Discovery Day was June 1. Email from my boss accidentally ended up in my husband's email box. Affair was only 6 weeks long, but my boss had been working subtly on me for years. Not an excuse, just an explanation. Since the Discovery Day, I have not seen, spoken to, or heard from him. My husband and I have met with our pastor, a counselor, and have spent hours talking this through. We have good and bad days. I am finding it almost impossible to forgive myself for the pain I caused this wonderful man I'm married to.

If you have advice for me, I would appreciate it.

You're a WW (wayward wife)...are you your boss' other woman? Is he married? Does his wife know? You should post on surviving an affair, not recovery (yet) and I suggest you focus on your marriage by identifying yourself as a WW, but be honest about your role as an OW, too.

Were you fired from your job? Or did you quit?

Hi Eureka-
Welcome. You are the "Wayward Spouse" to your husband. You are only the other woman if your boss is married.
You might want to move your post to the Forum -" Surviving an Affair"- as this is for people who are dealing with all the initial problems of discovery.

As a betrayed spouse myself- the only advise i can give you - is to stop focusing on forgiving yourself right now- and work on helping your husband heal from the pain you have caused him.
This is the most painful experience that humans can experience.
He will need you to give him constant reassurance of how much you love him and what a mistake the affair was.
Buy and start reading "Surviving an Affair" by Dr. Harley and read all about his program on this website.
Good Luck,
Sunflower

Do you and the OM still work for the same company?
Does the OMW know?
Have you sent a NC letter to the OM?
How have you established NC?

I admit that I don't know what all the initials mean in the posts I've been reading, but since the person I had the affair with is married, I actually am the OW.

My husband and I have spent hours talking about this experience. We've read as much as we can stand on the topic and I have tried to be as honest as I can about everything that happened. I often don't want to be honest, but know I have to be. He told me this week that he is satisfied that he has heard enough and that my willingness to share means more to him at this point than any more details.

I did not lose my job. I am not sure, but my boss may have. He has not been back at the workplace since about a week after the Discovery Day (I went away with my husband to attend a conference with him right after). There was a sexual harassment investigation and I received a letter of reprimand. My boss, I was told, will be demoted if he returns to the workplace, and will not be in the same building as I am.

I am still in shock that I did such a thing. I was not aware that I was unhappy with my marriage and then, it seemed, found myself in an affair with someone I didn't even like for awhile. It's a long story, but he admitted to me after the affair started that he had been trying to be my "friend" for several years. I don't know why I finally sucuumbed, but I did. It went from emotional to physical very quickly, but fortunately God intervened before I actually slept with him. My husband received the email from my boss that was supposed to go to me. Neither of us have any clue as to why that happened except by divine intervention. I regard the Day of Discovery as the Day of Deliverance for me.

It was difficult telling our adult children. My coworkers do not really know what happened and I had to tell them to stop talking to me about the boss, which I know left them wondering. I did tell one of my coworkers the details so that she could help me if he ever showed up unannounced in the building. His office has yet to be cleaned out which causes me some stress, and not knowing what his status is has also caused anxiety.

My husband initially told me that any contact with my boss would mean our marriage would be over. A couple of weeks later, he told me that he had lied and that even if I had another affair, he would never want me to leave, that he loved me too much to ever lose me.

So, I am doing what I can do to make him feel secure. I encourage him to track my movements using the GPS in my cellphone. I encourage him to drop by my workplace whenever he wants to. I leave him notes when I go for walks in the morning before he wakes up. I am trying to be what I should have been all along--a great wife who looks to keeping her husband feeling loved and secure.

However, as I said before, even though my husband has forgiven me,and my pastor assured me of God's forgiveness, I still am so ashamed of what I did. I had a great marriage (31 years), a beautiful home, 3 great children (all adults, one with autism), and a job I loved. My affair jeopardized everything. If this affair was God's way of bringing me closer to Him, it was successful, but I grieve for the peace that I felt just a few months ago that I feel I will never feel again. I always thought I was a pretty decent person but now I know better.

Just a quick follow-up: my boss's wife was informed several days after my day of discovery. She emailed me and my husband responded to her email. She claimed that women simply find her husband irresistible and that this wasn't the first time and that it was basically all my fault.

The affair came about gradually. He had been spending more and moe time hanging around me at work, but being my supervisor, could find ways to justify it. The breaking point for me was when his daughter in law became seriously ill and he was out on extended leave helping care for her and her son's children. He began texting me updates about her status which migrated into updates about his own status and the texts became an almost constant thing. I should have stopped him then, but felt like he was under a lot of stress and thought his texts were kind of like keeping a blog and didn't really have much to do with me. When I did see him again, I hugged him and then every day when I saw him, I hugged him which eventually led to kissing and some other physical stuff.

How was I handling my real life with my husband? My husband says that he was pretty unaware that anything was going on except that I seemed a little distant. I was struggling to be a good wife and also doing quite the opposite when I was out of his sight. Every Sunday I begged God to help me and then when Monday rolled around, I was hugging and kissing the wrong man. I consider the affair to have been six weeks long, but in reality, I was probably involved in an emotional affair long before that , but wouldn't admit it to myself. Of course I enjoyed his attention--he was the boss in a workplace full of women. We really did work well together and planned things that benefited everyone at the office. The affair, however, was a disaster from day one.

I am thankful that it is likely that I will never see him again. I am uncomfortable knowing that there is someone out there who was actively lusting after me (he proposed we get a hotel room and I had managed to resist but if the affair had persisted, I have no doubt I would have caved in). I think I was in love with him, but now feel nothing for him. My husband is puzzled because all the infidelity sites say I should be in a deep depression missing this person, but I'm not. My grief is about the harm I've caused my husband (and perhaps my boss's wife) but not about him.

Eureka-
Your boss's wife is blaming you bc it is too difficult for her to blame both you and her husband.

You need to establish NO CONTACT with the boss. You need to write a letter to him stating that you will never speak to him or see him again. Your husband needs to read it and you need to mail it together.

This is the first step to healing after an affair for both of you. Dr. Harley says that the wayward spouse can NEVER see their affair partner again- even if this means changing jobs.

Also - no matter what you husband says- it would just cause him extra pain and worry if you saw the other man again.
Sunflower

Hi Eureka, welcome to Marriage Builders. It sounds like you have done all the right things so far that will set the stage for recovery. You have told your H the truth, ensured the OM's wife knows the truth and have stopped working with the OM.

Can you send your husband here?

The only red flag I see here is if the OM returns, you won't be able to recover your marriage. If you do see him, it will set your progress back to Day 1 of recovery and the recovery will stop. This is why no contact for life is absolutely essential to the recovery of your marriage. If you do remain in contact with him - even at work - your H should consider separation. We don't know of any marriage that recovered when the affairees still saw each other, but we have numerous examples of affairs that continued this way, many leading to divorce. Even the cases where the affairs didn't resume, the recovery stopped because the affairee went right back into the fog.

And I will explain why. An affair is an addiction very much like alcoholism or drug addiction. In an affair, every contact, whether it be in person, on the phone, email, or even looking at each other's facebook page triggers the feelings that led to the affair. It is the equivalent of an alcoholic taking a drink and sitting in the bar. The first drink is the trigger and eventually it leads to another binge.

That is what happens with ANY contact, no matter how innocent it seems. Even seeing him in the hallway or seeing his emails will be a trigger that will prevent recovery. Those feelings you once had for him can and will come back if any contact resumes. Not even changing the name of the contact to "professional contact" will prevent the fog from coming back. So, if you are tempted to try and work at the same company again, let me disabuse you of that idea quick.

A betrayed husband called Dr Harley about this very issue recently and here is the radio clip - the husband couldn't figure out WHY his marriage would not recover: radio clip <----please play this for your husband.

So that is the first issue I would suggest you address with your husband. Have a plan in place in case he does come back. Plan to leave the company. No job is worth losing your marriage. No job is worth hurting your husband like that again.

Secondly, most marriages do not recover from adultery. Most stay together and limp along in a crippled state of the pre-affair marriage. They are more vulnerable to an affair AFTER the affair than before it. That is why it is so imperative to transform your marriage and create a romantic relationship again. Ending the affair is only STEP ONE of many steps.

That is done by EARNING your husband's forgiveness by giving him what Dr Harley calls Just Compensation. These steps are what will transform your marriage. But if unwarranted forgiveness is just handed over and the affair is swept under the rug, your marriage will worsen and your H will live with a great deal of resentment.

Dr Harley explains it here in his article "Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?"

continued here

Recovery Cliff notes in the next post...

Here is the Cliff notes version of recovery, but you should get the book Surviving an Affair and follow the program in there:

here

Not exactly as they say in the aflac commercial. Many WW can take 6 months to get over their addiction to the OM.

Many is not most.

Many a WW defogs instantly on Dday.

Again many is not most.

There is no normal on defogging as applied to individual. As an individual you and your BH are lucky that the addiction for the OM disappeared immediately.

This is why your husband is confused on this point. Nothing for him to worry about, or you.

Though rare, I personal think SOME (not all) wayward spouses in your situation (short term affair with persistent pursuing OP, praying for a way out...autistic child at home so the fantasy escape had even more allure, etc.) don't go through withdrawal but rather getting busted is a relief. It sucks and they remain vulnerable and "no contact" is a must but for some "withdrawal" is relatively mild. We don't know what the future holds for you as you may yet go through it as you did have a longer emotional affair with this individual and you may yet still see him since he's not really completely gone from your workplace (i.e.- No Contact is not firmly in place yet).

Along those lines. No Contact. You must diligently remind yourself that you don't need "closure" with this guy. It's so easy for a recently wayward spouse to justify just "one last conversation to put it all to rest" or as it's called here "closure contact" which is sometimes anything but. Sure some trying to be "former" waywards walk into closure contact with the confidence that it is really going to end and it does...but others fail. It's a gamble your marriage can't afford not to mention it's hurtful and another deliberate hurtful betrayal of your husband.

What you need to do is trouble shoot a "no contact plan" with your husband given multiple possible scenarios. You and your husband should strategize what you are to do should OM walk into your office again. What do you do if he tries to corner you for a quick conversation? What if he calls you office phone? Follows you to your car in the parking lot? Etc. I will tell you in advance it is MUCH easier to explain that you hung up at the sound of his voice or walked away without saying a word when he tried to corner you than it is for anyone (your husband) to believe you when you say "honest, we only talked for a couple minutes and I told him to leave me alone". You see...if your husband isn't there he's not going to trust that you didn't say more, that their wasn't covert planning going on or even flirtatious non-verbal eye contact or touching. Running/walking away deliberately is much more convincing than "we only talked for a minute".

OM is not deserving of final contact. He's over and done with. Your husband and his feelings are all that matter right now as you START recovery and attempt to rebuild this marriage.

Anyway...my wife and I both post here and we're a long way down the road ahead of you. We owe our marriage and recovery to this website and specifically this forum. Hope to see you here for years to come also.

Mr. Wondering

Your affair WAS NOT from God. How HE chooses to utilize this horrible mistake for His glory, will be.

Today was very difficult. I told my husband about my posts and encouraged him to read them. He was very upset that I wrote "I thught I was in love" with my boss. He says I hadn't said that before; I was sure I had. No matter, he was hurt just the same. I also felt that it was time for me to tell him EVERYTHING, something I had successfully dodged up to this point. It wasn't pretty, and he was pretty shaken by the end of the confession. I have felt all along that if I tell him everything, he will no longer love me and the marriage will be over. I know now that that isn't true, but it was a pretty scary experience.

Someone asked me what steps we have gone through. I have changed my cellphone, cancelled the email account that he used with me, taken down my Facebook page, and asked coworkers not to talk about him around me (I only mentioned this to 2 of them, but no doubt word spread). I am thinking of calling my boss's boss tomorrow and asking her when his office will be cleaned out and where he will be working. I am also going to seriously look for another job, as difficult as that will be in this economy.

My husband and I have been on two trips together, and will be taking another at the end of this week. We have been spending a lot of time together, and that has helped us both. I feel guilty that we are essentially ignoring our adult son with autism, but am hopeful that we will eventually be able to give him the time and attention he needs. He was recentlay diagnosed as possibly bipolar; however, my husband and I both feel that the distress he has exhibited is just a reflection of what's going on with his parents. He has always fed off of my emotions, and they have been off the charts the past few weeks.

Will post more later. My husband feels like today was the true Day of Discovery, so we have a lot more to work through and I appreciate having this forum to help us. Our therapist was not that helpful, and our pastor seems to have forgotten our crisis, so we feel that we are mostly on our own, as has been the case throughout most of our marriage.

Most therapists, and I bet most pastors, too, have no idea how to save a marriage after infidelity. The best solution would be to spend the money on the Marriage Builders counseling center. Sure it will seem pricey at first, but from all I have heard from the folks on this forum, they go right to the heart of the matter and will truly help you. If we had discovered MB back during my H's first infidelity and started really using MB principles, we would have had a much better marriage from years ago and saved ourselves much heartbreak later on.

Because we were both on board with MB principles, the forum folks suggested we could go with the Online Program and that's been very helpful.

Kudos for telling your betrayed husband the entire truth. He deserves to know what he needs to deal with.

Now is the time to get your BH to sign up here.
Then stay off each other's threads for the time being.
Both of you then will have a safe place to come for help and vent. Better to vent here then at each other.

Eureka, doing things to make your marriage stronger is the best thing for your son. Your marriage should always come first and that is for his benefit. In order to recover the romantic love in your marriage, Dr Harley suggests 20+ hours per week of undivided attention meeting the top 4 intimate emotional needs of affection, conversation, rec companionship and sexual fulfillment. That is time spent without kids, friends, TV, etc. That will change the dynamic in your marriage the fastest. Dr Harley said this about UA time:

"I have yet to witness a single failure (to restore the feeling of love) when I've been able to motivate a couple to meet these four emotional needs for each other." [Effective Marriage Counseling]

And I applaud you for getting all the truth out to your husband. Yes, it did put you back to Day 1, but at least now you can go forward. You are doing a good job, Eureka.

Yeah Eureka. Good job.

Hope to meet Mr. E soon.

My wife and I took a roadtrip and listened to Dr. Harley's His Needs, Her Needs on the radio [cd - audio version]

Mr. W