Dogpile on the rabbit! Dogpile on the rabbit!

Jeez, what an epic beatdown you are getting, dude. :-)


This is extremely honest and impressive.

As a betrayed spouse, I can tell you re-contact was a knife in the heart topped only by D-day, even though my WW's was only in the weeks following. It must be very disheartening to Chrys to see the WW still on your mind after an extended effort at recovery. My advice, from being in her place, is to DRENCH her with attention, love and EN fulfillment.

A clean polygraph may afford you two a new and firmer base from which to move on. I really wish I had polygraphed my WW after d-day. The threat of it caused a lot of hurtful data to be puked out by her, but there are still things I don't believe about her story.

I'm trying to be friendly here because you have gotten so many kicks in the face with icy galoshes.

But? I don't believe you. I DEFINITELY don't believe it was only an EA. C'mon, dude, I'm a guy. You had a previous admitted PA. You are looking her up 18 months later, this thing wasn't a grade school crush.

I honestly hope you prove my suspicions wrong. But my prediction is you will squirm to avoid the poly, and then before you take it there will be some revelatory admissions. And you should do it sooner than later.

I wish you the best -- for Chrys' sake.

My point was that it is something that would benefit you and instead of asking Chrys if she wants to go you should just book the trip.

She would probably go with you...

But if she doesn't it would still benefit you both.

You are at the place where you have to figure out how to fix this. Chrys led the way before. She studied this stuff, learned what SHE needed to do and tried her best to do it well. What was missing was that you weren't on board with the plan.

Now it is YOUR turn to drive. If you want to not end up divorced you need to figure this out pretty quickly. If you wait for her to decide what you should do you might end up moving out...

What's up with the polygraph? I know she was having trouble finding someone that could do it. Have you contributed anything to the search yet? I know she wants to pick the person to do the test. But you could help in the search...

You also need to realize that if anything else might come up when you do the polygraph you need to spill it now and not wait till the eve of the test. And woe to him who lies on the polygraph. You know that last straw? The one that broke the camel's back? That would be it...

Mark

hmmm....I wouldn't want my WW involved in finding the polygrapher, btw..

Just Google "Polygrapher Los Angeles"

Here is a guy that specializes in infidelity cases:

http://www.polygraphwest.com/

Mike,

I agree that Chrys should be the one to pick the polygrapher. But she has already done the Google thing and is having a hard time finding someone who is willing to do the test, has time to do it, doesn't charge an arm, a leg and a lien against your first-born, and doesn't come across as "sleazy" for lack of a better description...

If Chewie can help in doing some of the leg work it might go a long way to showing how sincere he is in wanting to give her what she needs to get over this hump...

Even if he just helped her to do the research and find numbers to call it could relieve some of the pressure from her and let him participate in cleaning up the mess that he made rather than letting her carry the load. She already did her share of the heavy lifting and unless he can begin to carry the majority of the work toward recovery I'm afraid she will not be willing to participate in another recovery effort...

JMO.

Mark

I guess I'm the only one who believes the affair was an EA only.

Here is what I posted to the Mrs -

"ethereally beautiful."

Interesting choice of words to describe her. I wish schoolbus was around.

The OW didn't do seances and claim to heal people did she?

I was thinking of the meaning, and it is usually something unreal, like in a myth, fairytale, or fantasy. Maybe it WAS only an emotional affair, and he is telling the truth.

But I know it is hurtful to you. How does one live up to THAT? But I can tell you it was more in his mind than anything else.

This is HUGE, Chewie...I hope you really digest this and then work towards this as your goal.

And a few "concrete" things you can do, right now...

1.) do the poly ASAP. It will help calm Chrys down (it helped me a lot, my FWH took one and passed).

2.) get a post-nup going. My FWH is having one done now...it wil say that basically I will get everything we own, plus CS, alimony, retirement, etc. if we D over his A (the one we are recovering from now, or any in the future).

This is another good faith measure, one that Chrys needs after your attempting to initiate C again. <Shame on you for that, you cannot imagine the pain Chrys is feeling from that stupid, self-centered move. If I could virtually slap someone silly, I would.>

You have a LOT of work to do. She is probably going to go into withdrawal if she isn't already in it. That's normal and it's going to be your job to keep working very hard to pull her out of it.

Mike_C2

I appreciate the sympathy (empathy?), but there have been only a few icy galoshes. And it's warm enough where I am that ice melts rapidly. Although it's been 24 hours since I checked in, so there may be more waiting.
You are not the only one does not believe it was only an EA. Chrys does not really but it either. And again, all I can say is, that's what it was.

Mark:

This is my initial attempt at a list of extraordinary protections. Chrys reviewed and added a couple.

1. I acknowledge that I am responsible for my wife's safety and security, and that I am responsible for living in such a way that I enhance rather than damage her sense of safety.

2. My wife will have access to my pager, cel phone and records of it's use, and e-mail accounts at all times. I will not change passwords without notifying her.

3. I will not open my work or personal e-mail outside of my wife's presence without her knowledge and agreement.

4. I will arrive at the office no earlier than 15 minutes before my first scheduled appointment and will be home from the office by 7 pm. If an extraordinary circumstance should make this impossible I will notify my wife immediately to inform her of the details of the circumstance and obtain her consent.

5. When I am on call, I will not go the hospital before 8 pm except in emergent situations, of which my wife will immediately be made aware.

6. When I am making rounds of nursing homes or going to hospitals to sign charts, my wife will be invited and welcome to accompany me. If she chooses not to, I will call her periodically to inform her of my whereabouts and schedule.

7. If I must attend meetings at locations away from my office, my wife will be notified in advance of the meeting, it's location, purpose, and anticipated duration. I will call her when I arrive at the meeting and again when I return to the office or am leaving to come home.

8. I will attend church regularly with my wife.

9. Any actual or attempted contact with or by a former AP, or a significant mention of a former AP by someone else, will be reported immediately to my wife.

10. My wife is welcome at any time to come to my office and stay as long as she pleases in order to observe. She is, while there, free to explore the contents of my office.

11. I will avoid flirtatious conversaions with anyone except my wife and will carefully avoid discussing any personal issue with a woman other than my wife.

12. I will not spend time alone with women other than my wife except as is directly related to my work responsibilities. When I am alone with a woman in that context, I will ensure that there are other people in the immediate vicinity. I will not have a private conversation with a woman behind closed doors except as is required to preserve the confidentiality of those for whose care I am responsible. This includes phone conversations.

I am interested in comments about additions, modifications, or subtractions from this list, which is obviously a work in progress.

I have spent most of the weekend with my wife and have seen and felt the pain and sorrow for which I am responsible. And I am feeling remorse (not just sorrow that I was caught) for what I have done. She asked me today if I actually wanted to end the marriage but was afraid to be the one to make that decision. My honest answer to that was "no".

My behavior has been, at times, quite adolescent. Impulsive, selfish, not giving any thought to the consequences of my actions. But my actions have had terrible consequences, and I need to stop acting like an adolescent.

Regarding the polygraph - I have told Chrys that if she wishes I will undergo one. From my reading on the subject, they have very low positive and negative predictive values. The test is poorly studied, poorly validated, and highly susceptible to errors on the part of the examiner. A test of this type for a scientific or medical issue would not pass muster. If I "pass", no one can have confidence that I was being honest. If I "fail", my wife will be making a decision to walk away based on an unreliable test. My sense, just from reading the posts on my thread, is that they are mainly used as a tactic to "encourage" the WS to provide the complete story of his/her indiscretions before the exam. Having said that, I am the one who put our relationship in this tenuous position, and if she wishes me to take a test I will. I was, however, amused by the debate about whether, if I found the polygrapher, I would attempt to subvert him. Not something that would be a serious issue with a truly reliable test done by a professional.

FWIW:

In NZ a polygraph is not admissable evidence legally, and as far as I am aware, there are none here anyway. This is the reason why I never required Flick to undertake one.

Having said that I did watch "Mythbusters" (hardly a great scientific documentary I know, but it was all I had ) on polygraphs, and their tests seemed to indicate that it is very accurate when done by a professional.

Sorry Chewie, this sounds like some serious tap dancing to me...

TAKE. THE. TEST.

It is my understanding that the results are not easily read by a layman, so sure, it would be possible to "bribe" the polygrapher...I hadn't thought about that before the good folks here pointed it out, because it truly isn't something that would have occured to me, but I certainly understand now...

Tell Chrys to line up the test, and you go take it...Your motto must become "whatever it takes for as long as it takes"...The polygraph falls under that, imo...

Mrs. W

Chewie - there's a great thread about Polygraph's on here - believer started it.

Polygraphs are not admissable in a court of law BUT law enforcement routinely uses them. They are held to be very reliable if administered by a competent practitioner.

I understand your reluctance to take one but you have to know most people here including your wife will believe that is because you are lying about the extent of your affair.

It's your marriage and your life Chewie but this evasivness isn't going to help you or your wife.

Just some info for what it's worth-

Polygraphs aren't admissible in court because of the 5th amendment-the right to not incriminate oneself-not because they aren't reliable.

This attacking their veracity sounds to me like a plan to lie.


Now they have veracity?

Which is it? If you pass they are accurate because no way you could "subvert" the test. If you fail they are an "unreliable" test.

If you have to, repeat it. More than once. Expensive, but less expensive than a divorce.

Would you deny the results of a repeated test?

I'm bumping this up to see if anyone can give Chewie feedback on his list of EP's.

LC

I notice that no one bothered to comment on or make suggestions about the extraordinary precautions list.
I have already said I will take the test. But maybe people would prefer if I not express any opinions.

As a FBW, I actually didnt feel it was right of me to comment, however I did read them and I thought they were pretty good. I just want to question one, and its more because I am nitpicky with words. I did a course years ago about writing instructional objectives and the idea was to have no 'fuzzy' words.


The 'fuzzy' word to me is significant. How have you and Crysalis defined significant?

Chewie, I think the list of EPs was very good.

IS there more that Chrys needs to know? My instincts (and being an FWW myself) tell me there is. I think they're "contact" things rather than actually restarting the A but they all matter.

I think you're getting that you can be the smartest MD in the world but when it comes to emotional things you are just as at sea as anyone else.

I do not like the word "consent", it does not reflect the MB principle of "joint agreement".

That is the only change that I think you should jointly agree to make.

The word "emergent" in 5 does not seem right, did you mean urgent or emergency? Just being picky

It seems that weekends can be a bit slow for replys on these forums. I guess people are out enjoying their free time. I know that I have had a busy weekend with the family, boating and water sking, it was the last few days of the summer school holidays so we made the most of it.

"I notice that no one bothered to comment on or make suggestions about the extraordinary precautions list.
I have already said I will take the test. But maybe people would prefer if I not express any opinions."

This comment applies to your thread and your list of EPs. I believe your thread to be less than contrite, agree with the previous posters that you are doing just enough. I believe your list of EPs shows your detachment, i.e. you don't use your wife's name, but talk about her using a personal pronoun. It is very detailed and maybe will cover all the bases or maybe you can find something you could do that's not included in the list.

IMO, the real problem is your lack of empathy for others' feelings, especially your family's. And, like previous posters, I think there is a strong possibility you are still lying. Hence, the need for the test.

AM

I just wanted to throw a thought out there, and you guys are welcome to tell me I'm full of baloney. But one thought that came to my mind is because chewie is an MD, that maybe that's why he seems less than contrite. I'm NOT saying he has an excuse for contacting the OW. What I'm getting at, is medical school changes people. They're stripped, broken down, and put back together. They're taught not to think with their emotions. They're taught to see their patients as a list of symptoms, rather than human beings with thoughts, feelings, etc. - to be emotionally removed. Again that doesn't excuse what he did, and he should have known the impact it would have on his wife and that it was wrong, but I also wonder if that medical school training is coming into play here, so it may be more of a battle for him to see things from chrys' point of view, and why he seems "removed" here. I work with docs myself and kinda get this arms' length distance thing. They're like a culture of their own.

Anyway, just a thought.