Mel, I just halted another online chat session between WW and OM by entering her room and stating that I was serious about not letting her talk to OM in our house. I told her that if she ended her conversation with OM that I would leave her room. I never raised my voice but I was firm in staying there until she stopped chatting with him. I also told her that I am not against her but I am against the affair. This part may not have been good for me to do but I told her "what have you got to lose if you quit contact with OM and give our marriage 6 months to see if we can heal our marriage? I think I know a lot more now about meeting your emotional needs, etc" Does that fall under the category of begging or something?

Am I disrespecting her by being so forceful about not letting her talk to OM in our house? I know that she is disrespecting me by having the affair so blatantly but I don't want to lower to her level. I want to be ATTRACTIVE to her, but I feel like I come across as a dominating person who doesn't respect her. I don't think it is very attractive to her and it seems to just make the OM look better.

WW put a couple of storage containers in her car (don't know what was in them) and left. I don't know where she's taking the storage containers. Maybe she's going to OM's place to live? She left our son here with me though. This is so crazy...

No, that falls under the category of planting a seed. This is very good that you told her this. She needs to know that if she ends her affair you would be willing to work on your marriage.


Asking her to respect your boundaries is NOT disrespect. It is what a MAN does. When he is being disrespected, he firmly and respectfully asks the person to stop. Especially in his own home.

I think your wife has become very emboldened and entitled in her adultery before now because you did not protect your boundaries. Now, you ARE. She may not LIKE it, but I assure you, she will RESPECT YOU for it.

I will tell you what the most unattractive thing is, Erich, and that is a wimpy guy who lets a woman run over him. It is disgusting. Women do not respect men they can run over, and our love is contingent upon the respect we feel. She may feel angry that you interfered with her flagrant adultery but she will respect you and she will be much more attracted to a man with boundaries than a wimpy, sniveling doormat who allows her to mistreat him without complaint.

You have done exactly the right thing. Just continue to stand firm in your boundaries and make as much conflict as possible in the affair.

Do you remember last week how much trouble you caused in the affair when you exposed it and put a stop to her affair conversations in your home? First they rallied together and then they started lovebusting. That is what happens when you creat conflict like this. Their affair is based entirely on a FANTASY and when you creat conflict like this, you INSERT REALITY and ruin the fantasy. This is why creating conflict is so critical.

Now, can you make it hard for your wife to get back into the house? Disable the garage door opener and deadlock the doors? You can't lock her out, but you can make it very difficult for her to slip back in. MAke her stand out in the dark and bang on the door for an hour or so before you open it up.

then when you open it, ask "where in the world have you been at this time of the night?? OHMIGOSH! you weren't out to see your affair partner, were you??"

Insisting your wife stop chatting with OM in front of you in your own house is not disrespecting WW - it is you respecting you. If you can't respect yourself, why should WW?

Put it differently. If you walked in and found OM and WW having SF, would you gently scold her and suggest that they should stop and do it somewhere else? If you could do that, you shouldn't be married.

Big difference between being dominating and being a man.

Don't try to get in a fight to convince WW that you are better than OM. You have already lost that battle. In her state of mind, you could never measure up to him.

So the trick is to hang in, respect yourself, be someone who WW would want to be with and wait for her state of mind to change.

Her state of mind won't change until the A dies. With continued contact, the A will linger. Eventually you won't love her any more and beg for divorce.

So your only hope is to kill the A.

I honestly don't know how i would react if my husband was ever brazen enough to have an affair conversation in front of me, but it would probably involve my PISTOL. The utter disrespect of carrying on an affair in front of a betrayed spouse and his children, in their own home, is quite amazing.

Thanks Mel. I knew you would set me straight. My WW's fog is so thick that it sometimes creeps into my mind. I appreciate you being here even though you're in recovery. You have no idea how much your encouragement and clarification means to me.

Yeah, I remember how they lovebusted like crazy after I exposed and told WW that I was considering filing for full custody of our son. That was so awesome. I hope this conflict will help them LB each other some more.

I'm sure that my wife thought that the police incident from two nights ago would prevent me from trying to intervene with her chatting with OM again. I knew that I needed to be consistent and not let her think she could bully me.


Yes, in fact I just locked the garage doors and locked the glass door in front of the front door (which we don't have a key for). I locked the dead-bolt on the back door, which I think we don't have a key for either. She's not going to be a happy camper when she comes home. I'm pretty sure she'll come back by tomorrow because all of her clothes are here and her toiletries. I just can't figure out what she was loading in her car though?

Thanks Piojitos. I've told my wife this before--that "the only way our marriage can ever recover is if this affair ends and that is why I am attacking it."

My wife is sooooo stubborn and sure of herself that she sometimes almost convinces me that I am the bad guy. It's like a Jedi mind trick or something...

In each of these cases, you have to draw the line somewhere. Each BS may set the line in a slightly different place. The extremes (or end zones) are immediate divorce on one end and bringing your WS tea and crumpets while she is humping OM on the other end. You need to be somewhere between those two. But once that line is drawn, it is hard to move it because you are being inconsistent. If WW knows she can get by with chatting with OM in your house and in your face, you can't really change that later. So why are you giving her this perception now? Show her clearly where your boundary is and what the consequences will be if she doesn't obey it.

So you have stepchildren. Why did WW's previous marriage end? Did she have an A?

Dang, you are right. Now I'm getting ticked. Who does she think she is!?!? I just need more confidence and self-esteem. I've been such a wuss.

What's VERY ironic is that when my wife and I were not yet engaged, I lived with a roommate that was bringing alcohol into the house (which he knew was against house rules). When I told my then future wife about this, she suggested very strongly that I get rid of this roommate for disrespecting me and my home by bringing alcohol into my house. And I did get rid of the roommate.

I forgot about this until now.

Another ironic story is that my wife lived with her sister and her sister's husband and kids for a while as a 19- or 20-year old. My wife was staying out late and getting drunk and stoned and so her sister told her that she could no longer live in the house if she was going to carry on like that. So my wife moved out....

I brought up this experience with my wife not too long ago in conjunction with my boundaries and she said that this is different because this is her house too... I just told her that this is also our kid's home and I still would not allow her to bring that crap in our home..

I haven't read your entire thread but this was my immediate first impression when I read your last two posts.

They live in warped reality of entitlement and self will run riot and can easily convince us that we are the BAD GUY if we don't stay focused on reality and watch their ACTIONS. Their words are warped, but their actions tell the true story. That is the beauty of this forum. The folks here can help you out of the fogbabble FUN HOUSE.

But you are doing very well, Erich. You have caused much conflict in her affair and that is the ticket. She may move out, but if it gets that far, her affair will crumble even quicker. It may not get that far, though, because of all the conflict you are creating. The OM is going to get sick of her problems pretty quickly and he is not willing to take her and all her kids in. That reality is not going to be MISSED by her.

And it is becoming more and more real as her affair becomes more and more difficult to carry on from the safety of her home. Its one thing to have an affair from the safety of your home. Its quite another to have to move out with nothing into the projects.

Why do you think the OM won't take her in?

Another thing I keep forgetting to tell you. Let her know that when she leaves, she can only take her own clothes and her kids stuff. Don't allow her to take anything of yours or even your community property. Tell her you will wait until a COURT splits anything up.

Is her car paid for? Does she pay the insurance, taxes? If she leaves, she would have to pay for all that, let her know. You won't be paying her a cent.

I am WWs third husband. First marriage was due to her getting preggers. She says she never loved the guy but married him to keep the child (she was originally going to adopt her out). She says that she got separated from him and then had an affair. She says that she knew it was wrong but was separated and filing for D when the affair supposedly began.

Second marriage was two the OM from first M. She says that she was completely faithful to him and was very much in love with him but he ended up abandoning her with their kid. After several months of abandonment with no financial support, she filed for divorce to get child support for their kid.

I met WW on a christian dating website. She was very much on "fire" as I call it. She was very active in the church and seemed very repentant of her past mistakes. She was very open about her past and claimed to be a changed person. She was very convincing and I think that she WAS on a spiritual high at the time that I came in contact with her. This was what attracted me the most to her. She seemed very humble about her past and very repentant.

I admit that I was not good at meeting her EN's in our marriage but my family counselor says that she has some serious issues too that she needed to work on in our marriage. Of course, now she is having the A. So there's the history in a very brief nutshell.

I was somewhat content in our marriage even though my ENs weren't being met to a great extent. WW has a great personality, is intelligent, passionate, and fun among many other good traits. If we could just fix this little affair thing and the underlying issues.........

I don't know if she's asked OM to take her in. He has two kids of his own though. He has offered her money and "help" in an email that I intercepted. Don't know if he's serious or whether she's taken him up on this offer. But I do think that the guy is pretty broke. He is a cable installer and has two kids to take care of so I don't think he can have much to spare her and three kids.


I have no problem with not paying for her if she leaves. I've read enough threads here to know that she needs to hit reality in a big way if she moves out. I'd probably go straight to plan B and go dark.

She would try to use my son as a bargaining chip for support money though. I do have a hard time with this one. The only thing I can think of is that she would be taking my son against my will and that all of my support is on the table if she will come back into my home or give my son back so that I can take care of him.

I have an attorney picked out that I am going to consult with this week about the custody issues that should answer these questions.

Erich, I think if you make a move and see an attorney on Monday, as you had planned, it will give her serious pause. Let her know that you cannot continue like this and will be seeing an attorney. I don't believe she wants to move out and get a job and have to take care of 3 little children. And I know the OM doesn't want to take them all on.

I think if you keep the pressure up, this affair won't last long. She was probably willing to continue the affair from the safety of her home, but I doubt she will be willing to give up her home for it. especially for guy who can't support her.

Do y'all go to a church? Do you have a pastor that could speak to her?

I'm not too proud to admit that I was a doormat for the first month and a half of WW's affair (and looking back, much of our marriage). If only I could go back.

I felt that I needed to study and make an informed decision and follow a plan before I made any rash decisions. This mentality of mine is a two edged sword. Obviously I lost some serious time while doing this, but the bright side is that I feel like I'm doing the right thing now and feel as much in control as I can feel in a situation like this.

How long was she married to first OM before he dumped her?

Her own history demonstrates what ML has ben telling you BTW.

We have some men here who have won custody of their kids. I would make sure this attorney is one who will fight for you and knows about fathers rights.

Many attorneys have the goal of an amicable, easy divorce with "mediation" and you don't want that. You want full custody and a way to get your wife out of the house if she wont end her affair. You want to make it very hard for her to destroy your family and your marriage.

I'll do that.


Yes, we go to a church and we have met with our pastor. She wasn't willing to counsel with him to help save our marriage. He has tried contacting her since, but she does not respond.

I believe her marriage to first OM lasted about 3 years, officially. But I think her H abandoned her after 2 years..

A classic statistic. Wow.

Of course we all know history never repeats itself.