I have been reading several posts on here and looking at the great advice that is given. I will apologize now for the long post.

In July 09, my WH started talking to an old high school friend on Facebook (FB). In August he talked to her on the phone to help her fix her computer. They also started talking about and Internship Program she wanted to attend in our area. So they were not only talking on the phone but also talking on FB. When I mentioned to my WH that they were spending too much time together it started an argument and him telling me I was just jealous.

Oct � Nov 2009 - They are continuing to meet up on the game and talk on the phone. Instead of talking to me, like he usually would, my H has stopped calling me on his breaks, lunch, and on his way home. I really don't think anything about it because we were arguing all the time. The end of Oct we get a call that his Great Aunt has been put in a nursing home. She is like a Grandmother to him. So in our discussions, I ask him about going to Brooklyn and bring her back to live here. MIL, SH and I decide that we will go get her and she will live with MIL, right next door, and I will help take care of her during the day. H wanted to stop and see the OW on the way up to Brooklyn but they couldn't get together then. But on the way back we took a different way because my WH got lost. Mind you..he grew up in NYC so he knew his way around. So on the way back we (WH, Great Aunt, My Mother and me) stop to see this woman. She totally ignored everyone except my WH. We actually got back home the 1st week of Nov. I went into the game that we play. My W H, OW, and someone else were in the room when I got there. My H made a statement that he the OW's boyfriend on the game. I was so livid. I got to checking the phone records and saw how much they were talking and text msging. I told him that it was to stop. He agreed but called her when I was not around. The last week of Nov, I found a e-mail from the OW asking my H to leave me for her. It had some very detailed information about mine and my H's relationship.

Dec 09 � I know this isn�t what I should have done but I did it and can�t take it back now. I contact the OW wanting to know why she thought my H would leave me for her. I ask my H the same thing. She comes back with insults and he says he doesn't know, that he told her that he loved me and would never leave me. I brought to my H attention that what he had done was considered an EA. We continue to argue and things just keep getting worse in our relationship. He starts treating me like I am crazy. Mind you all this time I am taking care of his Great Aunt who has Dementia.

Jan - Feb 09 - He is still treating me like crap. The OW is sending me insulting e-mails and still trying to contact him. As far as I can tell he does not contact her back.

Mar 09 - He gets a Happy Valentine text from the OW. I go on her FB and see that she is going to be in the area the next week taking her test for an internship. She sends me an e-mail asking me where a safe place for her and her son to live is. I reply to the e-mail simply saying that it would be best for all involved if she found somewhere else to do her internship. She lives in PA and I live in AL. When I tell H about the e-mail he goes off and then calls me a witch with a B. The week after this happens my mother dies suddenly. My mom and I were not only Mother and Daughter, she was my best friend. The day we bury my Mom, my H asks "now that you are getting some money are you going to leave me?"

Apr 09 �We did a lot of talking and decided to try to make our marriage work. I plan a romantic getaway for us. We go and it seems to help us reconnect. Apr was the happiest H and I have ever been. The only thing that we argue about is that he has a female friend that I ask him not to spend any time alone with considering the EA. They have been friends for 20 years but I do not know her that well. I requested that the 3 of us hang out some so that I can get to know her. This causes a big argument. I started IC to help me cope with my Mom's death. The counselor gave me a test, which resulted in her coming to the conclusion that I was suffering from post-traumatic stress due to my relationship with my H.

May 09 - Still keeping his great Aunt. I took my daughter, from a previous marriage, to the state track meet at the beach. The morning I come home H and I talk for about an hour. I tell him what our plans are and about what time we will be home. When I get less than 30 mins away from our house I call him. He is at the movies with his recently divorced best friend (female) and her sister. Come to find out she had called him before he and I talked and invited him to breakfast. They met for breakfast where my sister-in-law works and spent the whole day together. He forgot to tell me when we talked that morning. I was so upset that I told him he needed to decide if he wanted her or his wife in his life. He told me he couldn't decide that because she was his best friend. On top of that I go on the computer that night and the OW had created a new account and sent me a msg to check my H's e-mail that she had sent me something I might be interested in. When I opened the e-mail I saw a pic of my H privates. She also stated in the e-mail that he had made her video of him masturbating in our bed. They would watch the video while I was asleep on the other end of the couch. So all those months H had still been lying to me.

Since May the OW tries to contact me at least once a month. She even sent my 16 year old daughter a friends request on FB, this last month. I have blocked her on FB and cell phones but she still continues to try to push my buttons. She is divorced so I can�t expose her to her husband and I don�t know anything about her to expose her to anyone else. When I tell my H about her trying to contact me he gets mad and tells me he doesn�t want to hear it but then he will turn around and ask �Have you heard from your friend (OW�s name)?�

We have come to an agreement on him spending time with his "best friend". He has agreed to give up his "best friend" until we get our marriage fixed and then the three of us will hang our together. He has made comments that he doesn�t know if she will want to hang out with me now or not because she has hurt feelings toward me. Am I wrong for feeling like he is still picking her over me?

On top of the best friend issue, he is having problems with me not trusting him. He thinks that because he didn�t mean to have an A, and he has learned from his mistakes that everything should be ok. On the other hand, because of him lying to me for so long about the A I am having a problem going forward. We got into an argument last night because I asked to look at his phone and asked him about one number that was on it. HE asked me if my trust issues were just with him and other women or everything in our relationship. I told him that it involved everything in our relationship. I gave him the example of me asking him if he had been mowing the yard and he told me no. It was obvious that he hadn�t mowed the whole yard but he had been mowing. He ends up starting to scream and yell, I got up and walked away from him and went to bed.

Sorry this is so long...and thanks in advance for any suggestions with dealing with the things I am dealing with.

Wounded I am so sorry you are here, but your husband is a cheater, and if you believe him when he say's "she is my best friend" then you have been lied too!

You need to read this thread.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...&Number=2370240&nt=13&page=1

Also married people SHOULD NOT HAVE FRIENDS AS THE OPPOSITE SEX!! I am sorry but you need to start snooping on your husband, emails, text, phone, putting a VAR (voice activated recorder) in his car, to find everything what your husband is REALLY doing. Install a keylogger on his computer that will tell you exactly what your husband is typing on the computer. It will send you emails of EVERYTHING! Save EVERYTHING!

Then expose to everyone you know...

Family
Friends
Neighbors
etc..

Wounded,

You say you don't know who to expose on her side, but she has a FB account....right? You need to print out a list of all her friends. When the time is right, you will be able to expose to her friends and possible some family is on there too.

I'm not an expert on here....others will come along soon, but I can tell you.....without hesitation that you, your WS, and OW should not be a happy threesome...like you're all buddies or something. He is trying to have you both.

You also need to get the book "Surviving an Affair" and "His Needs Her Needs".

Others will come along to give you step by step instructions in order to save your marriage.

How long have you been married?

Sapphire,

I agree with you that married people should not have friends of the opposite sex. Unfortunately my husband doesn't agree. He tells me it is a cultural difference since I was born and raised in the south and he was born and raised in New York. HE said that he doesn't look at people as male or female, only as people.

He has deleted his Facebook and Myspace accounts. I can look online to see who he has called and texted. He goes to work and comes home. He is trying to be an open book but is very angry about me having trust issues.


I guess I need to clairfy that the woman he had the affair with is not the same woman he has been best friends with for 20 years.

hope,

Thank you for your reply. I have blocked her and set so many privacy settings on my Facebook that she can't find me there anymore. She has done the same thing to me so I can't even see that she has a Facebook page.

I hope to buy the suggested books soon. We are on a very tight budget so I have to see where I can squeeze the money from.

We have been together for 6 years and will be married for 4 years in September. I know..very early in the marriage for stuff like this to be happening.

Wounded,

Check the bookstore here on MB....I think the cost will be cheaper here than at other bookstores.

Did you ever get a response from him about pics OW sent of his privates? Did he answer to you for that? I guess I'm a little cofused about the two friends. You mentioned that they were looking at video while you were sleeping on end of couch. Was the OW and WH at your home with you?

I'm just trying to understand your whole situation....and maybe otherw might be wondering the same things.

Sorry you are here but welcome.

It is nice that he agreed to NC w/OW1, but YIKES, he is accustomed to having some ENs met outside the marriage right from the start(best friend for 20yrs), he has extremely poor boundaries and as of right now, he doesn't sound like he is willing to change any of that.

I personally would prepare for Plan B. (don't say anything to him for now) Plan A while you are getting your ducks lined in a row...Stop lovebusters, work on yourself, limit relationship talk and get ready to separate from him if he is unwilling to affair-proof the M.

Some of the things I would require from him in order to stay in the M is no opposite-sex friendships, 100% transparency, and working with the Harleys (phone coaching) on a plan of recovery, and spending at least 15hrs of UA time per week.

Was his A with OW1 exposed?

I would snoop and get a better idea of what is going on with OW2 as well.

The excessive talking part of the affair was exposed in November 09. The actual pictures and video were not exposed until April 10.

His A took place on the internet and by phone. There is a program that can be used to share files off of one computer with another computer. This is how he shared the video with OW.

Have been considering plan B but it will take a while. I have been a stay at home mom since we got married. My company was transfereing my department. H and my kids didn't want to move so we agreed for me to resign.

I was talking with a mutual friend last night. He said that something was brought up about my H's A. My clueless H told the friend that it was all blown out of porportion!

He tells the friend that while he is telling me that he understands what he did was wrong. He tells me that it isn't as bad as I think it is because he didn't want her. He never "played" when they would talk or chat. He didn't love her and he would have never have left me for her.

Susie - I keep an eye on everything he does.

When we did go to MC the counsuler told my husband that he was acting like a narcisist.

I am sorry but even if you lived in a big city or a small dinky town! EVERYONE HAS the SAME morals!!

So when he say's this it's a big fat lie!

I grew up in Las vegas, SIN city! For almost 20 years, and I know having friends with the opposite sex CAN and WILL ruin marriages.

I have had two EA's because I had male friends, after the second one my husband exposed to everyone and giving them the facts of my affair.

It sounds like your husband is gas lighting you, he wants a wife AND a g/f so he will tell you EVERY little excuse to get it.

Start working on plan A, if your husband WON'T change then go to plan B. Tell him it's either his "Girlfriends" or you!

I have told him that he needed to decide if he want his "best friend" or his wife in his life. Originally he told me he could not pick between us. We have reached an agreement that he will have no contact with his "best friend" until our marriage is back on stable ground. At that point I will be included in the friendship. This still gives me heartburn because I resent the fact that he coudn't pick between us. He is still resentful because I took his "best friend away from him".

I get so tired of him telling me I have a choker around his neck just because I want him to act like a married man not a single man.

Part of my problem is that I am not even sure I love him any more. Do I want to save my marriage? Yes. But there is a but...I want to save my marriage but I do not want to waste my life living in a marriage like we have had the last 4 years. His yelling and screaming. Me being unable to talk to him about my feelings for fear it will cause an argument.

I know i have room for improving my communication skills but in my previous job I had to take alot of communication classes. I have tried to utilize the things I was taught in those classes. HE tells me that those communications skills are only for the work world..they do not work in personal relationships.

He blames alot of things on the different ways we were raised. Him in the North and me in Smalltown AL. I feel that this is just a cop out because we didn't seem to have these problems when we were dating.

Wounded, you do not have "trust issues". Your WH is angry because you are seeing right through his lies and you are dead right not to trust him, because no one in their right mind would trust a liar.

You are 100% correct that he wants both a wife and a girlfriend, and I hope you understand that he will do whatever he can to manipulate you into going along with this. He will bribe you and bully you and threaten you, and the only one who can stop this is you because he will NEVER stop and he absolutely will not ever "choose".

You may want to read through the thread titled "What Do You Do With The Pain" by Dances With Goats. It's over on the Recovery board. We are talking about narcissistic spouses - which is what your counselor mentioned, right? - and talking about what boundaries really are and how to enforce them.

Again: This man will never "choose", because he's not trying to "choose". He's trying to have you both. That is his one and only goal and he will stop at virtually nothing to get it.

The only one who can break this cycle is you.

Ok, I'm not sure how to do the quote thing so I just copied and paste....you said:

I have told him that he needed to decide if he want his "best friend" or his wife in his life. Originally he told me he could not pick between us. We have reached an agreement that he will have no contact with his "best friend" until our marriage is back on stable ground. At that point I will be included in the friendship. This still gives me heartburn because I resent the fact that he coudn't pick between us. He is still resentful because I took his "best friend away from him".


This will not work!!! He will never be able to remain in contact with these other women!!! Don't make deals to which he will eventually be able to have these "best friends" later in your marriage.

I have been following the thread that you suggested Mulan. I have chalked my WH's behavior up to inmuturaty until I started reading that thread.

He keeps telling me what a he!! our marriage was before his A. He seems to forget I was the one sitting beside him trying to help him get through being laid off from his job. I am the one telling him how proud I was of him that he would take a lower paying job to support his family. I think my words were that I was so proud of him for doing what it took to take care of his family. All that time he was having cybersex and phonesex with the OW. He is still blaming our marriage for his actoins. I have explained to him over and over that even though he didn't go looking for an affair at some point he made the decision to ignore me and talk to her. At some point he made the decision to send her naughty pictures and share the video with her. He says that at the time he thought she was nuts...and after she kept asking for these things he gave them to her. HE didn't think about me during that time. He didn't think about it being something a married man shouldn't do!



It just gets so frustrating that he doesn't see what he has done to us. I have told him that we were both in that marriage and that we both had our choices of what to do. I chose to be faithful to our marriage and he didn't.

Hope - I agree with him not hanging out with his best friend. At the time the agreement we had been fighting for a week straight about her. It makes me mad that he is so worried about her feeling that he doesn't see how she disrespected his wife and marriage by continuing to contact him after he had asked her not to.

To be honest I am about ready to just give up on our marriage. I keep thinking that I will give it until I get my inhereitance then see where we are at and make my decision. Of course he doesn't know this becuase it would only cause an argument. He was mad at me after his affair because I didn't know if I wanted to stay or go.

Sorry but this should NOT be in your agreement! You need to let him know that he does not need any "female" friends. Is this "FRIEND" married? Does she have a b/f? I bet YOU ANYTHING if she was dating someone and if she was married your husband would have backed off from her, or SHE would back off your husband. Because THEY both know that being "BEST FRIENDS" is a BIG FAT NO NO when you are married! I don't care who you are!! I don't care if they've known each other since diapers!

It is still

If your husband doesn't see the value in that, then he doesn't see the value of a marriage, and you need to start making that bar higher for him.

Your husband sounds like he is still in the fog of a wayward, and you need to start doing something about this to fix it.

have you exposed? Who have you told and what?

have you been looking into plan Aing your husband for 3-6 weeks?

Buy a VAR and stick it in his car, I bet you ANYTHING he is calling her!

Install a keylogger on his computer so anything he types it will automatically email you what he is typing.

If he still thinks having "best friends" with females is ok, then go to plan B.

His best friend is recently divorced. They have been friends for 20 years. She even told her last husband that My H was off limits. H tells me that they have been friends while both were single and married. While one was single and the other was married and nothing has ever happened between them. H tells me that if they wanted each other then they could have done so before now.

As far as exposure..I have told anyone and everyone that has any influence over him. Unfortunately there aren't many people that he respects enough to listen to. He gets mad anytime he finds out that I have told anyone anything about our relationship. HE keeps saying that I have all these people to talk to and now that he can't talk to his best friend he has no one to talk to.

I am researching Plan A now to determine what I need to do. No matter how many times we discuss it he still does not see anything wrong with having females as a friends. He has agreed not to bring anymore new females into our relationship.

Have you decided to put a VAR in his car?

Right now it is not an option due to our finances.

Well, if you think all will be good and dandy if you think he will stop contact to "FIX" your marriage then I have nothing else to advise.

Sorry again that you are here, but most likely we will hear from you in another month or so.

Good luck!

Every wayward acts like a narcissist. It's not the disease. It's the symptom. Cure the disease (Poor precautions, exclusive need-meeting) and the symptom will, if not disappear completely, become much more manageable.

Counselors who try to treat waywards for their narcissism, mid-life crisis, or anxiety without treating the cause of these symptoms (the affair) disgust me.