviors.

Communicating with a calm reassuring voice and relaxed body language, even in the center of a verbal storm created by the infidel.

Becoming the person any reasonable spouse would want to come home to.

Remaining open to the possibility of recovery.

Offering forgiveness and understanding.



The stick of Plan A


Exposing adultery where it matters most. Exposure that takes the form of a swift and sudden unexpected tsunami of truth.

Not appologizing for exposure or speaking the truth in a kind yet direct way.

Directly communicating the hurt and devastation that the affair has caused.

Not accepting blame for the infidel's choice to become adulterous.

Let the consequences of adultery and infidelity fall freely upon the heads of the adulterous.

Establishing boundaries that disallow the affair to effect children of the marriage, financal security of the marriage, and otherwise ruin innocent bystanders.

Standing up to infidelity as a beast that must be slayed for the good of the family.

p.s. Sara, to answer your question "too late with WH?" No, it is not, it has JUST STARTED. Almost all of them yap about divorce but never follow through. Pretending like are "getting divorced" helps assuage their guilt about adultery. But, it is almost always just TALK. Talk is very cheap with a WS, so you have to go by ACTIONS. In your case, your H has not even filed.

You have entered a strange world of SMOKE AND MIRRORS where deceit and confusion reign. We will help you see through the smoke.

I live in Oregon which has a no fault divorce. My WH says he will not contest any challenges I pose to his petition so after I respond, it will take 90 days for it to go through. I will ask my attorney if there is any way to stall.

I will speak to my WH's boss and to HR, but I have a sinking feeling that something more horrible is on the way. My WH has a habit of "running" from difficulty. I think that he and the OW might move away to Portland or Vancouver together to escape the work environment. Her sister lives there and she visits often. He made a comment earlier this month that I should move to Vancouver because people in my former line of work make nearly 20 dollars an hour. I told him that I wasn't going to follow him and the OW so he could see his son. He initially stated that he would not move because he would miss our son too much, but I think that he is acting so crazy right now and making so many snap decisions that he is going to actually do it.

Besides, he's spent little time with our son since he's been gone (a few hours a day here and there) and rarely spends time alone with him.

Our marriage before seemed good to me. I was content, though my WH was grouchy often. I am a Christian and thought he was one too (though a nominal one at best). However he stated that all I cared about was God and that we had nothing in common. This is not because I didn't offer to spend time alone with him or to do things with him, but because he didn't want to spend time alone with me. I think our second pregnancy really freaked him out and he felt trapped by the responsibility and the fact that he was turning 30.

He says that he was never a Christian and doesn't want anything to do with God at this point. These differences didn't seem to bother him very much over the past few years, but since he met the OW, they he now considers them major issues.

Anyway, I'm off to church and will check in later.

Thanks again for your support.

Sara, this tells me that something was wrong in the marriage and it sounds like he tried to tell you here: "he stated that all I cared about was God." That is a big problem when a spouse does not feel cared for. What did you do to resolve this problem?

saralynn

My hear goes out to you. Your WH and mine sound like twins. I am very new to this (my D-day was April 5, 2007), and right now I am midst of trying to get a separation agreement in place since WH has moved in with OW. (He sent me a certified letter on Friday and I suspect he did what your WH did -- saw an attorney but cannot afford to retain one so put together his own paperwork for the separation, and expects that me and my attorney will tweak it so he can have something official to sign without having to spend money to get something drafted).

At this point, I think I want to reconcile but only time will tell. Right now he seems too far gone to come back...

Listen to the advice you get here. I would have made SO many more mistakes dealing with my WH after the A without the finding the information and advice on this site. Especially protect your finances for the your and your children's sake. I have the strong feeing that WH is starting to hurt for money with OW and is starting down the path of trying to get what he can out of me so he can keep the fantasy alive for as long as possible.

smartipants2

Most of the marital problem revelations came after he told me of his feelings for the OW. I had about 3 days to "work" on the relationship before she kissed him and he was off and running.

He made hints before this time (about a 6 weeks ago) that we didn't seem to have much in common. This was about the same time his relationship with the OW was getting serious. Before then he seemed to just withdraw from time to time and then come out of it. He's not been very big on communication.

After the revelation of the A., I told him that I was willing to work the marriage and have repeated that statement, but now he is totally uninterested. I feel very upset that I was given so little time to really understand that he was experiencing this level of difficulty with me and given no opportunity to work on it.

I really think that his feelings for the OW have made any minor marital flaws become major ones in his opinion. Not that minor flaws shouldn't be dealt with, but he did not seem to make a big deal over them for the last few years until recently.

I think you sized up the situation right--I believe my WH is doing the exact same thing( i.e. making relatively minor issues into dealbreakers). It's funny, his mother told him that we were probably going through the same stuff as other couples who have been together for awhile (we have been married 8 years but have been a couple since our junior year in college), but you just don't go out and have an affair and leave your wife--NO marriage is perfect!

I wish I could understand he got to where he is now--he has abandoned every moral principle I though he had.

I hear you. My WH used to look down his nose at people who cheated on their spouse and would have been disgusted if he heard of a person doing what he's done to me.

His only reply to what he's done is to say that he's an A** and selfish. That was a valid assessment, but does nothing to change what he's doing.

When I recently commented on his moral decline (Which I now know was a big no no according to Plan A), he said that if another man was married to me, they would probably do the same thing. That was particularly funny since before he said that I was a "good person" and he was doing something "horrible" to me.

It's very hard to see someone you love acting so differently all of the sudden. You think that if you reason enough with them, they will see how extreme their behavior is. But apparently this is the "alien" experience of the WS that they all seem to fall victim to.

I keep praying for him that he will come to himself like the prodigal son did and return to God and us. However, I think that if he ever does, it may take a long while. By then, I'm afraid that so much time will have passed and hurt been experienced, that I won't feel the same about him and won't be willing to try anymore.

Right now I'm torn because I want him to come home right away, but at the same time I'm scared of the person he's become and don't want him to. I mourn over the man I married and feel almost as if he died and this person who is hurting me and our children is an evil clone or something.

I feel that I hardly know him now even though it's only been a month. When I see him it's very awkward. Kind of like being around a distant relative that you sort of know, but aren't close to. It's uncomfortable and strange.

I know he feels the same way toward me and that's why it seems that we will never be able to reconnect. But I guess those feelings are stemming from the fact that we haven't been able to get to the stage where reconciliation is even an option.

Maybe when or if that happens, it will seem more hopeful. I don't know. Right now I just have to wait and that's very difficult.

Sara, why do you think he was so "grouchy" before? What has caused that? What was his main complaint about your marriage before all this came about?

Here is the thing, Sara, for one to get into an affair, he/she usually feels pretty DETACHED from his own partner. What happened to make him feel detached from you? You said that you felt pretty happy, but that he felt "grouchy." Why is that?

Saralynn

I am right there with you on the fear thing. I think he may want a few more personal items from the house, but I am trying to dodge it b/c I am afraid to have him come near me. I feel like "if you could lie to me and betray and hurt me like you did with nary a care, WHAT ELSE are you capable of?" He is a complete stranger now--some days I think it would have been better if he had died (I don't mean that and don't wish to offend any other posters reading this who have lost spouses to death.)

Like you, I still have a small part that wants him to end the A and come home, but as each day passes I become more convinced that when (if?) he comes to his senses, I will have moved on. But after what he's put me through, that may not be a bad thing?? I don't know--I am so confused. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

Saralynn, a marriage consists of 3 components e.g. emotional, physical and spiritual. For a healthy and fulfilling marriage is important for spouses to: 1) connect on all 3 these levels and 2) keep a healthy balance between these 3 components so that both spouses can feel mutually fulfilled on all these levels. If one or both spouses start to put too much emphasis on only one or 2 of these components, things will get out of balance and out of sync and then one or both spouses will start to feel unfulfilled in the marriage.

Therefore, Saralynn, do you think it’s possible that you focused/was occupied so much on the spiritual/religious component during your M (also during your conversations with your H) that he started to feel deprived on emotional and/or physical level and probably that's the reason he often felt “grouchy” and detached from you? Probably you felt content with all these components in the marriage (that’s why your marriage seemed good to you), but your H not. What do you think?

I admit that my relationship with my WH entered a stale period for the last year or so. Basically I did my thing and he did his. It's not that I wanted to pull away from him, I just figured that we were not in the same spiritual place and that I had to leave him alone about where he was. I tried on several occasions to get him to discuss his faith, but he was always very reluctant. So I stopped trying to engage him about his personal views and spoke instead on what I was learning or doing in that regard.

Last night my WH came over to spend time with my son and stayed for about 8 hours. It was the longest he's been here since he left. We talked about several things including our relationship and why he thinks it won't work. He basically said that we had poor communication from the start, which I somewhat agreed with. It must be kept in mind though, that we began dating when we were 15 years old. However, I feel that since becoming a Christian, I have tried to be more open, honest, and understanding with him, but he has not reciprocated.

He stated that his relationship with the OW has much better communication and she does little things for him to show how much she cares. I tried to point out that at the beginning of all relationships people do things like that. Not to say that they shouldn't continue, but often times people get into ruts where they don't give the same consideration to their spouse they used to. But I also think that he overlooked all the things that I did do for him, though they were on a more domestic level. I guess those needs were not the most important ones that needed to be met.

He also stated that he likes the OW a lot and doesn't want to stop liking her. He's upset about it, but feels that he can't or won't want get over her since they work together. He says that he couldn't be trusted to be around her and not like her and that wouldn't be fair to me.

So now I'm faced with how to go about getting the OW transferred. If my husband thought for a moment that I would be involved in such a thing, I think he would be furious. I'm not sure if I can call his boss and expect her not to relay our conversation to my WH. I also don't think that his boss would be willing to even transfer the OW. They work in such a specialized department that does not exist in any of the other branches, that it would be easier for her to get terminated than transferred.

I don't want to get her fired, I just wish she would make the choice to leave my WH alone and remove herself from the situation.

Some hopeful(?) comments were made by my WH though. He said that I wouldn't have trouble finding another guy because I was very pretty. That he still liked me and missed being with me. However, he also said that the more time he spent with the OW, the more he liked her. So again, it's back to waiting.