WW has been in A since 9-07. DDay 12-10-07, I told her NC, she refused. Still contact all the time....and everytime I found out it drives me insane. I'm close to the end of my rope with her. Last night I read something that indicates she wants a family someday (she always said she didn't want kids) I was ok with no kids, but was waiting to see if she started to change her position on that before bringing it up (we've only been married 1.5 yrs)....now she wants them because of another man!!! I am so heartbroken, I couldn't take the pain, or get any sleep. Today I called OM and he said he didn't want to get in the middle, and I asked him for NC. He agreed to call her and tell her he was done, but I'm not tusting that SOB. Now I'm scared this is going to backfire in my face bigtime, what do I do???? Still cant get a phone # for OMs mother its restricted and they are out of state, 4 hour drive. I might have to drive up there and talk to her in person, I just don't think this is going to end the affair....she is going to freak out, I hope I can hold on for the ride.

Hang on for the ride, buddy, it'll be rough, BUT...

YOUR M CAN SURVIVE HER ANGER...IT CANNOT SURVIVE A CONTINUING A!!!!!

For myself, I think you showed a LOT of courage. You are fightin for your family, and while she may be mad now, she will (if she comes out of the fog) eventually see this as a very STRONG, MANLY thing for you to do!!!

GOOD JOB...hang in there!!!

Let me ask you a straight-up question ... Your WW is continuing to have an A right in front of you ... she is refusing to NC ... Why do you care if she will be mad???

Please read lino's thread here in GQ and tiredinmd's in Just Found Out ... these are both very pro-active BH's and they are making much more progress towards ending the A's or recovering their M's than all of the rest of the BH's here combined who are afraid of what their WW will do, and their doing it in record time. Every active BH here would be well served to read and learn from these guys strength and courage.

You are NOT the one who has done anything wrong ... why act like you have???

you are right...I will read them asap.....the reason I did this is becuase i am tired of being affraid! She is having her cake and eating it too. I am a great person, I never lie, have a great job and a house (I'm only 28)and I desrve better. BUT I am willing to work on my shortcommings and our marriage. I just need to put an end to this A. I fugure if she going to leave me anyway, why not do anything to stop her? I am knee deep in this s*** now.

There you go ... that's a great attitude. Seriously, read lino's and tiredinmd's threads ... I think you will find ideas and inspiration. Good Luck ... YOU CAN DO IT!!!

BTW ... both of them also confronted OM (as did I), so I applaude your actions. OM needs to hear from you that you "Don't allow any fishing in YOUR pond".

I feel your pain. We don't have exactly the same situation, but my W of 6 mths. (living together for 5 yrs.) is in the similar place. I just exposed the EA and PA 3 days ago and she doesn't care....she wants to be with him and tells everyone that. She says we are just through, although are life to this point seemed downright, dare I say, "perfect"!

Everything you said to describe yourself and how you're willing to take the high road, work on problems, save M, etc.....I feel I'm the exact same way. But how do you get them to end the A when they openly don't want to? My W moved out the day she told me "something" was wrong with our M and I know she's spending every waking moment with OM right now. I'm going to read the examples of these other guys too. Stay strong my man, hopefully we'll get through this.

ILA

Good job! I wouldn't put any stock in what OM says either, but at least you served notice that you aren't going to just go away. Work on getting in touch with OM's mother, but don't expect alot of help on that front either. What about your W's family? Would they be supportive? (even if not, you will probably want to tell them) Any friends that could help?

What else do you know about OM? Married? Wife's co-worker? Shared social circle? How old are you two? How has the relationship been pre-affair?

Try to identify what your WW's primary needs are and begin to meet them (think back to the things she used to complain about pre-A). Refrain from all lovebusters. Brace yourself for her anger and do not react in kind. Do not apologize for speaking to OM, also do not indicate to her that further exposure is planned.

Start reading the articles on this site, study Plan A and commit yourself to ACTING in your best interests, not REACTING to what your WW says or does.

Sorry you find yourself here, but take hope in the knowledge that all is not lost and you stand a good chance of being able to recover from this should you choose to.

Ask questions, lots of them. Do so BEFORE you act!

Lots of posts in between!

I agree, read tiredinmd's thread and lino's thread. Learn from them.

Be strong, act from love and honesty and commit yourself to learning about how to build a strong marriage post A. There's no guarantees, but you will be better off regardless!

It's going to be much harder for a while I think. OM probably was just trying to get me to go away by agreeing to NC, he is a looser (single 26, lives in aunts basement) and they have no future. I have to keep telling myself that to keep going. I told him I am not backing down and I will give anything to save my M, I told OM he is going to have to put up with me for a long time if he doesn't end this)
Both of our families know everything, but aren't much help (SIL and MIL have both given up on thier marriages and are in As also) they don't want to pressure WW, because they don't want to push her away! it sucks I feel like I'm fighting this battle alone. not much hope, but something has to give soon, it won't be me!
Should I confront her with my evidence that she stayed with him for two nights over new years eve? she told me she was with her friend (female) I just found this out, and I am not happy. don't want to make it worse right now.

aph120 I don't know your sitch but I had to say, GOOD JOB!

Hey and you aren't alone...all of US here are right there with you.

I'm not sure if she'll come home tonight, I suspect that OM will be right there for her when she needs him most. He also said he would back off but if we don't work out he thinks they might have a chance, so i know what is really gong to happen. Just hope I can ride this out and contunue exposing to a few key people, if it's really over for us, then what do I have to loose?

aph, I most certainly would tell her what you know about her sleeping with OM on New Years Eve. She needs to be presented with the truth early and often.

Secondly, I would find a way to get in touch with this boys' mommy and his aunt. Since he is just a BOY and lives in his aunt's basement, she might have a thing or 2 to say about his trashy behavior. It may also prevent him from bringing your W home and introducing her becuase of the embarrassment factor. That puts a major DAMPER on the future of the affair.

Hang in there ... in a way, you are alone, in that you have to do most of this yourself, but you've got a great support system here. Also, LISTEN to Tyk's advice ... he knows what he's talking about and is very good with advising about the proper steps to take and how to keep a good frame of mind ... LEARN FROM HIM!!!

well WW called and asked what I had to say? I told her I was doing what I had to do to save our marriage, and that "I only asked OM if he really didn't want to get between us then he would cut contact w/ you". She said he still has nothing to do with our problems. I said "I agree....so lets work on our problems witout OM". We argued a little, but I insisted that I was doing what I had to to save our marriage. At the end I slipped something in to let her think a little. a few weeks ago she told me that I deserve someone better and maybe I would meet someone who would make me realize a do want children (she never wanted kids and was very serious about that all along (and I was ok with it) until the note I just found) So I as we finshed our conversaion I told her she was right, that I do deserve better and maybe I would find someone better and have my own family someday. There is no way she can see herself having a family with Looser OM. He has a bad temper and talks like a teenage punk. He makes no money and has a serious shopping problem, he blows his paycheck (which is 1/2 of what i make) on "stuff" and then runs out of money for gas, tolls, bills, and he's knee deep in debt ect. other than our mortgage, we have no serious debt, we've made huge progress in the last 3 years to pay it all off so we could get a house. how could she see herself going through that all over again?

Here are a couple of sites that might find his mother's phone #.

www.zabasearch.com

This one often has unlisted #'s on it.

Another to try is http://www.whitepages.com/find_neighbors

If you have OM's mother's address try this one, but don't put in her house number, put in a number close to hers and she may list. Several of my neighbors are unlisted and they show on this site. It's worth a try.

LC

Thanks for the vote of confidence MyRev, but Aph you should know that just months ago I was right where you are. Almost all of us here were or are in the same boat as you are now. Its a crappy club filled with very good people.

Well, the decision between the two of you sounds like a no brainer. Unfortunately, at this point in time, your WW can be for all pratical purposes to be BRAINLESS. Hence the situation, eh?

You have 3 things to do, and they often seem to contradict each other but they don't. 1) Become the best H you can. You need to SHOW (NOT TELL!) your W that you can be a good H that makes her happy and meets her needs. You need to do this consistently while expecting little or nothing from her in return. Its been described throwing pebbles in a river to block it, you need to be tossing as many pebbles in the river as you can. 2) You need to eliminate LoveBusters, in MB terms these are things that drain your W's love bank (yes, we talk like this around here, soon it won't even seem strange to you!). Study up on the Love Bank theory and Love Busters. Train yourself to speak in "I" language. "When you do this I feel like. . .". DO NOT spend much time trying to teach you wife how to build a healthy marriage. She won't hear you, you turn into Charlie Brown's mom in her head when you do this. YOU learn how to build a healthy marriage, you SHOW her your 1/2 of that process right now. 3) You need to do everything you can to kill the A. You do NOTHING to enable the A. Make it as difficult as possible for them to conduct thier activity in secrecy. Affairs are built on fantasy. That is why and how your W has taken up with a loser in the first place. If she were functioning in reality, she'd see that a guy living with auntie with a dead end job isn't in her best interests, right? So you do what you can to bring reality into thier world. Calling OM is a good example of this. OM is in all likelihood NOT wanting the reality of your W. He wants the noncommitment that comes with a woman involved with someone else. He hasn't HAD to care for her. This becomes more important in Plan B, you hope not to get there, but you better read about it because it oftentimes it is necessary.

In the meantime, take care of yourself. Find something to do, go to the gym, hang out with friends, appear in all respects to be the happy, confident guy she fell in love with.

You new mantra is "I love you and believe we can make this marriage into something that makes BOTH of us happy. That is not possible with another person involved. I hope you will decide to give this a chance."

thanks tyk, she just pulled in, so at least she came home! OM left me a very long nasty message telling me not to call him again or he'd call the police for harrasment (he a security guard and thinks he's tough S***)....its a very good one that WW will be hearing when she gets in so she can see what a wonderful person he is. I can only imagine what will happen when she gets on his nerves! i think this may be turning out better then I'd hoped, she seemed depressed the last time I talked to her Iasked her if this guy had an ego problem and she said yes.

Rule # 119...don't be disrespectful of the OM in your WW's presence. It will force her to "defend" him.

I guess I was wrong, she never came home last night. I got really worried around 1 am and left her a message to let me know if she was OK, she didn't call back...she came home this AM though and is acting the same as she has been. I'm not sure wether I should just start ignoring her or what. I want to meet her ENs but she's not letting me meet many right now. we both filled out the EN questionaire before i found out about the A so i have that to go off of for now. Im trying to accept the fact that NC is going to take a while no-matter what I want. it's very hard to bite my toungue but reading Ark's last post helps. for now I'll keep praying and hoping that she seees through the fog before it's too late.

You need a plan of attack, in regards to the OM. Obviously, he is ticked off because after she talked to you about talking to him, they probably had a fight. That is great. You want them to have as many fights as possible!

One thing you can do in this is to make sure that the OM remains uncomfortable all the time. Shoot, I would call his work and let them know that you hope that their business would not support someone committing adultery and breaking up a family. They probably wont do anything, but they will call him and and that will tick him off.

When you do stuff like that, what happens is he will first call your wife and say "can you get your husband to stop this?!?!" And she will be mad because he is mad, and the fact that he is laying it on her. And things begin to fall apart in Oz.

Get a plan together. You need to make sure you dont do anything illegal, etc.

I know a guy who went to the library and got all the magazines in the magazine section...went thru and pulled out the subscription cards from each one...filled it out with OM's name and address for a nice 26 issue for $39.95 selection, and then mailed it in (usually you dont even need a stamp!). Next thing the OM found out was about 30 magazines showing up in his mailbox, and the bills to come with it!

Another guy found out that the OM was almost always home on Saturday mornings working on his car or yard. So, he called every service company in town (plumber, TV repairman, electrician, etc). He asked them to come Saturday morning to repair something. And gave them the OM's name and address. This guy sat down the street for two hours on Saturday morning and watched as van after van pulled up...and watched the angry face of the OM as he tried to explain that he didnt call them. And many of those guys want payment for showing up!!!

Both of those instances, the OM figured out who was doing this...but could not prove it (the BS in these cases made sure calls, hand writing etc could not be traced back to him!). Thus, the COST of being with this guys wife was getting increasingly high. And the tension between the OM and WW began to sky rocket!

And added to this...it is fun! Of course, you need plausible deniability. When your wife asks "why are you dong this to him? Leave him alone?" Then you ask "what happened?" As she describes what happened, you just laugh and say "well, whomever thought that up is smarter than me! I love it though."

Another guy I heard of got a prostitute to go over to the OM's house on a night he knew his wife wouldnt go there. He then put a note on his wife's car, that made it look like someone that was on her side noticed the OM was seeing someone else (a voicemail works too! Just not from you and not from a traceable number). So the stripper is in the house (the BS paid for the show ahead of time) doing her thing...the WW comes over to find out what the heck is going on...and viola! An instant fight!

Plan my man! Plan.

In the meantime, keep your powder dry and keep Plan Aing. Keep telling her how you are excited about the possibility of having a child (maybe even buy a book or two on parenting and let her catch you reading it). Make her wonder "what's up with him?"

Make it so she contrasts you with him. Because once she does that, you will almost certainly win out over this loser.