This is a bit after the fact, but between snow storm and power outages I couldn't get here. But I could still use some help, and maybe there are others who this thread may help...

My WH started a new job 13 months ago and it was great knowing that POSOW didn't know where he was or how to reach him... Well, the POSOW managed to do a little investigative work and figured out where my WH's new job is. From there she figured out his email address... So she sent a little love note to him last month. He immediately showed it to me. I told him to delete and ignore it. I was going to ask all of you for your opinion, but really didn't feel like she was worth spending much time on at this point. And I thought delete and ignore would be enough.

Two weeks ago my husband was on a business trip. This is a trigger for me - especially during this time of year. Even bigger trigger happens a few days in to the trip when I don't hear from him during the day until late afternoon. That evening I pulled up his work blackberry account (something I have access to as part of our EP's and RH). There were a few calls to information the day or 2 before. That morning HE HAD CALLED HER. They talked for over 2 hours.

I wrote him a very nasty email. I told him he wasn't welcome at home. I was so ready to shoot directly in to Plan B. But he talked me through it and calmed me down. He said it was stupid and that he regretted it, etc. etc. He still can't tell me why he felt he had to call. He started trying to tell me it was because he wanted to let her know he was very happy and that she shouldn't be emailing him, but I couldn't buy that. But once he called, now she has a phone number for him too... I am still pushing for "why". Big time. He's supposedly at a loss...

I must tell you that everything here has been wonderful this past year and a half. I thought I was going to get through this triggery time of year much better than last year and this was all behind us. Now I am a basketcase all over again.

Am I being too nice and accepting of this? Should I have put all of his clothes out on the front porch for his return and locked the door? A phone call seems like such a small infraction, but I feel like I've had the rug pulled out from under me again. I'm having a very hard time caring about meeting his EN's now that he's done this. (One of his top EN's is PA. I lost 40 pounds last year, but now I'm eating everything in sight... DS? Nope... I may have to change my screen name!!)

I find myself wanting him to hurt as badly as I do, and I know that is counterproductive. He does seem truly repentant, but he seemed that way over a year ago too.

I also want him to stop caring for the POSOW, but she's an "ex" from before me also (She's convinced that my hubby is her soul mate and that when she walked away from him 30 years ago it was the biggest mistake of her life...), so there is that "history" crap that is wrapped up in it all. I've showed him so many posts about managing those memories, but I think he likes having those memories - both the bad and the good.

So - what did I do wrong? I know what he did wrong, but I'm looking hard at how I reacted and where I am right now. I've been working MB for over 2 years now, and WH has been on board the last 18 months - up until this infraction. I went months without bringing up the A, and weeks without thinking about it. Now it's on my mind again constantly. What do I need to do to regain my sanity? How have some of you vets dealt with a breech in no contact after an extended time?

Also - what do we now do with POSOW? No contact letter take #2? (or would it be #3?) Honestly, at this point I want to call her and give her a piece of my mind, but I feel like that is too good for her - and would just make her happy that she's gotten under my skin again.

Thoughts?

He needs to immediately end his business trips, and I HIGHLY recommend he have a new job.

The reason that he called her was because once she made email contact, it was the equivalent of a hit off the crackpipe and when he was away on his trip and in withdrawal, he wanted another hit...and had the perfect opportunity to do it.

Dr Harley has written about this, how important it is that steps that must be taken to prevent ANY further contact because (a) of high the risk of the A reigniting are, (even if R has been going great!) and (b) how offensive it is to the BS.

I would present this to your H and see if he will agree:
1) Your H will need to change his phone number and email...again. Block all known email addresses from OW from the new email address.

2) Another NC letter should be sent by your H and included in there should be language to the effect that his phone number and email are being changed and any further attempts of contact by her will be met with a restraining order.

3) Integrate your lifestyles so that it would be next to impossible for him to reignite the affair (or have another one) Absolutely no more business/overnight travel, spend most of your free time together, etc.

Do you think he would agree to this? I think anything less and you will have a reigniting of the affair on your hands, not a matter of if but a question of when...especially given how persistent the OW is.

Has anyone in her family been exposed to? Is she contacting him while she is at work?

Is the OW married? And do your children know about what he is doing to you?

MelodyLane - THANK YOU! Sometimes you just need to share your insanity with this group to see an answer right in front of me. My kids knew about the affair and know what a POS this woman really is. "Exposing" this latest folly to them is a perfect opportunity for me to have 2 extremely good allies.

I have already drafted a new no contact letter. As for changing jobs, he will be keeping this one - and the travel. I'm hoping to join him on the longer trips. These weren't a problem for 26 of the 27 years and I'm pretty certain we can get back to them not being a problem again. (I don't think this is cherry picking - the majority of the affair was email and phone which could be done anywhere...)

OW is married. Poor OS and their kids. I really do feel sorry for them all. It was all exposed to her family but she really doesn't care. She's extremely selfish and gets her high from her "secret life" on the computer.

WH is home. We just had dinner. Off to UA time... I'll catch you guys tomorrow and fill you in. Thank you!

Pap, I would be certain and expose this renewed contact to the OW's husband. Are you in regular contact with him?

And please reconsider the travel problem. Traveling jobs are an invitation to an affair. That is Recovery 101. They ARE a problem due to the fact that you can't meet each others EN's when you are apart and in order to fall in love, you have to meet each others needs on a daily basis. Even short trips are very HARD on good marriages because of the detachment they cause. Dr Harley is adamant that couples never spend the night apart.

How often does he travel?

Why are YOU drafting a new NC letter? Your WH should be doing this.

Have you been snooping your WH's phone and computer? I question how the OW was able to figure out where your WH is employed. I'm wondering if he contacted HER.

A two hour conversation??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? What could they POSSIBLY talk about for TWO HOURS?? "I'm married, please don't contact me again" takes less than three seconds.

Maritalbliss - I started drafting a NC letter because I needed to figure out in my own head what I wanted to make sure it said. It's my own therapy. I have a whole file folder on my computer of letters I've written to her at various times and never sent... A journal of sorts.

Trust me, the 2 hour thing has me completely dumbfounded. Especially since I can't seem to pull out of him what they talked about. Although I know that the OW can talk and talk and talk... (Let's just say that the VAR in his car 2 years ago didn't get very much of their conversations because they were rather one sided...)

As for him contacting her with the information, I don't see that that happened. And I must admit that his response when he got her email after NC for over a year it seemed like he was rather upset it happened and that she had "found him" again. Honestly, I think with technology today if you look hard enough you can find anyone. And I do know that she went to a high school reunion this summer where she may have talked to someone who she searched out to find out what she could. Short of changing our names and going in to the witness protection program, I'm really not sure you can hide completely. We love where we live and she lives hundreds of miles away. I'm not changing things that I love in my life because she's a psychotic POSOW.

OS is fully aware of his WW's escapades. I've led him to this website and even shipped SAA and HNHN to him 2 years ago. But you have to want to do the work. We are in sporadic contact so that he can let me know when she might be headed my way or if I see something on my end. He has all but given up on the M since she insists on living in fantasyland. They have 3 young kids. She has another long distance EA going on that she found shortly after my WH stopped communicating with her. With another married man, of course...

The travel thing is a non-starter, even in my eyes. The type of job he has requires travel. He loves his job and he is miserable when he's not doing something he enjoys which destroys our relationship in many other ways. Sometimes it's just one-day trips and he leaves in the early morning and comes back late that night. Other times he is gone for up to 2 weeks. He had a trip this past March for 2 weeks and we talked, texted and emailed our thoughts every day and when he got home we were even more in love than when he left. Which is also why when I sent him a "good night" love note a couple of weeks ago and then didn't hear from him until the next afternoon the red flags had been flying in front of my face and I pulled up his work bitchberry account. I KNEW he had been talking to her.

We talk all the time about that we're so close now that we can't keep anything from each other because the other intuitively knows it... But maybe he thought he could start compartmentalizing again?... And did he use his bitchberry knowing full well that I would catch him and he wanted to be caught? He claims he was going to tell me about it, and part of me wishes I had just let him go for a few days and see if he did - or see if it would have continued. But I mentally/emotionally couldn't go there.

So, I feel like I'm starting all over again dealing with triggers, snooping and over analyzing. It sucks. And I know all too well that 2, 5 or 10 years from now this may happen again and I know I can't deal with it ever happening again. I think he really knows this time that I mean that. Although, I do wonder if I was too easy on him to get that through to him completely. Is it possible that I did Plan A for so long when the affair was going on, and even during the past year when I didn't talk about the affair when I was triggered, that I've also gotten fairly good at brushing my own other feelings aside and "acting" like nothing is wrong? Though he claims that he knows when I'm doing this. But both of us were/are afraid to say what is really on our minds if it is about the affair because we don't want to bring it up.

I'm thinking now of that analogy in one of the threads about the tree and its roots. Maybe we took down the tree, ground the stump and dug up what roots we could get to, but there are roots we missed that can sprout at will. EP's are supposed to be the poison to make sure they can't sprout. But if POSOW goes digging and finds one of the roots, she can water and fertilize it and see what happens.

Any of you out there afraid of this happening to you? How do you deal with those feelings? Even when they've changed jobs, phones, etc, do you still feel like any day the AP could just pop back up on the radar? How do you know when your WS is inoculated enough with MB principles and walking the walk well enough that they won't slip up and hurt you again?

Um, this is BS. He needs to come clean!


Couldn't agree more!


I don't think you do. We married men with bad boundaries, and will be facing this for the rest of our lives. Better to keep vigilant and keep up the MB techniques to keep that feeling of closeness ever present.

PlanAPrincess, I'm so sorry for the contact and the triggers. That really, really sucks.

My FWH knows that a 1 Second OUTGOING phone call to OW will have him out of my house no questions asked.

2 hours would have me thinking of "going bobbit" on him.

Its one thing for her to try to contact him and him calling her is another. You need to dig deeper into this.

PAP, this is the problem right here. You can't create an intimate, romantic marriage living like this. Internet communication cannot sustain a marriage. It is not the same as being together. [the divorce rate for traveling jobs is epidemic for this reason] This kind of travel makes it impossible to meet each others needs on a daily basis, which is essential to creating an affair proof, romantic marriage. This kind of travel is even hard on great marriages. Ask me, I know! Not only does it create detachment, it feeds independent lifestyles and creates opportunities for repeat affairs. Traveling jobs are an invitation to affairs. Not even Dr Harley and Joyce travel apart. I would urge you to reconsider this, for the sake of your marriage.

And have you notified the OW's husband that contact has resumed?

Being inoculated with MB principles is not protection. Real protection comes from extraordinary precautions coupled with a romantic relationship. It is not a matter of hope, but of boundaries and verification.

I contacted OW's H before I even wrote my "don't even think about coming home" email to my WH the night I pulled up WH blackberry account and saw the phone call. I wanted to let him know and also to find out if he saw any of this coming via his own espionage. He saw some bantering with her new EA "love" about my H, but nothing that would have prompted a phone call. He also filled me in on all the other crap that his POSWW has been up to.

I absolutely cannot even think about broaching "you need to change jobs again". This is a dream job that came out of the ashes at just the right time after the affair. A true gift for both of us. The job entails travel. I am going to try to go with him on longer trips whenever I can, but some of the areas he goes I will not travel due to the immunization requirements.

His lack of boundaries and independent behavior issues have subsided 99%. This was a lapse. A BIG lapse, but a lapse. In my review of the time leading up to his actions I also have re-examined that week, and the weekend prior, and see some areas where we definitely weren't being O&H with each other and didn't have quality UA time. Then there was the trip itself, his lack of sleep on that trip (I posted to sweetpea about sleep deprivation leading to reduction of willpower) and a bit of animosity that we had dealing with triggers, our anniversary (that was ruined by POSOW 2 years ago) and "their" upcoming anniversary which I am still certain was the "gut" reason for calling. We WILL talk about "why" he called. I WILL get an answer one way or another this weekend. We have 3 full days of UA, so there is no excuse not to spend a couple of hours on this topic.

I KNOW he still has feelings for her. He says he always will. But he chose me to marry and spend the last 27 years with. But that isn't good enough for me most of the time. I want every bit of his soul in love with me and I want him to NEVER think of her. But MB teaches us that unless that LB is zeroed out, that just isn't going to happen. Will he think of her less? Yes. Will he still think of her fondly? I keep trying to get him to manage those thoughts so he won't, but there is some resistance to rewriting the ancient past in his memory so that it can be what I want it to be. Should the past that happened before we were together really matter? In this case, since it was pulled up and dropped in our relationship, I believe the answer is "yes".

I went through and read again the "managing memories" thread and the "Eternal Triangle" thread. 2 of my "favorites" to go to for a shot in the arm or reassurance that I'm not alone.

Trust me. I keep wondering if I'm just an idiot to believe my WH (I removed the F, if that helps?) again and "trust" him. But at the same time I think we both learned from this experience. I learned that I absolutely cannot trust him - that he is capable of reaching out to her and hurting me. BUT he also learned that his is capable of doing this and ruining his marriage and life in the dial of a phone. That lesson is still sinking in.

In my ramblings in a journal a bit ago I just came up with an idea of making a "No Contact Contract" for him to sign for me after he sends another no contact letter to POSOW. One that states that if he ever contacts "She Who Must Not Be Named" again that he has just filed for divorce. It won't be tolerated and there will be no "get out of jail free" card or "passing go" to collect his things. Maybe it is the only way I can get him to realize that I am dead serious about this and this crap won't be tolerated.

I must say, I haven't been this angry in a really long time... I think my head knew all along that he was capable of doing this. But my heart refused to listen.

PAP:

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{PAP}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

I hope you can feel those hugs. Such a wretched mess.

So, your last line is: I knew all along he was capable of doing this (contact).

It reminds me of a moment in marriage counseling, when my FWH was hemming/hawing about cheating again, worried that he couldn't control himself. That he wouldn't "fix" his problems well enough to stop himself.

Our therapist said: You can stop it. You CHOOSE not to cheat. There is "no reason" for cheating, other than you choosing to be selfish.

It was like a cold bucket of water in his face.

He realized if he doesn't want to cheat again, he ... just ... won't. There are no secret demons forcing his behavior. Just his free will. And he can control it.

So, in terms of your WH's contact. He probably thinks he was compelled to call her. Not true. He ... made ... the ... choice.

He needs to realize that nothing forced his hand ... except his own selfish stupidity.

Think that might sink in with him?

Hope that helps ...

Hugs right back at you sweetpea!!

Ah, the selfish behavior... The "He...Made...The...Choice" to make this call. Yes, I think you've definitely nailed it here. I will try to splash some cold water on his face this weekend. We have UA time planned for tonight, but I want to focus on some other aspects then and save this for a time where we can have good vibes before and after (this weekend).

The saddest part to me is that I felt like we had already gotten there - that he understood and we were on the road to full recovery. But all it took was a bit of disruption in the love vibes (all around triggery dates/times/events) and less UA time and *bam* you're knocked back a year or more. Is it really that fragile? I think that is what scares me the most.

What other aspects are more important, if you don't mind me asking?

This issue would be killing me, if i were in your shoes.

And, right, don't let him wiggle his way out of understanding he can control this. He just has to DO IT.

planAprincess,

you had mentioned a thread you read called Eternal Triange where is that thread?
would like to read it myself......

It's not that there is something more important than facing this elephant in the room face on, it's that we have some other things that we really need to work on between us. We hashed this one out extensively 2 weekends ago, but it's still not settled in my mind, nor should it be. We need some quiet and relaxing UA time right now - not time when we're both going have to work hard to not DJ or would risk going to bed angry with one another.

I have been very depressed again since this happened. I started taking my AD's again, but it takes awhile for them to kick in and I also refuse to feel like I need them to "get over" this. And I NEED his support and love - and sometimes when I'm depressed he doesn't understand how to love and support me. We've talked about it, but for some reason he always falls back to withdrawing from me like he did for years. Like we both did. These are old habits - ones that we've been working hard on breaking for the past 2 years, but raise their heads when there are complications in our relationship.

We are a textbook MB couple in that we had some serious holes in our 25 year marriage that we didn't even know were there and were causing serious problems. We didn't know what our own needs were, let alone what the needs were of our spouse. We are both conflict avoiders. Sometimes when both of our takers would come out in force we would go into withdrawal for months at a time. I think we thought this was normal. I mean, who did I know who had what I thought was a great marriage? No one! I assumed they just didn't exist... (until I found MB!!)

It was reading SAA that was like a 2x4 beside my head to make me realize I wasn't meeting what I (correctly!) perceived as his top 3-4 EN's. I worked on those and also started looking harder at our relationship. The comment somewhere in the books/website about having to go back through conflict to get to intimacy after withdrawal was a lightbulb for me. Did we skip that? A lot? Yes. We brushed things under the rug after things blew over (and we couldn't remember what we were fighting about) and got back to intimacy. BUT when you don't deal with what sent you into conflict/withdrawl for all of those years your intimacy is so much less than what it should be... One might even argue that it's not even intimacy anymore and that you don't know what that is.

So - I want to devote tonight to eating healthy, getting some RC in by taking a walk with the dogs and cuddling and watching a movie or reading together. I don't want to talk about this particular issue. We might talk about it anyhow, but I think it's much more than a 2 hour conversation and if we start down that road and end up not sleeping well because of the discussion and then trying to deal with it while he's at work tomorrow, it becomes a bigger issue. Better to play good little planAprincess and practice plan A through Thursday night and wait until we have 3 days in a row to really hash this out without disruption.

Yes, it's eating at me. But that is why I started the thread - to keep me on course to deal with this properly. In a timely manner, but not by LBing and DJing. I need to be firm with this - not emotional. I've decided I am allowed to be angry - really angry. But I'm not allowed to be needy about it. Emotional=Needy in his book. And needy gets nowhere with him. Which as I write it now makes a lot of sense with his reactions to my depression... Hmmmm... I think we might have a topic of conversation for our walk tonight!!

Wow, PAP, you have much more control than I do. I really admire that and need to work on a more thoughtful approach sometimes.

I can't stand to let an issue lie unattended. Eats away at me.

Good for you, though, to recognize what your relationship needs and know that you have a calm approach to getting to the bottom of it.

So sorry to hear about the ADs, but I am ALL for doing what you need to do to get equilibrium and clawing your way out of that pit of despair we all know too well.

FYI: on this "emotional needy" business. That's BS again. He lied, he broke no contact and he won't discuss the details. What part of O&H is that?

I'm not sure how to advise you on the anger part. I know we BSs aren't supposed to love bust, but c'mon! This does seem like a major/felony infraction.

And it's really taken a toll on you!

I'd say your WH need to up his game, significantly if he wants to keep PlanAPrincess in his life.

The content of the call isn't as important to me as the length of the call - it shouldn't have lasted longer than this:

"Hiiii, it's meeee, POSOW - have you missed me???"

"Please don't contact me again." click.

That'd be about 3, maybe 4 seconds. My point being your WH still has a significant problem with boundaries, and that should be very worrisome to you. There's no way a man with firm boundaries would have allowed his former AP a two-hour phone call.

ITA. This is why it is imperative that your WH have the necessary precautions in place to eliminate as much possibility of contact as possible. A no contact letter should have been sent (was it?) from your H to her. Phone numbers/emails changed. Her contact info blocked. Once that's done, your WH needs to have a back-up plan in place in the event of a breech in the precautions (such as what happened.) He appears to have had no plan and was caught flat-footed when she called. As an EP, he should have been ready to immediately hang up on her or anyone calling on her behalf. And then he should immediately have called you.

My plan with my H was this: if OW called him, he was to say he was in a meeting and needed to call her back from a private place in a few minutes. He was to get her number and give it to me. Then I was going to call her back.

Not if your EPs erects a fence around the roots that will keep her out.