Wow what a whirlwind it has been for the last year. My wife of 15 yeas (three children together) gave me the I love you but not in love with you speech. I found out about the affair a few months after. It was a DEEP affair for her and felt feelings she has "never felt before in her life". The affair was exposed to her parents freinds etc but not the OM's W. My wife went NC for a month and went through some serious withdrawal pains and began to question can she be happy with me, after the feelings she felt for another man like that. The OM opened up the affair again by giving her flowers on her birthday with a note. I did not know this and did not find out the affair was continuing albeit on far less of a scale because I was watching it like a hawk. I found out and we seperated. She said we were not compatible and that she loved me very much but was not in love. I still did not expose the affair to the OM's wife. I told him to leave the workplace (they work together and my daughters school), told my wife to stop contacting me and she could go do whatever she wanted with this man. He said he would and even said he resigned but he lied. Finally I mustered the courage to tell the wife. I gave him 3 weeks to prepare himself and let HIM be the one to tell her. At this point the OM begain to turn on my wife and all heck broke lose. The OM told my wife he does not love her enough to leave his own wife which really woke up my wife. I exp[osed the affair 4 days ago and now my wife is telling me EVERYTHING about the affair. Things I didn't know, even though she knew I would be angry. She said the reason she seperated was because of the OM, which she denied to everyone so many times. Exposure happened October 23 and what a difference that has made. The affair is finally crushed. He has gone back to his wife with his tale between his legs and my wife is left alone with all the revelations she will be coming to. My question is WHAT NEXT. Do I limit contact with her, be there to support her, be friends.. She needs space but I'm afraid she is cake eating with me. She said she is too chicken to file a divorce so does that mean she will continue to live like this until some other prince charming walks into her life???

I know I got the same speech except it was I don't know if I am in love with you but I will always love you because you are the mother of my children. Maybe your wife is wanting to come back and wants you to forgive her. If you don't want to reconcile with her, then I say have little contact with her, except for when it is about the children. You shouldn't have to listen to her and all of her problems. She has hurt you enough, so you will have to decide what your next step will be.

It depends. Do you both want to save the marriage? What is the goal?

If she says she wants "space" that means she wants to be free to pursue her affair. Being that the affair was just exposed, I doubt the affair is over.

Hi again Floridapad,

Referring to our previous discussion do you KNOW that you want to come back to your wife since the heart to heart discussion with her?

By the by please read through the section marked "articles" in the red margin! It shore helped me...

It could also mean that she wants space to explore other options.

She did not say she wants space. I am assuming that since she is in the very early stages of withdrawal. She did say she hates the OM but I know that means she is still emotionally attached. I will know if there is contact because I have her cell phone login. No contact since the day before this wholoe thing went down. When we spoke I went off on her a little bit which was certainly a mistake on my part but I had to get it out. She invited me to her parents house for dinner after the exposure and I told her Thank you but I have plans. She knows I have dated a little and she became very interested in what my plans were. I did not tell her but she kept asking and I just never let her know. She is working her way through her "feelings" right now. This whole exposure stuff kind of brought us both back to square one. She said they have been breaking up for the last month and this was the nail in the coffin. She saw him for what he was. A cake eater. It's odd. She still introduces me to people as her husband. I know that doesn't mean much since technically I am, but in the early days after seperation she referred to herself as the exwife. All so confusing. I think she is testing the waters with me but still needs to sort out her feelings she felt in the affair. I just don't know how to handle it all right now.

Florida, if you want the marriage to work, I would most definitely not date [you are married!!] and try to spend as much time with her as possible.

Does she still work with the OM?

Floidapad, if you are dating another woman, it's called a revenge affair and it makes you an adulterer also.

There absolutely no way to justify it.

Yes she works with the OM but not directly. They have rooms at opposite ends of the campus and my wife knows this will be the difficult part but if she wants to avoid him she can. As far as dating goes, she still needs to know I am moving forward. My fear is that I don't want her to think I am simply waiting around for her. If I focus too much on her she will cake eat with out a doubt.

She sent me the following e-mails

"I only have a few minutes because we have conferences in 10 minutes. BUT it was not about you. I do not hold you responsible for ANYTHING. Everything you say I just recently realized. It is not about that......I know he loves his wife. I know he was full of [censored]. I see everything in a whole new light now. I really do. See? You still don't believe me, but I really don't blame for not believing me. IT'S OK. I see it.

Sorry to be so short, but I have to go....... "

and...

"I NEEDED to feel what I am feeling now to get ovet him. I don't blame anybody but myself for being so stupid. I did believe EVERYTHING he said. I never really had anybody lie to my face the way he did. He did lead me on, many, many , many times. I unfortunately tend to trust people. BUT his actions just LATELY showed me his true self. With how he acted with me and with her. It is the hardest thing I am coping with right now.

I know how hypocritical this is me telling you. I did the same thing to you. I lied to you, I deceived you and I am truly sorry. I couldn't do it anymore and that's why we separated. I hope you can forgive me. I don't blame you for not trusting/believing anything I say. I NEVER proved to you I could be trusted.

I am sorry...... "
________________________________________

Not sure what this all means....

floridapad, you can't very well complain about her adultery when you are doing the same thing, though. How do you object to her affair with a straight face when you are doing the same thing?

There are much better ways to prevent a WS from cakeeating than committing adultery yourself.

Bringing a 3rd person into this mess only complicates any hope of reconciliation and is not fair to the 3rd person. You are not available to date when you are married so you are wasting this other persons time.

If you want to recover your marriage, I would suggest calling Steve Harley at Marriage Builders and getting him to assess your situation and give you a PLAN for recovery. This is far from hopeless, but you need a PLAN.

Melody I hear what you are saying and it something that I am thinking of discontinuing because it doesn't feel right. I still think the wife needs to know I am moving on in order for her to get a sense of loss.

I was thinking about talking to a coach but this site seems like one geared towards couples who both want to make it work and not where one is going through an MLC and is in limbo land and not willing to do MC at this point. A little more insight on the W. She turned 40 got a boob job, started going to the gym, straightened her hair and the the rest is history. She is a very guilty person by nature and she is owning up to the whole thing but has not expressed any desire for full reconciliation. After we seperated she even signed up on match.com to try and get over the other man. She went on a couple of dates and realized it was a bad idea and made a point to tell me she is no longer doing it (yeah we'll see how long that lasts). She has major self esteem issues and I think this MLC is both about her self esteem and regaining some of her youth back. She is highly intelligent but emotionally retarded (so said the IC).

I would love to know how MB works in my situation where one person wants the marriage to work and the other one is apprehensive and in affair withdrawal. She has to get her arms around the notion of love and why she kept going back even though she was crushing everyone around her because they knew she was screwing up.

FP, Steve Harley is a marriage coach. That is what he does. He will give you a sane, rational plan to attract her into the marriage.

But having affairs yourself will not bring your wife back. You can see that is not working.

She will be attracted back by the prospect of a good marriage, not a cheating husband. That is not attractive. Nor will it give her a "sense of loss;" she was already completely emotionally detached from you so there is nothing to lose.

MLC is a myth. Your wife is acting like this because she is in an affair. This is how all affairees act, whether they are 20,30, 40, 50 or 60.

FlaPad,

I don't think you fully understand MB. First YOU have to make some decisions. Do you want to try and save this marriage or not? If not, then proceed with the divorce and get on with your life. If you are not sure, then sit tight don't date and see what happens with your W. If you do, you sit tight, but you decide on a plan to bring your W back into the marriage.

You see fearful that your W will think you cannot move on, or that you can be run over if you don't date and show her you can move on. What you are missing is that it is not your W that needs to know what you can and cannot do, it is you.

So let's start with your moral code. Is it alright to date while married? Is it alright to play around while married? What do you think marriage really means? You need to address these things...right now.

Next, you may notice I am not saying much of anything about your W. Oddly, most of the decisions rest with you and you only. You start making decisions and we can help you make plans to execute them. If it is divorce, then life is straightforward and simple, but it won't be easy.

If you are not sure, I strongly urge you to read about plan A and plan B. If you are sure you would like to save the marriage then I strongly urge you to read about plan A and plan B. Finally, I would strongly urge you to act like a man and quit playing games with your W. Be straight up, be honest and quit with the bring other women into this mess. There have been enough games played already and someone has to get their feet on the ground, that would be YOU.

If you are not sure, or think you might want to try and save the marriage you will need to set some conditions. OM must be gone, there must be No Contact between them which means one of the two leaves the job. She must decide she wants to work on the marriage. It would seem to be counseling is a must and the Harley's are the best at saving marriages.

As you can see you have a whole lot of things to do, before you start worrying about your WW. That will come in time.

Please think about this.

God Bless,

JL

Floridapad

I call bull manure on you dating while you are still married.

You want to date then get a divorce first.

You want to show your WW that you are moving on then do it. When WW calls don't always answer. Return the call the next day. Say you were not home. If she catches you at home and wants to make plans tell her you allready have plans, you are unavailable, then make sure you leave your house that day/time. Offer to meet up another time.

JL

I have made my decision to save the marriage but I can not fully emotionally open up until I know she wants it to and makes the changes I need. I have looked at myself inside out in this marriage, my relationship with my parents childhood relationship, spiritual relationship, and found myself forgiving myself for many things. I KNOW the marriage could succeed from my end, but if she doesn't go through the same awakening I will not be able to trust her.

I have detached fairly well from her, but this Exposure thing had us communicating alot and it sucked me back in a bit. Got me angry a bit, but nothing like the early days.

My moral code is fairly strong. Yes I have dated, but I beleived that the marriage was completely dead until she started telling me all these things lately. The covenent has been broken by her and if dating because I don't have a peice of paper yet makes me immoral then well I guess I'm immoral. But I am going to rethink this now so no need to drive this point home. I get it.

I know it won't be easy to work on this marriage, especially since she is in limbo land. I will read about PLan A and Plan B. Thank you.

Also regarding your last comment. Your 100% correct. I need to man up and stop playing games. Thank you for pointing that out. It is just odd though that when she found out I was dating she all of the sudden became more interested in me.

Thank you all for your input

Besides, you are only using this woman, whoever she is, for either comfort or SF. You have no intention - and are nowhere near ready - to invest in any other kind of relationship.

Therefore, this woman you have seen IS BEING USED.

I would hope you are a better man than that.

You both sound like you're pretty egotistical to me. I don't mean to be harsh, but the idea of having a revenge affair on your part, and her "total body makeover" combine to show two people who are more concerned about their own need than that of the marriage as a whole.
I would say you both need to do a little growing up and decide where your true priorities lie.

You know I was afraid of this site. Extraordinarly judgemental but I thought I would try anyways. Let me say this

I did not have a revenge affair as you all seem to call it. I waited 6 months to date two girls and it didn't feel right. I didn't even kiss them. My wifes recent admissions made me realize that maybe she still does have a toe in the marriage which previously I did not feel she had.

So please stop with the adultery name calling. Does anyone on this site have any real advice rather than calling me names. OK I get it I'm an adulterer and should stop dating. THEN WHAT???????

Educate yourself about ENs (emotional needs) and strive to meet her top ENs. Note that her top ENs will be different from yours, so just because sharing recreational activities is super fulfilling for you, it may not be for her. She may have a high need for domestic support, so you should be cleaning the bathrooms, doing the laundry, cooking dinner, or vacuuming the rug. They key is to learn what the various ENs are, learn what her top three are, and meet THOSE.

Educate yourself about LBs (love busters). Learn to recognize them - some are very elusive - and eliminate them completely.

Figure out what a marriage looks like to you. By this, I mean figure out what you expect her to do to earn her way back into the marriage, and what you expect from her if she wants to stay in the marriage. Don't express these to her yet, just be figuring it out in your own mind.

ok, florida, are you ready to get to work? We are willing to help if you are.