You need to see a lawyer

You need to expose OW

And you don't really understand Plan B. It is something YOU do for YOU.

oceangirl,

Your H sounds very much like my ex. He was also obsessed with computers and had no friends or family connections. Please consider the possibility that your H may have a condition like Asperger's which affects his ability to make sound decisions concerning relationships. My ex really did not comprehend the damage he was doing to me and the children when he left. He thought it was not a big deal.

The best thing I did was to go to a lawyer to get the divorce moving while my H was still being friendly. After the divorce, he decided to blame me for everything and became very hostile.
With regards to parenting, my ex is unable to parent like a normal parent. During the marriage, I had some influence and was able to show him how to set rules and have a parent/child relationship with the children. After the divorce, he has become Disney Dad and treats the children as peers. He can only interact with them superficially and actively works against my rules and parenting. I think he just does not understand how to be a parent.

After my H left, he became crazy with his money. He spent through his portions of the savings and even bought a house for his online OW to live in. Meanwhile, he has lost two jobs and cannot afford an apartment. He is now living in his mother's basement and sends money to his OW, who he does not even have a real relationship with.

I never would have thought he could do these things when we were married. It was only after he left and there was no one to have a normalizing influence on him that he went off the deep end. Please do not treat your H like he is the same man you knew. Treat him in a business-like manner and see a lawyer to protect yourself.

Even Waywards without pre existing conditions will display those traits

Not caring about damage, becoming disney dad and spending like crazy is very common.

They forfeit all responsible tendencies because it interferes with their addiction.

It is part of the hardening process

VM is right - see a lawyer to protect yourself

Aloha friends,

I wanted to give a update to my situation. Right after I asked WS to leave my oldest child came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. It was traumatic and it forced WS and I to spend lots of time together in the hospital taking care of our son. He started opening up about his affair, the secrets they shared, the emotions, what secrets he had kept from me in the past (crush on old co-worker who never liked him in return) and his desires for a more active sex life with passion and intimacy. He also came clean about his curiosity about sex with other women. I'm only his second sex partner in his life and he always wondered if he "missed" out. He is very shy and I don't know if he would have been capable of one night stands but I'm sure he could. Anyone can cheat I know if given the right circumstances.

We are in counseling now. It's not easy. He's going through his withdrawals from not only the online affair but in general all online use. He is a computer addict and it's his only hobby. He went for a general checkup and to ask our doctor about getting medicine for depression, the doctor just said, "get a new hobby" which sent hubby into a crying spell.

Meanwhile, I keep wondering when I get to fall apart. I'm staying strong for the kids and myself but I want to curl up in a ball and cry. I cried in therapy and it felt so good. We've had good talks, bad fights, loving gestures and times where I just have to walk away and zone out or I'll kill him.

Their affair was so fast that they never talked about sexual likes, they talked about holding, kissing, watching movies, where they would like to travel, their interest and it was very "wholesome" and almost childlike ....and I found that very disturbing because I had imagined it being very sexualized and lust full.

He wrote a no contact letter before I even knew he wanted to come home, and there has been no contact. He forwarded me the letter but it contained "sweet memories" and "go forth and find someone, you are a wonderful person" and the final paragraph mentioned how much he loved me but the overall tone of his goodbye letter was one of loving gestures, which pissed me off.

This really sucks some days and while he escapes into depression, I'm reading and trying to learn how to patch myself up while he falls apart.

We are doing questionnaires together in addition to our MC...but how do you deal with their depression when we are the ones who got squatted on???

WS and I are in recovery. We attend weekly counseling and follow the principles here as well as other sources of help. When he ended the affair (online only) he wrote a no contact letter. At the time he knew nothing of a proper no contact letter and he shared it with me to read after he sent it but it seemed too flowery and "go forth and be happy and I'll always cherish our time spent chatting online, I don't want this to end but I must because I love my wife etc...... but it seemed "unfinished" if you will.

She replied with a terse "ok whatever, good luck with your renewed marriage"...type email. Then no contact for over a month. I have access to all his known emails, phones, Facebook etc....as well as his computer.

Yesterday she emailed him a rather long response to his original no contact letter. She was basically rehashing her pain at his ending the affair and reminiscing over their "love" that can never be and how badly she wounded him.

When he first sent it to me, I went into a rage. I wanted to write to her so bad but I don't know if that is the correct response. I've done nothing and we talked about how the email affected him. He said there is no longer a pull to interact with her. It might have been some sort of closure for him but I can't really know his heart, only what he chooses to share with me.

I've made a effort not to "dwell" on it with him and analyze it to death because I'm normally that type of person. His style of approaching problems is different, he doesn't want to think about her email or really give it any thought. He says it's in the past and he's moved on.

So why is this bothering me so much..I feel a bit creeped out but she can always find him via the net.

He said if she continues to write he will put her in spam filter, but why not do that now??? He also said if she pesters him I can go ahead and write her back as well to get her to leave us alone.

Oceangirl,

You have been here a long time, and like most people who posted here years ago, you did not get proper advice on following the MB plan. As far you know, there has been a workplace EA and this online affair with this, your second H, and your first H had at least 8 affairs that you know about.

This online affair led your H to leave you for a while - for someone he has not even met in person - and he seems to have fallen in love with this person, who is probably stringing him along so that she can get a visa to get out of Iran.

You were given good advice on this thread, but sadly, you let the thread die and nobody answered this last post, which happens when the forum is slammed with new posters. You need to keep your own thread active by continually posting to it.

Now you are back and wondering about the NC letter that your H sent, that was full of tender feelings for OW, and which clearly did not say unequivocally "go away, leave me alone and never contact me again". Neither did his obsession with the internet close the door against easy contact in the future.

My advice is for you to approve and send a NC letter following closely the template given in the book Surviving an Affair, where no feelings of tenderness are expressed for OP. Then, if you want to continue in this marriage and work towards recovery, your H and you need to come up with a plan for him to use the Internet only under circumstances where you can see what he is doing, and that should only be for any essential use, if he must use it at all.

By his own admission he has an addiction to the PC, and if he wants to cure this and work on your marriage, giving you "just compensation" for the repeated betrayals, he will be very willing to the responsibility for his own actions in this - and stop using the PC.

As well as that, you must secretly monitor him by putting a key logger on the PC. The word is "secretly"; do not give him any hint of what you are doing.

Your H's inability to be faithful has gone on long enough and you need to use the MB programme to put a stop to it - or leave him.

Oceangirl, I replied to this post on your thread in the forum Surviving an Affair.

I did this for two reasons: one is that you are not in recovery and are posting here in error, and the other is that people need to have access to your backstory quickly, without having to search through your previous threads as I had to. When I did that I was horrified at what I found.

Please see my response in SaA.

GloveOil, you are a treasure.

Oceangirl, you need to listen to him, and to everyone who posted to you this year.

..he will put her in spam filter, but why not do that now???

Q - Why do dogs lick their genitals?
A - Because they CAN!

He doesn't a) put a block on her access, or b) change his e-address to prevent her reaching him...because it will prevent her from reaching him!

But you have the opportunity to put this right.

1 - Hubby WILL write a new, by-the-books NCL, and show it to you. You will compare it to the models on this site. He will sign it and you will mail it.

2 - Hubby will change e-addresses and continue to give you 100% access. As a double-safe tactic, let the other address continue to exist with only YOU having access.

3 - You will continue to listen to your "sixth sense" ("...why is this bothering me so much..I feel a bit creeped out") which seems to be serving you very well.

4 - You will get a copy of Surviving an Affair and learn about the range of other EPs he and you can put in place to keep POSOW dead and in the past.

Whew! Not bad before lunch!

Your husband is violating the rule of no contact by allowing her to contact him. I would DEMAND that he close all avenues NOW or plan to separate. It is only a matter of time before the affair is back on full swing because your husband is NOT SERIOUS about recovering your marriage. What you are facing is a death of a thousand cuts, ie: false recovery, until he gets serious. A WS who is serious cuts off contact and makes sure the OP can't get through. Your H is clearly not serious.

And that is WHY you are so bothered. You rightly sense that you are in danger. You are in danger!

Ditto everything Gloveoil said!

Thank you for the kick in the pants. I talked to my husband this morning. I told him what we needed to do and he agreed to do it. My WS is a internet security expert and that it what he does for a living, hacks and prevents hacking. So putting any sort of keyloger or tying to outsmart him via a computer is pointless because he can run circles around me. He probably has a sniffer on our network and could be seeing everything I type here. I have nothing to hide. Our basement looks like a science computer lab with more servers and computers running than any home should have.

I'll never be 100% secure in knowing his online cheating is over or has not started again. Because for every bit of access he has given me, he could technically create a thousand more ways to be contacted. Just googling his name pulls of hundreds ( he is somewhat well known in the field)

None of that excuses anything, he can make it harder for her to find him. What really needs to happen is that she could try to contact him a million times and it would't affect him in any way??? He would be indifferent towards her and invested in us.

Perhaps I'm not phrasing it right.....I suppose I'm trying to say that he would no longer have any interest in interacting with her for any reason even if she chased him.

I'm sorry for posting in the wrong forum, I thought this was for couples working through the affair, not fully recovered.

Thank you for all replies, it's more valuable and helpful than you'll ever know.

That is a self defeating proposition, though, because every time she does contact him, his interest will be triggered. Having no contact will cause him to not have an interest.


Maybe a new career is in order if he can't GUARANTEE his truthfulness? If he is such a smart guy, he needs to make that guarantee happen in order to affair proof your marriage. And you need to insist on it.

What did you tell him you needed to do? What did he agree to? Did you tell him about giving up the PC?

I wish you would post to your other thread. I'm not just being picky about when exactly an affair ends and when recovery starts, and being technical about which forum you should be in. It's that the forum Surviving an Affair has many affair-busting experts who would help you if they were to read your posts. My impression is that many of them don't venture over here because they are kept so busy helping people in SaA. If you go over there you will get more help.

You will also be encouraged to read other threads and pick up tips from the advice given to other people over there. This forum is for marriages where the affair is OVER and the WS's commitment to recovery is not an issue. I think there is a lot more work to be done on your marriage to end this affair, and that work will be helped by your reading and posting much more frequently.

Thank you so much for your response here and the other thread. It's very helpful and just what I needed to read.

Will a new and improved NC letter stir things up again w her? I'm fearful she will cling to it and continue to write. She didn't write for almost 5 weeks.....I'm perplexed as to why now after all this time??

Husband thinks writing her back is just feeding her issues?

Here is what she wrote to him on Saturday in response to his original goodbye letter of 5 weeks ago

Hi

I'm sorry if this email causes u any truble but I felt like I had to
send it to be able to get over you (mental thing!), if you haven't
deleted it yet .

I no longer regret sharing my feelings with you and I'm glad you read
the stuff I said on pal that made you write the email. I can't
remember how many times I read it, at times it mad me very upset or at
times _very_ angry, now I'm just thankful you wrote it.

I always try to coverup my feelings when I'm hurting with a "smile"
and an "I'm fine" and bottle everything up. I never thought someone
could come along again and make me feel the way I did towards you, let
alone get me to a point where I would open up and word how I felt the
way I did, so for that I thank you.

In all honesty I didn't think we would get through the time it would
have taken for us to meet either, but I did really hope for it with
all my heart and did mean it when I said I'd wait none the less, but
your choice was the right one to make.

The thing that finally got me to write this was when I finally
realised no matter how many times I read your email I seemed to be
unable to see past the point " but what I needed most of all you
couldn't provide, a hug", not thinking about how much you had hurt
over getting mixed up with a person who wasn't even there to be able
to comfort you, but just thinking _how much_ you hurt me by voicing
something that I felt every time we talked and hurt me as much.

But now I'm happy I wasn't there because now you have a better
relationship with the person who loves you dearly and you love in
equal measure. I know that you are by far much more at peace with
yourself then back when we started talking, and I know that it shall
continue.

Goodbye love
Goli

PS. I hope you finally stopped frowning and smile even more everyday.

Well, I've read that a couple of times and it doesn't make a word of sense to me. I could understand something written in Chinese better than that. Is that the kind of drivel that nutty, single, obsessed OW usually write?

I still feel that a proper NC letter might be in order, but I see your point about giving a response and feeding her drama. GloveOil seemed to be saying that another letter is immaterial, because the problem of continued contact lies with your H's unwillingness to block it, not with OW's obsessiveness. I agree with him there, and I have experienced this with my H's affair (with a married OW). We know what OW (more so than OM, in my view) are like. They are pathetically obsessed, and they need to be ignored unless they become dangerous.

It's a pity you can't alert some kind of authority in Iran to her attempts to have an adulterous relationship.

Originally I thought of that, making her life hard but then I realized that if it wasn't her it would be another one and another...because she was just representative of whatever emotional need he was missing. Couldn't be physical because they couldn't touch but they could imagine it. I've had plenty of revenge fantasies but they remain that....because it's really his behavior that hurts the most, she is the result of his dishonesty....does that make sense or am i just grasping at straws?

BH said the biggest emotional need she fulfilled was that fact that a 24 year old hot college student found him a 36 year old married man attractive. It made him feel good about himself.

Obviously I'm older (42)and I can never be a much younger woman to be that fantasy.

Maybe there are some needs that can never be met if you are the wrong height, type, skin color, age?? Or new again?

Thank you, I moved to the other thread:) Could a moderator move this perhaps?

Everything that was mentioned in the above post..the bulletin points.