I'm new here. I've read most of Surviving an Affair and looked around here enough to understand the basic concepts. Still trying to figure out all the abbreviations.

I am a BH, married 31 years today (happy anniversary?). I confronted my WW with suspicions based on phone logs on Nov 17, asked her if she was having an affair. She denied everything and had me convinced. This was a friend that she had an EA with 2 1/2 years ago. I told her to be careful. Checking the logs, the phone calls stopped.

Ten days later on Nov 27 it was D-day. I found a file on the computer wherein she bragged about how well she had lied to me about the A. Panic and shock, I hacked into her email accounts and found message after message where she told OM how much she was looking forward to f*ing him and how turned on she was just thinking about the next time. Other messages where she said her heart would be with him all weekend they were apart. Called him "My Love". Very romantic stuff that I didn't know she could write.

Confronted with printouts of the emails, she came clean. I told her to make a choice: him or me. If it's him she must move out immediately; if it's me she must do a NC phone call and give me her extra phone. After a couple hours of thought decided to stay, said she never wanted to hurt me (I'm sorry took another day) and promised never to see or contact him again.

She said it started end of October after I drove her to it by writing a letter to her doctor asking for help.

Two days later I found her hiding the second phone she insisted didn't exist. It's in my possession.

Almost every day I ask if there's been any contact and so far not.

On Dec 9 after she's asleep I went through her stuff and found a printout of a new email address dated D-day+2. I open up the account and she's asking OM to contact her at this new address. I woke her up and demanded to see her work email. There's a long mail thread there where she is trying to convince OM not to be jealous, that "there is NO other man for me", etc. Funny thing is, OM is not jealous of me, but of another one of WW's male friends from her AA meetings. Yeah, you guessed it. So the whole thing has gone on for over a year, first with OM#1, then OM#2 from AA, then OM#1 again. Oh, and she drove to see OM#1 again on Dec 8 where they had sex again.

She promises again, she loves me and wants to stay. This time I watched her write the NC email and saw the reply come back from him. She tells me that THIS TIME he won't contact her ever again, but no explanation is provided as to why it's different this time.

Trying to get through this. We had MC two nights ago.

So I'm sure none of this is new to you guys; you've seen it and heard it all before.

Here's the catch: I have ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, and it is literally killing me. I've got maybe 3-5 years. I'm still pretty functional, but this disease slowly paralyzes you until your breathing muscles no longer work. Thus, I will need her (somebody) to feed me, bathe me, take me to the toilet, etc. I won't even be able to hug her!

So I'm thinking that if I can't meet her needs now, how do I stand a chance of doing that in two years?

And if I let her go, who would care for me? I'm not exactly an eligible bachelor with ALS going on.

-LouGehrig

I cannot imagine a more horrific slow death than having to endure an abusive spouse while lying on my death bed. I have serious doubts that your wife will change her behavior and you are taking a huge crap shoot on a future with a serial cheater and an alcoholic. A best case scenario would be her ending all her affairs and sticking to marital recovery. From the sounds of it, that is unrealistic.

On the other hand, if you cut your losses NOW, you could spend the next year grieving and getting over it. But at least there would be an end in sight. That way you could spend your last years in some semblance of peace. If you stay with her, it is unlikely that her abuse will end and you would be spending your last days in an extremely abusive marriage.

If it were me, I would cut my losses now and separate from her. It will be short term pain for long term peace. The other way, you get short term pain and long term HELL.

I'm so sorry.

I was thinking the same thing.

If I was in your shoes, I would kick her out of the house, cut her off COMPLETELY from all your money, and let the lawyer decide how much she can have.

Then, sell everything and put the money in a trust fund for taking care of YOU for as long as you need it.

I'm sorry, but there is NO way she will stay true to you. There just isn't. It will only get worse. Best case scenario, she'd just bide her time til she's free of you. Worst case, she'll be parading her guys around you and you won't be able to do a thing about it.

Protect yourself now. Who knows? You may meet someone at the doctor's or the hospital with whom you can have some wonderful last years.

*sorry if I speak too graphically*

Do you attend church? Maybe your pastor can help you find someone trust worthy, who you could pay, to help you. Maybe they could stay w/ you while visiting nurses do most of the heavy work.

I'm so sorry you are in this sitch!

LS, ask yourself if you want to be at the mercy of an abusive spouse when you are unable to defend yourself? She is self will run riot; she is pure selfishness, thoughtlessness, and deceit. And you want to place yourself in her hands?

If you live in a fault state, I would divorce her NOW on grounds on adultery so she inherits nothing when you die. Not only will divorcing her likely be the best thing for her, it will protect you from her in your last days.

Melody and Cat, thank you so much for reading my story and taking the time to reply thoughtfully. What you suggest is so frightening and painful to consider. (Is it possible that I am in a fog?) I can't even contemplate it right now. Maybe later; I need some time. Being alone with this scares me more than being only a friend of hers.

Yeah another one that asks for advice and then can't receive it.

Marshmallow: yes, our pastor actually referred us to the MC. He knows our situation and that we're trying to work it all out. Pastor Roger has counseled us on two occasions, but he admits it's not his specialty.

I didn't mention but I have 4 grown children who could help. Two of them are newlyweds. But I wouldn't want to destroy their young marriages to take care of an old man.

Oh this is good! You have four children who could take turns overseeing your care...sleeping at your house.

Hospice/visiting nurses will do most of the heavywork while your children can make sure you are well cared for!

I am sorry you are here. I am very familiar with your disease and it's process and that in and of itself is very hard to digest. I can only imagine what it is like to deal with ontop of what is going on between you and your WW.

The best way to think of this whole situation is as a grieving process and it's something that can take a little time to go through. These fine people here know what they are talking about so take a little time to process the information they have given you. It is sound advice. I am so sorry you are going through all of this at once. You and your family will be in my prayers.

When my dad had cancer and was going through chemo, I moved him in w/ me. It would have broken my heart if I couldn't help care for him when he needed me.

When my MIL was dying, we all helped look after her, sleeping over and over seeing her care until she passed. Visiting nurses did most of the heavy work. But we looked at what we did as the last loving thing we could do for her and we were thankful we could help her.

did you apply for social services yet? (ie disability so you coulld get medicare/medicaid) They will cover hospice/visiting nursing without any out of pocket cost for you. It will also cover the cost of wheelchairs, walkers, ect that you may need in the future.

LS, you don't have to destroy anything. When my father was terminal [and divorced] he refused to go to a hospice so I hired 24/7 nurses to take care of him. His mistress [don't ask ] would stop in every other day and drop off food [I gave her money for food] and my uncle would stop in on the days she couldn't come. His nurses would make his meals and monitor his drugs. [and his friend "Red" smuggled him marijuana]

We kids all managed to take care of my dad just fine in his last days. And none of us lived within 300 miles of my dad. So, this is not as hard as it sounds.

Please listen to them LG. I know you want to believe that she will be your friend but she won't.

I speak from similar experiance. I know you are a good man and you don't deserve what will happen to you. The fog you speak of is your heart not believing that she could do that to you. Well she can and will.
This might sound weird but its the best thing you can do for her.

Mel and cat hit the nail on the head. Follow thier advice.

Do you have children?

Do you belong to a church?

Are you involved with any support groups?

Also, LG, your kids are supposed to take care of you in your old age in your time of need. Of course, they should not destroy their own lives doing that, but they should make sure you are well taken of. That is their moral obligation.

And for the record, my father REFUSED to move in with any of us kids because we are "too damn uptight" and he also refused to go to a nursing home. ["I won't have a bunch of damn women telling me what to do!"] The only way I could get him to agree to allow nurses to come in was to threaten to turn him into Adult Protective Services if he fired the nurses. They would sock his butt in a nursing home.

Again Mel is absolutely correct.

Don't deprive them of taking care of you. It will be good for them.

sortingitout:
church, yes
support group: yes the ALS Association is great

Folks, I was re-reading my post and I thought this was obvious but maybe I didn't tell the story right. I LOVE this woman!!! I'm not staying with her because I need a caregiver. That is a question for down the road perhaps. But even though this is the worst pain I've ever felt (worse than finding out you have a terminal illness) I still forgive her. And we are making an attempt, I really believe she is giving it her best effort.

I'm wishing I hadn't posted. I guess I'm not ready for the truth as you all see it. But there is no hope? Why didn't my pastor or the MC tell me that? I was and still am believing this can be fixed. This is so depressing...

After I found out about ALS, it took about 2 weeks before I could lift my chin up off the floor and be human again. But I prayed and eventually found peace. And until 3 weeks ago I was a very happy person. Friends and colleagues would tell me how much they admire my attitude etc. But now, I'm so unhappy I can't make eye contact with anyone. This is more than I can handle.

I'm so sorry to hear about your situation. This just breaks my heart.

You have 31 years invested with this woman - a lifetime. Of course you love her. It really sucks that she is treating you like this. Kicking someone when they're down is terrible.

I wouldn't say there's no hope. I think people are concerned because your WW seems to be a serial cheater, and that always makes things complicated. I think people just don't want to see you get hurt even more. But, you really are in a better position to determine your WW's level of commitment to recovering the M than anyone on here. Is she willing to go completely NC with the OM's and be completely transparent and put everything she has into repairing your M?

I can definitely understand your reluctance to walk away. This is your wife, the mother of your kids, the person you've spent your entire life with. This is just awful. I really am sorry.

writer, yes, she SAYS she is willing to go completely NC. We've talked about this and since she is in AA she knows the only way to handle an addiction is cold turkey.

She gave me all her passwords, even at work and I log in often. I check her mileage every night. I installed keylogger yesterday she is unaware it's there but she was good last night.

I am working Plan A hard. Correct me if I'm wrong but Plan B is only for when Plan A fails, right? What happens if I catch her emailing him again? My thought was exposure to family and friends but not kick her out (Plan B) yet.

When she went AA she lasted 8 months then relapse. But she's been sober 8 years now. I'm not going to be surprised if she slips up once.

I've told her I don't think her "friendly" relationship with OM#2 at AA is healthy but I haven't insisted on NC yet for that one. Oh yeah, OM#2 has a wife who is beginning Alzheimer's. Talk about a dangerous situation...OM#2 will be very lonely in a couple years. But I don't see how my wife can go to AA and not see OM#2. And yet I don't want to risk her sobriety by not going. This is insane--you can't make this stuff up.

Thanks for the ray of hope, I'm working with this to keep my sanity. I don't expect anyone to sugarcoat this, so speak your minds. I've read enough posts to know that goes without saying.

Plan B is mostly for your own sake. It is very difficult to stay in Plan A indefinitely. Plan B is there if you simply can't take it in Plan A anymore. I think it's too soon to think about Plan B for now.

You should expose to family and friends now. Don't wait for your WW to slip up or do something else. Exposure will provide a support system for you and will make your WW accountable to everyone, not just you.

And, NC has to be established with all of the OM's, not just the most recent one. I know the AA meetings are important, but you will not be able to repair the damage done to your M as long as your WW has contact with any of the OM's. Trust me, I have a lot of experience in the area of continuing contact, and it just doesn't work. Is there another AA group that your WW could attend?