I just found out (by looking at my credit card bill!) that while my H was at the jewelry store on Sunday buying me a bracelet for Valentine's day, he also bought an 18 inch necklace (which he did not give me). Can there possibly be an innocent explanation for this?

That is a rhetorical question. I'm thinking I know who the recipient was - a business associate my H spends a lot of time on the phone with who he claims is "just a friend."

Background - my H had a 2-year A that ended 6 years ago and since then (and before then) has had many friendships with women that I have put the kabosh on. He is an outgoing person who attracts friends easily and enjoys the attention of women. His friendships are a little too intense, even his friendships with men, he doesn't know how to set appropriate boundries and doesn't have the right boundries himself. So far he has accomodated my requests to end friendships with women - when I say cut off contact, he does (as far as I can tell, by reviewing cell phone records etc.), but the current friendship comes with business ties and financial implications so I have expressed my concerns but not insisted on no contact. Every phone call that lasts too long (with this woman) or takes place too late at night comes with denials, explanations, apologies, and promises.

So here is my real question: Can I/should I call the suspected OW? I have her phone number (my H is at a church-sponsored mens retreat this weekend so I'm home alone and can't really talk to him first). She is married but her H is posted overseas. She knows me, for example we went to her birthday party as a family. If I call her, what should I say? I don't know if I could ask outright if she's having an A with my H, but I do want to ask, did my H give you a necklace for Valentines Day? If so, can I please have it back? (I want to return it and get my money back since he bought it with my credit card!). I also want to ask HER to cut off contact with my H. Can I do that, or do I need to start with him?

Hi, and welcome to MB. You had it right the first time - the trouble is you H's lack of boundaries, and he lacks boundaries because he has no respect for you or your marriage.

What can you do to earn his respect?

Very unlikely that this is innocent.

But do NOT tip your hand just yet. I really think you need to do some snooping. Check out the Spying 101 thread.

Put Flexispy on his phone.
Put a keylogger on computers.
GPS on his vehicle.

And commit to biting your tongue for at least a week.

You cannot possibly think that the other woman is going to be honest with you....do you? She's going to be terrified that you will expose it to her husband. She will deny to her last breath!
Or give you the typical "we're just friends" routine.

Identify what makes him keep developing this inappropriate relationships with other women? Do they admire him where you no longer do? Read up about Plans A and B.

Ummm...no. An "innocent" Valentine's Day gift to a colleague might be a teeny, tiny package of chocolates, or perhaps a gift certificate to take her own significant other out for dinner. Gifts like flowers and jewellry are INTIMATE gifts meant for someone with whom you are INTIMATE.

That's a good question. Do you have any suggestions? He walked all over me for years until the A 6 years ago, but when I reached the end of my rope that time I did a solid Plan B that hit him like a meteorite, completely unexpected and shocked him into ending the A immediately. Since then my guard is always up, and I watch every friendship, every relationship, thus the multiple demands for no contact with different people. Is there something different or more I should be doing? My strategy has been to set my own boundaries when he won't or can't set his own, but he doesn't seem to get what an appropriate boundary even is, I have to explain it to him.

So your strategy has become:

He changes nothing -- and you become the friend-police?


I'm very curious about your boundries, and how you communicate those to him? Do you just demand that he stop a particular friendship without requiring him to change the behavior that allowed those friendships to develop?

Would he go to a marriage builders weekend with you?

Again -- I stress that you should spend the next week snooping (not confronting...)

And in the meantime define what you want in this marriage.
If you should discover another affair, you need to set the admission price back into the marriage VERY high.

Lexxy,

I have plenty of information to prove to a reasonable person that they are having an A. They talk on the phone all the time, my H involves himself in issues of hers that are none of his business (e.g., helping to find her a lawyer and going to court with her when she was sued over something unrelated to their business), holding meetings (albeit with other people attending) that start at 8pm and run until midnight because she has a full-time job that is unrelated to the business they have together.

I'm constantly setting boundaries around these things - for example, he can not go to a meeting unless one of the other men attending comes to our house, leaves his car, and rides with my H. The phone calls are all in front of me, he tells me the details of their interactions. His refrain is: I have ended every friendship you have asked me to end and I will end this one if you ask me to, but this is an innocent friendship and if I have to withdraw from our business relationship, we will lose a lot of money.

I wasn't happy about this, but I put up with it until the necklace - that seems to cross a line beyond the other interactions. As I write this I'm realizing it is time for the no contact demand. I guess I should leave her out of it?

anaise, you can be sure that your husband knows perfectly well what a boundary is. But as long as he's going to play stupid and keep you busy and exhausted trying to explain it to poor little him who just doesn't understand, he's got you distracted and dangling and he's free to go off and do as he pleases.

He's testing the boundaries right now to see if you're really going to enforce them or not.

Here is an old MB post which might help you:

*****
A boundary is not defined as "something I don't like."

A boundary is defined as "something I will defend no matter what."

A very common question is, "How do I enforce a boundary? How do I make my spouse stop lying, how do I make my spouse stop dating OP, how do I make my spouse start taking care of our family instead of someone else's?"

The answer is: You don't.

Trying to "make" people do the things listed above is not enforcing a boundary. It's control, it's manipulation, it's laying down demands, etc. etc. etc.

And none of it works.

The answer to the question, "How Do I Enforce A Boundary?" is virtually always the same:

You remove yourself from the situation. You stop allowing the boundary trespasser to have any access to you at all.

This is what's meant by, "You can't control others. You can only control yourself."

You can't "make" your spouse stop lying to you - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

You can't "make" your spouse stop dating OP - - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

You can't "make" your spouse take care of your family instead of someone else's - but you can remove yourself from their presence and no longer allow them around you until they do.

Get the idea now?

Boundaries are for *you*. They are to protect you from people who would do you harm. They are NOT about "making" others do anything. They are about protecting *YOU*.

Castle walls don't make the invaders stop their cruel and destructive attitudes - but they do protect you from their intrusion.

Boundaries are castle walls.

And as far as anger goes, you will find that good boundaries will make much of it go away. Good boundaries really do make RAGE dissipate, because anger + fear = rage. Good boundaries keep you safe, and when you are safe, fear goes away. You will certainly have some righteous anger left, sure, but the RAGE will fade away because there is no longer the fear hanging around to fuel it.

I agree that you need to spend as much time snooping and gathering as much info. as you can before you say anything to your husband. If you let him know that you are on to him right now he will just go further underground with everything and it will be very difficult to prove anything.

I'm sorry you are going through this. My WH is someone who has had extrememly poor boundaries throughout our marriage (with both his female co-workers as well as a male 'best friend' that I've always felt very uncomfortable with). He just ended up moving out of our house two days after I discovered a Facebook mssg. from another woman that he'd lied about seeing.

Unfortunately, he knew I was on to him and he had time to remove everything (removed our computer, changed passwords, took bills. etc.). So the more info. you have now, the better!!!

Hmm, the "friend-police" I certainly never thought about it that way! I guess that's what I am!

How does this play out? As I said, my H is very outgoing. His entire life revolves around networking, making connections, building those connections to advance his business (he runs a non-profit and must constantly fund-raise, every connection is an important potential source of funding). He goes to lots of meetings and meets with lots of people. When I notice one person is getting more attention than others, I ask about it, express my concerns. I don't ask him to end every friendship, it is relatively infrequent, but I know an alarm bell when I hear one. For example, when I woman is in a minor car accident and calls him at 10pm to pick her up from the hospital and bring her home because "she has no one else to call," that friendship is over, but I have to explain, this is completely inappropriate and he looks mystified.

I also question his friendships with men. NOT because I think there is anything going on there. I absolutely do not. But he has similar lack of boundaries. He will start friendships with men and all of a sudden they are on the phone every day, discussing every issue that comes up with his business, asking them for advice. There is a cycle - he has these close friendships and then the friends think they have more control over his non-profit than they actually do, they get mad when my H refuses to take their advice, and then the friendships blow up. The problem is, my H doesn't know how to draw the line with them in the first place, keep the distance, make it clear that they are friends and not co-presidents of his organization.

Anaise--

I suggest that you snoop until you have proof that cannot be denied or explained away with "friendship".

Because your next step is going to be exposure.
And you will need proof for the other womans husband -- so he can't bury his head in the sand and pretend its just a friendship.

Do you think you want to recover this again?
Have you thought about what he could change to be more transparent to you? It sounds like you have already put some extra precautions in place like the driving arrangements -- but some of the other popular ones here are:

Pre-nup giving you most assets if he were to cheat again.
Polygraph.
Access to all phone and computer passwords.

But that all depends on if you have the energy to try recovery again....

Mulan,
The boundary post was SO helpful. I am absolutely "making him do things" rather than removing myself. I have to think about how to do the latter, though. I don't think I'm ready for another Plan B, so how do I remove myself on a day to day basis when I see this happening in front of me?

Anaise,

Welcome to MB.
How long have you been married?
Do you have children and if so, what are their ages?
Were either of you married before?

This will help folks advise you better. For example, it's easy for a person with no children to remove themselves from an unhealthy relationship. You just do a kick butt plan A for a few weeks, then move out and do a pitch black Plan B. It's more difficult in a marriage where there are dependent children involved. It can be done but it requires more planning and finesse.

If you want to turn this around - and be prepared for massive resistance from your WH because he is very happy with the current arrangement and will not want to change it - you will first have to explain to him, very seriously and face to face, that this arrangement is not working for you.

It's not working because you are not spending enough time together to fill each other's ENs (emotional needs).

Your ENs are going unmet,because he spends his available time with other women and ignores you.

His ENs are being met by other women, because he spends his available time with other women and ignores you.

No marriage can survive this for long, and even if it does it's going to be a miserable place to exist.

You can start by talking to him about two things:

1) Have the two of you ever filled out the EN questionnaire? You can find it on this site.

2) Do the two of you spend a minimum of 15 hours per week in uninterrupted time together?

His reaction to these two things will tell you lot.

Oooh, I like Mulan's idea.

Turtlehead,
We have been married 16 years, 2 kids ages 6 and 8. I work full time and my H's schedule is more flexible so he is the one who gets the kids to school in the morning and stays with them in the afternoons while I work. No contact would be complicated and costly and disruptive if it involves a lot more child care.

Mulan,
As for the talking, we have filled out the EN questionnaire - at the begining of our last recovery so many years ago. According to our responses at the time we were pretty well matched but I don't think he was honest. I know his #1 EN is Admiration and he put it pretty low. He denies what is clearly his main motivator and need. And and I don't know that admiration from me will ever be enough.
As for the 15 hours, no where close to it. He has lots of meetings on weekends and the rest of the time is spent going to kids activities. We get maybe an hour a night together Monday-Friday and maybe a couple hours on Saturday nights if he doesn't have bible study or some other commitment (which he usually does).
I can predict the outcome of the conversation. I will say I'm not happy with status quo, and he will say: I'm a terrible husband, nothing I ever do is good enough. This is a ploy for me to apologize and grovel and say how much I appreciate him : )

His next reaction will be to say I am right and to make promises (that he will never keep). Sigh. I've had that conversation a million times.

But thinking this through, it does seem like a drastic measure may be necessary. If I snoop and snoop and only find evidence of an EA (plenty of that kind of evidence already), not a PA, do I limit contact anyway, or wait until it's a PA?

This is so much like my situation. Wow.

Why would you want to stay in a relationship where you have to constantly "police" your H to make sure he's not making the wrong kind of female friends? It's like a parent/child relationship and he may get a lot of kicks out of cheating because it's like putting one over on mommy? This doesn't sound like a great way to live. Think about the energy you are expending on keeping him from cheating, and it doesn't sound like its working anyway. Stressful, demoralizing, and not good to have a relationship where you can't trust your spouse.

Anaise my WH is the same way in being friendly, and in some cases what I deemed too friendly. We are doing marriage coaching with Steve Harley and in our last meeting Steve told me that creating boundaries is one of the things he will be working on with WH. As others have said being the friend police isn't a long term game plan for having a great marriage.