Recently found out my wife was having an affair with a younger co-worker. I had suspected something over the past couple months and even asked her on 3 occasions if she was having an affair. Of course she denied it. Finally I caught her on the phone in our living room while she thought I was sleeping saying to him, "Where is this relationship going, are we going to just remain friends?" She told me it was just an attraction and nothing happened between them and I was ready to forgive her and work on fixing our marriage. I couple days later I did some investigation into her phone records and found 1000's of text msgs and phone calls to and from each other at all hours of the night (non-work hours). I confronted her asking if she has been in contact with him outside work hours since I found out about the affair a couple days before. She denied it, I told her I knew she was lying and I wanted the truth. She at that point admitted that she had slept with him 2 times and I put on my shoes and left the house.

My first thought was to bail on my marriage as I had always said I would never stay with anyone that did that to me. But I as I started to calm down and process everything I wanted to at least consider the thought of saving our marriage.

This site has given me great insight and is going to help me prepare for my first confrontation with my wife in the next couple weeks. I'm still not ready to talk to her as I am completely heartbroken.

I thought my wife would do the right thing and quit her job. I know her friend asked her way she didn't quit and she to her that if I did in fact leave her that she would need her job to be able to support herself.

She not only works with this person but works closely with him, they sit like 10ft from each other and need to communicate constantly.

Her friend told me that she broke off the relationship but the fact remains that everyday she goes to work, she is with him.

My wife has had some unhappiness in jobs in the past few years and right before I found out about the affair she was telling me how much she loves her new job.

My question is if i do decide to make an effort to save my marriage how do i ask her to quit her job without her resenting me?

Reading articles on this site say its best to get her to quit and remove the lover from her life otherwise those feelings that she has for him will just linger and make the process of saving our marriage very difficult for both parties.

I want my wife to be happy but making her quit would seem to be the only way for me to feel sane and for her to show me that she wants to fix our marriage.

but at the same time will me making this sort of demand make her resent me?

Even if she says it's over and she is only dealing with him on a work/professional basis they sit together in meetings all day and chat via text and email so I have no way of knowing exactly what they relationship is like. Which is causing me to obsess about everything.

Non-negotiable for marital recovery after an affair: Wayward spouse commits to NO CONTACT (of any kind - in person, phone, email) with affair partner. Quitting a job is a small thing to do to save a marriage.

If your wife gets angry or resents your request that she quit her job, you can be certain she is placing the other man first and your marriage second. The affair is still on, at some level or another. Even if they are just chatting now, it is a short step to having sex again.

If you have not read Dr. Harley's articles on this site, take a look at them. Also, get the book "Surviving an Affair". It describes exactly why no contact for life is necessary.

AM

THANKS AM for the quick response. BUT!!!!!!!How do i ask her to do that without making it a demand/ultimatum. Dr. H says to not make any demands. So do I simply tell her how it hurts me and leave it up to her to make that decision on her own?

When i first found out about the affair (when i thought it was just an attraction) she said "DO YOU WANT ME TO QUIT MY JOB" I of course said yes but no cause i knew how much she loved her job.

Now knowing that there was indeed infidelity it changes everything.

And if she says "IF YOU WANT ME TO QUIT I WILL DO THAT" would tell me that she doesn't want to but will if it helps our marriage might mean she is doing it for the wrong reasons.

Would telling her that I leave that decision up to her if she feels that is the right thing to do will that then make it not a demand from me but rather a reasonable action.

It seems that she should make that decision on her own but I understand that if things do not work out between us she will have lost the one wonderful job that has made her happy in years. Maybe the reason she loves her new job has nothing to do with the job but the guy.

The advise from this site says to do the exact opposite of what i would typically do, I would be the TAKER and say all the wrong things

"When you have this discussion, there is the Taker in you (see the Giver & Taker in my Basic Concepts) that will tell you to express your resentment over how much she has hurt you. Your Taker may even encourage you to let her lover have this ungrateful woman, so that you can find someone who will love you the way you are. You will be tempted to lose your temper, to say disrespectful things, try to straighten her out, and give her ultimatums. "

I want to avoid being like this as hard as it might be and do not want to do anything that would maybe hurt my chances to win her back.

Her resentment won't be a problem if you are divorced. Your marriage can survive her resentment, it can't survive her continued contact with the OM. If you are serious about saving your marriage, she will have to leave that job. Recovery is impossible as long as she continues to see him every day.

If an alcoholic tells you he will only have "business drinks" do you think he will ever sober up and recover? Of course he won't. It is the same with your wife. Changing the name of her relationship does not erase the fact that she is triggered every day she sees him at work.

Your marriage won't make it this way. Sorry.

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."

If they've remained in constant contact, she hasn't even begun withdrawal. So she's still effectively in the affair from the emotional-needs standpoint at the very least. (No matter what she says to the contrary. If she insisted the sun was blue & not yellow, she'd still be wrong.)

I know what I'm talking about; I tried to break off an emotional affair while remaining in contact with my affair partner. Long story short, it didn't work; it doesn't work.

Of course she'll resent it at first when you insist that this affair truly end in a way that gives you at least a chance to feel safe & protected against the possibility of its resumption. The current situation gives you no such chance.

So what if she resents it? Two things could happen then: Either (1) she'll lose the resentment and work on restoring your marriage; or (2) she'll stay resentful because the job and/or the chance to regularly/constantly interact with her affair partner will mean more to her than you do, in which case she won't be worth staying married to, and you'll have dodged the emotional bullet of staying with someone for whom you're not a top priority.
Either way, whichever happens, you will get a better outcome than if you fail to insist on this condition.

Has the affair been exposed to their employer? If not, why not? Most employers understand that affairees' working together in the workplace is a potential big ol' can o' worms, in terms of the heightened possibility of the company getting dragged into & opened up to sexual harassment, denial-of-equal-opportunity, accusations of favoritism or other legal consequences. Some companies won't want that potential liability hanging over them, and may take steps to separate the affairees by one means or another (firings, transfers, etc.)

Quitting to help your marriage IS a right reason.

"No demands" does not apply to recovery from infidelity. There are some very just demands to be made, and no contact is #1. "I require that you never be in contact in any way with OM for the rest of your life or I will not remain in this marriage," is not a demand. It's information that she needs.

I would give her an ultimatum and explain she must quit the job in order to remain married to you. You have no marriage anyway - you are condemned to a slow death of a thousand cuts this way. This is not something that should even be negotiable. Extraordinary precautions are NOT NEGOTIABLE.

It's really not that hard. When my husband told me to stop drinking 26 years ago, he said "AA OR THE HIGHWAY. QUIT DRINKING FOR LIFE OR GET OUT."

That was simple and easy enough to understand. I haven't had a drink since. That is the approach you should you take with your wayward wife. Let her know that all contact must end for life if she wants to stay married. Don't beat around the bush.

The biggest issue is not her "resentment" but YOURS, since you are the wronged party. Your resentment will grow and grow until you come to hate her if you don't do something to save your marriage:


You need to start raising the bar on your marriage if you expect to remain married. What you are doing will lead to the demise of your marriage. Being timid and complacent will avail you nothing other than a divorce.

WOW so much advise so quickly!!!! I agree with giving her the ultimatum just needed confirmation.

the employer does not know about the affair and i do not want to do anything like that just yet as i feel that will only upset her. In her trying to contact me she says that this is between just the 2 of us no one else. to me that is [censored] cause if it was just between us there would not be another man in the picture.

I was obsessing about who all the phone numbers were on her phone during the first week of my leaving her. I started to text some of the people fishing for who they were and turned out some of them were her co-workers and she got very upset, of course. I did find out some information from a girl that seemed to know the OM and knew they were having an affair, a girl that is not even a good friend of hers. her best friends didn't even know about the affair but some girl that is a bad influence on her did know. I pretended i was the other guy and this bad girl told me (thinking it was him) that my wife has been over it for a while and has checked out. so my fishing got me some valuable information even though i knew it was wrong and she would probably find out i couldn't help myself.

so for me to contact her employer might piss her off to the point that she would resent me for embarrassing her. I guess if she decides to not quit then our marriage should end and at that point telling her employer would just be to get revenge. I have thought about revenge but know that will not change anything and could land me in jail.

What about contacting this guy and telling him to stay away from her? is that just dumb cause he works with her and really is he going to change anything he is doing just cause i call him and ask him too?

I have not been in contact with my wife for almost 2 weeks now. she doesn't know where I am or who im staying with. She wants to talk but im not ready and i told her the other day that i need time to process everything and not sure how long that will be.

Do I need to get it over with and set up a place to meet and talk? Should I do it in a public place so things don't get to crazy, yelling etc? or do i only do it with a counselor there? How long can I take before facing her???

Sorry for so many questions and the long drawn out typing but feels good to lay it all out!

You need to just go home and move in. Without warning. There was no reason for you to move out. Go home and tell her that if she wants this marriage to work out, she needs to give her notice at that job and end all contact with the OM. Otherwise, this will lead to divorce.


Ok, is your goal to avoid pissing her off or is to save your marriage? You seem to be very fearful of pissing her off and that needs to stop. You need to focus on taking steps to save your marriage and stop worrying about pissing her off.

1. Go home and demand that she quit her job

2. on Monday, expose the affair to everyone, the workplace, her parents, your parents, your children, the OM's parents. NO FOREWARNING.

Affairs thrive on secrecy so keeping it a secret is the same as driving the alcoholic to the bar. Stop keeping her dirty secret and bring it out into the open.

Is the OM married? Who is this loser?

Have you read many other threads here? Maybe you can look and see what other people did and how well different strategies worked for them.

You would be entirely right to end your marriage, but because you are posting here, I am assuming that you wish to recover your marriage. So, what I am writing this toward that goal.

First, go home. Sleep in your own bed. You have done nothing wrong and there is no reason for you to have to leave your own house.

Second, tell her if she wants to remain married and recover your marriage to something better than it was before, she must quit her job. Stop worrying about whether it will tick her off. Good grief, she is having an affair. She is not the least bit worried about your feelings (no wayward ever cares about anyone except themselves).

Third, expose the affair to everyone who can influence it to end. This includes the workplace, friends, family. Yes, this will tick her off. It will also kill the affair. Affairs thrive in secrecy and die in the light of day.

Fourth, build a better marriage. Learn about Dr. Harley's concepts of the love bank and emotional needs. Read his material. It really does work, if applied.

AM

my wife 37, the other guy 27 single dude who supposedly doesn't like her. of course he doesn't like her he is 27 and single guy who is probably hi fiving all his buddies that he is having an affair with a married women he works with.

So i laugh that she is sleeping with a guy that doesn't like her and bottomline is he just wants friends with benefits.

my only worry with PISSING HER OFF is that i do not want to be a TAKER. I do not want to fuel the fire. i have already told all of my friends and her mom knows already and she seems remorseful but its hard to know if she is just tying to save face.

I know i need to go home but i guess im still on the fence if i want to save this marriage. im trying to get advise and understand what is the best thing for me. And i thought giving her time to think about her actions would be good and i needed to calm myself down so i didn't do anything i would regret like saying hateful things or lashing out in anger.

thanks melody for the advise i appreciate everything you say and you are 100% right.

i guess its sink or swim.

Read this:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=158389&Number=2296184#Post2296184

and this:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2504068&page=1

for starters. You do not have to recover this marriage. Are there any children?

Are you a conflict avoider? Because if you are unsure if you want to save the M, I don't see why you would be that concerned with upsetting your W?

Anyway, my advice to you is to move back home and do your best to kill the A, wait until your W defogs and THEN decide if you want the M or not. It's hard to make a good decision when you are dealing with a foggy wayward.

Sorry you ended up here for the reasons you did.

The truth is, she probably won't quit her job on her own, and can't. My friend, she needs to quit immediately. Even if she is no longer sleeping with him, the risk of reigniting the relationship is enormous. That said, it is not your fault she has to quit her job if she wants to remain married. It's her fault. If she hadn't been unfaithful, she could still be enjoying the job. I am sure more experienced vets will come along and help shortly...

Just to help them along... How long have you been married?
Do you have kids? How many?
Who have you exposed the affair to?

CV

and this is why you never post before reading through everything! the vets beat me here!

Why not, and how are you going to prevent it? The Taker and the Giver are part of all of us. Everyone has a Taker.

Did you read on here something saying the Giver is good and the Taker is bad?