I know it is sometimes construed as heresy to attribute any human emotions to OM. I don't agree with this. They are real people with real feelings who make mistakes when they can't control them.

When I read OM's letter to my wife, there were a few comments in it that gave me some hope that he feels remorse for causing pain to me and risking damage to my children. I sense that he is a very emotional individual (part of my wife's attraction to him) who is not proud of having become involved with a younger married woman with young children. I wrote the following to appeal to this characteristic...

I didn't see that I had anything to loose....

OM,

I have thought about writing to you for many months. There is much that I would say to you but I will try to keep this letter polite and respectful.

I do not know if you care about the depth of personal anguish and torment that your affair with my wife has inflicted upon me. I have tried to hide much of the pain inside of me to make the situation easier on WW. I do not know if you care about the potential damage that may be inflicted on my children if the affair continues.

I care very much. It consumes me.

I do not know what the future holds; I only know that I must do what is best for my children. WW and I working out our differences and building a happy family from this devastation ARE what is best. I can no longer sit in the sidelines in my private hell, wallowing in my own misery, allowing you and WW to dictate the course of mine and my children’s future. I can no longer sit by, trying to make things easy for WW, while I watch my family be destroyed in front of me. My children’s future is too important. My family is too important. My pain is too great.

WW tells me that the affair is incidental and that it is unrelated to the problems that she and I had in our marriage. She tells me that, much though she believes she cares for you, she does not believe that there can be any long-term future for the two of you because of the age difference and the presence of 3 young children.

I have learned a lot about my past failings as a husband in the last 4+ months and I suppose that I must accept that the emotional evisceration caused by the affair was the catalyst for my many epiphanies. I must also accept my role in making WW vulnerable to an affair by failing to meet her expectations in a husband. I think that I could have learned the same lessons with a less catastrophic wake-up call but we can’t undo what has been done. We can only accept and learn from past mistakes. Knowing what I now know, knowing me, and knowing WW, I believe that we are capable of recovering from this affair, this torture, and any damage from the previous 10 years of our marriage. I believe that we can have a very happy future. I know that, for the sake of our children, we MUST try.

Although WW may not be convinced of it at the moment, I remain passionately in love with my wife and my children. I beg that you please let go of WW so that we can try to fix this. Please leave us alone. Please give us a chance. Please do not do this to me, to my family and, in particular, to my children. Please do not take my family away from me. Please do not contribute to subjecting my children to the insecurity, and to the many developmental, academic, and emotional problems that they will experience as a result of losing half their parents.

I just want to make my children and my wife happy. I just want to be happy with my children and my wife. Is this too much to ask?

WW tells me that she requested that you have no future contact with her when she returned your phone 5 weeks ago. If you care for WW, you will care for our children’s future. Please honour WW’s request for no contact. I beg that you not try to communicate with her by any means at all.

Below are my three beautiful children. These are the innocents who will be most hurt if you cannot honour WW's request for no contact. Please honour it.

Picture deleted


As I said, I don't know that it will do any good, but I can't see it doing any harm.

Immediately put OM's email in the send section, find the Corporate email and CC them, then hit send!!!! Conflict avoiding is a sickness, not only do you avoid conflict but you also avoid any chance of successfully ending the affair. Ask yourself....How has Conflict Avoiding worked for you so far??

Take a deep breathe....and HIT SEND!!!!

Ev

Maybe Im wrong here and someone will set me straight. Polite and respectful? Would you be polite and respectful to someone who stole your car? Someone who invaded your family and ransacked your house? Someone who stole your identity one line? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. So, uhm, why would you even write the words polite and respectful to SOMEONE WHO STOLE YOUR WIFE? Really. And its not so much a rhetorical question or a judgement. I really want to know, am I missing something here?

Im not saying threaten to go over them and force feed him his teeth (though that would be nice) or call him names or just unleash on him. But, to me, make it clear and consise. You expect him to quit messing around with your family. You expect it RIGHT NOW. And if he doesn't things will get a lot uglier than just a terse letter. Tell him that there won't be a person alive that knows him that will not know what he is doing. His boss, his wife, his girlfriend, his boyfriend, his mom, his dad. Everyone that is important to him.

But, maybe someone sees it differently.

But, tell me. You are addressing his HONOR. Does someone who has an affair (more than a one night stand) wiht your wife and WANTS TO TAKE HER AWAY FROM YOU, have any honor? Or cares about what pain YOUR family is going through. To me, its pretty obvious he cares about HIS hapiness, and HIS joy and if it means trampling all over yours, so be it. Save the warm and fuzzys for your wife. She doesn't deserve em, but you seem to love her. So........

whoa....this broke me down. Just when I think I've cried every tear I can about these stories....boom. This is a beautiful letter, and while you shouldn't have any expectations, if you don't send it....I might have to hunt you down and send it for you.

Letter writing is cathartic, but these letters need to be sent.

Gaba,

I wanted to say so much more, I wanted to rant and rave, but I want to appeal to his character. I don't want to reduce the impact of that appeal by being abusive or threatening.

I want something from him. I want him to feel BAD if he tries to contact my wife. I think that I'm a lot less likely to get it if I'm rude, disrespectful, or threatening.

BTW, I've already sent it....

I'm working parallel paths to talk to his wife (separated for 8 years, still seeking contact info) and to send a letter to his boss (see earlier post).

She laughed....

Sounds like the A is still going on and that work is all cozy, comfy, and where the fantasy is at its strongest. Currently it is fun at work and the consequences and misery is at home and with you. Allows her to continue to justify that you are her source of pain.

Her fantasy life at work needs to be more reality based. Expose to as many as possible at her work. It needs to be uncomfortable for both her and the OM at work.

Instead of emailing the OM you should be working on emailing and exposing those that will pressure the OM to end the affair.

You sent it? Well, even though I don't agree with the tone,

GOOOD FOR YOU!!!!! Its much more than the excuse for a human being deserves, but GOOD FOR YOU.

But don't expect him to feel bad. But it will get the ball rolling.

Gaba,

Just read your edit....I think in SAA, Drs. Harley give Greg's story. I believe that fundamentally OPs are normal decent people who let their emotions get the better of their judgement. They are not demons in human form.
I believe that it this true of my WW who is some other BW's OW (admittedly OMW is separated from OM). If I didn't believe it, I wouldn't be here.


Star

Thank you

All very good points from everyone, and very nice letter; I would have made it a little less asking for a favor, so he may take advantage of your perceived weakness. The only thing I would add is that, if you snoop and find that OM is still contacting your wife, THEN you come out guns ablazing. Research the OM, and expose him to everyone in his circle of friends and family. Expose your wife to everyone in her circle of friends and family. Make it hard - and no fun - for them to continue contact. Even if you think your wife is innocent of further contact, you need to make it impossible for any vestige of the A to continue. For her sake.

Talked to my wife this morning. I feel too guilty keeping secrets from her and it is not a good way to rebuild H&O.

I told her that I thought that she was lying to me when she said there has been no contact. I told her that I hated saying this as much as I hated believing it. She asked why I believe it...I told her that I could not bring myself to believe that OM would honour her request for NC so I did some snooping and found OM's letter to her. I then told her that I had reason to believe that she was writing back. She told me that she had written a couple of letters to him but that he had not responded therefore she did not consider this to be contact. I told her that she must have been to the Bill Clinton school of loose definitions and that I had read the letter she has written to him that is still in her pocketbook (see earlier posts for content). She told me that she had written this to him months ago and had not mailed it, that the NC is more difficult for her than I can understand, that she is doing her best to maintain NC, and that letter writing is therapeutic.

I suppose that OM's lack of response may show that he may have some integrity and therefore the e-mail that I sent yesterday (see earlier post) may have some benefit.

I told her that I had e-mailed OM yesterday asking him to honour her request, she would like to see what I wrote. I don't think that I have any reason not to show her....

Cats...

I agree with your suggestion, this is a staged approach. If it doesn't work, I will show that I am willing to fight, and fight hard.

I know how badly you want to believe her, but you've already caught her in a few lies. Assume she is still lying. I highly doubt the OM hasn't responded. Assume the woman you are talking to is NOT the one that you married, but an imposter - as if she's been possessed by an alien. Keep moving forward with your exposure.

Just got contact info for OMW and spoke to her this morning. They have been separated for a number of years, not quite the 8 that my wife told me, but pretty close to that. They did not get divorced for convenience and financial reasons - she works freelance and needs his medical coverage.

She was aware that her husband was seeing someone else. She believed that he believed that my wife was separated prior to the initiation of their relationship. She did not know how young my children are. She did not know that my wife and I were not separated prior to the affair. She tells me that she suspects that their relationship is continuing because of a few things that her sons have said to her recently. While she very much sympathises with my plight, she does not believe that there is much that she can do. Naturally enough, her priority is her 13 and 17 YO sons.

She tells me that they separated because OM is extremely difficult to live with because of some traumatic events in his past. She believes that he is fundamentally a decent person in spite of their own issues.

Interesting. So WW lied to OM as well. Or OM lied to OMW. Or both. In any case, even though she said there's nothing she can do, there are things she will do now. First off, she will be more attuned to the few things her son says. She might ask her children more questions about WW, just out of curiosity. She may even tell OM that she spoke to you. She obviously has a decent enought relationship with OM to be able to remain undivorced (can't really call them married) for the sake of medical insurance. And you have learned that OM has some serious issues in life.

Have you reconsidered exposing to WW's father?

I think that telling my father-in-law is something that I should reserve for when really heavy guns are required. The consequences of that disclosure could have permanent negative impact regardless of the outcome.

The potentially permanent negative consequences are the result of the AFFAIR, not of the exposure. The exposure is simply a delivery of information of the crime already committed. Remember that.

Tabby,

I guess that I am concerned that, not only will he refuse future contact with my wife, but he may also refuse future contact with my children. I'm not ready to take that risk yet.

Evis,

Who are you planning to expose to further pressure the affair?

I also sent 3 or 4 emails to OM via an email account that he setup for my W. I asked him to leave us alone or to come and get her on the first one. I believe that he knew he was doing wrong and his conscience told him to stop contacting her. They didn't stop.

I told him to screw off from me and our boys on the 2nd one as contact continued. Once work and his parents found out that pressured him the most. His last email to me, about 2 months after my W quit her job, he apologized.

I learned that best efforts and self restraint don't work in these situations. It will be pressure on the affair partners and then ultimately your wife to firmly insure that no contact occurs.

When my wife would feel bad about herself or when I got angry at her about the situation, she would either think about him, look at his picture, see him, call him, email him, write a letter to him, just about anything to get that good feeling again.

Getting her to quit her job was a big step in ending the affair for us, but, it was a process.

Why is your wife sleeping in another room? Her decision or yours?

Do you understand Plan A and what are you doing?

Tabby,

She's sleeping in another room by her choice. She considers herself to be separated. She hasn't worn her wedding ring in months.

I'm not sure I do understand Plan A fully, I'm re-reading SAA.

Here is the troubleshooting manual thread: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2033532#Post2033532

If I pasted the link wrong, it's on page 1 right now. It has a very good summary of MB principals.

Tabby,

Thanks, that was a good link.....worked fine. I'll ry to digest it