x2!

Nana, whatever you decide, don't proceed without a PLAN. MB is very plan oriented...because when you are in distress your feelings are just going to lead you astray. Having a plan will help you get through this.

Here's an example:
~Set up snooping
~Confront WH, ask him to agree a plan to affair proof your M using ALL MB principles (EPs, transparency, no traveling, UA time, etc)
~Confront OW

Hang in there!

Right. And you hit on the reason it won't work. It was not sustainable for you in the past and won't be in the future. You have evolved beyond the superficial stage.


I think you are going to have to talk to him about it. I don't see how you can hold back. I couldn't.

Don't you know where she works? I would go pay her a little visit and tell her how it is going to be.

Ok, snooping has been set up for a while. There is nothing else.

So i am at the confronting point.

With this woman, i only have her email. Private and business. And name. Can't. Find anything else on her. No facebook, hi5, myspace, nothing.

Ufff ... Relief! We are then on the same page, thank god, i thought you too were saying to hold back.

Ok, will do so. I can't do otherwise anyway.

Of course i know where she works, but can't get in there. Maximum security stuff. I am also a bit nervous about talking to her live. If she doesn't speak english then it will be a bit tough for me. I have a hard time trying to keep calm and coherent at the same time in this stupid language. I cofronted a woman on the train about her abusive behaviour towards her kid and damn i wanted to slap myself. I sounded like i had dropped out of kindergarden

Good morning. Quick update and then i have to go get ready for work.

We had a long talk last night. Didn't start telling him directly why i was upset, but rather ask him questions about how our relationship started, how we fell in love, how we communicated. Then i asked him about another colleague of his who had been having an affair at work. He had told me about this, he had expressed lack of understanding for something like this and had talked to the guy and told him to stop. Anyway so i asked him about this man and how he thinks this relationship might have started. And so on. I was calm, no screaming, no name calling, we nev do that anyway.

At some point in e conversation he realized what this was about. Didn't have to tell him, he knew i had seen the emails. He admitted on his own that it was inappropriate and said that is why he ended the conversation. Which is true, he did. He said he was sad that i trusted him so little. So i told him that trust is not something given as a gift that you cannot take back. He did something to hurt the trust so he has to repair things. He understood and agrees that he now has to work at regaining my trust and making me feel safe in our relationship.

I feel better today. Will wait for him to get home to discuss details. I want him to write an email to this woman letting her know there is to be no more friendship contact between them. And discuss the no more travelling or less travelling. I myself have to travel to see my family. And of course i have my eyes wide open. Keylogger and all. I have access to the cell phone records. I will be back with updates.

We've got a No Contact letter if you need help with the language. It's important that he conveys to her that you are aware of this inappropriate exchange.

But you should plan on continuing to check his emails. You should never have trusted him completely in the first place.

Now he knows that you have seen them....just know he could easily take things deeper (new email accounts, various other venues)
If he is more involved with her than you realize....he can hide it a good long time knowing you are sort of on to it.
Have hope that he is being straight up with you but be fully aware he may quite possibly not be straight up and actually be a 'cake eater'. An addicted affairee who still gets much of his needs met by his spouse.
As a matter of fact, I suggest you go through the motions of working with him to shore up his boundaries as though he is being straight up with you BUT be plan A-ing in preparation for a future plan B as your approach to handling the situation. By that I mean, do not drop the ball on the plan A-ing and consider how you would go to a plan B (what it is and how to implement it) should you find the affair is an actual more in depth betrayel and a bigger mess than we hope it is for you.

Yes marital, thank you. I know the letter, i have seen it quite often around here, i will use that. And of course i will keep checking, i have no intention of closing my eyes on this.

As for transparancy i have no idea what else to demand. I have access to all accounts, passwords, everything has always been open. So are mine to him, i find that only natural. Anything else i should consider?

One more time thank you for taking time with something that is not as serious as the problems others are having here right now. I appreciate it.

Make no mistake dear nanas
you ARE having serious problems right now.
Whatever the extent of the situation, early caught or not
It is as serious as them all.

Your marriage is in trouble. It is threatened by others who wish it destroyed and your spouse is not protecting it as a good spouse should. May he have seen the light and be good now. Do not count on it. Hope for it.

Has he agreed to NEVER erase any emails or texts, that he either receives or sends?

Did you slap a keylogger on his laptop that he travels with?

Have you checked her through intelius, Spokeo or online white pages? Does your H have her phone number?

Just be advised that confronting a lowlife OP through text or email is usually not effective. It would be much better if you called her up.

Thanks susie, i will see what i can do about it. I might give her a call with my husband present. I however think i can give her a bit of a scare if i threaten her job. These people in this country don't switch jobs like dirty socks as they do in America, they hang on to one job till they retire, it is the mentality. She is making advances on a married man who happens to be in a much higher position than her. Not same team, but still it would look really bad for her.

No keylogger on work laptop. It's illegal, i don't want to risk prosecution. This is seriously not something i am willing to play with. He doesn't travel often anyway and i believe he keeps switching laptops. He doesn't travel happily either, he doesn't like to be away from home. He really loves his family, he loves spending time with us. And of course with me too. We have plenty of hobbies together.

I have just read through this thread...I don't think you can expect your husband to seriously consider this a full fledged affair if you do not...it is, it's just in the beginning stages...that you know of. You need to get across to him whatever it takes to affair-proof your marriage...if he is not willing to comply, then you know what your marriage means to him.

My XH lived 3 1/2 hours away from me...his choice. He not only engaged in affairs but even lived with them during the week, taking care to remove all traces when I would come visit him on the weekend. He sounded so caring when he suggested he travel to me instead. (of course, he didn't have to move his GF out!) I think if I would have demanded he quit his job to be with me or vice-versa, he would have refused...after all, it was his decision to live with me for five days after we married and then turn around and take a job and place right back where he came from! I think his intent was cake-eating all along. I lost the marriage...I would have lost it no matter what, but perhaps I could have spared myself the $50,000 he took me for and all of the immense heartache and hell he put me through, had I only found out what I did...sooner.

MelodyLane really knows her stuff here, ask her advice and follow it, unquestioningly. It will only help. I would consider this an affair, regardless of how far along it's progressed, and expose. He should write the no contact letter to her, it should come from him, not you. Find out if she's married, if so, her husband needs to know as well.

kay, thanks for the vote of confidence! You made my day..

Melody i have read enough around here to know who you are and value your oppinion without others having to tell me to.

Kay, i do think he is very different thsn your XH. I know him pretty well. I can tell his character from the choices he makes in life, from how he deals with others, from how he thinks about issues. I know his thought process. He is a man of his word. He believes in some traditional values in a way that many people don't these days. I see that in how he conducts himself in business. I am mature enough and have plenty of life experience so i did not marry him blinded by love. This is not and i think it will not be an affair.. Not by my deffinition. But i worried about his biundaries. If they are so weak that he will allow a woman to get on that path of conversation with him, then what will happen one day when not all his needs are being met ... You know ... Like i was telling Melody before ... That is why i came here, that is why i thought necessary to address this.

Nanas,

Welcome to MB, and wish you and your M a full recovery btw, but you should take things very very seriously because the emails border on the physical and sexual, with the risque photos being sent, which signal to me, something much more is going on.

Maybe it's not a physical affair (PA), but it is obvious that there is sexual tension between them, or that little heated exchange between them would not have happened.

All it takes is a huge lapse of judgement, or a deficiency just one day, one hour or less in keeping a good boundary up, and that sexual tension crosses over into a full blown affair.

We don't doubt your H is probably a very good man, and sometimes basically good people make HORRIBLE mistakes. You need to address this for what it is and almost was. An affair. And until a keylogger has shown you what is really going on and what kind of back and forth exists between the coworker and your husband, you still will not know.

You said yourself you worry what might happen in the future if one day all his emotional needs aren't being met. Well living like this is not a way to live, and it's time to get on board with MB principles and inact all of them.

Friend, I would snoop some more. Check out the board of Operation Investigate and see what other options you can have too. Your DH is a man of his word, but he obviously didn't keep to his word, when that explicit email exchange went on, and thankfully YOU found it! That was such a blessing in disguise!

Fwiw, I didn't marry my xh until I was 27 and several years after graduating from college. He was a guy who was once nominated by elders at our church to be a deacon. He was once one of those "good guys" and he began an emotional backslide that never stopped, because he allowed his boundaries to slip.

You can know most everything about anybody, but you still keep inner secrets. That I do know. While I trust my DH now implicitly, and know without a doubt my DH (am remarried) is not the kind of man to cheat, that doesn't mean if the conditions were ever in a perfect-storm type of sense that even his boundaries could degrade.

We practice MB concepts and he's read HNHN and we've done all the questionairres together and try to meet the 15 hours a week! But it takes work.

Keep snooping, and take precautions to make sure the boundaries are clear and kept. But don't be offended if we tell you to simply be aware, and keep your eyes open. We just want you to have the best possible chance of recovery and loving and happy future and family together.

Nanas, you are absolutely right; you should also know that we have marriages on this board where the needs of the WS were being met very well and the WS still had an affair. Why? Because he met someone who met his needs better. That is always a risk when a spouse has too many opportunies and not enough boundaries. This was the case in my marriage, the marriage of tst and SMB, and JustKim, among others. So it is not just those marriages that are struggling. Anyone that has poor boundaries is vulnerable to an affair regardless of the state of their marriage. A good marriage does not necessarily compensate for poor boundaries, in other words.

p.s. when I say the needs of the WS in these cases were being met very well, I am not just going by the claims of the BS. All of us coached with Dr Harley and/or a MB coach and this was ascertained by them.

Exactly as Melody Lane said! My xwh and I didn't have a bad marriage at all. It was (when I found out) actually quite good at the time, or so I thought. We had built a gorgeous home and had a small child and were wanting another child when I had the rug pulled out from under me.

It came down to a man with poor boundaries, simple and plain. I also thought that it could never happen to me.

I thought wrong. And the people helped me here through my situation and on to the other side. Sometimes boundaries slip so far they never recover and that's what happened to my xwh.

But you have a blessing and that is that you have a chance to end this before things go much further! So give this thing a chance.

We wish you very well and only want your recovery in your marriage!!

Melody and peach i am not offended by your advice. I am listening. I am keeping my eyes open, of course. Snoopingwise.

I am amazad you guys are up at this time of day. Aren't you over in the US?

I have to run to kwork now. Have a good night! Or day?!