I'm wondering why she's offering an uncontested divorce when she says all she wants is Zen.

The things Coho says and the things she does don't all add up or make sense.

I know people here have said that if she's serious, she would be willing to walk away from it all but I don't know......doesn't that seem a bit manipulative to you? Coming from Coho and again, basing it on what I've seen from her here on this fourm it seems very manipulative to me.

It sounds as though she is saying that she will give him what she thinks he wants. It COULD be a manipulative move, but that's not how I see it. I think she could be more proactive by ASKING ZW what he wants instead of assuming that it might be a D.

If she's offering uncontested divorce and custody get the paperwork done NOW!!!

You can always recover later.

Zen, I just want to add that I so understand the embarrassment, and how you may not want to post because of it. Every time I make a mistake I have to brave myself to come here and admit it. But you know what? Every time I do, I learn so much from the people who take the time to help me with their advice. Even if I don't agree with them, seeing all the perspectives helps me sort out mine.

And everyone here is basically as wounded as you are. It helps me to remember that it's not a group of know-it-alls who make all the right moves; that we're all in this together, learning day by day.

So please don't stop posting. If nothing else, just make this a place to do your journaling so you can come back to it whenever you need to.

And don't forget that MB says that NO ONE can decide for you what works in your own situation, except you. Some people have NO tolerance for such things. Some people can put up with a lifetime of misery because they love their spouse so much. That's the thing I hear here the most - that no matter what you choose, if it's right for you, it's right for you.

Zen please don't be embarrassed. You have no shame in this. The shame is Cohos for cuckolding you with the OM. Moreover this is the human condition. Spousal betrayal has been around as long as man. This is the one refuge, that you should have no embarrassment about. Because the people here know and understand your pain better then anyone who hasn't gone through it would. It all subjective to them. It's objective to you and everyone here. So please don't isolate yourself.

I think Zen said he and Coho and the kids were going away for a few days. Hopefully they left their computers behind.

Zen,

Cat's expression here really expresses my thoughts as well. I don't think i've seen it articulated as well as this, on this or any other thread. It sums up a lot of the whole MB discussion board concepts and process as well I have ever seen it.

You have to do what is right for you. The people here are taking their time to express their opinions because we have come to care about you (and Coho because she is part of you) and want to offer support.

I hope you find some peace on your trip. We are here for you when you are ready to check back in.

SWW

Yes Zen, to add to what Cat and SWW posted above, you have to do what is best for YOU!

I know I've been pretty hard core here, saying "you know what to do"...I'm just trying to look at this big-picture and give you honest, true to Zen feedback.

I've read and followed your thread from the beginning. From what you have said, looking at all the pain she has caused you, then again going back to your posts...it seems like you reached the end of your rope a while back...(remember those words - Steve McGhandi)

Then to have this latest round of false recoveries slap you right in the face, well, it's heartbreaking.

It is easy for us, MB.com-ers, to sit here thousands of miles away connected only by a computer, to get on our soap-boxes and say, "Zen should do ____." The bottom line is this -- only YOU can live your life! I get up in the morning and I see D in the mirror...not Zen.

I remember saying to myself "if WW ever had ANOTHER affair it's right to divorce." Well, I'm still here. Still working on my marriage. Still sleeping next to someone who hurt me to the core.

If you choose to continue to work on your marriage then good for you. If you choose to head to Plan D, again good for you. There are a lot of wonderful women out there begging to meet good men.

And you don't have to look like B.Pitt or make the bank of Trump to land one. I often thought I better not lose my WW because I'm a balding, stay-at-home-dad with not much to offer. Boy was I wrong. When I realized I got a LOT to offer I became more confident, and stood up to WW...and the dymanic changed.

Please do keep posting. And above all else, take care of ZEN! Do what's best for ZEN. Take care my friend. D.

Zen, If you are going to try to work things out with Coho, extreme precautions must be taken. She must quit her job where she saw OM. You must expose her at work. You have to have a weblogger on the computer, a GPS on her phone, whatever else it takes to help her stay away from OM. It would be in your best interest to move to another state - seriously. She is seriously addicted to OM. She is saying whatever you want to hear right now but she needs to have some strong measures in place to help her get through withdrawal. She fooled a lot of people. That will make it very hard for you to trust her again. Do you have a family member that can hang out at the house with her while you are at work for the first few weeks? Extreme measures must be taken to have a chance at success.

The problem is that removing this OM may not solve the bigger problem. This isn't the first time she has exhibited this type of behavior.

I agree with Lost. I think Coho is addicted to 'the thrill of the hunt and the conquest'--not just the OM. In fact, if she were to divorce ZW and marry OM, I have no doubt she'd be cheating on him in short order.

My thought is that this generalisation is incorrect. Certainlky I am in the situation you describe (Wife and I were each other's first sex partners and only after marriage) We have a wonderful marriage now and had a great recovery.

I do believe the loss of sexual exclusivity in an affair may make it harder to recover for many though.

Coho is not the first WS to lie to the BS. They all lie. She just made it more public because she came here. Many have recovered after the affair finally ended. She never ended the affair before. If Zen and Coho can KILL this affair, I believe there is hope if extreme precautions are taken. She will have to have very strong boundaries and verification procedures in place - possibly forever. She will have to be totally transparent with no secrecy whatsoever. I do believe that there is hope if she is willing to submit to extreme precautions to help her get over her strong addiction to OM and alcohol. It doesn't matter if she was sober the last time. The regular use of alcohol has desensitized her to her conscience. She needs to give up both addictions IMHO.

I agree with stillstanding. And in the life long transparency. She is not only addicted to the OM and alcohol. She is addicted to cheating. If it wasn't this man it would have been another. She confuses boredom with her marriage as marriage problems. She's just bored. And she cares nothing about zen or her family when it comes to being bored. She will cheat in a heartbeat. This will be an anchor around zens neck for the rest of his marriage or life.

Hi all,

I'm going to post honestly and try not to hold back for fear of your 2x4s. I appreciate your continued support and will use this forum until my marriage is recovered or I've recovered myself as a single dad.

We're back from our time at the family vacation home. It was good - talking and talking - we both had sessions with Dr. Harley - Coho had two. Good family time as well. It's been quite a roller coaster of course. Unlike the last false recoveries, this has set me back all the way, and it's way worse in so many ways. There have been a few more horrid revelations, and then many more details of the affair revealed. It's truly much worse that it ever was in my mind. I THINK there's nothing left to reveal, but I suppose it could always be worse.

The gist of my session with Dr. Harley: I asked him when he counsels for divorce. I asked him if the problem was me - am I enabling this? He didn't really respond to the enabling question, he just used the addiction analogy. He said that an addict going into treatment and relapsing will keep doing that until they find a recovery plan the works, or they just go on being an addict and their helpers give up on them. He said my willingness to keep going can only be measured by my energy to keep trying. He said I'd know when I've reached that point. He said I'll stop asking for advice, I'll just stop trying. I think that's the case in most of these stories when a BS has simply reached their end point. I'm dangerously close to that, but not there yet.

So here it is: She's never been out of contact with the OM. In fact, as far as I can possibly tell, this week is the longest time by several days. I say this because there has been absolutely no way for her to contact him. She has not had access to phone or computer or been out my sight, so I can say this with some certainty. This morning she is at work, was on the phone the whole way, has called or texted several times while there. I told her I will stop in at some point to check. Supposedly, the OM is out of town through the weekend.

She and Dr. Harley have refined the No Contact Plan. Coho is coming up with most of them. I think the focus has changed less from telling me what I want to hear, and more about facing the addiction and ending it for herself. She said her attitude all along has been that she doesn't need to change, she's been able to reign herself in the past, so she can do it again. Now she is saying that it is an addiction, one that has spanned years, and she can only remain married with complete transparency for life. She is saying that she would not go back to the OM even if I end the marriage. It's all words and good intentions until she acts on them, so there's simply no way for me to have any assurance, other than waiting around for her to go one way or another.

There's no way to avoid reinvesting myself in this. I keep trying to find a way, but it's impossible. Recovery can’t happen with just one spouse doing all the work. This is not to say that Coho doesn't own the lion's share of the effort right now, but I can't see a way to protect myself outside of divorce or separation, and I feel and Dr. Harley feels that absence does not aid recovery.

So how do I protect myself? I'm meeting with the attorney on Monday. I will attempt to put in place a legal protection that gives me full custody and all assets should she reestablish contact with the OM. Not sure what this will be yet, but it is a bottom line measure for me, and she is agreeing to sign whatever agreement I come up with.

I'll go into more details on the No Contact Plan in another post. There measures we're both taking to ensure there is almost no opportunity to maintain contact. In the end, if she can’t stop herself, she's going to do it, and there's nothing I can do... there's nothing I can do to protect my heart. I suspect that another breach of trust will extinguish whatever will I have left to save this.

There's much more to say but I don’t want to make an exhaustively long post. Thanks for your support everyone.

I think Coho is scared off the forum for the time being. It's unfortunate, but most of the posts were just hurtful at the point it got locked, so it makes sense that she would be afraid. I'm not saying she didn't deserve what was said, just that it scared her off and that sucks. I hope she grows a thicker skin eventually and comes back. We'll see.

Boundaries. There are lots of grey area boundaries that do not involve divorce or separation. You could do an in house separation. One of you can sleep on the couch or in another room. You could ask your wife to stay in a motel overnight if she crosses the line. You could do the same. You could ask your wife to have 5 counseling sessions with Steve for every boundary she crosses. You could choose to be intimate with your wife when you feel safe with her. You could choose to tell her you are not comfortable with her being by herself again. You could ask that she have an accountability partner that isn't you.

Have you read the book "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend? That should help you.

I'd also disagree with you, in saying that there's no way to avoid reinvesting in this..as I'm assuming "this" is your marriage. You don't need to invest in your marriage right now, you need to invest in healing yourself. Taking care of yourself.

Speaking from personal experience. My husband is a recovering addict. Thankfully, I know very little about his recovery process. My investment in his recovery was making sure we had child care lined up if I couldn't watch the kids when he had to go to therapy and 12-step meetings. I had to spend my time healing me. His addiction was his problem, and he had to fix it.

The marriage will not get better until both of you heal yourselves from this.

I agree that there are many ways to remain uninvested physically, but emotionally? Much harder for me. Would you agree that you would be crushed if your husband relapsed, even early in the process?

I think this will be a focus of my next Dr. Harley session. In SAA, there are some clear distinctions between chemical abuse and an affair, although there are some striking similarities.

I think I will reexamine my boundaries yet again.

I want more advice from those having gone through this... Those having experienced false recoveries?

ZW AND Coho


It's unfortunate that she was run off of the forum because she could have gotten quite a bit of help here. I understand completely why she wouldn't want to come back. Hopefully the information and help that you receive will be enough to aid both of you.
I'm very glad that the two of you did counseling with the Harley's. I believe that it's invaluable and wish that it was something I had been able to do. I wish you two the best of luck.

Zen:

I think Pep had a thread going about false recoveries. Maybe I can find it and bump it.

As far as Coho being scared off the forum---all I can say is that I don't think her rather flip attitude endeared her to a whole lot of people here. And then when you posted that she had been lying to you the entire time, I know *I* felt betrayed in a sense as well! There was a clear attitude of "I'm smarter than you, I'm smarter than the Harleys, I can have it all".

I'm not sure she'd get a whole lot out of the forum at the moment until her actions started propping up her meaningless words.

Verve, she was not "run off" of the forum. Though, I would agree that some unnecessary comments were made.

Coho was spewing wayward babble and that was clearly seen. She can come back anytime, but must expect to be challenged, especially if she spews more fogged out babble.