Hi Melody

Thanks for your advice. I have spoken to the other doctors wife and she does know. My understanding is that they are working hard on their marriage. I agree that whilst my wife and the doctor see each other at work it is difficult. Also we live in a very small community (1500) so it is impossible for everyone not to see each other in the shops, social functions etc. Maybe we will have to leave the area and start again. This is not something we can do immediately, even if my wife would agree to it. There was a chance to get the other doctor out of here, but the moment has passed for the moment and I dodn't know how I could compell him to leave now.
The builders wife does not accept that the relationship between my wife and her husband was an affair, just an emotional support and deep friendship. This is the attitude of the builder and of my wife. Maybe they are correct but I feel their behavior drove a deep wedge between my wife and I.
Are there any other behaviours, things I could do meantime to help our situation? She said yesterday that she is very angry at everything, and is angry with everyone and just wishes she could go off by herself and leave the kids and I.
Thank you

Hi Itistoughlove,
OK I agree that technically I had an affair myself, but I always reationalised that by saying that the marriage was over from both parties point of view before I started dating her, and she was divorced very soon afterwards. In my mind they were divorced before I got involved, and neither of them wanted anything more to do with the other. Maybe I am deluding myself.
I got involved with her because she was great to talk to, fun to be with, I met her emotional needs and she met my emotional needs, we did lots of fun things together, also she was quite needy and I felt good providing those things for her.
I agree she seems to be a serial cheater. She does not seem to want to address that or to leave me so we are stuck in a bad place.
I am not clear which bit of Dr Harley's plan you refer to, it all seems so much to deal with, I am really tired.
thank you for your advice

That may be the solution, since your marriage will never recover as long as they continue to see each other. I have never seen a marriage recover this way in the 10 years I have been here and Dr Harley - with 40 years experience - says it is hopeless. But you already know this, because you can see that nothing you do makes any difference. And it won't unless she gets out of there.

I would take a more global approach to all this and offer her a major overhaul plan. Sell your house and move to a new town. If she doesn't take it, you should follow through and move away. [hoping she will follow you eventually] Fiddling around the edges will get you nowhere and you basically have nothing to lose if this doesn't work. I say that because this is hopeless unless some major changes take place.

As it is now, she has all the power in your marriage. That is like allowing the drunk to drive the car. My suggestion is that you take the wheel back and drive your family out of the storm. She can either get in the car or she can stay behind. But either way, you will be taking back control of your life.

I would have a serious talk with her and explain how it is going to be.

Set her down and explain to her that you want to have a romantic, loving, SAFE marriage and that you are not willing to settle for less and won�t stay in a loveless marriage. Tell her you are willing to give her an opportunity to earn your forgiveness. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. Otherwise this is headed towards divorce. This is what it will take to keep you interested:

1. ending contact with the OM for life - leaving her job and moving to another town

2. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc

3. no more opposite sex friendships or nights apart

4. complete honesty about her affair<s> � passing a polygraph

5. commit to a program of recovery that restores the romantic love in your marriage

Tell her "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage."

Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on her willingness and ability to make radical changes. Her lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. She is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. She must also meet your emotional needs in a way that until now she has failed. Unless she makes a 180 degree turn in her approach to what it means to be a wife, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if she won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage. Unless she makes dramatic changes, your future will be a death of a thousand cuts.

Did you confirm with her exhusband he was 100% sure he wanted a divorce? Marriages that start before the first marriage is complete usually have a form of lies, lies by omission, and other hidden baggage. Any person willing to date another before the divorce is complete usually does not respect marriage and vows taken.

This rationalization is your downfall. Thinking and believing this deep in your heart demonstrates a renter mentality. This will continuously lead you and your wife down a path of adultery, divorce, or both.

buyer, renter, freeloader


MelodyLane gave you the perfect Plan to save your marriage. Following it exactly will save your marriage. Any deviations will continue to cause heartache. It will be up to you to set the path, and your wife to follow.

The battle for your marriage now begins. It will be the hardest work you will ever do in your life, and in the end the most rewarding as well. It starts and ends with you. This is your time to make the changes you need to as the man, leader, and father of this family.

Hi Melody
I think you plan is a good one, except that at present I think she would call my bluff and stay put here and let me move away. Then she could tell everyone that I left her and deserted the children. Also I cannot bear the prospect of not living in the same house as my daughter.
The more I think and read about all this the more I realise that my wife is still in love with the OM. I can understand that whilst she has regular contact with him at work and maybe also by rtext that nothing is going to change.
I have installed a keylogger on the family PC and am investigating VAR and ways to access her texts/mail. Maybe evidence will help?
She seems really lost, the fog you mention seems well and truly enveloping her. Call me stupid but I am sorry for her,and want to help her. By doing so I will help trhe person I love and restore our family and help me, but very much in that order. I signed up for richer and poorer etc and consider myself a buyer. What happens when a buyer is attached to a freeloader or renter?
I am trying to meet her emotional needs, but she is unwilling to let me, maybe I am trying to compete with the OM? I am also eliminating entirely all the love busters, and know that I have been guilty of not doing this in the past. I am trying to validate her statements so far as possible and not invalidate any, also avoiding any anger at all.
If I can get proof that the affair is continuing maybe I can change the job situation. I'll work on that.

RM, I would most certainly tell everyone about the affair AND take your daughter with you. What I am suggesting IS NOT A BLUFF. You really should do this. The thing is that this is the only way to save your marriage. You have to move away from her. You really have nothing to lose. Her affair will crumble, and when that happens, she will move to be with you.


We already know this. And it is meaningless. Things may change if you do as I outlined. And if they don't you will be in a better position that before.


It is good to garner evidence. And I think you believe you think the affair is over. I don't think it is.


Yes, she is lost and that is why I suggested you move away. That is the best way to help her. You can't help her by staying there. Enabling is not helping. If you move, she will be there alone with the consequences of her bad choices. And she is more likely to hit bottom. So my plan is the most compassionate plan because it is the most likely to acheive recovery, her personal recovery and the recovery of your marriage.

See, even if you do undercover the continued contact and get her to quit her job, you will still be working wtih the OM and you will still live in a small town where she is perpetually triggered. That will not work.

RM, do you ever listen to Dr Harley on the radio show? This is exactly what he recommends in these kinds of situations where the affair happened in a small town or the OM lives in the same neighborhood. Have you thought about sending him an email? You can send an email to his radio show and he will answer your questions on the radio.

Mel has given you a great plan and your WW will only call your bluff if it is a bluff. Addicts sometimes need to hit rock bottom before realising what is good for them, so leaving her behind is a good way to let her do that.

Mel - do you think he needs to expose more, i.e. to the builder and how much more of a Plan A do you think he needs? Do I understand right in that while leaving, he is still doing a distance Plan A

As you say he needs to get her away from the other men...

Yes I will do this. Good idea. Thank you

I have been reading lots of the other posts and things are making more and more sense.
I am also understanding the abbreviations better!
I am now sure that my WW continues her affair, maybe not physically, but emotionally and that she is having regular contact my text and e-mail. She is unbelievably posessive of her iphone, uses it all the time and never lets it out of her site. We did an updat on itunes yesterday, following which she could not get e-mails on the phone and she went mad and pretty much accused me of tampering with the phone.
I wondered if anyone could give me more info about "brain fog" both in WW and BS? My WW is angry, disineterested in lots of household and family things and has "regressed into adolescence" wearing jeans and hoodies, listening to 80s music and reading teen type fantasy fiction. She also is dredging up all manner of petty incidents from the past to justify how awful I am, and is hypercritiacl of tiny things (this moring for instance I had apparently opened two jars of salsa concurrently and this was taking up too much room in the fridge). She is also graing great emotional support from my stepdaughter (17 yrs) lots of hugs and long chats lying in bed together, and has no physical or eye contact with me. The more I understand that this behaviour is normal in WW the easier it gets to deal with. Any references to articles about how WW behave? Also what is brain fog in BS?
Many thanks
RM

Enabling is not helping.
Melody, could you expand on that, and what is triggering?
Thank you so much for all your advice

Hi, I am not a vet (newbie myself) but it is unlikely the vets will get here until morning (my timezone anyway!) Until they arrive, my understanding of enabling is shielding the WS from the consequences of the affair, so in some sense encouraging it. In other words, you are protecting your WW, allowing her to think all is okay in her affair bubble, that everything will turn out alright for everyone despite her selfish actions. By exposing the affair, removing children and yourself, you would be clearly showing her just what divorce and life without you would be like. She would see the consequences of her choice to have an affair. And the reality would likely not be as cosy as she anticipated.

That is my perspective, now hold on until Melody and co arrive with their wisdom!

My understanding of plan A is to try to see what needs the OM is fulfilling for her and try hard to meet these needs for at least 6 months. Is that right? I am working on that although with her not really communicating and being angry at present that is not eary, if I showed her the EN questionnaire she would laugh at me.
Leaving is just not an option at present, I would have to give three months notice, houses are not selling here right now (our neighbours have been trying to sell for 2 yrs, and we have a kids in her exam year. I fully understand the advice to move, and have broached the subject with my WW but will need to work on it. I understand that this is your firm advice but it is not possible now, maybe later.
Is it possible that my WW is in the rejection phase of the affair, I would like to learn more about how people behave in that phase, for instance if the affair is really over (and I accept that it may not be and am going to gather evidence if possible) but lets assume it is, and she is in the rejected stage and feeling guilty and angry and trapped etc, how should I deal with it? For instance I got slammed last night for not putting the chickens away properly, and was told i could not be trusted to do anything, that we should get rid of all the chickens (they are our youngest daughters pride and joy) and also that she "just can't cope anymore". My reaction was to say I was sorry that the chicken putting away had not gone right and would she mind coming down the garden with me this evening to show me what to do. I didn't tell her she was rude, unreasonable, making a mountain out of a molehill, etc etc as I felt that would just inflame things. Was this the right thing to do. I asked her why she was so angry and if I coulddhelp, but she wouldn't tell me.
Should I be confronting her with the damage she is doing to our family? When I have done so before she says it is all my fault for giving her a s**t marriage and never making her happy.This apparently justifies her tearing our family apart, although I realise now that I did not meet all her EN and probably did neglect her, I was never so very awful and have comitted to doing things differently.
Our older children are caught in the middle, one is about to leave home and is desperate to get away and out of the situation, the other is in her last year at school and is taking her mothers part and rejecting me, despite my attempts to be level and calm and kind to her, and our youngest is aware byt unsure what is happening and is living in the present as only youngsters can do - lucky her!
I'm hanging in there, but talking a lot of abuse.

thank you caracal, that makes sense.

I have been reading lots of the other forums. I am so impressed by peoples strength and committment to thier marriages, and to their spouses. It really does give me strength asnd courage to know that what I am experiencing and feeling is common and can be rationalised and perhaps sorted out.
My WW is still living in our house, although sleeping in the spare room. Much of the time she is exhaused and does little of the things she used to like to do. She is very angry, mainly with me, although it is her that had the affair, and me who is being forgiving and trying to heal our situation. I have not thus far been able to determine whether or not the emotional part of the affair has finished but don't see any way she can be having a physical affair. She is also very foggy brained, although she used to be razor sharp. She sleeps a lot, and spends long hours on her iphone texting or surfing. She does not like talking to be about anything, except logistics, and frequently sits with her head turned away from whilst speaking. When we try to speak about our marriage she just says it was s**t and that she does not want to be her any more. My memory is that we had lots of good times, although latterly things were strained by her close friendship/emotional affair with another man.
I wondered if it was normal to go through stages of different emotions after emerging from an affair, similar to the stages of grief after a bereavement? If so what are they and can a spouse be helped through the stages to recovery?
Melodylane has suggested that we move away from the job, where the OM still works, and from the small village where we life, but it is not so easy to do that, and if I moved unilaterally I would not be able to take my 9 yr old daughter, and it would be my actions which ultimately split up the family.
As my WW is not showing any signs of actually moving out of the house, what can I do to keep rebuilding our relationship by myself? I am fully signed up to avoiding love busters and trying to fulfill her needs, although one sided conversations are hard to keep up!

The affair has gone underground. Are you saying they still work together? If that's the case, she's not in withdrawal at all.

The same thing happened in my sitch. The OWH was really turning on the heat, although still not exposing. So my H and his OW agreed to lay low until the heat died down. They were still emailing, getting notes to each other, and seeing each other at the office during the day.

The affair didn't end until OWH exposed and she quit her job.

I suspect that dealing with a divorce and your DD's emotional fallout over the destruction of her family would be a lot more difficult than finding another job.

Hi Maritalbliss
Yes this makes great sense. I suspect they are laying low, and are still in e-mail/text contact. I am working on how to demonstrate this, but not sure what to do if I can get proof.
When you say the OWH exposed, what exactly did he do,and how did he go about it?
How did the exposure help your situation?

He sent a certified letter to H's employer. H's employer called him into his office. It was a disaster. H almost lost his job. But it was also the best thing that could have happened. The affair was killed that day.

My only criticism of his exposure was that he only exposed to me after that. He knew about it for months prior to exposure and didn't say anything. Why? Because he was afraid his WW would leave him if he exposed. His WW did not leave him after exposure. I hope every BS who is afraid of their wayward will take note of this!

[/quote]
My only criticism of his exposure was that he only exposed to me after that. He knew about it for months prior to exposure and didn't say anything. Why? Because he was afraid his WW would leave him if he exposed. His WW did not leave him after exposure. I hope every BS who is afraid of their wayward will take note of this! [/quote]
I can really relate to that fear. I have been treading on eggshells these last 9 months being nicer than pie, avoiding all lovebusters and trying to meet her needs. Not really getting anywhere at all with this approach. Wondering how to shake her out of her complacency. Am I being too nice? If she just walking all over me, enjoying the security of our home and my income and our children? Would giving her an ultimatum help? I.E commit to having a serious try at making our marriage work or I am going to file for divorce? Or is this just what she has been trying to provoke me into doing by her behaviour (withdrawn, angry, rude, unhelpful, critical etc)
I am a bit alarmed at how many of the threads on the forum seem to not have a happy ending.
I am trying tio stay positive, but not easy in the face of day after day hostility.

Hi RM, the ones that happy endings are the ones that take decisive action against the affair. Unfortunately I don't see that happening here at all. Plan A means doing your best to kill the affair and get your family away from there. Have you done anything in that regard? Does the OMs wife know the affair is ongoing? Have you spoken to human resources?

I would start taking some action here, most especially DEMANDING that your wife end all contact and leave that job. Plan a is only supposed to last 6 months TOPS and you are well over the limit in a very ONE sided appeasing plan a. It is time to plan to move and go into plan b. The affair just becomes more and more entrenched this way.