Don't know why this comes to mind for you broken, here it goes anyway.

I was doing a discharge assessment on a 60-something guy the other day, getting him ready to go home. He and his wife have been separated for over 2 1/2 years - he says she won't divorce him, but she doesn't want to live with him, either. He has no clue as to why.

Their son was in checking on a few things for discharge, and he simply stated

"The only thing those two ever did together is to try to divorce."


I don't want a divorce. Do you broken?

I don't want to have to date again, and get angry when some other woman makes a statement about the behavior of my DDs. FWW... well, she screwed up royal, but she is a GREAT mother. My children HAVE a mother.

I also don't want to make room for some [censored] to squeeze in on my kids. FWW... poor taste in men. Yeah, yeah... I'm just arrogant... but I have met her ex's... not to mention her choice in OM. POOR TASTE IN MEN. No way I'm gonna let her douchey "type" around my daughters. I gave them too much of my good looks and charm, you know?

So, I ain't going anywhere. And if I'm going to be here, I might as well try to enjoy it, right?

Thank you everyone. DNM, you mentioned trickle truth and others too, and FR from others also. NC was sent on 8/23/09 D-day 2. WW sent an email to OM saying �Do not call or email again�. Less than an hour later OM responded �I am sorry, I guess we can�t be friends any more�. I kept my eye on her, phone, email and history on our computers at home. But I wasn�t able to monitor her at work. Work phone and computer were inaccessible to me. This is where a lot of their communication took place during the A. In late December of 09, I found pretty hard evidence that there had been a PA. On 1/2/10, I contacted OM for the first time and confronted him about the A, and after 4 months he was able to give me the same exact same story that WW had been giving me for 4 months. On 1/7/10 D-day 3, WW finally admitted to PA, but as with our/my entire discovery, nothing was ever giving freely, I always had to present evidence. On 1/7/10, after I left the house I called OM and talked to him, got a confession from him but only partial. After a couple of days I resumed contact with OM to try and get more info about the PA. Like he was going to be any more truthful than WW had been. On 1/19/10 OM contacted me. Told me the same exact story word for word that WW had given me. I asked her had she talked to OM and she said no, lie. She finally admitted that he did call her at work on 1/19/10. So there is no telling how that conversation went. The poly confirms that she possibly told the truth about the # of times they were together. But the poly doesn�t confirm that there was no contact between 8/23/09 and 1/19/10. The poly question was �Other than the email you sent, have you had any contact with OM since January 2010�? Don�t see where that question includes the phone call on 1/19/10. So I guess I am not fully convinced that there was not any contact between 8/23/09 and 1/19/10, which makes me believe that we were in a FR. I just find it hard to believe that a simple do not call do not email would end their relationship and no contact would have been in place, not by how entangled their relationship was.

And what does this have to do with today? Once again, you are hung up on the past. You continue to ignore the fact that your wife is here right now, today, working her butt off trying to save your marriage.

Many of us WS's made a ton of stupid mistakes after our A's before we found MB. We had no template to go off of. We were scared. We did the wrong thing. We lied or we continued contact. Nothing that has happened in your M is remotely unusual.

But many of us sincerely wanted to change, and once we found MB, we had a template for what change and recovery were supposed to look like. Most of us who managed to save our marriages followed that template and that is why we are where we are today.

Your wife is here. She wants to do the right thing now. Did she do the right thing in the past? No, because she had no guidelines to go off of. Now she does, and from reading her thread these past few months, she seems very remorseful and very sincere. She seems to be trying very hard to turn things around. She seems to love you very much. Right here, right now. And really, that's all she can do.

Only you can decide if it's enough. But, whether or not you decide to stay and try to work on your M, you are going to have to let the past go eventually and move on. You can do that with your wife or you can do it on your own, but if you don't do it, you will end up very bitter, angry, and alone. I've seen it happen to others.

I was once stuck in the past in the details of my H's A too. I kept replaying everything he had told me, imagining it over and over again in my mind, asking the same questions again and again, making my H relive those memories over and over. It wasn't healthy for me or for him, and it did nothing to help our M recover. I was only able to heal when I finally stopped doing it. Right now, you are scratching the scab off your wound over and over, picking it until it bleeds. You are torturing yourself, obsessing over every detail, and it doesn't allow you to heal.

More importantly, are you convinced that there has been NC since January, 2010?

Do you see positive changes in your wife's behavior?

If the answer to both of these questions is yes, what do you have to lose by REALLY TRYING to make a go at recovery You have all the tools you need right here, and people on these boards, who are much more knowledgable than I, to help guide you through this.

No one is saying that you don't have a right to give up if you choose, but wouldn't it be better to give it your best shot? There is no time limit here. You can divorce down the road if that's what will be best for you, but don't you owe it to yourself, another chance at happiness? You were in love with her before - MB can help you fall in love with her again.

*Edit*

This matters ALOT. Once a BS has been severely betrayed and lied to, we MUST KNOW that the WS is capable of telling the truth and righting the wrongs of the past. Admitting to past lies and cover-ups is an enormous part of the recovery process. It isn't possible for the BS to move on and for true intimacy to take place as long as the BS had doubts as to the accuracy of what's been told.

Unbelievable.

broken ~ my H took a poly as well and even though it took a while for it to sink in, I did eventually realize that the truth had been told. It's almost impossible to pass a poly while lying.

From what you've posted, if I'm following this correctly, it appears that your W is telling the truth about the last contact. It also appears to me, from what I've read of her posts, that she wants to repair the M. She wouldn't have taken the poly if she is intent on anything other than that.

Yes, MF, and his wife has admitted that she lied in the past. She even took a poly and has stated she will take another if necessary to prove to her BH that she is telling him the truth now. That was kind of my point. That she made mistakes and lied about them in the past but has since come clean and is doing her best to tell the truth now (and prove she is telling the truth by taking the poly) and follow MB principles.

*Edit* If you have a problem with me, feel free to take it up on my thread, but please stop attacking me and misinterpreting everything I say. It's getting very annoying.

*Edit* I said your advice was and I stand by that.

Better yet,why not just put me on ignore? That's what is recommended in the TOS, I believe. You can do that by clicking on my name and then going to my profile.

Sorry about this broken, I will not threadjack anymore by responding to other's complaints about me.

Somebody's being mule headed.

I couldn't help myself.

Absolutely typical in most cases. I was lucky, I guess... the OM dumped her due to my interference and basically went no-contact with my FWW!


Have you identified this EP hole to her? Have you negotiated a way of putting extraordinary precautions in place in this area? There are ways to work around corporate policies, including things like putting a rule on the work computer to forward any emails to another account, allowing access to email from home so you can check it at any time, etc.


OK, so that's a new piece of information: OM called her and she concealed it on 1/19. Definitely reset the clock on your recovery. And I know how it feels to wonder; to this day (15 months later) I wonder about what was really said in my wife's "goodbye" conversation to OM when she'd agreed she would not talk to him again without my presence in the room.

She summarized the conversation later, but it's impossible to satisfy me because it's in the past and I can never change it or record it to really, truly know. Part of what we accept as a BS.


Fair enough. You believe it was a false recovery during that time; she does not. Regardless, the contact on 1/19 reset the clock on her withdrawal.

But you did something important between August and January: you made her fall in love with you again. You Plan A'd the crap out of her, meeting her needs and showing her what an amazing husband you could be. And despite the contact, she began to reciprocate, right?

Why not work with that for a bit and see how it goes? Take advantage of the fact she's in love with you and see if you and she can build a happy, interdependent life together that's a million times better than what you had before the affair?

You can always choose a divorce at any time. That option never closes to you, as long as you both shall live.

broken, you have been deeply traumatized by trickle truth and FR's. I understand. MF understands, too. I don't think I ever saw anyone as wounded by multiple FR's like MF. Yet, she and her FWH are happy now. He led the R after the last FR. He picked up the reigns and got their M back on track using MB.

If your W is willing to lead recovery, will you be willing to give it a try?

Bumped to see how you're doing?

I guess I am still broken. I have very little hope that I will recover from this. I tried so hard during our 4 months of FR. I acknowledged my role in the damage that I caused in our M pre-A during that 4-months. And worked very hard to change that. I guess you can say that I was doing a Plan A. But all of the lies and deceit that occurred during that FR just killed me somehow. I saw it as WW�s way of protecting OM. That what she did was keeping him safe because of her love for him still to this day. That she is still keeping him safe. That just makes me feel that I am just her second choice. So my days just get worse. Yes I know that I am not supposed to dwell on the past, but somehow it has defined me as second choice. I�m just not going to be someone�s second choice.

I'm curious, what do you see in your wife's actions right now that are coming across as her desire to protect the OM? What is she doing, in your eyes, to keep him safe?

broken, you don't have to recover you marriage after the affair. I don't think many people would say you were wrong for walking away. Many people would support you.

However, you need to make a decision about trying or ending the marriage. You are languishing in a terrible state just now, and neither you nor your wife can continue to live like this for much longer.

In my view, NOT making a decision to work on recovery IS a decision; one to end the marriage - one day. If you do nothing on your side towards recovery, the marriage will fail - which is fine, if that is what you want.

Your wife did not lie about the PA to protect her OM. She lied, as your children lie, and put their hands behind their backs and say "it wasn't me", to avoid facing up to what they've done, and to avoid the terrible punishment that they will bring down on their heads. They lie, and your wife lied, to protect herself. Her love or otherwise of OM had nothing to do with that cowardice.

It might well be true that if OM dumped your wife (I need to check the details) you were second choice once, but it is glaringly obvious to me that you are not second choice now. Your excellent plan A, and a marriage that was once good, saw to that.

You weren't second choice to the OM, you were second choice to HER. To her dishonesty, to her selfishness, to her laziness.

She thought that a good marriage was some kind of magic ticket; you just find it. This is not the truth.

She was too lazy and selfish to speak up, or learn how to properly communicate to you that she needed her needs met.

She was too selfish to turn away someone giving her attention, was was dishonest that she was seeking attention from someone other than you.

OM didn't have to do any heavy lifting; he didn't have to pay bills, raise children, keep up the house, or anything that real life brings. All he had to do was feed positive feelings.

He had NOTHING TO OFFER HER other than a fantasy and a delusion, which she chose FOR HERSELF.

You ARE NOT second choice to that scuzz bucket. No way, no how. Think about what a slimy little pansy he has been as you went through this.

Second choice to THAT? I don't think so.

Hi Broken

I admire you for sticking around to at least try and repair your M, I really do, you have every entitlement to walk away.

You could never be compared to the OM. As a child I was 'raised' by the 'OM' and from first hand experience that everything that the people say here about the character flaws that these kind of people have is TRUE.

Please if you take anything from this experience, do not let yourself think you are second choice at all, especially to the 'OM' whomever he may be.

I would be interested to hear why you feel 2nd choice as in Writer1's post.

Your doing well, I admire you very much.

Harmony.

writer1, In my eyes it has been her refusal to expose to OMW. We were told early in our FR that we needed to tell the OMW, both counselors and our preacher. My WW response �I�m not going down that road�. So that statement has stuck with me since then, and I haven�t seen much difference from her since. Maybe I should have exposed it the day I found out, but I wasn�t in any way mentally able to function. But the whole truth wasn�t given during that time anyways. I will not be the one to expose, if the A was still going on then yes I would. But I believe that WW should have to go down that road and take responsibility for what she has done. There were also many things that happened during the FR and even after that made me feel this way(second choice). I could sit here and list everyone but it would be about 4 pages long.

HHH, OM and WW took the most sacred thing in my life. And WW gave it without a second thought. He didn�t have anything invested. But by OM taking and WW giving that in my heart has made me second choice. I know that I wasn�t the best H I could be, and it sucks to find that out afterwards. Everyone should have to take a course in Love and Respect, Love Dare and HNHN before they every walk down the aisle. But then there would be no divorce or everyone would stay single so that wouldn�t make sense. All of the things that I learned from that just makes me angry, because I see how she applied all of that to OM before every having knowledge of it. So scuzz bucket gets to have a wonderful life with no consequences for what he has done. From what I know his life is just swell. Even the business WW helped him with, his dream is thriving.
Thank you writer1, SugarCane, HHH and H2010. I really do appreciate your willingness to even breath my way.

Well, the issue of exposure to OMW has been brought up on her thread by some of us, and she is being advised to let you do it. This is largely to prevent the perception that she's thinking about or trying to contact OM.

Remember that you were advised to hold off on exposure until a couple weeks after OMW had her baby. Your FWW was advised to let you decide when and how exposure should happen.

If you feel like she should be the one to expose to OMW, you need to tell her this, and then exposure should be done in such a way that (a) it can't be intercepted, and (b) she will have no contact with OM.