We live in the Northwest and my wife is currently having an affair with a man in a retirement community in Florida. She comes and goes freely (she has free air fare due to flying privileges from a flight attendant she knows), stays with him for several weeks enjoying the non-real-life lifestyle there (she's 46 and he's 64). I can't lock her in a room, so how do I enforce Dr. Harley's "no contact" rule. She told my/our therapist/counselor that she wasn't prepared to give him up on the trust that I could change to provide the "20%" she said I wasn't giving her. (She says that 80% of our life together is fine, I'm still the most handsome man she's ever met, and she never could marry anyone else.) Short of legal separation, what can I do?

You don't enforce it - you just refuse to live in this situation. You need to expose this affair to EVERYONE. Your friends and family, HIS friends and family. You expose this nasty little affair to the light. You do EVERYTHING you can to kill his affair.

You let her know that you are willing to better yourself to be the husband who meets her needs, but you are NOT willing to allow a 3rd party into your marriage.

You want to start what is called Plan A.

READ THIS THREAD Provide the background information as it will help us help you. Read through ALL the articles.
Get the book Surviving an Affair.

Welcome to MB. I'm sorry you've wound up here but this is a great place for help and support.

Expose this affair

Besides exposing the affair to your WW's family, friends, and your children, I would expose on OM's side and make his life he11 as long as he pursues your WW. I would talk to the friend with flying privelidges and appeal to her to see if she will let your WW stop flying there. I would cut off all other means of communication she uses to contact OM (phone, internet, etc.). I would continue to plan A for a total of about 3 months, and after that, I would file for legal separation and go to a dark plan B.

Y4424,

Expose to the OM children, grandkids and other relatives. Does he know your wife is married? If he does this is a really brazen affront to you staying with your wife for weeks at a time.

Cut off whatever money you are supplying to your wife to maintain this lifestyle too.

God Bless
Gamma

Thanks all.

A few more details. The affair is known to my family and her family, who I love and who, I know, think the world of me. No real contact from them - embarrassment. And she's had no substantial contact with them since this started in June. We've been married for 21 years, and some of this is mid-life crisis stuff. Daughters (17 and 20) are soon out of house starting college or career; wife is wondering what to do - has no job right now, wonders what she's good at, etc. Also lots of baggage regarding her relationship with parents, esp. father who was very strict and who (she believes, perhaps with truth) deprived her of fun and friends of teen years. Also, she told the counselor he didn't demonstrate love/affection for her either verbally or physically (hugs), a characteristic she says I share to some degree. OM - retired - has all the advantages;
lots of time for her, part-time musician, etc. Also a good support group down at The Villages (retirement community in FL) -
old women who are friends of my wife's aunt; they think it's wonderful OM and my wife are together. (It's a bad place with a bar scene for a bunch of old folks who think they are in high school. Wife loves it that women are jealous of her "youth" while men desired her.)

Cut her off financially. If she continues, file for legal separation or divorce. You said she likes 80% of you, but she likes the other 20% from the OM. Well, take away the 80% and she's stuck with 20%. Pretty soon that 80% will start looking a lot better.

yankee, my suggestion would be to do a coordinated, strategic exposure of the affair by sitting down and calling all family members YOURSELF and asking them to use their influence to persuade her to end her affair. I would make that call to:

1. her parents, your parents, children, close friends and family, pastor. This message needs to come FROM YOU with you asking for their help and advice. The more people who call her the better

2. expose wide and far on OM's side. Expose to all his facebook friends. We have a template letter you can send out that is very effective.

This is the most powerful weapon you have against this affair. Affairs thrive on secrecy so exposure is your greatest weapon. The exposure should all be done on the same day in order to have a tsunami effect. Preferably when your wife is with him as to cause as much conflict as possible in the affair.


All this has absolutely nothing to do with anything so I would not concern yourself with this. This is just a meaningless distraction.

In addition to exposure, I would DEMAND that she end her affair. If she won't end her affair, I would file for divorce on grounds of adultery, naming the OM as her paramour, and barring her from your home on grounds of abandonment. She needs to get locked out, yankee.

Hopefully you won't have to go through with the divorce, but this is necessary becuase your wife doesn't believe you will do anything about her affair. She thinks you will do nothing to stop her. Filing for divorce will be the WAKE UP CALL she needs.

And even that might not work because your wife's affair is so entrenched that it will take ALOT to wake her up.

Who told them and what were they told? Did they contact your wife and ask her to end her affair?

Yes, cut her off. But go file NOW if she won't end her affair tomorrow.

Do this completely, by:
1. Close any joint checking or savings accounts. Reopen new accounts in your name only and put the money there.

2. Cancel your credit cards if they have a zero balance. If you can't cancel them, call the card issuers and instruct them to set your maximum limit at whatever the balance is right now.

3. Same deal with any other lines of credit - if you have an equity line on your home close it. If there is a balance talk to your lender about changing the limit that can be used against it.

4. Shut down any online financial accounts where she can access financial info.

5. Remove all of your credit card & banking statements to a safe place so she doesn't have access to any financial info, especially account numbers.

I suspect financial support is a key need you're filling. Cut her off. Whatever you need to do to force her to ask you for even a few bucks for gas money is your goal. And when she DOES ask for gas money, you get your wallet and ride in the car to the gas station with her. And YOU pay for the gas that goes in her car.

EDITED TO ADD: The goal in doing all this is to continue fulfilling her financial needs in her marriage, and NOT financially support her A with marital funds. You're not punishing her, you're protecting your marital assets from the A.

Also, while I'm thinking about it: how do you know she's getting free flights from a friend? That sounds awfully...convenient. Have you checked your financial records to make sure no marital funds are being used for these flights?

BTW - how did she meet this guy? What's his story?

A lot of our advice sounds harsh, but what we�re advising works. Your wife is cake eating. She gets needs from you and from OM. Cut your part of out. There�s no need for a Plan A since she supposedly says that you�re great. Well, then it�s time to go to Plan B. She has the good memories of you (which is what Plan A establishes). Perhaps do a short term Plan A. Give her lots of attention. Make the home a welcoming place, etc. Then use that time to setup kicking her out to go to a Plan B.

Plan B means you throw her to OM for him to meet all her needs. You go silent and don�t communicate with her at all unless she meets criteria you establish in a Plan B letter for her to return.

The main conditions are no contact for life with OM, full openness to you in every way, commitment to follow MB recovery plan.

She�s be ticked, but you will end the cake eating. She will then see the mistake she�s making and will force the other man to meet all her needs. It�s likely he doesn�t want her to be with him full time but enjoys the fun time he has with her.

But all our advice is intended to end the cake eating and set tough love in motion.

I agree with the others. Cut her off, file for divorce, and let the chips fall where they may. Like was said, take away the 80%.