I found out about a month ago that my wife is having an affair. I've implemented plan A and am working on my LBs and ENs the best that I can.
Meanwhile, my wife is still involved in A. We are still married and living together. We have one child together and she has two other children from previous marriages that I support and love.
The other guy seems like a decent fellow and from my monitoring, he has already had doubts about continuing a relationship with my WW.
I decided to email him a letter stating my intentions and appealing to his conscience to end his role in this affair.
Will anyone please proof read this letter and let me know if it sounds okay and also whether this is a good idea or not? Sorry it's so long:
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J,
I am reaching out to you because I believe that you are a good person and want what's best for my wife, V, for you, for me, and our children. Please hear me out. First of all I want to say that I am not at all angry at you. In fact I've made it a point to pour out my heart to God for His highest blessings for both you and my wife and myself. J, I don't blame you for wanting a relationship with V because she is such an amazing person in many ways. The purpose of my email is to try to encourage you to do what I feel is best for all of us, including yourself.
Let me first say that I blame myself to a great degree for the affair that is taking place. I contributed to the environment that brought my wife to feel like our marriage is over and to contemplate getting emotionally involved with another man. I honestly never thought that V would even consider doing something like that because of how sincerely she told me that she HATES infidelity in any form and that she would never do that. On top of that, it defies everything that our religion teaches and she and I both have strong testimonies of that.
Looking back on the experiences in our marriage, I realize that I should have taken things so much more seriously. I swept problems under the rug and downplayed them. To my eternal regret, I didn't face the problems for what they were and treat them with the seriousness that they should have been treated with. Only after discovering her affair was I truly struck to the center of my soul with the searing pain of the realization of my mistake.
Since I discovered the affair, I've gone through a couple of phases. First, I wanted to run away as fast and as hard as I could away from the overwhelming pain and suffering and file for divorce. After the initial shock, I came to my senses and took responsibility for my contribution to the situation. I realize that we have a family and that I am a father to three kids and a husband (albeit fallen one) to my wife. I say father to three because I have treated G and W as if they are my own children and loved them as best as I could. I know that they love me too and have come to depend on the stability I've helped to provide in their life by providing for them and loving them. I have decided that the only rational sane choice is to fight for this family to survive and not become another statistic.
I've been fighting by addressing my failures as a husband. I didn't work hard enough to meet my wife's emotional needs for love, conversation, affection, openness, etc and to eliminate things that are detrimental to our relationship such as angry outbursts, disrespect, and judgmental behavior. I'll be working on these things for the rest of my life but I've been taking a crash course in these aspects to do everything I can to show my wife that I am trying and changing. I've also been meeting with a family counselor to work on becoming a better husband.
I've also done a lot of studying about affairs: how they start, how they end, how to survive an affair, etc. Please see
http://www.marriagebuilders.com for good solid info about affairs. I learned not only about how affairs affect the betrayed spouse, but how they affect the wayward spouse AND the person the wayword spouse is having an affair with. Everyone hurts. Obviously the betrayed spouse suffers but also the wayword spouse and her other man. The wayword spouse suffers because she knows deep down that what she is doing is of the lowest evil in this world and it is hurting her spouse and her children. I've read that wayword spouses are often suicidal when they realize what they are doing. The other man hurts because his relationship with the wayword spouse is based on dishonesty and he may realize that he is contributing to the breakup of a family.
The wayword spouse is described as being in a fog during the affair because she is not thinking logically about what she is doing. She is caught up in the other person and it is often described as an addiction because it has physiological aspects. She almost can't help herself because the other person is meeting her most important emotional needs. During this time, there is nothing a spouse can say or do to convince her that what she is doing is not beneficial to anyone. Statistically, nearly no affairs succeed into permanent relationships and all the betrayed spouse can do is improve him/herself and work on the things that caused the wayward spouse to leave until the affair ends a natural death.
J, I am willing to fight for my spouse for as long as it takes by treating her better than I ever have and by working with gazelle intensity to fix the behaviors in myself that caused her not to want to be with me. I am willing to do it because I love her and I love our son C and I love G and W and I love our family and I love God and I love you.
J, I can not stop you from being with my wife, V, if that is what you both want, but I know there is nothing that I can say to V to make her think logically about what she is doing. In an effort to do what I feel is right, I am appealling to your sense of goodness and honor and as one father to another. I am asking you to please end all contact with my wife, V. I know this is not what you want to do but please consider the following:
1) You are contributing to the break up of a real family with a husband that knows he is guilty as well but is willing to do ANYTHING to save our marriage and family. You will have to live with that for the rest of your life if you continue to pursue this relationship before a divorce is finalized.
2) Affairs rarely lead to sustained long-term healthy relationships between the wayword spouse and the other person.
3) The longer this affair continues, the more pain that will be suffered by all involved.
4) You are setting an example to your own children by what you do now.
J, if you truly love V I believe you will end this affair and cut all ties with her. If you truly love each other, you both would not encourage the other to do things that are evil and wrong. An affair hurts everyone whether they realize it now or not. If our marriage ends in divorce, then I feel the time is appropriate for you to pursue a relationship with her and it will be done the right and true way. I don't know you, but from what I have picked up here and there from V's comments, you sound like a good and decent person and I would be happy if you and her ended up together if our marriage truly and completely ends in divorce. But please know that if you pursue a relationship with her in any manner before such time, it can only end in disaster because it is a relationship built on dishonesty in the wake of the destruction of a family.
J, I know I can't force you to do anything and the decision is yours. But regardless of what you decide to do, I wish you the very best and I respect you for your role as a father to two beautiful children and as a good respectable person. I will continue to keep you in my prayers as well as V and our family.
Sincerely,
E
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Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Erich
Me - 32
WW - 31
OM - 29
Found out about affair 9/08