If you are a BS who had a FALSE RECOVERY
I am requesting you share about your FR
Thanks!
D Day 1 2003:
My H's affair was first discovered by me after about six weeks of its starting in 2003. I found condoms in a drawer. They had been bought abroad; there was no English writing on the box. We live in London. My H travelled to Europe roughly twice a month for one or two nights at a time.
We had a horrible marriage at the time, but after much fighting and mutual blame we admitted that we did not want to divorce. We gave our marriage another try, and the results seemed spectacular for most of the first year of false recovery.
I thought that our near break-up had shaken H to the core, and that, since he wanted to stay with me, he would stop his affair - of course! It never occurred to me that he would not. I could see that he had chosen an affair when our marriage was terrible and our sex life non-existent. I took responsibility for the state of the marriage and was thankful to have been forgiven my errors. I never imagined that a human being with a mind and a conscience could misuse another human being's love without a second's thought, as he went on to do for two years.
During the second year, from my point of view things went downhill rapidly. My H seemed increasingly angry and bored with me, He left for work early and came in late, except for one night per week when he made the effort to come home early and was horrible to me and the children.
1. WHAT did you do that you wish you'd done differently?
My BIG mistake after D Day 1 was not to ask who OW was, inform her H and insist on a job change as a recovery condition.
I worked out that OW lived abroad and therefore must be connected through his job. He laughed in my face when I suggested that he was in love and would leave us for her they had only been together 3 or 4 times. He made it clear that affair was a convenient arrangement for sex and a bit of attention, on both their parts; she was married too and like him, had no intention of leaving. That was all I found out about the affair, and since I reasoned that my problem was with him, not her, I did not feel the need to know more.
I think that a lot of people would have made the same mistake as I did after the first D Day, which was not to seek changes to H's job (or to move house if OP lives locally). As Dr Harley says, we must find out the circumstances of the affair and change our living or working arrangements to make a restarting of the affair very difficult. Many people would also not have exposed to either OPS or the employers. I think many people would have done what I did and trust that, since my H was very keen to stay with me and the children he would not risk our happiness again.
We are wrong, but rather normal. However, I cannot get over how silly I was after that.
D Day 2:
Exactly 2 years after D Day 1 2003 I walked in on H texting on a mobile phone that he had been lent by his company on strict instruction that there was to be no personal use, so he said. Although he had it at home every evening, it had been lent only so that he could be reached when he was abroad. The very second I saw him look round nervously and try to hide the phone I knew that he was back in the affair. For a few days I thought that it must have restarted when we became unhappy again. It was only on a drive to the supermarket about 4 days later that I worked out that he had probably never ended it. I then worked out that he had been really happy during our first year because he had two women adoring him and having sex with him.
What I did correctly after D Day 2 2005 was to not say a word about what I had seen, and to take the phone when he was asleep. I confirmed that the affair was indeed active. Because we were on holiday at the time and I did not want to upset the children, I said nothing for several days. My being unable to confront him allowed me to keep spying and, as luck would have it, I discovered OW's full name when she sent a text message over the internet rather than from her phone. Her phone messages had only her phone number on them, but her internet messages had her name.
Also fortunate for me: Because I could not find a moment to talk to him without the children around once we got home (it was the school holidays and they stayed up later than her did; he would come in, eat, grump at us all and go to bed early, from where he texted OW before turning out the light), I was able to keep spying. I Googled her name and discovered within 5 minutes where she lived, that she was married, had children and was connected to my H through his job. She was a volunteer on a committee that he dealt with. I found the committee minutes online and these had her name and address.
1. WHAT did you do that you wish you'd done differently?
I made a serious mistake when I revealed what I knew to my H, six days after the discovery. H wrong-footed me and said that he did not want to leave; I had been expecting the opposite. I had read the text messages talking of how he loved her, wanted to make love only to her, and was "lacking in commitment here" and wanting to be with her all the time. I did not reveal what I had read, but when he asked me how I had found out I blurted out "I saw you texting!"
He thereafter left the phone at work and I was cut off from information. I only saw it thereafter about every six weeks, when he was forced to bring it home after a trip abroad. He was stupid enough to think that I would never spy on him, so he left his text messages backed up on the phone. It took weeks at a time, but I was able to see that the affair was continuing.
(H was
really indignant when I confessed my spying many months later. He said that that I had invaded his privacy.)
I wish that I had not said a word about the phone. I was lucky enough to have gathered a lot of useful information, but I should have kept silent about the phone.
After D Day 2 I had so much more information about the affair than after D Day 1. However, my ignorance about how to use my knowledge allowed him to continue seeing OW yet again, for over a year more.
If I had gone straight to her husband with my proof of the affair it would have ended that day. Her H is a street fighter where his wife is concerned and after he had rearranged my H's face he would have reported him to his employers.
If I myself had reported the affair to my H's employers they would have taken him off that job, if not sacked him outright. He was in charge of the budget for her committee, as well as others; there was a clear conflict of interest. He was also using the office landline and mobile phone to make international calls to her that sometimes lasted two hours. This had been going on for two years; he must owe his company many thousand of pounds.
If I had had MB to guide me, I would have accepted that he might be sacked, and exposed anyway. I earn more than enough to keep the family on my own, and no price would have been too much to save my marriage.
If exposure had thrown them together, I would have let him go and not looked back. I wanted him back only if he wanted to be with me; if he wanted to be with someone else I could not wait to get rid of him. I told him that, and offered to buy him out of the house, and suggested that he lived a mile or two away; close enough to see the kids often but far enough away that I would not bump into him at the corner shop. He would not hear of leaving.
I had nothing to fear about any possible consequences of exposure and yet I would not use it. I really
really wanted to hurt OW, but I did not want to hurt her H or family, and I reasoned that exposure would hurt innocent people. Of course, I know now that it is the affair that hurts those people. So far, remember, I was without MB.
Also, I would have died rather than let anyone say that I was a jealous, bitter woman, as I knew many would after exposure, so I hung on to my false dignity and let the affair continue. I was ineffectively trying to out-love OW and make H see how much the affair was hurting me. He did see that, and slowly withdrew from the affair, but not completely for over another year.
D Day 3:
This came about 6 weeks after D Day 2, in May 2005 when she came to London and he said he was working abroad but stayed with her in her hotel for 2 nights. He did this when our marriage was at its most precarious, leaving on a Sunday afternoon when he would normally have been at home with the children whom he hardly ever saw. Since I had not done anything about exposing him to his employers, it was easy for him and OW to speak on the phone at work, as they had always done; no calls had ever been made to or from my house. All he had to do was tell me he had dumped her and I could not prove otherwise, although I was ill with worry. I knew that since he had been capable of continuing the affair for two years from my first discovery, he was capable of doing so again, but I felt unable to make him stop. I thought that the only thing I could do was separate from him, and I was unwilling to do that because of the children.
I discovered his scam by listening to his voicemail when he got home from his trip "abroad". I did not tell him what I had heard. I made up my mind that we would separate after my daughter finished her GCSE exams. By the time she had, it was summer and I extended that time to after the holidays.
D Day 4:
This came after the summer holidays and I was expecting it, since I knew and hadn't spoken about D Day 3. After D Day 4 (when I saw a text message from her celebrating their latest night of fabulous love-making) I told H to move out. I later went back on that decision.
1. WHAT did you do that you wish you'd done differently?
My regrets are the same as for D Day 2.
H still travelled abroad, which I should have stopped. OWH still did not know of the affair, and if he had he would not have let his wife travel freely as she did.
D Day 5:
OW travelled to London yet again, in the autumn of 2005. That time H did not spend the night with her but took time off work to go and see her in her hotel. I knew she was coming because I had found details of her job on the internet. Her company travelled in Europe, and the London trip was advertised. She was a conference organiser and the conference was open to the public; there was a call for papers. I should have gone to it!
Instead I waited for about 3 hours outside the hotel where the conference was being held, convinced my H would meet her. He did, and yet I missed them. I got him to confess to meeting her but he told me it was to say goodbye, because she had never accepted the break up. I nearly hit him for going back on his word to me that he would never see or speak to her again, but I believed his excuse, I really did. He confessed to me months later than it had been another sex session - while I had been standing outside the hotel on a freezing November day waiting to confront them.
1. WHAT did you do that you wish you'd done differently?
My regrets are the same as for D Day 2. Goodness, this is becoming repetitive.
D Day 5:
In the January 2006, I discovered a dialled call from his phone to her number. In my anger I told him what I had discovered. He told me that she was being persistent but he was turning her down. She rang when he was away to say "how are you?" and he kept the conversation light and friendly, he said. I insisted on NC (still without MB) and he promised to achieve that.
1. WHAT did you do that you wish you'd done differently?
Take a wild guess.
D Day 6:
(I can't believe I am writing this. If you knew what a feisty, tongue-lashing witch I usually am you would never believe how I crumbled under this continuing affair and put up with it, trying to show love and patience. This was so unlike me!)
In March 2006 I found another dialled call and ask why he was still speaking to her. It was the same story; she would call to see how he was, and, he admitted, probably to try and re-start the affair, but not explicitly so. He could not be hard on her and tell her to leave him alone. He had told her how it was hurting me and that he himself wanted the calls to stop, but she would insist that she was only being friendly and every few weeks would call again. He was always light and would end the calls quickly, he said.
I'm going to skip the regrets part from now on.
D Day 7:
In May 2006 just over a year from D Day 2 OW started sending sexy text messages to his phone again. These had ended many months earlier. They seemed curiously designed for me to see. After one in July 2006 I told him to move out. He swore up and down that he had never seen the texts himself, because I had discovered and deleted them (true). He had not seen her since the last time I knew about (November 2005, to say goodbye, in London). There was no affair and had not been since the previous September.
I withdrew my demand for him to leave and we went on holiday. I told him to take his phone this time and that I would check it. The day he was due back in the office after the holiday there was another text about her "missing his kisses" and I told him to get out. That's when he confessed that the affair had never stopped (yet again; first 6 weeks, then two years, then 5 months, then 9 months, with major D Days at these points and minor ones in between). They had only met about 3 times during the final 9 months (utter rubbish, I found out later via her husband) but yes, it had continued.
He got on his knees and begged me to stay, but it was only his going in to work, off his own bat, next day and refusing to travel ever again, that made me stay with him. He was the head of his team and would be leaving them in the lurch, but junior members could do the travelling and he would stay in post (not travelling) until they replaced him. They did after about 9 months, and he took a small pay cut and a much less interesting job. However, he seems to feel himself lucky to have a job at all, and even more so to have me, and has never complained or try to make me feel bad for "making" him make that choice.
2. WHAT clues did you miss (or ignore) that your WS was not ready for recovery?
His leaving the phone at the office, once I had told him that I had seen him using it, and the messages still appearing on it when I did see it. I let him talk me into believing that the contact was one-way, was from her to him, was entirely unwanted and was not physical.
3. WHAT lessons did you learn that you'd like to pay forward to others, so that they might avoid a FR?
I should have discovered the identity of OW; I should have exposed to OWH and my H's employers; I should not have revealed my clue to affair (the phone).
I can forgive myself the first false recovery, because I don't think that It Is normal to assume that absolutely every WS will do what my H did and continue the affair for 2 years. My H did not even tell his OW of my discovery at first. He pretended that it had not happened, I think so that she would not ask questions about why he hadn't left.
However, I am angry at myself for letting the other D Days happen. I knew from the second one on what a liar and despicable cheat my H was, and yet I struggled on in the marriage trying to believe that he would change because of "our love", my distress, and because he did not want to lose the family.
I was staggered when I later discovered the circumstances of H's lies, but I have read even more staggering things here - such as Christian waywards lying with their hand on the Bible.
I would say to any BS who has already undergone one FR that they should not trust their spouses ever again. We should trust only what we can see. Words, tears and promises from our repeat offender spouses mean nothing at all. All waywards change their morals to fit their affair behaviour, but the BS's hurt means nothing to at all to the repeat offender, in my experience.
Repeat WSs probably love their children, yet their children's futures mean nothing to them. I think that Plan A is a good thing to do with a first offender, but it will not change the behaviour of the repeat offender wayward.
Some BSs seem able to cope with continued contact, but some, like me, suffer mental health problems as a result of it. I wish I could make WSs insist on verifiable action before they allow the marriage to continue. I don't understand why a repeatedly betrayed BS who Is familiar with MB does not do this.
My marriage is very badly damaged as a result of repeated FR, not the affair per se.
and help him through withdrawal 
. But those days were long gone when he approached me again about reconciliation. 
