NoHarm -
I'm so sorry and know exactly how you feel. Both about your WH breaking no contact AND with how you feel about some of the "advice" you are getting here. It is interesting that it is sometimes contradictory to what you get from the coaching center. I have found the exact same thing. I had to take a break from the boards these past couple of weeks because coming here made me feel MUCH worse and set me back a bit with our recovery. The advice or direction I was given here would not have played well with what I was being advised to do. At all.
One thing that we have been doing is going through our No Contact Plan that the counseling center had him make almost daily (and the weakness protection plan every week) and then a couple times a week I walk him through scenarios. It sounds like you were doing the same since he was able to walk by her when she was stalking him. I believe fully that I would be (am) in the same position as seeing POSOW would send that section of my WH's brain into overdrive and he'd want to reach out and tell POSOW to go away but she would draw him in. That is in essence what has played out here. Twice. It's the addiction thing. Just one little drink won't hurt. Or if I buy a bottle and plan on breaking it to show I'm over it, I can "handle" that. They can't. And maybe your WH is in the same place mine is - dealing with the true reality of his addiction. I know that he didn't understand it until it happened this last time.
Where I know I had issues was that I couldn't find a way to make him remorseful, so I don't think he saw truly why he had to hold to the no contact boundaries since he felt it was doing it for me. It wasn't until the last week or so that the lights came on and he (and I) realized quite strongly that he has to do it for him and our marriage, not because his wife needs him to. Kinda like losing weight. You can only get so far doing it to look good for your spouse or a certain event. If you start doing it for your own health and want to do it for yourself, then it will work.
I'm SO sorry to see someone else suffering as I have been. I hope the coaching center can help you get through this latest setback. I'm certain they can. The problem with your husband is it is he who needs to protect his weaknesses. The problem is the addiction itself and his need to fully understand that and take full responsibility for protecting your marriage. This last scenario that played out might be just what you needed for him to see that. I know I'm banking on that here. And I know it sucks to go through this turmoil in order for them to understand fully the true issues with the addiction.
Well, since I was one of the people who advised both of you, I take exception to that. How dare you call what I wrote "advice" - in inverted commas?
I wrote to both you, pAp, and this poster from the bottom of my heart, because I have been through the situation of having a WH who was "stalked" by his OW
FOR YEARS, and I suffered many debilitating D Days because of the situation. It was only after a couple of years of suffering emotional health problems that I began to understand that the only way the "stalking" could continue was because my H was complying with it. He was telling OW "I can't see you any more (not "I don't want to see you any more"). My marriage is at risk and I don't want to end it. No, I wasn't lying to you when I said I loved you. Yes, I do care about you. I am sorry that I hurt you and I think about you every day. I wouldn't have hurt you for the world! But my kids..."
And I learned about what that kind of "NC" message means to a heartbroken affair partner - especially a woman; women seems to get far more carried away with the romance of the affair; the romance of being "kept apart" and being matched to the wrong spouses - and I realised that my H was responsible for all that was happening.
My H had a traveling job, and the only way to bring physical contact to an end was for him to stop travelling. He chose to do this in the end, worn out as he was (or seemed to be) with our marriage teetering on the brink of collapse, and his OW turning up in tears at his hotel room (the same hotel room that he chose to stay in every time...despite his protestations that he was doing all he could not to see her), and our kids living under a permanent threat of divorce.
When I read your post, I could not understand how Steve Harley could not have discussed this with you, but when I read more from you I backed off and left you to his expert help. I didn't insult you and for the life of me I cannot understand why you have insulted me.
I tried to pass on to both of you what I learned the hard way, and I accept that you do not wish to hear it, so I have stopped posting to you. But for you to come back here, to this thread, merely to tear a strip of those like me who tried to help you both, and to characterise what I wrote as "advice", is unkind, and I'm appalled.
The H in this story has met OW again, and somehow we are giving him bad "advice"? Again, how dare you.
I would not have posted again to either of you, as it was clear already that you did not welcome my advice, but I will not let you talk about my efforts that way.
