Good news indeed.......I do hope that she is willing to write a NC letter and be open with her phone and email now though. It is an important step that cannot be ignored. I tried that for a little bit...didn't work.

Keep on meeting the EN'S and advoiding LB'S.....

not2fun

well just when i thought i was on the road to recovery. i find her phone bill and it has a lot of calls on it to and from the POSOM. i haven't confronted her yet about it and don't know whether too right now or not. we've been getting along great and she has actually began kissing me again at bedtime and the morning and occasionally throughout the day. the kids are both up and happy about christmas and i'm concerned if i confront right now it will cause major LB's and disrupt the happiness that has been going on in our home. my plan was to wait until after the holidays and then confront as it's only 24 more days and i've gone 5 months now. please advise.

I suggest talking about it now, particularly if she's claiming that she's given up contact with the OM. "Are you sure? Because I understand that you're still exchanging calls with each other..."

IDWAD,

How long ago was the newest phone call?

I ask because I found phone calls on my wife's cell phone call records in July that were made the first weekend of June. NC had been just over a month when I saw the records.

Did you read the thread I bumped for you over the weekend?

Here's a link: Little Victories

This was a part of MY journey.

It was a bunch of little things but it was a BIG part of the road to recovery.

Mark

IDWAD,

I agree with both Mark and MIM. First verify the dates of all of these, then you need to sit her down and talk with her.....is this the same phone her mom gave her????

If so, it needs to be returned. You can get her her own phone on your plan and that way you can watch the bill....

Don't be accusatory when you talk with her. Listen, listen, listen......She may tend to be defensive at first, but give her a minute. I know for me at first I tend to be defensive, EVEN WHEN I AM WRONG, but then when I replay in my head what is going on, then I get to business. Now, this is when I feel I am being accused of something. Show your concern about your marriage and the recovery.....

These first few weeks are a really wild ride......

not2fun

It was really difficult to put the pieces back together but most of the calls were in late oct/mid nov. I still have to read the little victories link but will get to it this week. Mark did you save your marriage. I don’t see anything listed on you post.

I am going to ask her to write a list of what her wants are for our marriage and I am doing the same. Then we’ll sit down and exchange list and go over them together. I’m concerned to bring up the phone calls until after the holidays as I believe it will create a major LB and we’re getting along so great right now I want to continue with plan A then discuss the contact with POSOM after the holidays are over. I figure I can continue to fill the love bank until that time. I look forward to your comments.

IDWAD,

yes, Mark saved his marriage....

Now about your sitch.....you are NOT doing you or her any favors by letting the phones calls slide. You need to address this. If you don't, you will only build resentment within yourself, and that will not help your M at all.....

Neither will skipping any of the NO CONTACT steps outlined by Dr. H. YOU MUST DO THESE STEPS....NOW...not after the holidays....now....

How do you know she is not CONNING you into being a "good boy" for the holidays???

DO NOT TRUST THE WAYWARD...it is too dangerous.....you can go forward without confronting her if you want to ASSUME there is still contact, but WHEN you find out later they were still in contact, you will LB like crazy.....seen it happen too many times....including my own sitch. You will save BOTH of you heartache and grief later.....

not2fun

Not to contradict Not, but my point in asking about when the calls were made was that if the last one was a couple of weeks ago and she has been depressed and angry she might actually be going through withdrawal.

If the calls were ongoing until the end of the billing cycle, then you must assume that contact has continued since then in absence of anything to the contrary. If there was a clear gap beginning at the time she says NC began, then maybe she has established NC, but a letter saying there is to be no future contact can go a long way toward establishing that she is really committed to it and not just pulling your chain.

Yes, I saved my marriage. Even today I sometimes wonder why, but the A ended pretty quickly after I confronted her. I busted her with cell phone records BTW. I snooped further and found evidence of emails and stuff and when I confronted her I had a timeline of the affair all laid out on paper and even showed her a couple of things she had sent him.

Her first statement was "He's just a friend..." Yeah. I bought that one...NOT...

Speaking of Not...

How's the camera search going. Never mind, I'll catch up on that thread later.

IDWAD, there is a fine line in early recovery where you must deal with the affair but at the same time you have to begin to rebuild the love between you. She fell out of love with you and you have been love busted beyond measure. So spending time together doing almost anything other than talking about the affair and the relationship problems is a good thing right now. Until she begins to show signs of the fog lifting and understanding what she has done, there is really not much that you can do to "fix" the marriage. You have to fall in love all over again, almost from scratch.

One of the things I did to hasten the affair's demise was I began to monopolize my wife's time. I seldom spent any time without her other than work and even began going home early on occasion. I made plans for US and kept her busy. We took walks, went on picnics (too cold around here for that tonight) and just dragged her along on almost anything.

Ironically, we had two weddings to attend in the first 30 days after I busted her and one more soon after. One was her older sister who married on July 1st and found her husband dead of a heart attack on July 31st. We had his funeral on Thursday and their other sister got married on Saturday with my wife singing in the wedding, me running sound at the church and also doing the wedding pictures.

It had been real NC for 5 months when my wife had to go on a business trip to a town about 20 miles from OM's house. She really had no choice as to whether or not she went on the trip and we made arrangements for her to be joined by a friend of hers (female) at the motel for the night. This woman lives in the same town as OM and was one of the first that I exposed to even before I confronted my wife. This friend took the night off work to be with my wife in order to facilitate our recovery. Her own marriage ended in divorce due to her husband cheating with some floozy from their home town so she needed little prodding to help us out.

What did the most for our recovery was when I got an infection that landed me in the hospital with a 4" by 8" hole in the side of my chest. My wife took care of me including dressing changes till they did a skin graft 6 weeks later. She then changed dressings for me for another couple of weeks till I was able to just use a regular pad over the wound until it was totally healed...Well, it still looks like a cube steak glued to my chest, but it's about as healed as it's going to get.

I can tell you that more was healing in those days than just my physical wound.

Verify everything for a while. Even if you find that no contact has occurred for a while, stay on top of it. FWIW, my wife wrote a NC letter and broke NC a year later to begin the affair I busted her for. The first time around was an EA that lasted about 3 weeks and she broke when OM's wife started calling and harassing her (and me I might add). The second she began with purpose and after I confronted her she said she wanted a divorce. She was ready to leave me for this loser (serial cheater and alcoholic) on disability but still getting an Army pension and living pretty well. His wife had left him and filed for legal separation due to his drinking and cheating soon after the first EA ended.

Anyway, enough about me and my puny troubles in life...

Plan A your butt off and try to build those LB$ accounts back up. When you have full love banks, a lot of other stuff takes care of itself and what you do have to deal with is a lot easier.

Snoop some how to find out if NC is real. It is the basis for what you do next. If NC is real then you can move toward recovery. If NC is not real or is broken repeatedly, then prepare for Plan B till she gets her head out of her butt.

Do NOT settle for continued contact...

Mark