OUR STORY – AFFAIR PART 1[/color]

My wife (47 years of age) and I have been married 25 years in 2007 when her internet affair began in September 2007 with an old college sweetheart (married with five children under 20 years of age). He lives almost 800 miles away and through the Internet began to meet my wife’s emotional needs while I was out of the country for 2 ½ weeks.

Within days of returning home I sensed an Internet affair and confronted her. She initially denied it until I told her that I knew she was having an affair with OM. She did not break off the affair. Through friends I became aware of MB and contacted Stephen Harley and had several sessions with him. As a result of our discussion we realized that my wife was facing an identity crisis. I went into therapy and still continue till this day.


PLAN A & EXPOSURE

I went into Plan A mode from October onward. She met with him once November 27th) when he traveled to our area and they spent 22 hours together. Apparently they were involved with each other in the back of the van.

During this time she would not end the affair and knowing (thru putting a key logger on our home computers) that things were becoming highly sexualized between them I acted. I exposed the affair to the OM’s wife and to our 4 children (son, 22, son 19, daughter 16, son 14) on December 28, 2007. Telling my children was most difficult as I felt it was all going to come out into the open (her leaving) and I needed to prepare them. I also thought that by exposing the affair it would end it...It didn’t…It only stopped temporarily.


AFFAIR PART 2

She wrote OM in January asking if they could be friends. The OM and his wife went into counseling. At the beginning of February he wrote her an official kiss-off letter written by him, his wife and therapist ending the affair officially. Several weeks later he began to send her short 1 to 3 sentence e-mails every couple of weeks without his wife’s awareness asking how she was!

My wife surrounded herself with 5 friends of which 3 friends of her’s encouraged her to do only what she wanted. These 3 have been overall non-supportive of our marriage. One of them wrote an 11 page document to my wife telling her why our marriage was over and that my wife should never have married me in the first place.

As a result of sensing what was happening I placed a key logger on her home notebook computer (The notebook was a gift from one of her friends who was incensed that I would monitor my wife’s emails and sadly helped enable my wife for Affair Part 2) and began to monitor her communications.

Through the assistance of one of her friends she set up a fake facebook account portraying herself as a man. The OM posed on FB as a women. They then set up various e-mails accts. Finally the last week of June 2008 they set up an email acct for just sexually explicit e-mails. That was the final straw…I exposed to the OM’s wife again. He wrote my wife within hours of being confronted and ended the affair like he should have. It’s now been almost a month and I believe she and he have not had any contact.

The amazing part is that my wife graduated with her Master in Counseling in 2006 and is now a practicing marriage therapist.


SECOND CONFRONTATION WITH WIFE

I confronted my wife again – July 1/08. At the beginning of our discussion she wanted to end the marriage and discuss how we would do it. My goal in that meeting was to ask her to move out by the end of July and go into a strong PLAN B. Four hours later we’re cuddling in bed and divorce is no longer on the agenda. She stayed.

I also exposed to her parents, which she is most angry over. Her parents came to visit our family and instead of staying to look after them she left to visit one of her friends who had returned to our state (she lives 1500 miles away) to visit her family who lives 3 hours away from us.

Because she was not around to talk with them her mother was very insistent in asking questions about our marriage and wanted answers. I was open to answering their questions as I was preparing to confront and expose the affair and ask my wife to leave our home at the end of July if she didn’t end the affair. As well her parents were going to take our 2 youngest children back with them for a 2-week holiday. If I was going to ask her to leave they needed to know what was going to happen. I tried to be as sensitive to them as possible about their daughter who I love very much. I still want a healthy relationship with them if our marriage survived.

Since then she has wanted to know how I accessed her e-mails and has accused me of invading her privacy. My standard response has been – you have a right to privacy but no right to secrecy to carry on an affair.

Early after I exposed the affair she was sorry for the pain she caused me. Now she states that she doesn’t regret the affair. (some of her friends have encouraged her to think that way for some time)(any friends of her that opposed her having the affair she cut them off relationally).

She now argues with me that she kept my secret (my battle with pornography for 25 years – I am a Christian, abused when I was a boy) and she told no one. But she makes this one mistake and I’ve told the entire world (I built a small support group of about 7-9 people), some of our mutual friends, our children and her parents. Her response is that she never said a word to anyone about my struggles with pornography. (I now understand the pain I’ve caused her)

She now states:
“I don’t trust you”

“Don’t trust your kindness to me when you did things for me
and were at the same time reading my emails”

“You are a scary man”

“You stripped me of my privacy”

“It took another men to give me value”

By my accessing her e-mail re: the affair and what kind of counsel she was getting from her supportive friends she now feels that I treated her like a possession by invading her privacy.

The affair etc seems to be my wife’s mid-life crisis as she goes through the “change”. I love her dearly and have been working hard on myself and saving our marriage…I still make mistakes but I’ve hung in there for my children, myself, my wife and for our family. I feel at times that I am walking on eggshells. Sadly she has felt that I haven’t treated her as an equal.

The past 10 months have been hell and at the same time we’ve had some of our best conversations as husband/wife. She doesn’t trust me and I don’t trust her. I want to trust her. And I give her room to show I trust her…

She equates my battle with pornography as = to the affair. I understand what she is saying. I readily admit my mistakes and I’ve made plenty…


HELP – QUESTIONS

Q. Was I wrong to have snooped and spied on my wife’s communications?

Q. How should I respond to her accusations about reading her e-mails. She accuses me of stripping her of her privacy.

Q. Have I??

Q. How should I respond to her accusations.

Q. Do I tell her how I accessed her e-mails (spyware) like she is wanting to know? If I do and she plans another affair what do I do??

Q. ****AM I GOING AGAINST THE POLICY OF RADICAL HONESTY BY NOT TELLING HER I ACCESSED HER E-MAIL?

Q. Does it serve my marriage’s interest in the long run to tell her how I did it.

Q. She wants to know who I talk to for support? Why is that such a major issue for her?

Q. How should I respond to her re: her supportive friends who see the affair as a positive? (one of her supporters, her aunt is on her 3rd marriage and the other two are on their second marriages [one of them was abused by her husband and seems to be projecting her situation into ours])

Her support system has encouraged her to see the positives from the affair, which has only added to her defensiveness and self-justification for the affair. She is angry and hurt at me. If only I had realized 10, 15 years ago or earlier that my actions we’re one day going to be used to destroy my marriage!
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No. As she was obviously lying to you, it was your only means to get to the truth. In any case, keep repeating the privacy vs. secrecy mantra. Secrecy destroys Ms.



See note above. In order to earn your trust back, ALL communication between herself and other parties needs to be known to you. A spouse that is very protective of their right to privacy (which is really secrecy) in that regard is not acting in the interests of the M.



No.



Keep repeating the privacy/secrecy mantra.



Not at this point. She is still in "WW-Mode".



Not at this point. You're still dealing with a wayward.



See above.



Because she is still in "WW-Mode", and the battle is still on. She is going to try to destroy your support at the same time that she tries to build hers. She needs to keep convincing herself that what she did was right, even though it's obviously so wrong.



That depends on where you both are at the moment in the process. Are you still in "Plan A"? Has NC been finally established, or is she still in contact with the OM?

I can't answer your questions as well as the vets here, but I can comment on this statement:


This is just a clever WS-ish justification. It's clever because she probably can actually convince others that it is true. She is blame-shifting. I don't care what your mistakes were, there is NO EXCUSE for adultery. NONE. Don't say:
Instead, ask her how many clients she has told to solve their marital problems with an affair, since she herself is a marriage counsellor. Yes you've made mistakes and they may have contributed to the state of the marriage before the A, but it was her choice alone to commit adultery. Never forget that and never allow her to place any of that blame on you.

Hi northernhope, your problem is not your angry wife, but your lack of understanding of what you are dealing with. You are dealing with a fogged out drunk who has barely started withdrawal, who is still furious that you took her whiskey away.

However, if you had not taken her whiskey away, your marriage would be doomed. Your marriage can survive her temporary anger, it CANNOT SURVIVE an ongoing affair.

If you had not snooped on her and exposed her, she would still be in her affair.

Most importantly, it is imperative that you stop trying to reason with a falling down drunk. She uses NO REASON, as you can clearly see. She is driven by an irrational obsession with a scumbum.

Your response should be: "I am sorry you are upset. Would you like a potato chip?"

Don't argue, don't try to reason; it is FUTILE to try and reason with a drunk. As she withdraws, her sanity will return and she will no longer resent your interference in her affair.

p.s. RADICAL HONESTY is for RECOVERY. It should never be used to undermine your efforts to save your marriage and protect yourself.

Don't tell her JACK until she is safe. she only wants to know so she can get away with it next time. She is not to be trusted now. Would you be "radically honest" with the alcoholic about where you hid the keys to the whiskey cabinet before he even sobered up?

In other words, no diplomatic measures until you are no longer under fire on the field of battle. Lest you want to get shot.

Northern,

"One of them wrote an 11 page document to my wife telling her why our marriage was over and that my wife should never have married me in the first place.

As a result of sensing what was happening I placed a key logger on her home notebook computer (The notebook was a gift from one of her friends who was incensed that I would monitor my wife’s emails and sadly helped enable my wife for Affair Part 2)"

With friends like these, you sure don't need enemies my friend!!
Did you get to read the document?

She is hearing what she wants to hear and disregarding the rest.

Melody Lane is SO right on. Your WW is so deep in the fog and withdrawal that she is a wild angry alien woman with no reason or logic to her right now.

Somehow you have got to get rid of the "friends". I picture pseudo intellectual types, either single or divorced, members of academia, left overs from the extreme side of the feminist movement.

Stay strong, stick to your guns, and weather the storm. She will come back.

IMHO

kirk

At this time I am still in Plan A mode…have been since October 2007…it’s been a long 10 months. Thankfully I’m still operating from my giver side.

As far as I can tell at this time she has had NC with OM. I still check her e-mails to see if he’s had any contact with her. Thankfully the OM’s wife has taken over control of their home computer. And has all the passwords and he the OM cannot go on the computer unless she knows. So she is closely monitoring his web browsing. He has too much to lose (financially, his house, his children) if he tries to reconnect with my wife.

I will not be as naïve as I was back in January after I first exposed her affair in December. At that time I was deeply saddened and hurt when I discovered she had written OM asking to be friends with him. What really hurt was that she now was the one pursing him. She explained to him that she was capable of not crossing the friendship boundary into a love relationship if he would be her friend again. And they both stupidly and gradually crossed the line until it was sexualized again.

Sadly they both took turns enticing each other back into the relationship. I learned that once addicted to a certain person they will always remain addicted to that person and that they could no longer go back to just being friends.

Q. What kind of things does a WS in withdrawal think about in regards to the marriage, the OM?

Q. Would her showing any interest in talking about family finances, planning house repairs, dreaming of fixing the house up, landscaping the yard and talking to me be a good indicator of where she is in her withdrawal process?

I in no way mean to make lite of your situation.

But I belive your wife should find a new line of work.

Is she a member of the AAMFT?

That is what has concerned me so much...her choice of friends who have only enabled her to continue in the affair and supported her. This friend of her's who gave my wife a notebook computer has come right out and told my wife that she should never have married me in the first place. She's also the one who wrote the 11 page article on why our marriage was over. She accused me of abusing my wife emotionally, financially, spiritually, economically and also by neglect.

She even flew my wife down to Florida where she lives earlier in the spring!

I have since found out that she even ghost wrote letters to the OM for my wife. She even coached my wife on how to hide the affair from me on her notebook computer. It's so password protected now.

This woman considers herself as someone God can use to help others in their time of need. It's a good thing I believe in God because she's one good reason for not believing.

She also tried to win my children over by writing them in FaceBook and befriending them.

My 16 year old daughter in the middle of corresponding with this woman blew up at her and told her that she (this woman) was more a daughter to my wife then she was. During this time my wife was on her notebook computer all the time talking with this woman and neglecting her relationship with her 4 children.

My 22 year old son unknown to me wrote her a 4 sentence long polite e-mail and told her to get a life. He also told her that her actions were as deadly to his parents marriage as the OM was. (I was so proud of my son writing this - totally on his own). His email stirred her up so much that she was like a wild animal fatally shot and fighting for it's life. My son was only trying to defend his family.

Sadly my wife took this woman's side and not her son's! At this time he has little respect for his mother and wants nothing to do with her. Which hurts me so much to see!

Yesterday in a discussion with my wife I told her that out of all her friends I am concerned the most about this one. And that she has an agenda to seeing our marriage collapse and end.

Q. How long does the fog usually go on for before it lifts?

Q. Is there anything I can do to help see the fog lift off my wife faster?

I find it astonishing - and very scary - that your W is a marriage therapist. I bet she is one of those who is not pro-marriage and understands BUTKUS about adultery. Does she practice moral relativism as part of her theory?

Yes - my wife is a member of the AAMFT? You must be familiar with the therapy world if you know what the AAMFT stands for. I have no idea if the AAMFT has any standards of conduct for a situation such as mine. I know it shook my wife when i told her to be wary of the OM's wife who just might call the place where my wife works and tell them about my wife's affair with her husband.

In my confrontation with her on July 1 that was my knock-out punch that hit her hard and brought her back to reality. She has worked so hard over the past 8 years to get where she is now...and to think I supported her through it all...went into debt for her education etc...(enuf with my self-pity)

Q. Does the AAMFT have standards of conduct relative to a therapist having an affair?

This "friend" is no friend, she is an enemy of your wife and your marriage and your children. I would make this a boundary issue that she end contact with this trashy, stupid, vile woman. Their continued "friendship" is grossly disrespectful to you and your children. She is a THREAT to you all.

She is the kind of "friend" who would hand a suicidal person a pistol.

ON SECOND THOUGHT, you might hold off and say nothing. When your wife sobers up she will be aghast that her friend threw her under the bus like this and may dump her. [hopefully] Her friend may also dump her when she comes out of the fog, because she won't want a friend whose mind is working right. For example, when I quit drinking 23 years ago, my so called best "friend" and enabler, Pam, dropped me like a HOT POTATO.

Sadly - from my perspective I believe her affair changed her moral outlook and moved her from pro-marriage to just doing what her client wants to do. Don't challenge the client or make them accountable. Do whatever will make them happy.

So yes I now believe she has at this time crossed over to moral relativism. But I hope as she comes out of the fog that she will rediscover the value and sanctity of marriage and the vows that we who are married make.

Unfortunatly my reasearch into finding a marriage counseler has forced me to familurise myself with it.

I would bet they do. You could call them and find out.

First of all I agree with you completely...I have never known anyone like this woman. She is 12 years younger than my wife. Yet the influence she had over my wife for the longest time was truly scary.

I have played with both suggestions that you made in my thinking over the past weeks.

If I make her too much the enemy it may backfire on me...I have hope that as my wife comes out of the fog and rediscovers her identity that she will no longer look at this woman as one of her close friends.

Sadly, this woman was abused when she was young...her mother was killed in a car crash and decapitated. Her grandmother died shortly afterwards. She is need of a mother image. She has no children at the moment. She has been on anti-depressants for some time now. She is insecure and yet she and my wife connected. I don't understand

I like the idea of having a healthy boundary where we only have friends who are supportive of our marriage.

Q. Are there any of you out there reading this who have encountered this kind of friendship where your WS has drawn to them friends who have enabled them to continue the affair?

Q. How have you responded to them?

Q. What strategy did you use to see those friendship(s)come to an end?

Hi Northerhope
I have great empathy for you at this time. I read your post and it is very similar to the situation I am in with my W. Except in my cast my W wants to separate and is still in the A.

The blame of emotional abuse and neglect seems to run rampant. Is someone giving courses on this stuff these days? It seems if you challenge an idea or desire of ones W you are being emotionally abusive. When I confronted the OM about the A she told me I was being controlling and emotionally abusive.

I want to encourage you to listen to Melody, she has given me a good kick in the pants when I needed it. The accusations of YOUR behaviour is a defense mechanism to deflect guilt and accountability. Oh you are such a cruel cold selfish manipulating brute, you are controlling and abusive, I have not choice but to try to get my needs met by OM ( any of these words sound familiar?)

How about I have not been happy for a long time in this relationship, I tried to tell you but you would not listen. You drove me into the arms of OM.

Remember to look after yourself in this most stressful time. Unfortunately we are in the same boat and it is not fun. I am off to the gym to wear off some frustration.

Hi bcboy5440,
Amazingly, I was just reading your story! Yes I've heard those kind of comments plus,

"I've never been sexually attracted to you!"

"I've never loved you"

"I love you but I'm not in love with you"

"if the OM left his wife right now I'd been gone in a minute"

"your controlling me"

What's worse is how your spouse will explain their situation to their friends to pull them onside. Pretty well every time my wife meets with a couple of her friends I can expect a confrontation exchange with her as they incite her anger.

On several occasions she's simply left for the weekend without giving any indication to me or the kids. I come home to find she's gone. Her friends after hearing her side of the story feel that I've physically abused my wife and have encouraged her to leave.

In 25 years of marriage I've never hit her or held her against her will...mind you I've felt like giving her a royal kick in the rear end at certain times over the last 10 months but that's it.

My support team who I hold nothing back from have seen both sides of what my wife is saying and what I'm saying. I keep them abreast especially during the intense times several times a day. I would never have survived emotionally or mentally without them. I'm glad you are listening to MB's and to their advice...they're good and insightful!

All the best!

Northern,

"His email stirred her up so much that she was like a wild animal fatally shot and fighting for it's life."

This woman sounds like a demented stalker living vicariously through your wife. I am dead serious on this.

Ghost writing her love emails, an 11 page thesis on how bad you are for WW, flying her down to FL?? This is more than a "friend", my friend. This woman is infatuated and, dare we say it, totally in love with your WW.

It's like she is waiting in the wings for you to kick your WW to the curb and with the OM out of the picture, she can buy your WW a one way ticket. That your WW is spending so much time emailing her and flew down to FL, makes me wonder if this EA has crossed over to a PA.

I strongly feel that to come out of this deep fog your WW is in NC must occur between her and her "friend" (?) too. (see the book "Just Friends")

I think the fog is so deep because she has the usual nasty PA chemically induced addiction going on, but also this female RASPUTIN is taking over her mind!

I don't see your WW coming out of the fog, ever, while Rasputin is still in the picture.

IMHO

kirk

The first thing you need to understand is that your wife is a recently active wayward still in an entitled mindset. This will not change until several months of:

A) NC w/ OM.

B) Meeting her ENs that she will allow you to meet.

C) Avoiding LBs

You need to start getting her love bank back to a positive balance before she will leave the wayward mindset and start showing remorse. For my situation this took 4-6 months.


NO


Ignore them.


NO


Ignore them. Responding to them only lends credence to them and baits you into a fight in which you will inevitably hurl love busters.


NO. She wants to know your system so she can get around it in the future. Maybe in the future when there is trust again you could talk to her about it, but not while she is still wayward.


No. You can't be radically honest with a wayward because they will just use it against you. Dr. Harley will tell you so himself.


No, because it may allow her to start up her affair again.


She wants to know who she can recruit as an ally as well as who to avoid so she doesn't have to subject herself to their judgment.


I would plan B her supportive friends and not respond her her justifications. As for the second part you can't change the past, so just prove to her over time that you have changed the things she was using to justify her affair, so she can no longer justify it.

Withdrawal sucks, and it takes quite a while until you will get your wife back. Just continue to make sure there is NC, meet her ENs, and avoid LBs.