I never thought I would be on line typing about this topic but here I am 3 weeks to the day post discovery of my husbands 2nd affair with the same woman. I am dealing with this better than the first time but I am finally taking the correct steps in saving our marriage by completely cutting this other family out of our lives. I was more tearful the first time and now I have a range of emotions but mostly I want to get us back on track and find out what our marriage is lacking that he could fall in love with another woman.
My husband and I befriended a neighborhood family when we moved here about 2 years ago. We were mutual friends with the husband and wife. I was personally never intimately close with either the husband or wife but enjoyed their company. We played cards, games, and went to a couple of concerts. They wre our leisure activity for about 9 months. They have 3 kids who were also close to my 2 boys. They all took turns babysitting and coming to our house to play with my boys ages 4 and 2. I found it cute at the time.

2009 was an extremely difficult year and was the breaking point for my husband. In 2009 my husband lost 2 close friends to cancer within 4 months, his job relocated out of the state and he had no choice but to get another job or relocate (he moved to IL in Feb of 2010), and a close coworker tried to inappropriately touch a young girl who lived next door to us. After all of these events took place my husband suffered a serious anxiety attack and was placed on a low dose of anti depressants. Celexa (20mg)/day.
Our "good friends" knew of the episode and the wife became very caring for my husband. I was in survival mode at the time trying to keep our house running because he completely checked out after the Aug breakdown. In Oct he tried to make a half hearted attempt to say we needed more passion and romance which is mistakenly scoffed at and acted indignant that I was doing all I could handle and had no idea where to get more energy. We started playing cards more with this other family and I knew my husband had a personal friendship with the other woman and we both talked and communicated with her daily. Finally in November I started feeling the distance and noticing weird behavior. I checked our phone records and the fog lifted. I confronted him and he initially gave all the excuses in the book that I was paranoid, can't a person just have a friend, she is like a sister... The next day, he broke it to me that they were texting and talking daily, meeting for lunches, and did have sex one time. He told me he felt like she was his soul mate but he wanted to save our marriage and be with me and the boys. He told me it was a friendship that got out of control. The other woman was upset that she hurt me and I let her back in my life eventually. My husband and I made great strides and then the breaking point for affair #2 was allowing the other woman back in our lives.
TO complicate matters, my husbands job is in IL and the boys and I still live in MS in our house on the same street. Apparentely other woman started calling him the minute he moved to IL and he accepted these calls and kept them secret. Normally I see my husband every other weekend and sex act #2 happened before he came home about a month ago. When he returned back to IL his behavior was so weird and distant that I did not know I was talking to my husband. After about a week of his indignant behavior he confessed and now we have taken the first step in recovery by never seeing and communicating with the other family. He has gotten a new work cell phone and I blocked him out of his hotmail account.
We have put our house for sale and we are going to lose our entire down payment plus maybe even have to tap a 401k for this move but to me I have to get out of here. I have anxiety just being outside seeing their house, their young daughter knows nothing and keeps coming around and this kills me. We are making the move to be together as a family in early June and life will be hard but at least this will give my husband and I an opportunity to work on our marriage. I have been reading Dr. Harley books and I am waiting for husband to join me in my efforts.
He is so ready for me to be done talking about the affair and just move on since he knows what he did was wrong and that he relied on the wrong person during a time of need, but I cannot get him to figure out what need is not being met in our marriage and why our closeness did not develop fully. We lived together way too long, took a long time to have children. I always considered my marriage good but not overly passionate in regards to true intimacy. We have so many big things to repair in regards to honesty and me moving on with him to forget this happened. I do not want to brush this under the carpet or else when the dust settles I worry he will be susceptible to falling back in love with her. I do not understand how he could type all of these romantic things to this other woman and have this intimate second life and he never showed that side to me that I can remember. I always thought he was a serious and level headed person and I always wanted more romance and love stuff but I just let it go and thought he was not capable of those emotions.
Too many details I am sure but I feel like a crazy person. One minute I am up and a go getter and then I can remember the affair and want to ask questions again. I want to stop and just do not know how to do this on my own. The hard part is her last meail to my husband was asking if he could truly live the rest of his life in an unfulfilled marriage.

cyberkat, welcome to Marriage Builders, sorry you are here. Does the OW's husband and children all know about the affair? That is the first thing that should happen. Everyone should be told. This way, her H and her children can watch from that end to ensure the affair stays dead. Exposure

Additionally, your children should told NOW. Giving children false explanations for the tension in your home teaches them dishonesty. Telling them the truth helps them protect themselves from your H's affair. They should not be socializing with the children of this family. That is too hard on you emotionally and it is in their best interest to have you in emotional control. that will be hard if you are triggered every day by seeing her children in your home. That needs to STOP.

If you don't tell your kids the truth, they will hear rumors and I suspect they have been witness to this affair and are confused. So, if they have not been told, I wold tell them.

I would tell everyone about the affair. Your close friends, family, neighbors, everyone. The more people who know, the more people to keep the infidels accountable. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so keeping it a secret ENABLES it. YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO CUT CORNERS ON ANY OF THESE STEPS if you want to save your marriage, cyberkat. You are lucky to have survived one bout of very sloppy affair "recovery" it is doubtful you will survive another if you cut corners again.

Once you have this done, I would turn your attention to a plan of recovery. That means setting up sane boundaries and changing the environment that led to the affair. Read this:

cond here

Dr Willard Harley on telling the children:

here

The other womans children have not been told and not sure she or her husband will ever told the truth. I did disclose truth to two other families on our street for support to make sure they know under no uncerain terms the OW is to never be at our house or with me.
I quickly got my boys in the house and glad ot hear I am not crazy for feeling so much anxiety by seeing her daughter. I could not focus and I was almost dizzy. DH thought that reaction was a bit over the top since she did nothing and is just a 12 yo child. She did not know anything because she was trying to invite me to go down to her older sisters grad party. Good heavens.. Just what i needed.

Luckily we are moving with Dh to IL in the next 2 weeks and hosue will remain unoccupied until it sells. I am taking the radical step this time to movde far away from teh other family. OW hooked my husband with revelations of past hardships and even told him about a past physical relationship she had with another man . i do not doubt their stron new feelings but she is not living my reality and he is not living her life to know if she is really in such a bad marraige of no love.
I am trying to get DH into therapy but he thinks we can eal with this on our own and does not want to keep reliving the details. But I want us to fully rebuild and have a marriage we never had to aaffair porof our relationship. This can happen too easily if the relationship is not strong and I was too trusting and naiive.

cyberkat, I applaud you for doing the right thing this time for your marriage. It takes RADICAL steps to protect your marriage and your childrens family from a very radical, destructive assault.

I am not clear if you have actually spoken to the OW's husband yourself? Is he fully aware of the affair? Does he know EVERYTHING that you know? Does he know about her past physical affair? Did you tell him this? If not, he should know all of this.


I agree it is over the top. It is over the top that your H had an affair with her mother.


cyberkat, then this program would be perfect for him. MB does not believe in reliving the details. They believe in taking steps to recover the marriage and create a romantic relationship. But in order for that to happen, he needs to FIRST answer all of your questions about the affair, withholding nothing. Once he has done that, it should not be brought up again.

Those of us here who has used this program in its entirety have recovered our marriages and have romantic relationships today. But it has to be used in its entirety. It is completely different from other programs in that it relies on changing behavior, rather than discussing FEELINGS [the approach of tradtional counseling which is largely a complete waste of time that accomplishes little]

I would start off with the book Surviving an Affair and use the program in there. You can also get phone coaching with Dr Harley's son, Steve Harley or his daughter, Dr Jennifer Chalmers. They are COACHES rather than counselors. The difference is that they assess your situation and give you a PLAN with a GOAL and measure your success. They don't waste time yapping about feelings, they give you a PLAN.

Another way is to do the online program. Here is the link for that: here

Those are your fastest horses with the greatest odds of success.

What about all of your parents, close family and other friends? They should ALL KNOW, cyberkat. They should not be given false explanations about why you are moving. That helps NO ONE. Everyone should know about his affair. I would even consider notifying her family via facebook.

Another thing you can do that has proven to be one of the most powerful weapons against an affair is exposure on facebook to the OM�s friends. Facebook is a collection of the person�s closest and most important friends, all in one spot! We have had numerous affairs killed in the SAME DAY after a facebook exposure. They are DEADLY. What we did was make a copy of all the names of all the OP�s friends FIRST. [this is important because once the OP gets wind you are sending out messages to his friends, he will close his page] You will have to send out an email, one by one to his facebook friends. It should go something like this:

Facebook exposure letters

Dear friend of Joe Scumbag,

It grieves me to write this letter but I believe all of his friends should know the kind of person he really is. Joe had an affair with my wife, Sally, from Aug until September. I believe that his friends should know this, so you can protect your marriage from him. My wife and I have 2 small daughters and this affair has almost wrecked our marriage.

I would be happy to provide the evidence to anyone who asks.

I would appreciate it if someone would notify his parents and ask them to call me at xxx-www-xxxx.

Thank you, BH

Dear friend of Skankyhola,

It grieves me to write this letter but I believe all of her friends should be aware that Skanky is having an affair with my husband, Joe. We have been married for 5 years. They have been having this affair since October according to the evidence.
I would be happy to provide the evidence to anyone who asks.

I would ask that you use your influence with Skanky to persuade her to leave my husband alone. You should also watch your own husbands around her because she is no friend to marriage.

I would appreciate it if someone would notify her parents and ask them to call me at xxx-www-xxxx.
Thank you, BW

Hi Melody,
Yes, the OW husband knows of the affair and has followed up with me 2 weeks ago to make sure we are selling our house. I think he blames my husband and I blame them both His wife was very agressive and reunited conversation and she was in communicatino enough with me to know that I would have been hurt by that move but she was a spider woman and used me fully t her advantage.
I cannot stress the importance to anyone getting out of an affair that nothing happens until the communciation is fully eliminated.
I did tell all of our immediate family members, meaning my mom and dad plus Grandmother. His parents and sister are aware as well and I agree that secrecy would have been a bad deal. I did promise the other family to leave their kids out and they were supposed to disclose the affair on their own which has not happened. I think the 12 yo is digging and that is the reason she showed up my house yesterday. She is smart and old enough to know there has to be sometihng going on if we have not been to their hosue as a family since November. I still had her babysit until about 6 weeks ago and that is what kkept me connected because she was able to come down and help me with the boys so that i could get hosue work done (meaning the young girl). The lightbulb was turned on again for the affair when my husband was home from Chicago and the OW showed up to borrow my blender. My husband and her had some wierd connection that i cannot explain but after that point the affair was hidden from me and I took the oppportunity to tell her over lunch that she is to never talk to my husband again because it's wierd and made me uncomfortable to see them together.
I have asked husband to send the letter to fully end the affair in writing. OW sent him an email to his work address making sure he will be happy with me. Husband never responded to email to my knowledge and so far I have not seen any communcation since that date. After reading SA i read that he should write a letter to officiallly end the relationship forever and have me mail it. Husband told me they understand there is no communication. I know her husband has kept my number and I told OW's husband I am keeping track of my husbands communication and I will contact him only if I feel the NC committment is breached and he said he would do the same for me. I do not want to have to keep this family in my mind and luckily we will be out of state back wtih husband in 2 weeks.
I really want to do telephone counseling wtih Dr. Harley and I will make a list of positives I feel we can attain by starting counseling with him in particualar. I want support to save my marriage and do not want a random counselor spouting off about divorce. My husband is a good man but is in a bit of a cloud. The strange coincidence is my husband was better when we had no communcation and his antidepressant was at 40mg, but as soon as he moved, he soon self changed his dosage back to 20mg and then he also at the same time allowed phone and email communcation to resume. They had a long distance relationship until they met for a rendevous back at the end of April. Both times my husband ended the affair after sex occured within one week of the event.
I am not sure if the lower dosage would impact his behavior or if his inhibitions were lowered or if this is just wishful thinking on my part. I want to start recovery properly this time and until we are all living under the same roof aagain that will be difficult for me to stop from wondering if he has another hotmail account or if he is communicating with her through work. I am not sure what to do if he has a work laptop and an iphone. I have looked at the Iphone aps and I do not see anything suspcious. i locked him out of his hotmail account and I have never seen another email from her so not sure if he told her about me having access or if OW is laying low or trying to do her own recovery. She was fully ready to leave her husband and to have my husband move in with her at some point, so I would say this was serious.

The reason the affair resumed was because you were APART. That is when most people are vulnerable to an affair. Dr Harley says that spending the night apart is an invitation to an affair. It is this way for several reasons.

The first is that without you watching, he is free to pursue his ADDICTION. The second is that spending the night apart contributes to the ALREADY EXISTING detachment in your marriage. Your H is emotionally divorced from you and any time apart just aggravates the problem.

The fastest way to recover your marriage from this, after you get out of there and start spending EVERY NIGHT together, is to spend 20+ hours per week of undivided attention meeting FOUR KEY NEEDS, sexual fulfillment, affection, conversation and recreational companionship. This program will not work unless you do that. It will make the most deposits the fastest. Check out these articles.

Thread about undivided attention
Policy of Undivided Attention

I would go download eblaster and install it on his computer. [without his knowledge!] You can download it here spectorpro.com. It costs about $100 and will email you daily or hourly reports. It is real easy to install. Takes about 4 minutes.

On his Iphone, go to flexispy.com and install flexispy on his Iphone.

After what I have learned about marriage counselors in general over the past 10 years, I would never trust my marriage to a MC. They have an 84% failure rate and actually have a higher personal divorce rate than the general population. They dont have the slightest idea how to save marriages and cause more harm than good. There is a great discussion about this here.

Update....
WH is starting to come around more in regards to seeing my point of view. I am skeptical because of the trust that was broken but still hopful.
Today I logged onto his work email without his knowledge and low behold he uses the same password for everything. I searched every folder and address book and luckily I found nothing. Most likely if he had anything suspicious it would not be on his work account so probably a waste of time but still nice to see her address gone from his email at work.
I also sent him a text yesterday with a small list of demands to consider us moving forward such as a life time of NC, a formal break up letter in writing even though in his opinion this was done by both parties (not sure about thsi one), I requested he finish SAA by this Saturday which I finished in one day, marital counseling when we move to Chicago, and more emotional honesty on his part.
My text came at the end of his work day and i had no idea he was so stressed already at work and my text he said was demanding. I tried to write it in the most open way without sounding too demanding but he keeps wanting to stay in charge of our recovery and he makes unrealistic demands for me to fully move forward and stop with past EA discussion. If he would take these above steps and truly reflect what EN he is missing I would feel better. I just do not understand if he is just so out of touch that he cannot admit that he still has feelings for this other woman or if he kind of used her for emotional support and really does not have feelings for her. He says he does not have a broken heart or miss her. I am sure at some point I have to give up the past but am I wrong to want some self reflection on his part?
He blames it as a friendship that got out of control during a great time of emotional need for him and she was very comforting and was behaving as a friend. He says she was like a comfortable security blanket to him and he should have never started taking her calls again back in March.
I am seeing many positive signs on his part of wanting to make things better and we actually had a full day of no DJ over the EA. One full day is hopeful and i hope we can continue our improved conversation. He is finally being empathetic and truly listening for once in our marriage. I pushed his DJ down inside for so many years and never called him out on his behavior which probably led me to be less intimate with him after our boys were born.
Thank you for all of your advice and I want my coaching to be with Dr. Harley since I respect his opinions and suggestions.

cyberkat, you dont have to wait to get phone coaching wtih the Harleys if that is what you want to do. Since it is done by phone, you can do it from anywhere. And they counsel couples in conflict together anyway so you can be on opposite ends of the earth and still share a session. [he splits them up, 30-30]

Secondly, I agree with you that he has no say in your recovery. None. The path your recovery takes is not negotiable. But I would not present it in a demand. If you do that, he will do the opposite.

He is in withdrawal from the OW so I would be real careful about being as pleasant as possible because of the contrast effect. You don't want to inadvertantly make that skankho look better.

Thank you once again MelodyLane.

tonight i wrote out journal of questions to ask to fully expose every detail of the affair and actually want to burn these pages. I had access to his hotmail account but when I got into it 3 weeks ago I could not bring myself to read the crap and hit delete on every email. I really do not think I could have handled reading the real words he said to her, but I asked many hard hitting questions regarding feelings and have enough knowledge of what happened. I had about 4 pages of written questions and we stayed on the telephone over 2 hours discussing everything I could think to ask plus random stuff that came up along the way. I am not sure I feel any better but surely do not feel worse and it's better to have the actual details instead of the way i thought events unfolded.
Now comes the next step of focusing on the futre. I am by no means letting my guard down on this OW for a long time because once the dust settles she may attempt to come back into the picture via his work email.
I have access to his email server and book marked it for random checks. I have also let him know that the OWH will be told details he does not want to know if she ever threatens me or my family or makes contact. The email will go to his home email and kids may see it. I had to delete her from FB just because I could not handle seeing her face everytime I checked my homepage.
This revelation of all of the details really heled open my husband up to discussing things he was missing from our marriage. I worry that I just robbed the love bank piggy bank but if I can stop with the past questions, then we may have a much btter chance at making deposits.
I would say I am hopeful that things are getting on the right track. I would love to fully keep the peace and just move on but sweeping details and emotions under the carpet has been the exact recipe for disaster.
If I would have not found this forum, my marriage may not have been even recoverable. WH wanted to keep this between us and not involve family or friends and I could nto agree to that rquest luckily...I think the accountability part is very important to rebuilding.
I am interested to see what we can grow into as a couple if we actually put effort into our marriage. Our sons need us to be a strong couple for their future. We were setting up a dangerous road for our oldest son as he was a child who was 4 years in the making so I would say I worshiped the ground that child walked on and have established some poor discipline decisions. I was so blind to all of this and DH has not said it but I am sure he felt left out from our lives after first son was born. I did the whole co-sleeping, nursed him for 14 months, responded to his every peep whic created a very demanding child. Oh well, enough of the family details. I really wanted to say thank you for your wise opinions and advice.
we had 2 showings of our house today so it will be interesting to read teh feedback from the agent. I am realistic that we are in for a long haul with trying to sell our home but hey we could get a break.... It happens.

...

I would not worry about you asking questions.

I am more than 1 year into recovery and still asking questions sometimes (with warning of course). Actually, when my wife honestly and without hesitation answers it makes a love deposit not vice versa although the topic is sensitive.

All questions answered (sometimes repeatedly) helps to rebuild trust and gives you peace that your H really owns his affair and tries not to get you forget it as quickly as possible.


(well, it was my 100th post here... )

Another positive day
We received an offer on our house. We had our house for sale for one week and recvd a decent fair offer close to asking price. I am just so worried to get excited yet because the house also has to appraise for the price so that is our next hurdle.
I only wish we could get one of those pending signs now so that OW down the street will see it. I finally feel like I am getting a break after 7+ months of my life being turned upside down. My life was shaken even before the EA and going through that 2x was just the icing on the end of 2009. I was so hopeful 2010 would not include a repeat but this may be my 2nd piece of excellent news. First being my WH wants to cooperate and sat for 2 hours on the telephone with me while I got all of my affair details answered.
I should know if the deal is closer to viable after the appraisal in 2 weeks. I will be packing tentatively in hopes that the house closes in July

I am on a roller coaster. I received some great news today by receiving an offer on our house and I just seem to continue to sabotage my own marriage that i am trying to save

If I self examine, I see that I have expectations for my wH to treat me as well or better than OW and I am not sure if that is happening yet.

It's so frustrating right now with our living situation. He is over 500 miles aways and I only see him every other weekend for a couple of nights. I cannot get his undivided attention with his job. He took or I should say created his position at a new branch and there are tons of growing pains with getting the operation going full speed. He is the sole provider for our family and I do not know how to get time in with him other than wait for weekends. He gets up, goes to work, skips lunch and works all day and then eats a late dinner, talks to me on his drive home from work and then goes back to his apt and literly passes out practically on the telephone.

I get so frustrated because I am home all day with 2 kids (which I am lucky to be home) and living on the same street with OW and her spouse. I sound resentful but I am not sure if it's exhaustion that I cannot get out of this funk and be nicers. My 2 yo is waking me up every night and has some kid radar that senses the minute I go to sleep. I want to take something to help me sleep but being the only adult in the house is troubling, so I am on this ride of barely sleeping and having no appetite. I look crappy in all of my clothes now after losing 10 pounds in 3 weeks. I am continuing to force food into my mouth througout the day.
I am so exhausted that I cannot think clearly anymore and I am so frustrated.
Last night i thought we had a great discussion and today because I could not connect with him, I throw it all away and pick fights.
I have to pull it together now if I am going to save my marriage and get oru house ready to move in 45 days.

If anyone has any advice on how to stop picking fights. I am not sure if I should just take a break from talking to him or wait until i am better rested to talk to him.

Bumping this up if anyone has advice on how to stop the sabotage on my part please let me know I am taking one step forward and then I manage to go 5 more steps backwards by the end of the day.

FIRST CK, STOP CALLING THIS AN EA. THis was a FULL Blown PHYSICAL AFFAIR. They had sex twice(I would believe it was WAY MORE THAN TWICE).

Your marital recovery is NOT even going to START until you two are together and able to spend a minimum of 20 hours a week of undivided attention. Have you read all of the info on this site? You should read THIS THREAD.

cyberkat, you are going to have to train yourself NOW to stop picking fights. The solution to fighting is to stop picking fights. When you feel your emotions taking over, you need to remind yourself that:

IF I GIVE INTO THIS URGE TO LET HIM HAVE IT, I WILL BE MAKING THE OW LOOK GOOD.

This is not the help-the-hobag program. This is the help-cyberkat program.

It will not be easy, cyberkat, but when you feel your emotions flooding over you, just get off the phone.