How about getting a key logger on your computer?

Do you have a way to listen to his cell phone voice mails and to see text messages on his phone?

The Spying 101 thread will help you, you might want to start a thread just on snooping to try to get some more help...

Again, I am so sorry you are going through this. It's so hard, hurtful and scary all at the same time.

How do you meet his ENs when you're so wounded from what he's done that you can barely function?

Well, the first thing you have to do is look deep inside and ask yourself if you are willing to try and recover this marriage.

From what you are saying above, it sounds like you are ready for Plan B...if not Plan D.

Read more, post more and look deep inside...

I still say that you need to go to his dance club. You really need to just tell him that you want to spend this time with him, that you miss him and that you intend to go.

You really need to do this.

When you go, you will be putting it in his face that you are his wife. This is just so important. You both love to dance. All the rest is bullchit.

Do this and let him know that you are doing it to spend time with him, your husband.

I agree with lake. As for what do you do, you seek integrity. You choose what you can live with without hating yourself, and add on to that.

I will speak honestly to H from now on.

I will not DJ H because I don't want him to DJ me.

As his wife, I will seek to be all that a wife should be for my H.

I will seek new ways to encourage togetherness so that we can both enjoy our life together.

He doesn't seem to want to spend time with me.
He's managed to fill his time in the last 10 days.
Today he's talked on Skype, talked to his friend on the phone, talked to a visitor who flies overseas tomorrow and had a sleep. He's left not one iota of time to spend with me. It's pretty difficult to execute Plan A and to send him the message that I want to be with him when I'm being completely ignored.

Robyn, don't worry. He can't keep that up forever. Just maintain your integrity and compassion. You'll do fine.

YOu don't send him the message that you want to be with him. You just be with him. Go to his dance club.

Do you want the marriage?

Are you saying that you want to give up? If you want the marriage, you have to act.

Hey Robyn

How are you doing?

Hello staytogether

Thank you for your reply and your question. I'm doing well.
Things are going well around here.

What's happened since I last posted is that I have implemented Plan A. He likes me to look my best. That was easy to do. He likes me to greet him with affection when I get home from work. That too was easy to do. He likes my company. He got it. He said he finds conversation with me gets him thinking so he got plenty of it and it was thought provoking. I've met his emotional needs with great success but before I was able to do this completely, I was honest.

He talked about the two of them going to the club nights, the two of them going to the monthly events, about him doing repairs at her place, about him getting her computer running. He talked about this yet still talked about him and I being a couple. I told him in complete honesty that because he was spending so much time with Her and so very little time with me, that because he was effectively dating Her, I no longer considered him and I a couple but that I thought of him as being paired off with his passenger / dance partner / companion.

He was shocked to say the least. So wrapped up in his club and his dance partner was he that he hadn't spared even one thought for what he was doing to him and I. It simply hadn't occured to him how his actions were affecting me nor had it occured to him that "we" was on the verge of disappearing.

He was so shocked that he started being honest with me, to a point. Even though it was somewhat embarrassing for him, he admitted that his club isn't that great and that sometimes, he's even bored when he's there. He admitted that the people at his club are a clicky bunch who don't welcome newcomers and who would definitely ostracise me if I went there. Most importantly, he admitted that he isn't attracted to his passenger / companion but that he finds her "dull" (his word). He doesn't particularly enjoy talking to her nor does he particularly enjoy dancing with her. "Then why do it?" asked I. Because he was 'helping' her. (Helping her while destroying us!).

Thank goodness for everything I've learned on this website. Had I not read and read and read, I wouldn't have known about Plan A nor would I have recognised how affairs start or that he was on the road to having one. Things might have been very different had I not altered my course which, in turn, caused him to alter his. I'd say an affair was averted just in time. Phew, that was a close call.

Things between him and I have altered drastically. He's taken me out to dinner twice; we've taken the dogs out walking several times; we're having two special evenings each week to do whatever (talk, read, relax, eat, &tc). He's even talking of the two of us going away at Easter.

Yep, things have improved and I have what I learned here, Dr Harley and everyone who replied to my posts to thank.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU many times over.

When a spouse takes a shine to another woman or man, do they go into Gaa Gaa Land???
What I mean by that is, do their brains play tricks on them?

Do they make the new person into someone highly desirable?

Are they so busy making the new person the perfect being that they don't notice what the new person is really like?

Does their involvement with the new person become too hot not to cool down?

And when it does start to cool down, do they then start to see the new person for what he or she is?

I'm wondering this because of words that were spoken about the passenger / companion.

She's out of work. He heard of work. He told her. She did nothing about it. He saw an ad in the paper. He took it to her. She didn't bother to reply to it. Others told her of work. She didn't bother to look it up. She said she wouldn't get the job, anyway, so she didn't bother to put together a CV, anyway. She's made no effort to help herself. She's sitting on her pity-pot. She's got people running around after her because she's so hard up because she hasn't got a job which she hasn't got because she doesn't even try to get one.

After 9 months of 'helping' the pitiful one, he's come to realise she's not so perfect after all. It was obvious to me all along that she wasn't making any effort to help herself but it's taken this long for him to realise what she's really like. He's disappointed that after all of his 'help', she hasn't changed one bit. Her situation hasn't improved at all. You could even say she's been using him.

I'm wondering where his brain was over the time he was 'helping' her.

I'm also wondering if this is how unfaithful spouses think when they're on a fast track to involvement in an affair.

Do they hop into Gaa Gaa Land, that unrealistic place which is mostly their own fantasy?

Are they so busy in their unrealistic place with their new oh so perfect partner that they forget all about the great time they had with their husband / wife?

I'm wondering if going into Gaa Gaa Land is a necessary part of having an affair.

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes


My FOM was totally unsuitable - I built him up lots and lots, it is ridicualous to even start to try and compare him to DH. And I am sure your H is now thinking the same thing.



Yes, although the great times with DH were along time ago before my A started.
I think it is compulsory.

Robyn, I'm pleased things are going well for you and him. Has he stopped going to that club - he neeeds to whether you really think he has come out of gaa gaa land or not - th door to it is always open while the OW is about.

ST

I agree with ST. I would like to add one more thought. Keep in mind that the affair is not really about the other person. It is about the wayward spouse and how the affair makes them FEEL. Your husband could be the Knight in Shining Armor and that made him feel great. Yes, he went into LaLa land about who this woman actually was. But it was more about HIM than about HER.

My husband is a family man. Family remains very important to him. He is also involved with helping families in his work.

His Other Woman (an old high school girlfriend) has an adult (female) child who the Other Woman abandoned when the girl was about 12. She left her marriage and her girl when the girl was 12. The girl who is now an adult wants no contact with this woman. But of course the Other Woman had excuses for the fact that her own daughter wanted no contact with her. My husband was able to overlook all that. Because he was busy being her knight in shining armor.

So remember, it is not really about the Other Person, it is about the Wayward and how the affair makes them feel.

Waywards frequently "affair down."

Congratulations on averting the progress.

Has your H agreed to have "no contact" with her yet?

That's amazing. How anyone could make excuses for abandoning a child is astounding. Even more astounding is that your husband was able to overlook all that when he's a family man.

You're right in saying it's all about how they feel. Because of the limitations she's put on herself (won't drive at night), she doesn't go to the club (damsel in distress) if he doesn't take her (what a hero).

No doubt that made him feel really good. However, me taking care of myself, driving myself out to various events, some at night, on my own and me not needing him didn't make him feel very good at all.

Eventually, he woke up. Gaa Gaa Land isn't such a great place afterall.

Glad for the good news. I hope you're seeing the pink elephant in the room - he needs to be needed. What are you doing to include him in your life in ways that this need of his will get filled? Not doing things with him, but asking his advice, asking if he will help with something, things like that.

I do ask for advice on things technical. I can do these things myself but have no expertise whereas he has. For example: I wanted a raised vegie garden and, having lined the shell of a house myself, I could easily have built it myself but my work is, well, not sloppy but nowhere near as precise as his. He built me a vegie garden with all angles ninety degrees, no gaps, no rough cuts, perfecto. Wonderful and he got a big thank you for that.

I really appreciate his advice on things technical. I can figure them out myself, to a point, but my thinking is
s-l-o-w whereas with his experience, he can think laterally around a problem to quickly find a suitable solution. More big thank you's and appreciation.

Likewise for his advice on things financial. He knows I need and value his opinion - he gets a big kick out of giving it so it's a win-win situation: I get the advice I seek and he gets to feel needed by giving it.