So what are you going to do about it?

Go see your family. If you're giving it a go, then the family is likely to back you in the long run, but it's going to take damage control on your part and she should understand this.

I say this as a man who's ex didn't really want him talking to his hospitalized mother because the mom wasn't all that crazy about the WW. Imagine!

So I understand how you're torn. What I'm telling you is that you will regret setting your family aside for a cheating wife that you will one day look back on and say, "What was I thinking!"

Go. Don't make excuses or justify it. It's your family. Go.

I just noticed:

You're 30 and have no kids. You've been with her since you were a teen and don't know any better.

Trust me when I tell you that the women in their 30s are awesome and you can certainly upgrade from one that cheats and doesn't regret it.

Become the man who cares less and watch her song and dance change.

You have no kids with her. Say that over and over.

If you D, you�ve lost nothing. NOTHING!

She�s a cheat. She�ll do it again. She�s caught in this mentality that she must have somehow missed out.

She doesn�t understand that SHE�S LUCKY TO HAVE YOU! It�s not the other way around.

Watch. Change your attitude to show more indifference and watch her change.

Don�t let her keep you from your family. You deserve better than this. The problem holding you back is fear. It�s a fear driven by the fact that you don�t know any better in terms of women.

There�s millions out there and they are fantastic.

Don�t feel you have to stick with one that is a mess, insecure, and jealous of your family. When you take pride in the fact that you have a set and stand up for yourself, then you will see her attitude change. You may be at a point then that you don�t care what she thinks since you have long since moved on.

Don�t let fear of being alone hold you back. You�re still very young AND CAN DO BETTER!

Guys thank you so much for all the support. Right now I'm sitting in the park fuming with madness. I had to take a walk. I got back home and
Explained the situation and we agreed to disagree on some points but effectively move on from the whole family arguement. We were getting on ok and she fell asleep on the sofa. I looked at her iPhone and saw three strings of emails all from today to OM. Nothing sexual or Luvvy duvvy, but certainly very friendly. Basically she totally lied to me when she said she wasn't texting or emailing him any more. Total lies. I'm gutted because she keeps telling me lies. I went f*cking berserk, told her she was a f*cking liar and walked out. She keeps calling me and texting me to say there was nothing bad in the emails, but the fact she was in contact at all makes me sick.

I probably should talk to her but what is the point. HTLD - I just hope you are right because that is where this is heading :-(

I'm sorry she doesn't really get the whole NC concept.
I also think the move isn't going to make a hill-of-beans worth of difference. If she's still emailing him now, she'll probably keep doing it from Timbuck-too.

Andy, HTLD is so right. I was thinking it but he had the guts to say it. You've reached a new level of consciousness throughout this situation. Your ww is hanging way back and is holding you back. Please consider HTLD's advice. There really isn't that much tying you to this woman except for your fear of the unknown; once you break free of that and move on with the principles you've been picking up here, I really think you'll have a whole new world to do fantastic things with.

She's a controlling bully, Andy, and a dishonest one at that. You've let her get away with that long enough. You still have a chance to shake her off and give yourself a chance at something real.

You talked about Dr. Harley, and while I believe you may have misconstrued his point, My understanding is this:
Dr. Harley has said that would leave his wife if she cheated on him. No Plan A, Plan B, Plan anything. Donesville. Even WITH the kids in the picture.

I know your family will support you if you let ww eat your dust.

opt

Andy,

I completely understand where you�re coming from and how painful all of this is. Believe me, I had all kinds of ideas of what divorce was like. But my greatest fear focused on my kids. I was afraid I would be separated from them and that I wouldn�t get to see them.

But you don�t have that. What you have is a woman who you�ve been with since you were a child. You don�t know any better because you got married so young. As a result, you fear the unknown. Believe me when I tell you that if you knew what I knew that you wouldn�t be holding your breath over a cheating woman you have no kids with.

Seriously, there�s an abundance of good women. This doesn�t mean that you file and start dating tomorrow. This means that you need to grieve the loss of your marriage and once you do you will see for yourself that there is a whole world you haven�t been exposed to where YOU DON�T HAVE TO TOLERATE A CHEATING WOMAN WITH WHOM YOU HAVE NO CHILDREN!

Seriously, divorce at this point is no major loss. It is and it isn�t. What you�ll see when you remove yourself from your situation is that not only can you do better, you were with someone that likely wasn�t a good match for you.

BUT

There is a big BUT in all of this.

Before going to D, go to Plan B. Plan B will do a few things for you. First, it will allow you to breathe and think more clearly about whether or not your wish to truly divorce. It will separate you from her abuse. It will also force her to seek all her attention from OM. That will either make them flame out, or it will drive them into each other�s arms.

Either way you win. Why do I say you win if she leaves to be with him? Because you will then be free to live.

My advice, looking at the big picture, is to D this woman and never look back. You�re starving man sitting in a food pantry and crying because you�re hungry and the sandwich in your hand is rotten and moldy. Well, if you looked around, you�d notice the delicious food all around you that is there for you. Nothing is holding you back. You�re young, you have no kids with this psychological disaster of a woman, and you can be free of her immaturity.

All you have to do is look at the delicious food all around you.

I was married to someone that was draining the life out of me. She kept me from my family, kept the kids from my family, and literally destroyed my career over her psych issues. I�m free of her now. I get to see my kids often, my family has a great relationship with my kids, and I�m happily remarried to a woman who is a much better match for me.

Yet I remember being the starving, crying man in the pantry full of food. It sucked. You really liked that sandwich. I know. But look around�.

It took a forced divorce, 3 years of healing, a nasty custody battle, and falling in love again to really let me see the reality of the life I had versus the promise of the life I could have with someone better matched to me. I found that woman. My family loves her. My kids love her.

I don�t look back with any regret. My only regret was not having recognized things when I was younger, to avoid all the pain that came later.

You have that chance. Children with this woman would be a disaster.

BUT�.

You have nothing to lose by going to Plan B. Plan B is a good pause to get your head together and think more clearly. Go there first. THEN decide.

I'm gonna give it a few days and see how I feel but I'm finding her increasingly unreasonable and irritating that she is permanently trying to justify things by mentioning random events from yers ago.

We had planned a holiday for a few weeks time so if I can hold out till then it will be good. I do think it is better to feel less desperate about my situation. Even if we do get back together, it is a good frame of mind to be in, so thank you.

Hi all, recently things have been going really well. WW is committed to moving and full NC will really start in exactly four weeks from today which is her last day at work. We've started looking at flats too.

Also, we went for a real nice meal and a day out in town on Sunday with just my parents and my WW. She felt awkward but they said it was great to see her again and we laughed and talked and the affair didn't come up once which was good. �A good day out.

The problem is that one minute WW is really nice and affectionate, hugging me and she has even told me she loves me again. The next minute she is saying it cant work because too many people know and because I alienated them. �Even though she met with my parents, she says I can't see them if I want to be with her. I know she'll come around, but there are certainly other close friends and family we will never see again because I told them about the affair and ww can't handle it.

The biggest problem for us now is the fact that I told everyone. All I can say is that if she didn't have the affair I wouldn't have anything to tell people. After I told people the affair just got worse before eventually they gave up. I cant help thinking if id only told her work and family and left our friends out of it, things would be easier now. I kind of regret telling so �many people. �Please help me justify it to my Ww and also myself, it's really hard for me right now, but I need to explain to her convincingly why EVERYONE had to know her little secret for us to get back together. How do I do that?

How can you say that things going really well when NC starts 4 weeks from now and she is still in affair???

Recovery cannot start before NC. Your WW is still in an affair thats why she acts as she acts.

You are focusing to the wrong thing - exposure. Your WW has succeeded to convince you that you are to blame.

You should focus to the NC. You can expect your wife act normally and accept consequences AFTER the withdrawal not before. And withdrawal can start AFTER NC.

Ok well I guess that's a good thing to hear. I cant wait until full NC. She hasn't seen OM at work for 2 weeks and the change has been amazing. He'll be back at work next week though, so I'm expecting a rough ride until her last day at work. Hopefully you're right and after that, she'll see things more clearly, but I'm worried she won't.

You have nothing but more trouble coming your way. NC needs to be immediate, not a few weeks from now. And NC is meaningless if they work in the same area.

Again, Andy, why do you feel you can�t do better? You have no kids with this woman?

The second you start acting like you could care less what she does and that the burden is on HER to win you back, the second she�ll change her tune.

If she confronts you about why you revealed to everyone, it�s simple. You don�t need to justify it. It is HER behavior that forced your hand. It is HER adultery that made you go and tell everyone so that the affair would no longer be secret and you could shine light on it in order to end it. If she is embarrassed, then it�s HER problem, not yours. SHE did this by choosing to have an affair. You have nothing to apologize or explain any further and the conversation is over.

Say it just like that. Stand your ground and show a spine. That will make her respect you more than blubbering explanations about why it was necessary. She�s blame shifting. Don�t let her. It was HER actions, not yours, that led down this path. If there was nothing wrong with what she was doing, then she shouldn�t feel any shame.

Seriously, man up. Tell her that she�s lucky you�re willing to give her a chance after being unfaithful. If she keeps trying to blame it on you, walk away. You�re done. You won�t talk anymore about it. YOU have done nothing wrong.

I'm sorry Andy, but HTLD is right again. By not standing up to the affair with conviction, you're recovery (if there ever is one) will be measured by a very low bar. You will have taught your wife exactly what you'll tolerate: an affair that happens at work until such time as you can manage to move or she can conveniently quit on essentially her own time-table. Unfortunately, next time she'll be a lot more crafty about it and you won't even know until it's completely destroyed what's left of your marriage.

How do I know? My wife's PA 9 years ago set the bar for her. Since we never really recovered (she simply felt guilty for 9 years, unbeknownst to me, because we didn't talk...), the next time the situation arose where someone showed her some attention, in her mind it wasn't an affair. Didn't matter that she spent more time with him than me, talked to him about personal/family matters, complained about her marriage, bought and received gifts for each other, texted all day long - because they didn't have sex (where I allowed the bar to be due to pure ignorance). To this day she hasn't figured out that she was having an affair and her actions were destroying our marriage and my love for her.

This is the mind of a wayward. Trouble.

opt

It's been a while since I've been on MB and things are gradually picking up. �I'm not sure if I can say I'm 'in recovery' yet as Ww still sees Om occasionally at work. We're waiting on some results from interviews and hopefully ww will have a new job soon.�

To cut a long story short, things seem to be going well between us. My problem is with my family.

�As my BDay is coming up they asked if we should all go out as a family. I said it sounded like a good idea so long as they are nice to Ww. The reply i got from my sis surprised me. She said 'she has a lot of bridges to build and apologies to make' and 'she can't expect things to go back to being hunky-dory again just like that'�

I replied that I don't see why WW should have to make any apologies to anyone but me. She has said nothing to them. Surely it's between WW and me? Am I missing something here?�

My mum has also waded in and now everyone hates each other and me! How did I get into this mess?

Where do I go from here?

I think she DOES owe an apology not only to you, but your family.

Why? She made a vow with them as witnesses and she not only broke the vow with you, but before all those witnesses as well.

By essentially lying to them as well, she owes them an apology. Something along the lines of:

"You witnessed the vows I took and I broke them. What I did was hurtful and wrong, and I apologize and request that you find it in your heart to forgive me for betraying the vows you witnessed."

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that someone who wants to pin on the FORMER WW badge would seek forgiveness from more than just you, but all those who witnessed the vows and know of the affair. Perfectly reasonable.

Your sister is right, she has not only broken your trust, but the trust of those who know about the affair. Those bridges are your WW's to rebuild.

First off, recovery will not begin until she ends all contact with the OM. Every sighting puts her back to day 1 of recovery.



No, the problem is your wife. She has harmed your family and owes them an apology. She needs to go to them on bended knee, in humility and apologize for hurting you and for hurting them.

Don't give into the temptation to protect her from the consequences of her scummy behavior.

Tell your wife to man up and get her [censored] over there and start making some amends.

Since my Dday, I have continued to attend family functions. In fact, I went to all my children's sporting events practically the next day. Needless to say the response was chilly but well deserved.

Just recently my H celebrated a milestone birthday. I invited his friends and their wives to a celebration because it was for him and what he deserved. I was particularly concerned about the wives so I e-mailed the husbands and asked what they thought was best for all concerned. I did not mind being uncomfortable but didn't want to impose myself on others.

What you should let your family know is that you will not tolerate blatant disrespect toward your WW...such as ignoring, namecalling, rudeness, etc; however, if they don't want to make small talk or hug and smile, that is up to them.

My sister in law put it best...she doesn't feel comfortable opening up to me and being my "friend"; however, we are family and she will behave as such.

Good luck

Andy, after my H's affair he informed me we would never see my family again because they were furious about his affair. My sister openly seethed "I HATE HIS GUTS!" I explained to my H that I was not giving up one more damn thing because of his affair. NOT ONE DAMN THING.

I told him to go resolve the problem with my family. He apologized to my mother and sister and they are all great friends today.

My H faced the consequences of his affair and that is exactly what your wife should do. Under no circumstances should you punish your family for reacting to her abuse of you. She needs to face the music like a big girl.

I agree that it's up to WW to build bridges, but surely if she has settled things with me, my family should respect that. Expecting her to apologise to everyone is just going to put so much additional pressure on any recovery.

When we are alone and people aren't interfering we get on really well. We are starting to fall in love again. All this extra family stuff wrecks it.

She has not settled things with your family, though. That is the problem.

She has to understand that she didnt just hurt YOU, she hurt your family too. She needs to go right that wrong. This is all part of cleaning up the wreckage of her affair.

It HELPS her recovery for her to face the consequences of her wreckless behavior.

This is a very much needed, therapeutic part of recovery. Don't deny her this. Don't encourage her to hide out like a weasel. Encourage to face this with grace and courage and take responsibility for her actions.

Believe me, you will not resolve this problem by telling your family to just "stuff it" and get over it. That is adding insult to injury. You might have forgiven her, but they can't very well forgive her when she doesn't even bother to apologize.

This can be handled in a way that helps your wife and resolves the bitterness in your family. Why not take that path?

Let's turn that around. Let's say your family made up with your WW, but she never ended her affair and never apologized to you. If your family told you to just get over it, which is what you are suggesting your family should do, would you really just get over it.

Of course not.

Your family is to be respectful, but that's all. Repairing the relationship is a job your WW must take on. It's unreasonable to expect that they will be healed by proxy.