I think your WH has weighed his options and believes that coming home for now is his only realistic option. The problem is that he is not in love with you. He still carries a fantasy life and future with the OW. If there was no contact between them I think you could get him on board with recovery by using Marriage Builders tools. But I fear that he will refuse to recover the M if he continues to be in contact with her.

My FWH admits that he would have been unable to stay away from his OW if they had continued to work together. The addiction is that strong.

Have you read the articles on this site? I know you've mentioned that you haven't gotten SAA yet. What have you read here?

Which makes recovery impossible. There is nothing we can do to help you. Recovery is impossible as long as they go to school together. What you are facing is another false recovery. I am sorry. You can't go onto the next steps unless STEP ONE is taken, which is no contact for life.

quovidis, if he won't end contact then your only hope of recovery [personal recovery] is to go right to Plan B. I would strongly suggest you file for divorce, though, so that you have legal protection. But under no circumstances should you remain with him as long as contact continues. That kind of abusive set up can lead to nervous breakdowns and years of post traumatic stress disorder.

You don't even want to volunteer for another false recovery.

I know people on this forum who have severe post traumatic stress disorder from false recoveries. [one that comes to mind is marriedforever] False recoveries are more emotionally traumatic than the actual AFFAIR.

My son is an enigma. He is very close to WH who is and has been (apart for deserting us as a result of the A when given an ultimatum) a very devoted father. My son has indicated to me on occasion about the enormous anger he feels towards WH and OW. He even wanted to write an e-mail to OW expressing his emotions. I told him that WH is as much, if not more at fault, and he should convey his anger to him, but DS, alas, has not done so in the presence of his father. When I relayed this information to WH, he claims that it is being filtered through my agenda thus it is not reliable. He had an opportunity to spend an entire week with DS over the holidays and they had awesome time together with no animosity of any sort expressed by DS.

I look forward to reading Melody's list of conditions. I do realize the WH and OW remaining in the school is not a good situation. Unfortunately WH is not able to secure employment elsewhere in the middle of an academic year, and she is committed to stay in her program of study (I am hoping she will flunk out). At this point, WH's willingness to commute daily to campus (2.5 hours each way) is the only sacrifice that he is willing to make for my sake.

I am still hoping to get some ideas on how to draft WH's letter to OW about NC. Thanks to all of you for your support. You, guys, are incredible and I am grateful for this site and your help.

Did you miss my post with the NC letter, Q? Here you go:

From Surviving an Affair:
He needs to hand-write this. You approve it and YOU mail it. No email, text or phone call. Send it registered mail so she has to sign for it. That way you know she personally received it.

Recovery is impossible this way, I am sorry. If you can't get past STEP ONE on the list of conditions there is nothing more than can be done. Contact with his affair partner is exactly like alcohol to an alcoholic. An alcoholic cannot possibly sober up until he stops drinking. They don't even let people who are drinking STAY at AA meetings because it is a waste of time.


That is not going to work, though. I am sorry. You can do this, nothing is stopping you, but you won't recover. You will experience a false recovery when the affair resumes.

That is not appropriate, though. He has no intention of ending contact so it would be silly to send a no contact letter. They are not ending contact, maritalbliss.

quovidis, don't go through with the charade of a no contact letter if he is not ending contact.

You're right, Mel - I shouldn't even be muddying the waters by giving this kind of advice, when it's clear they aren't going to end contact.

Your husband is not serious. This is a charade. Please stop the charade, my friend. You are going to harm yourself emotionally if you latch onto this charade. It is fools gold.

We have women on this very forum who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder from false recoveries. For God's sake, don't sign up for that.

Give your husband a list of conditions and if he won't oblige, then go into Plan B. You have NOTHING TO LOSE if he doesn't agree to these, other than a death of a thousand cuts:

quovidis, go to him with this list and tell him you will accept nothing less. He will have to find a way to avoid going back to that job, if it means taking a leave of absence while he finds something else, or asking for a transfer, or even taking a job at Walmart. But you should not go along with this.

That is not good for your son for his mother to continue to go through holy hell over his affair. You need to stop settling for birdturds and RAISE THE PRICE here. You have lowered the bar so low that you have made recovery of your marriage IMPOSSIBLE. I don't mean improbable, I mean impossible.

What you have done here is set yourself up for a false recovery, the worst kind of HELL ON EARTH.

You have nothing to lose by DEMANDING he never go back there. Nothing. If you are not going to recover, you might as well save yourself months of grief while his affair continues and go straight to Plan B.

Please make sure, quovidis, that you can follow up with the "or else" when you tell him what it will take to keep you in the marriage.

He has to either be all in or all out, no in-betweens or halfways, and you have to be ready to send him packing. You have to be fed up and no longer willing to live with this mess. If you think Plan B is in the near future, go ahead and start planning for an IM. Not having young children is certainly an advantage.

Read this:


Q. You will have great anxiety and emotional stress knowing that WH is in same building with OW. Any recovery that you may have made while WH is at home will quickly be eroded to zero as soon as WH leaves for work.



Q. An A is an addiction and your WH is addicted to the OW. He is so addicted that he actually at one point separated from his family to be with her. He is still addicted. Do not for one second fool yourself into believing that WH will be able to resist OW when he runs into her at work.

Q. You have to be the strong one here and take the lead. WH cannot break this addiction on his own.

Five hours on the road every day is very unrealistic.

Your WH is leaving his options open. Get ready to push Plan B button if he will not commit to the marriage.

You are doing great Q. Don't give up the fight now.

Thank you all for your input. Here is the plan for the next couple of months. The entire month of December, WH is going to spend time with me and DS, we are also scheduled to travel for the holidays, which we hope would put the A nightmare in perspective and help us move on. WH has offered to write the NC letter to the OW. He proposes to do that at the beginning of January right before classes resume. He claims that writing this letter now would come across as if I had put a gun to his head to write it because as late as on Monday, when he made an unscheduled trip to campus, he met with OW to discuss the fallout of the exposure and she declared that she would stay with her husband for the sake of her children and her future professinal career (she needs her husband's financial support to pay for her school), however he was still committed to be in separation. Evidently, he made a decision to commit to the family (not marriage) as a result of the letter (thank you Melody), in which I stated that I was not going to be evicted from my own home, while he was staying there with our son, that this was my home and his home and I was willing to give him a chance to earn my forgiveness, etc.) So, WH claims the NC letter in January would become across as much more credible, as opposed to writing it now.

As to WH quitting his job, it is not going to happen, unless he is asked to leave by the administration due to his involvement with OW. He claims that a fear of potentially losing his job and having OWH retaliating against him is sufficiently motivating for him never to seek any contact with OW. He is committing to commute daily and claims that his schedule will preclude any accidental contact with OW.

I know that him staying in his job goes against the prescribed recommendations for recovery but this is completely outside of my control.

quovadis, this is not a plan for recovery. It is your life and I am so sorry you have signed on for this. I don't know what else I can say to convince you but it is clear there is nothing more I can do to help.

Here you go, Q. I took the liberty of translating your WH's attempt at manipulation from Wayward-ese to English for you.

I would think that if her WS is serious about the no contact, etc...then he shouldn't have a problem calling this ow's BS back, since the other BS tried to call him, and confess to that poor man the truth about his affair with his wife. That more then likely would put a stop to her going back to class...right?