TinT, i'm just going to comment on the gift, not the other stuff you're going through.

men can be kinda thick when it comes to gift giving. in his mind, he got you something you will USE, and that he knows you like because you get them yourself. granted, it's not what you hoped for, but the thought was there.

my husband is pretty blokey. he does not do gifting well. i was disappointed for a LONG time, until i figured out he needed help. "i love this perfume and i'm running out. would make a lovely valentine's day gift." i think they appreciate direction rather than trying to play the guessing game! he does know that flowers suit anytime :O)

He is clueless, for sure. I'm trying not to read too much into the gift anymore. Thanks everyone!

As for the VAR, I went to two stores and picked out the one I like. I hate wasting money on these things! Just sneaking around and buying one and then having to sneak around to learn how to use it and practice with it, and then to sneak around to install it is really bringing me down. I know for my own peace of mind I need to get it done. I could think of a 100 things I could spend $50 on that I would enjoy using. I am mad at him again, and this time I can't even tell him why. I feel so dishonest putting this thing in. It all is making me sad. Wish none of this ever happened.

Also, I ran out of time. At first I was going to use the debit card but then decided I better get cash for it. Then I had to figure out how to get the cash without him knowing why I needed it. He watches the accounts daily and it is tight. So I didn't chicken out, I just need to get the cash little by little throughout the next week and then attempt to get it without my kids with me. Tall order.

I have also researched iphone keyloggers and I think I have found one I like but it is also $50. Ugh. Disgusting! Ticks me off that I feel I need to do this!

Thanks for letting me vent!
TinT

yes, i agree, it does suck. having to put spyware on my husband's phone, which isn't a smartphone, was a major learning curve for me, and i put it off because i didn't want to deal with it, but the peace of mind it gives me is worth it.

Just an update on us:

DD15's surgery is in 3 days.

Appointment with SH is today! I plan I ask him about exposure and polygraph. I did more snooping and the FB guy definitely is OW's BH and I found her mom and a brother on FB as well. If Steve says I should expose, I will. Just worried at H's reaction since he's been trying hard to follow MB and meet my needs.

Spent the weekend with H, DD15, and DS3 at a sports tournament for DD15 in the city of OP. H stayed with me and seemed 100% "with me", not foggy or distracted at all. He continues to meet my top needs, although my top need is conversation and he still needs to work on talking casually with me. Our conversations seem forced sometimes, or they are just about to do's and schedules. I need suggestions on how to make this less strained. I need conversation so much but it just feels forced.

I'm also still having a hard time with triggers. Something I hear will trigger memories of what I read them saying to each other on text and it reminds me of things they said to each other on text. Then that leads me into how he still claims he never felt anything for her, yet his flirting and joking went on for hours so I just can't get past how what he says about their "friendship" and how he felt nothing. If he felt nothing, why did he talk that way with her? And if I still have questions in my mind about things, should I be asking him or should I just drop it because it would be a LB?

I guess it all comes down to the fact that I still sense there is something out there that he isn't telling me.

Anyway, there's the update

Thanks,
TinT

Please tell Steve that OW has a BH, when you ask him about exposure, and that she is and was M to her BH when the affair occurred.
Here on triggers it helped me.
Managing Memories and Dealing With Triggers

Ok. We had our appt with SH. Based on our situation, Steve says that exposure to the OP's BH would not benefit our relationship. Since he is on board with MB program and I have not found any contact with her, that perhaps maybe in the future when our relationship is stronger, we could weather that storm.

We are to review our two questionnaires and go over them together. We are also to try to work together to get our UA time scheduled and try for >15 hrs. Hubby has other assignments.

I feel like I should feel better, but feeling sad. Now back to parenting 3 kids....

So hubs decided to talk to me a bit about his part of the phone appt with SH. He says that SH talked to him at length about how affairs begin. Hubs was very careful, still, not to label what he did as an affair. This little thing gets me hung up. It makes me so frustrated!

Yes he admits what he was doing was wrong, but he won't ever call it an affair. Because he deleted their texts and I only have a small fraction of their texts that I was able to capture new year's eve, he can't prove it wasn't one. He still says that he had no feelings for her. How could someone text and talk with someone that much and not have feelings for her? Why can't I get past this?

He is still working on the WHY of the texting with her. He says it was because A) He did not have boundaries in place to protect his heart from deposits, B) He did not have boundaries in place to keep himself from going to POS for emotional needs, C) I was not meeting his emotional needs.

Again this whole thing ramped up when I wasn't able to give him many emotional needs because I was sick and then had surgery, and then bled internally, and then had another surgery to stop the bleeding, and then had two transfusions, and then had a 4 week recovery. All the while he's texting and talking away with her. Ugh. When will I ever be able to move forward? I am constantly worried that the next time I get ill, he'll find someone else to fill the void. Also afraid that at any moment that I screw up he'll go off again and find a new "friend".

Just having a very bad day. Also have my DD15's surgery in 2 days.....

TinT

So what was YOUR homework that Steve gave you?

My homework was to go over the ENQ and LBQ with my husband. Once we go over these together, he wants me to do as much of them as I can. He says if I can meet all of them right away, good. But most likely it will take time for me to learn how to meet these and stop any LB he tells me about.

My other assignment is to be able to tell SH the reason my husband gives me for his affair by our next appt.

After reading your posts and hearing you on the radio, I don't think you are truly going to start healing until your H owns up to what he has done.

The fact that he is not calling it an affair really bothers me. In addition, the fact that he is not owning up to his feelings, even if they were foggy feelings is not right. You feel sad because he is NOT being honest with you and NOT taking accountability for his actions.

SH told me if I didn't like what he said or how he said it when he told me his reason why he had an affair, then say nothing to hubs and tell Steve. So I'll be telling him that he won't say he had an affair. He said, specifically, "The reason why I did what I did was....". Won't use the word affair.

So it was supposed to help me, but instead threw me back in recovery. I spent the day going back through his phone records and combined cell phone records of texts, calls made from his cell phone, and calls made from his office phone. I put all of these into an excel spreadsheet which would be perfect to share if I decided "widening te circle" of exposure would help my recovery. But I haven't wanted to look at them and compare them to his work calendar and our home Calender for weeks until today. I found many occasions that he texted with her on a weekend when one of us was out of town (soccer or scouts) or while he went out of town for business training (2X). I just needed to remind myself that yes, all evidence does point that he was having an EA. But it left me feeling angry and resentful. I'm thinking I may need meds to get me to quit obsessing. Or maybe I just need the truth.

I told him today I want a timeline.

This is why Dr. Harley recommends ADs while going through this.

I'm posting bedside at the hospital at 3:30 am. My DD15 had her surgery yesterday and they had to keep her overnight. For the first time ever in the 15 years she's had 9 surgeries, H was emotionally there for me and we were there for each other during the surgery. For all the others he has been robotic and even left me alone in the waiting room for up to 45 mins without telling me where he went. I was feeling so good about us until we were in her room and on our phones reading things quietly as she was finally sleepingand I got up to give him some affection and kiss and hug him. I noticed he was on his work email and quickly backed out of the screen he was typing on. It gave me a bad feeling but I tried to shake it off.

Because this was supposed to be outpatient, we decided that I'd stay here with DD tonight and he'd go home and be there for DS13. I couldn't sleep because I had a feeling something was wrong. I logged onto his work email and saw an email from a woman that he met through work and used to be in a chamber of commerce group with. Back then, probably close to 8 or 10 years ago I felt uncomfortable with his close relationship with her. They ate breakfast together often and I remember telling him he ate more with her than with me and it made me uncomfortable back then. At that time he scaled back his relationship, from what i knew. She still refers clients to him all the time, she is his Facebook friend, and she even friended me and comments on my posts a lot. Yesterday during the surgery she was activiely posting on my updates on facebook about DD. She even posted to her facebook to pry for her. She and I occasionally "like" each other's posts but don't talk a lot I accepted her friend request to keep an eye on her.

Well he got an email from he to his work address:

"Subject: RE: =0)
=======================

Happy to hear that [DD] is okay. xo

[OW]"

This is not the OW that he was texting with. This is someone I always suspected he had an EA with but he has denied it, even recently. I checked his sent mail and didn't see a reply from him. That doesn't mean he didn't send one and delete it from the sent file.

What is your take on this and how do you recommend I approach it? I am in panic mode again, am under major stress caring for my DD, and have slept 6 hours the past two night so need good help here!

Thanks,
TinT

His weak boundaries around women literally give me the vomits. I read the above and headed to the bathroom. I wanted to vomit.

He cannot keep you safe. His EXTREMELY HIGH need for admiration is his driver. He doesn't want tight boundaries around women because then his source of "fantasy" admiration will be gone.

You are not safe with him, and unless he is willing to make drastic changes, then I say it is time for Plan B.

The elephant in the room are his poor boundaries. He is refusing to change that ... hence nothing you do will keep you safe. He is ripe for an affair.

There is no road to recovery unless he is willing to give up all WOMEN of the opposite sex, until this happens you will need to separate. You will die by a 1000 cuts this way.

I will add this ...

Your husband does love you, he loves his family, something inside him loves his admiration more. Only he can figure that out.

You can try one more time and I would DEMAND this ... he either ends all contact with women of the opposite sex or this marriage will not work.

Your intuition is not lying to you ... don't shove it down ... listen to what your gut is telling you.

You are unsafe ... change has to happen ... only he can make the changes.

Pray,

Thanks for validating my feelings. You hit the nail on the head here! This is his top need, Admiration.

I decided to talk to him about it as soon as I could. I explained exactly as I wrote above. He repeated again that I am his one and only, always have been, always will be. Obviously this ticks me off because in my eyes I wasn't since he texted with OW for a year without me knowing and she fed his deep need for Admiration almost daily. I have a feeling that this woman who emailed him did for a time too. He assured me again that nothing went on with her, yet he didn't acknowledge my pain or apologize for it. Sad.

So DD15 finally got discharged and I thought about what to do all day. I decided to email OW and told her thank you for the prayers for DD, but said,
"it struck me as odd that you would send an email to him that includes "xo", hugs and kisses. I just wanted to keep you aware that if this email were sent from female to female, it would be sweet and endearing, but since you sent it directly to him and not me, it did strike the wrong chord. I'm sure you didn't mean any harm, but in the future you may want refrain from sending terms of affection to married men and not their wives, especially my husband. "

I took matters into my own hands, showed it to him, he said it looked fine, and I sent it. The woman clearly has boundary issues herself, she replied and apologized, said she didn't mean to upset me, and I think I made it clear how I felt about her x's and o's.

Opinions?

I agree he has very weak boundaries and I don't think he should have a facebook account by himself.

You should have one of his EPs, to get rid of your own accounts and only have a joint account.

Also please share this with Steve. This is why I still think the BH of OW1 should be exposed to because your WH hasn't had to have any consequences. I wonder what BH of OW2 would think about his WW sending "xo" to another man.

during this time with your DD15.

I have an update and need advice ASAP please. I'm in pain.

Background:
Hubby sent the following email to OW on 2/21/12:

"OW,
Going forward I am making a change in our relationship/communication. �I need for you to contact me only during normal business hours on my work phone or email in the future. I feel like the texts that have been sent early in the morning, after business hours, on weekends, and during holidays is crossing a line and I think we need to keep our relationship on a professional level. �This change is a result of reviewing some of our communication over the past six months and coming to the reality that I wouldn't want BW texting with a person that I don't know. �The types of texts that we have shared really could be interpreted to be inappropriate when read by a third party and I have to respect her enough to keep business relationships just business. �I appreciate all the business support you have given me and my group, but from now on I want to keep it on a business level only. �
WH"

I make him block her email. She never contacted him again, that is until today. She texts him the following today:

"Since I am not a corp employee anymore, I thought I would let you know that your email was offensive, unprofessional and hurtful. I have NEVER insinuate
d anything inappropriate to you, I have NEVER acted in an unprofessional way to you. The hurtful part is that, as a mom and wife, I always asked you abo
ut BW and your children and always wished the best for them, even wanted to try to help with info for school for your son. All my best to you and
your family going forward and hope you accomplish your professional goals as well. You won't hear from me again. OW"

He was on a corporate conference call and she and/or the new franchise owner she now works for could have been on the call and this time it was interactive and my husband talked for about 5 mins on the call. So if she was also on this call, should would have heard him talking. That's the only reason I can figure that she texted him today. They used to text for hours and play while on these calls.

He forwarded this text to me immediately and hung up on the call.

My first reaction: expose her to BH and mother. Now.

What else. I'm a wreck. I'm shaking. I've cried my eyes out already.

Help!!
TinT

Also, I need a link to expose the mother of the OW. I can't find it anywhere.

Thanks,
TinT

Here Exposure 101

This is why I've said exposure to OW's BH needs to be done when you first got here.

Breathe and we will help you. Read the link and get ready to drop the bomb.

I've read the Exposure 101 and maybe I'm just freaking out too much at the moment, but can't find one for the OW's mom. Here is the one I have for the BH of OW. Please tweak one more time.

I am about to puke. I honestly am. Husband has agreed to send a no contact letter. Unfortunately he is gone until 9:30 pm tonight. I'm in bad shape and having to care for DS15 who is in bad shape post op, DD13, and DD3. I want to make her suffer, too.


Thanks,
TinT