wounded, my friend, until he understands that his affair with the OW2 is a danger to you and he takes steps to end it for life, you are not safe with him. Until he commits to end contact for LIFE, you will be in a false recovery. Do you understand this? The fact that he is just doing this "until you feel comfortable" reflects a false recovery that is headed for disaster.

That is not something you can afford to tolerate.

He doesn't get it, and is not protecting you. I would address this pronto or make plans to go into Plan B. You are simply not safe unless this is resolved. This is not a small matter; it is the kind of thing that can result in years of post traumatic stress disorder.

Is the OW married? If so have you contacted her husband? Have you tried having a come to Jesus with her directly and running her off?

You stated that OW2 is your WH's best friend. How many times has your BF called you to say "I woke up thinking about you and just like 9 years and realized it was because I would love to hear your voice."

For me...that's happened oh....NEVER. I have two very dear BF's. One I've known over 3 decades and the other I've known for just a few years less than that. Even when we have lived in different countries, neither one has ever sent me a "friendly" comment like that. It's a bunch of bull-oney.


Really? How much more disrespectful can she be than to be an OW who is still trying to contact a married man?

p.s. this is not something about which you wait for his agreement. You give him an ultimatum and tell him this is how it will be if he wants to stay with you. I am dead serious. You are setting yourself up for a death of a thousand cuts otherwise. His skank has to go.....FOR LIFE. PERIOD. You don't allow him to keep his ho and stay married to him, Wounded.

From the new book by Dr. Harley, Effective Marriage Counseling pg 94:

"Granted, there are situations when demands may be necessary in marriage. During a spouse's affair, for example, I recommend that the betrayed spouse demand there be no contact with the lover. If there is continued contact, separation or even divorce would be the logical consequence. While normally demands don't work, in this case there are no reasonable alternatives because thoughtful requests are even less likely to separate lovers."

He and I have had several discussions about OW2. He doesn't get it. That is the problem. II need to clairify that they have not anything but a friendship all of these years. They have just failed to include me in the friendship.

I have had several discussions with her explaining how I feel and why. She just keeps telling me that she is teh one woman I would want in his life because there has never been and never will be anything between them other than friendship. I explained to her that after his A with OW1 that FWH does not need any other female in his life besides me. SThe last conversation she and I had she informed me that asking him to give up their friendship was an unhealthy request that I should not be making of him. Oh and she did apologize for having boobs.

OW2 divorced her husband last year because he was having a PA. Nothing I say to her will run her off.

I agree with everything you said. It also hurt that he made a comment that it made him feel good to know that she still cared about him.

I asked him if one of his male friends disrespeceted me what would he do. He said he would probably beat the sh@t out of them. I went on to ask him if that is the way he would react to a male friend disrespecting me then why wouldn't he be upset about her disrespecting me. He replied that he knows she didn't disrespect me on purpose and their are different levels of disrespect.

I do see where Plan B would be called for if he was still contacting her but if he isnt' contacting her then why Plan B?

Plan B is warranted when a WS REFUSES to affair proof the marriage and take extraordinary precautions to protect the marriage. And your H has refused to do so by refusing to end contact for life with the OW.

Thank you, I think I understand. Since he won't commit to NC for life with OW2 only NC until we are fully recovered that calls for plan B.

AND... YOU should be WH's best friend. OW#2 should have lost her "best friend" status the day he married you.

He doesn't get it for sure and your marriage will not survive until he does.

Is there anyway I can help him get it? Everything else has improved 100%. I just hate to see us come this far and this cause us to walk away from all the hard work we have accomplished.

This woman MUST be removed from your marriage, precisely because she doesn't recognize the threat she is to it. She is NOT a friend to your marriage.

I developed a pretty good friendship with a co-worker. He and his wife have become good friends to me and my husband. He and I and a couple other co-workers would go to lunch together, joke around on breaks, etc. After being here a little while, I recognized how a friendship between us could be dangerous. We'd even taken to a little bit of relationship talk - we didn't think it was wrong, we just figured it was what friends do, and my husband never had a problem with our friendship. And he was informed about the content of ALL our conversations.

Yeah - we were about to be headed for inappropriateness right quick.

So when I read the Steps to an affair - I got scared. We weren't even much into Step 1 and that was enough for me. I emailed my co-worker the list and informed him that I wanted to put limits on our friendship so that nothing happened. No more relationship talk, no going to lunches, no watching videos during lunch break, no alone time for the two of us, ever. His response when I laid this out: "Yeah this is smart, no friendship is worth my marriage." End of story - no negotiating.

A couple weeks ago we needed to drop off our car at the shop. It would have been easy for this co-worker to follow me there and let me drop it off and bring me home. However, this violated my no alone time rule, so he waited for me to take the car to my husband at home and he brought my husband home from the shop. No questions asked.

This woman is a friend to your husband and will be at the EXPENSE of your marriage.

She is not a good friend and as such, needs to be out of your husband's life.

o

It has to be no contact for life in order to STAY recovered.

Wounded, I question your H's sincerity if he won't even do Step #1. You have to get past Step #1 in order to recover and that has not happened. He has all but promised that he will continue to harm you and the marriage in the future even though you have told him how important this is.

V,

He has stated that he will not make any new women friends. Unfortunately, he feels like since they have been friends for 20 years and nothing has happened between them, I should not have a problem with them being friends.

Yes, you tell him you are willing to forgive him and stay in the marriage under certain conditions. The first is that he ends all contact with OW2 for life. You can't live in a marriage with 3 people and are not willing to stay in the marriage under those conditions.

That puts the ball in his court and he can then choose you or the OW. If he chooses his "friendship" with OW then you are better off without him.

I suspect he will choose you, though. Wounded, you have to raise the bar for your marriage. If not, he will just live down to your expectations and will be headed into his next affair.

I just found out today that I should be getting money from my Mom's estate in the next month. I will plan on implementing Plan B when the money comes in.

Any suggestions how to approach this subject to help him better understand? He does not see her as OW2. He sees her as his friend (he has stopped refering to her as his best friend).

I disagree that he doesn't "get" it. My 14 yr old understands that married people don't have opposite sex best friends. Sheesh...

The thing is he is playing a game with you and, actually, you with him (by telling him NC is temporary, hoping he will "get" it in time, knowing you wouldn't be OK with it)

I would just simply tell him it wasn't wise to agree to a temporary NC, and that you have decided you will only be willing to stay in a M where you feel the safety and protection of the M is a top priority, where only the two of you are meeting each other's ENs. Don't argue it with him.

Then continue your Plan A while you get your Plan B ready...

Exactamundo! I couldn't have said it better. He most certainly does get it. That isn't the issue. The issue is that he doesn't CARE. And he won't care until you raise the bar and he realizes he can't have you both.

Thanks to all three of you. I needed those 2x4s.

I have told him today that I have had second thoughts about my agreement to the temporary NC. I told him that I can not be friends with someone who has disrespected me and my marriage. That I feel if she truely wanted to be both of our's friend then she would have continued with the NC until we contacted her.

After I said that he told me that both of them had disrespected me by hanging out before but that he would never allow that to happen again. I explained to him that I understand but I was not talking about them hanging out but about her texting him 5 times since he told her no contact. HE replied that the only reason she was doing it was because she cared about him as a friend. I told him that I understood that but that her breaking NC was being disrespectful to our marriage, him and me.

We are going to continue our discussion later tonight. I am just thankful that the first part of the discussion didn't end in an arugment. I pray the second part won't either.

Just to explain..I am not a conflict avoider. Since the start of our marriage everytime we tried to talk out our problems it ended up in me making sarcastic remarks and him yelling and screaming in my face.

Should I start working on my Plan B letter now or wait until after the rest of our discussion?

The Plan B letter isn't to be used as leverage in any way, you know that right?

Can you calmly state your boundary, let him know he is free to make his own decisions and leave the room if he starts to shout?

I do understand that Plan B letter is not to be used for leverage. I would only use Plan B letter to let him know what has to be done in order for me to move back in the house and us work on our M. The only reason I would give him the letter is when I move out. The only reason I would move out is if he decides he wants his friend instead of his wife. If that is his decision I am fully prepared to leave him to spend the rest of his life with his friend and me to continue my personal R.

I can calmly state my boundary and leave teh room if he starts to shout. Actually when he starts to shout, I tell him that we need to take a break from the discussion. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to tell him that I will not put up with the yelling so I am going to go for a ride and DD and I go for a ride and let him calm down.