Friends I am new here..and using this as my last resort..have ben married to my DH for 7 years and have been with him for 11 yrs. Ours was always a turbulent relationship due to his dishonesty, childhood issues and family interferences..to add to it..we couldnt have children due to his infertility...we were fighting constantly..and I left im and moved countries..we stayed apart for a year..and later reconciled and he moved country to work on our marriage. But after he moved back, his behaviour was very weird. He was angry, resentful and secretive about his life in the year we had been apart.
His cellhpone was always locked and he got calls from the OW whohe explained to me was happily married and that he had made friends with her and her husband and they had taken care of him when I had left him..I was uncomfortable but since he had moved from one country to another to be with me..I decided to ignore my suspicions.
But then he made a mysterious trip out of country on pretext of business travel which I came to know from his secretary was personal trip. While he was on the trip, he didn't take my calls, I knew nothing of his whereabouts, but when he came back,I knew almost certainly that there was a physical relationship established. Moreover through FB I knew her husband was travelling out of country when my DH had gone there.
Soon after his trip,I accidently came across his mail id which I never knew existed and there were love mails to OW, which confirmed my suspicions. My DH admitted to the affair but said he was resentful of me for having left him...so this was an off-shoot of what I had done..I asked him why he came back to me in that case, he said he wanted to work on things, but that I had not changed. God knows I was making my best efforts to bring our marriage on track..especially as he had given up his life, job in the other country only to be with me as he said.

This was 3 months ago. I walked out on him after discovery, He pleaded with me to come back,I was completely heartbroken..but I love this man, so I decided to work on things. He promised he would break all contacts with her. I checked his cellphone records for the first month aafter discovery and he had made just 1 call to her. when I confronted him, He said it was over and I was snooping for no reason..he had stopped being intimate with me..but slowly we were getting back together..we tried counselling..it wasn't very helpful as DH doesn't believe in counselling, but it helped break the ice..
all seemed okay until July end, when his cell-phone had a message from her which seemed like a lover's tiff..he promised it was over but she was not letting go and that he had spoken to her a few times to convince her that it was over. But I knew he was lying. I still told him I trusted him and that I was with him in this struggle. I spoke to OW's husband but he is living in denial and has no control on his wife. I have not exposed her yet to anyone else except one common friend who seems to have done nothing about it..but I have exposed DH to his family.
Since August DH says there is no contact, and he has promised to tell me if the OW contacts him..in this period he has been very loving and caring to me..which had all stopped in the middle. He seems to be in love with me again..but I am threatened by the fact that he may be calling her from his work phone. Though she is in another country, emotional bonding could still be there. I am trying to work hard on my marriage, start treatment for child soon, but feel a lot of anxiety and fear within me and lot of insecurity that the affair may still be on. How do I ensure its actually over considering the OW is crazy about my DH and is a smart liar who has been fooling her husband and me. Please help as i have no peace of mind and can't stop from visually thinking of them together even when DH is intimate to me..feel a lot of resentment towards him which I don't show to him..and keep competing with the OW in my mind all the time..all this is affecting me work, my health and my mental well-being..Please help me.

Welcome to MB, angel. I'm sorry about the events that have brought you here.

Aspects of your H's affair are similar those of mine, so I know how difficult it is for you to know that your H is even trying for NC. He is telling you that he is trying for NC, and that this woman is finding it hard to accept the end of the affair, but for all you know he is talking to her very willingly at work and enjoying the attention and flattery that she is giving him.

I think that you should assume that your H IS talking to OW every from work and that he is not rejecting her attention. I think his actions show that he will not leave you for her, but that is not much comfort, because he wants to have you and his affair, too. You cannot live with that.

What evidence have you given OWH of the nature of the affair? I too had an OWH who was inclined not to face reality, and who did not want to "control" his wife, but when I showed him evidence that my H had had sex with his wife, he could not deny that. Have you given OWH evidence that the affair is physical? Are there text messages or emails that confirm that they have had sex? How does OWH deny these?

I'm a bit confused about where you are living. Are you both from the same country? Are you now living in that country, or did you move back to your country of origin and your H followed you? Is that where you are now? How, then did H get a job that allows him to live there?

I'm asking because I think the only way you are going to achieve an end to this horror is to go to Plan B in a short time, but it would help to know if you are isolated in a foreign country. Are you working now?

I also ask because the only way to secure your marriage in the long term is for H to stop travelling at all.

My H was easily able to continue his affair because OW lived in the country that he travelled to, and they conducted their affair entirely through his workplace, to which I have no access. We did not even have a home computer when the affair was active, but even if we had, my H is not allowed off-site access to his work email account, so there was nothing for me to spy on. He left the mobile phone that his workplace provided at work.

My H's PA only ended when he stopped travelling, but I had to reinforce that by contacting OWH. He insisted that his wife (OW) changed her job and moved back into the family home full-time. We live in London and they live in Belgium, but OW got a job in Luxembourg and lived there in her own flat from Monday to Friday. She did not install a landline to the flat and she also told her H that there was no landline at her workplace, because it was a brand-new office building. He therefore could only call her on her mobile phone, and he did not know that sometimes when he called her at her flat or at work - in Luxembourg - she was actually in a hotel room in bed with my H - in Belgium.

Your inability to know what is going on is being exploited by your H. Please don't fool yourself that he is trying to get rid of OW. If he really wanted nothing to do with her he would have told her that he does not love her, that he regrets what he did with her and that he loves and wants you. He would put the phone down on her and block her texts and emails. He would be cold with her and she would not still be sending loving messages; she would have sent a couple of "FU; you used me" ones and would have convinced herself that she was better off without him. She is still around because he wants her to be.

Dear Sugarcane,

Thank you so much for writing in..Both I and my husnand and the OW are Asians. We were living in US after which I moved back to China. My DH gave up his job in US and took up a new job in China to be with me. He has travelled to US only once since Jan, 2010 and that has been the only time he has been able to meet the OW.

I don't have proof of PA..but I do know that they shared a hotel when he went on his "business" trip to US..because his laptop had history of OW logging into her account from it (in stored cookies). Also my DH came back with new boxer shorts, the kinds he would never wear otherwise. Lastly he never answered his calls in the middle of night whenever I called while he was there. And OWH was travelling out of US when my DH went there.

He is no longer in PA with her due to being in different geographical locations/continents. e knows I am looking at his cellphone so there are no calls on it. The only way he could be talking to her is through his work phone..

If I am able to come across any evidence of contact, should I expose her and go on plan B? Since they are separated by geography and the only form of contact is phone calls that too during office hours when both are living in different time zones (12 hrs apart) , do you think the affair will die its own course? My husband had very severe withdrawal symptoms in June/July after discovery..was very dismissive of me..but since July end..has been extremely loving..wants to work on starting our family..his job is not really the travelling types, so he will not be going to US..

I was working until recently but have quit my job to concentrat on my treatment..should I snoop to see his phone records and then decide on PlanB? Thank you so much for ur help..

In my opinion and with the experiece I have now I would do the following:
-have your H write a no contact letter to OW, have him call her in your presence and have him tell her: it is over, never contact me again.
-I am sorry to say, but unless you get into couseling your M is doomed, because the chances you H will have another A are very high. So
-You need to get counseling preferebly with MB and the Harleys, they do phone couseling from all over the globe.
My WH had 2 A. THere was a false recovery (FR) after the first one and he refused to do conseling. I had been warned by MB the if he was reluctant working on the M the chances of having another A were high.
In fact, not even 4 years after his first A he was in his second one with a different OW and now he left me for her.
If your H does not believe in couseling...that would be a big red flag to me at this point and it would mean that he is back in the M half heartedly.
blessing

angel, you do have proof of a PA. What you cite here is proof of it.

Does OWH know these exact details? Has he refused to accept that they are evidence of a PA? If he does know, and he clearly refuses to acknowledge what the facts mean, then he will not be any kind of help to you. However, if he does not know exactly what you wrote here, then you must tell him. He does not want to "control" his wife but he will be sickened at the thought that she had sex with another man, and he might put his foot down once he knows the facts, like my OWH did.

I will just point out that you do not know that he is not in a PA with her because of geography. Do you know for a fact that she cannot travel to China? I didn't know early on that OW in my situation had a travelling job. Only by internet searching did I find out that she travelled about five times a year, and that some of those times she came to London.

TWICE in 2005, after D Day and the worse suffering I have ever endured, OW's job brought her to London and my H went to her hotel for sex. The first time, in May, he told me he was going to Brussels but never left the country. When I found this out, I waited until the end of the school holidays to tell him to leave (about 3 months). When I saw how distraught he was, and when he begged me to reconsider, I went back on my determination and went straight into yet another false recovery. One month after this new false recovery, in October, he took me and the children to Brussels with him to "prove his commitment", but the kids and I had to return to London two days ahead of him. The moment I walked out of the hotel, OW walked into it and they went to bed - probably in the same sheets that H and I had that morning slept in. I only found this out from OWH about 18 months after the event. I had no idea at the time.

One month after that event in Brussels, in November, OW again came to London with her job. This time my H did not stay overnight with her but told me he was going to work, as usual. He spent two days in her hotel room instead. When I rang his office to speak to him, I was told he was in a meeting, which is the standard line that colleagues give when they do not know where the boss is.

What I did not know was that, while all these tricks were being played on me, OW had obtained her job in Luxembourg. My H was obviously not going to tell me that. From then on, whenever he went to Brussels, she took the train from Luxembourg and stayed overnight in his hotel room. Her H never knew, because she had no landline and so could always be reached and could say she was alone in her flat, and I never knew because I did not know she had a new job.

I suggest that you talk to OWH NOW, without giving any clue or warning. You must not let OW pre-empt your calls or intercept your email to her H. Tell him about the PA and find out exactly what her job and travel circumstances are.

You might need to expose your H at HIS work so that you can get her number blocked - and institute disciplinary action against H if he ever wastes the company time and money, as he has been doing, but I would contact OWH first and report back here.

You do not have children yet, and while I understand that you have wanted a child for a long time, you should not become pregnant until this affair is completely dead. You said that the infertility was on H's side, but you also say that YOU are having treatment. That leads me to think that you are not infertile and you could become pregnant after this treatment. It would be a mistake for you to bring a child into this mess. Your marriage should be made much stronger before you have children.

Affairs do tend to die out, and this couple's inability to see each other might hasten that, but I would not allow contact to continue in the hope that this happens. There is a risk that the EA will flourish over the phone, and your H will simply leave you and go to the US for her. I'm sorry to say, but the fact that you have no children makes it easier for him to take the opportunity of a new start, and the fact that a child might be conceived after your fertility treatment might cause him to make the decision to leave before that happens. He will not want to create a child and then leave, so he might leave before a child is conceived if this EA (or PA?) continues.

My advice is for you to contact OWH, find out about OW's travel opportunities and report back here.

Dear Sugarcane,

Thank you for your mail..the OW is a homemaker..so she doesn't really have the opportunity to travel out of country on pretext of work. Further, she belongs to a different part of China and we live in another corner..so even if she were to visit China on personal trip..she would have to especially travel to the city where we live which is in another corner..

The infertility is on his side, but as most of assisted treatments work, its the woman who has to undergo the vast procedures in in-vitro etc. DH is very excited about the prospects of a child..we have both longed for one for the past 2-3 years..so I do not think he plans to leave me etc before the child is concieved...as its a joint decision..and he has been very loving about the whole thing.

That said, I want to give things the benefit of doubt..I am currently travelling with DH on a vacation..and its really been wonderful between us. He wanted me to relax and feel positive, before we went back to the whole treatment bit..I feel his love for me has returned back completely wich may be possible only ifthere is a closure..as he had a certain arrogance abt him when the affair was on..but he is more clued into me emotionally now...feels like old times..he has said that he is happy he moved back to China..as he would have made a huge mistake if he had lost me..

I feel that if I trigger things by contacting the OWH, he may share it with OW and she may contact DH again (assuming DH is following the NC). So I have decided that befor doing anything else, as I have a way to get his work tel- record..I will obtain the same. If that shows contact, then I plan to contact OWH, expose OW and go on plan B (as I have been extremely wonderful to DH since Discovery..so Plan A as been in place and he has been appreciating it a lot)..

Regarding counselling, I plan to resume the same and persuade DH to follow me. I do thing the affair has been like an addiction as he knows he runs the risk of losing me..for whom he has given up a decade long life in US where h had always longed to live for the rest of his life..and it certainly doesn't help that the OW is clinging...

I don't plan to initiate treatment until I look at the records..as my mental well-being is very essential for these lengthy and painful treatments.

I hope I am doing the right thing..