Maritalbliss, apologies - I was not married, I was dating a girl but we did not live together or have children. I didn't believe that relationship had a future and I had wanted to leave her for about a year when I met the W but had never had the courage.

AM, thanks for this comment, I will take it on board.

Has WW left that job and gone NC with both OM?

TheRoad, as it's been only a few days she has not yet left, but I have made it clear that she will have to if we are to have any chance of a future. I have asked her to write a letter of NC to both and let me see it before it's sent and have made it clear that any breach of that will not be tolerated. She has had contact this week to tell them that I have found out but nothing further.

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I have drafted the following e-mail to send to the OM. I am going to sleep on it before I decide whether to send it or not, but writing it at least has been cathartic:


Let me tell you about some of the consequences of what you've done. I'm not setting out to get revenge through words, but I am as angry as it's possible for a person to be, so some of that's sure to come out.

I expect you're feeling guilty, probably moreso at being caught rather than what actually happened, since I know the texting carried on afterwards, but let me assure you that however bad you feel, it's a fraction of a percent compared to what I'm going through - and yours will pass quickly. The hurt that I'm feeling will very likely be with me for the rest of my life.

I daresay you've got all sorts of justifications for your actions. What I wouldn't know couldn't hurt me. I wasn't making her happy or wanted in the way you knew you could. We were having difficulties and you didn't think we'd be able to work through them so it was only a matter of time. You wanted something and you didn't understand why you couldn't have it. It was only physical. All bulls**t. There is NO justification for what you have done.

Whether you were aware of it consciously or not, one of the reasons for your actions was that you sensed vulnerability in [MrsBHunt] and you exploited it to meet your own needs. That is unforgivable.

I can categorically state that if I was attracted to a married woman, no matter how strong my feelings or unhappy she may be, while she and her husband were together I would NEVER cross that line. To do so identifies you as someone who is morally bankrupt and has the emotional maturity of a child. It's not about possession, taking something you're not entitled to or that belongs to me, it's basic human decency that you entirely lack. It is no surprise that you are single; you are devoid of empathy or restraint and for as long as that's the case you will not be loved. You are a totally worthless human being; cowardly, selfish and lower than s**t.

I understand the attraction, I married her for f**k's sake. But whatever you had with her was fleeting and insignificant. I had the 6 best years of my life and that's now gone. You took the best, most important and perfect thing in my life, the only thing that has ever made me truly happy and destroyed it. In the couple of unsatisfying minutes it took for to do your thing, you have caused more damage to me than any other single act could possibly have done.

But I don't think that will register with you. You don't know me, you have no respect for me and you view me with contempt. You'll get over the hurt you've caused me pretty quickly. So let's look at what you've done to [MrsBHunt].

She hurts too. She hurts because of what she has done to me - nowhere near as much, but the pain is genuine and it's something that you have helped her cause. From this point forwards we have two options. We will either stay together and try to get through it, or I will leave and never coming back.

I don't know if our marriage can be salvaged. I will need to forgive her and I don't know if I'm strong enough to do that. But even if there is something that can be fixed, it won't be the same. You have taken our marriage from us before we even made it to a year. Anything we have going forward will not be the marriage that either of us wanted or entered into together. It cannot be retreived.

If we stay together [MrsBHunt] will forever be judged by people who know what she has done and I will be judged for taking her back. If we are to stand a chance she will have to leave the job and career that she has spent years building and start again elsewhere. For years she will have a husband who cannot trust her, who will check up on her and be a shell of the person she fell in love with. The pain of rebuilding a marriage is incomprehensible. I have no idea if it's even possible, but she wants more than anything else to try and for me to love her as I did before.

But you have caused me to hate a part of her. I loved her unconditionally and that's gone now, perhaps never to return. I don't hate her, but I hate what she's done and I hate the weakness that made her want you and give you what you wanted. However small that part of her may be or may become, it will forever be there.

So that's two lives you have irreversibly damaged, what about if we split up? That's where the damage becomes even more widespread. Any future relationship either of us have now will suffer as a result of this. My trust in other people has been shattered and that may never be fully recovered.

[MrsBHunt]'s self-esteem is as low as it could be and that's baggage she will carry with her forever. Any hypothetical future partner will take on damaged goods and suffer themselves as a result of this.

And when people with low self-esteem have to deal with guilt like that, they can do stupid things. That impacts on her family, her friends, anyone who knew her will have to face the guilt of not spotting this and stopping it before it went too far.

It's a ripple effect. Every action has reactions that continue and spread. And I think you're a little bit old to be learning that now. I don't know if you've done this before, I don't know if you've had it done to you but I don't care. You knew what was at stake and whether you chose to ignore it or were too stupid to understand, you chose to carry on anyway.

There's plenty more I could say, but I don't think you're worth any more of my time. I'm not going to come and find you and attack you or try to take revenge, it won't make me feel any better and you are not worth the effort it would require. I cannot cause the slow, painful death that I believe you deserve to suffer. But at the same time I don't think it's fair that you should be able to bury this and forget about it. I will see to it that your colleagues find out the kind of person you are. If you can't deal with that then it's your problem; you should have thought about that. Leave your job, kill yourself, I don't give a s**t.

If you've read all the way to the end I would suggest you go back and read through again. I don't want to hear that you're sorry or that you didn't think it through, it means nothing to me. But I would like acknowledgement that you have at least read and thought about what I have said. It's too late to undo the damage you've caused to me and [MrsBHunt], but if any of my words prevent you from doing this to somebody else in future then I will take a tiny amount of satisfaction from that.

I have asked that [MrsBHunt] has no further contact with either of you, I hope that there is enough basic decency left in you to respect that and stay out of our lives forever.

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I'm not defending her or placing the blame on the OM and she is aware of that, but I don't think it's right that they should be able to forget and move on - I want them to take responsibility just as I want her to. Any thoughts or comments would be welcome.

I would not send that. He doesn't give a rip about your feelings. Rather, I would go visit him in person and tell him to stay away the hell from your wife.

I agree with Pepperband's assessment that your wife is very immature, but I also see something else. When a man comes onto a married woman he is insulting her. He is saying to her that he believes she is skanky enough to degrade herself with him. Your wife interprets his interest as flattery. She doesn't understand that she has been insulted.

I think once she thinks that through she will GET IT.

Honestly, I wouldn't send it. They won't care and certainly won't be doing the self-examination into their own minds that you alluded to. If you're going to send them anything, make it something like this:

OM,

You are going to stay the eff away from my wife. You've gotten a lot of people pissed off over here and you don't stand a chance against all of us or want us involved in your life. Back off now.

ITA;

Don't give the b@st@rd the satisfaction of knowing you are reacting to him at all.

Simply make the statement;

"If you ever call, text, email, or come within seeing distance of my wife again, I will make every breath you take following that moment regrettable."

Sorry, ML--I was typing my response while you posted the exact same thing. You beat me to it!

Wow, wish I had used that when I needed it.

Here we go, fix'd.

No need to send it or say it... live it.

Yeah, me too.

In a somewhat fortunate way, I didn't have the whole truth while OM was still living in the same state, because would I have known, the conversation would have sounded more like the preparation of cubed steak.

Berkeley Hunt..........Can you elaborate on this statement? I believe after reading this that you just might have some culpability in this!


Maritalbliss, apologies - I was not married, I was dating a girl but we did not live together or have children. I didn't believe that relationship had a future and I had wanted to leave her for about a year when I met the W but had never had the courage.

Kenmoore, what I mean to say is that I wanted to leave the previous relationship but I couldn't bring myself to hurt her. I don't mean I didn't have the courage to cheat, I have always felt that's a line I would not cross.

It was only when I met MrsBHunt that I realised there was more to life than that and had a reason to go. I left quickly after discovering those feelings and waited two months before I met up with MrsBH so I could be sure my feelings were genuine and that it wasn't merely a rebound.

Let me know if you would like any other details.

I wrote a lot of things to the OW in my sitch, and I always tore them up and threw them away afterwards. So I understand how cathartic this is for you. But don't send it, for a few reasons:

Way too long, buddy!

But mainly because the OM doesn't feel guilty. His mindset is that he's getting something that he's entitled to, and if it's coming from your WW, well, you 'should have taken better care of her.'

He has no business nor interest in the state of your M, whether you were having difficulties or not. And you need to lose this mindset that you were having difficulties, ergo, she had an affair. That's not why she had an affair. ALL marriages have 'difficulties' in one way or another. But not everyone runs out and has an affair in response to those difficulties.

He doesn't care if he hurts you, your wife, your family or the man in the moon.

He doesn't care whether your morals align with his.

You need to talk to this guy, but not like this. And not hiding behind an email. He needs to know that Hell's got a fuse, and he just lit it.

So...how do you have a conversation like this without risking legal action, if it's taken as a "threat"? I mean, it IS a threat, not necessarily for violence but the threat of other stuff. It just can't seem like too direct of a threat, right?

Admittedly we now live in a society fraught with litigation however confronting a man or woman who had inappropriate contact with your spouse is one I wouldn't worry a whole hell of a lot about. Step up my man, which would you be afraid of: a lawsuit from third party or loosing your spouse?

Stuck,

I had several telephone conversations with the OM. I was very direct. I said that I would never allow my kids to cross state lines which is what needed to happen for my wife to be together with him; that he was not a man to dishoner his wife and kids like he was doing. I told him that he was a POS and that he had no idea of the consequences of his actions.

I told him that I was p*ssed, and that this was going to turn ugly in ways that he couldn't imagine. But I never told him exactly how, which kept me on the right side of the law.

I do think it is important for the OM to see how angry you are, and that you will expose him for the POS he is, and how miserable you will make his life if he continues to be a scum bag.

And to be perfectly honest, I believe there are times when a man must fight for what is right. And there is nothing wrong with having a "day of reckoning" talk with another man.

Berkley, welcome to MB. I see you have been receiving some GREAT advice already.

I want to touch on your WW's job. I read her thread and it seems that she feels like you two have agreed that she will keep that job and try to work from home or at least until she finds something else. What if she doesn't find that new job for MONTHS?
It seems that YOU are CERTAIN that she is getting rid of that job. So which is it?

I guess the poor widdle adulterer is just going to have to hie himself down to the police station and file a complaint that BS is threatening him to quit boinking his wife.

Mike, thanks for the clarification.

Point taken.