You realise that he his set up the prospect of your future together based on a condition that he knows will never happen?

His wife will never move to the East Coast, so he will never leave her for you. The truth is he has no intention of leaving her for you. If he had he would just leave.

I have in my possession a letter sent by my H to his OW crying that he could not run away with her then, the week that her H found out she was "lunching" with him and tried to lock her in the house forever. About 9 months into their relationship, her H discovered them flirting on the phone and rightfully went mad. He banned her from calling my H (they live in separate countries) or from leaving the house except to pick up the kids, but of course she managed to do both, and to see my H right under her H's nose. She begged my H to take her away, vowing to give up her kids (then about 13 and 16) for him, but he told her that he could not give up his kids for her - his son was only 6, and the sweetest little boy. He could not ruin his own son's life. One day he'd love to be married to her and he would honour and support her in all she wanted to do with her life. He was lucky she had ever looked at him and he would marry her in a heartbeat if he could, but he could not destroy his own son. (This was all in the letter.)

Their relationship carried on with my H expressing these sentiments all the time, but with a clear understanding that she would wait for him. A son of only 6, then 7, then 9 was such a clear way of making this commitment never happen, don't you see?

When I found out about the affair he immediately threw her under the bus. This happened many times because I was stupid enough to set myself up for repeated D Days. Each time my H couldn't leave it was because I would keep his kids away from him. Finally, OW and I spoke on the phone and I told him my H was free to go. I would buy him out of the house and the kids, by then 10 and 17, would make up their own minds about whether and when they saw him. I wasn't keeping him there financially and I wasn't keeping his kids away from him.

OW didn't give up hope and continued to call him at work for another 5 years, although they never met again. Last year, when my son was nearly 15, I told him once again to leave and he asked to stay. He was retiring from his job and would never have access to her via work again. It is clear to me now from his behaviour that he never intended to leave. He loved the excitement of having mistress who would pour love down the phone at him every day at work, and who would have no-strings sex with him in hotels because she loved him. He loved having odd nights away with her in Europe when neither of their families suspected a thing (they both travelled to Europe for work). He loved having a good marriage with lots of sex with me and living with his kids who adored him because he spoiled them. He had a wonderful life until the affair became more trouble than it was worth, with her on the phone at work, in tears begging him to leave with her, and me causing hell at home telling him to pack his stuff and get out on every D Day.

I now see that he never intended to leave and that having a 6 year-old son (when the affair started) was a wonderful, convenient blessing for him. (I don't feel I've won any kind of competition, BTW, as a man who behaved like that to me and his kids is no prize.) I see this, but I wonder if OW sees this even now, after having been dumped for about the tenth time and his excuse of having young kids no longer being valid. I wonder if she sees how well she was played, and I wonder if you do.

Married men are not available for an open relationship with anyone else. Anyone who has an affair with them knows this at the start, and the men feel they owe you nothing for having given your life over to them. He's told you he is not available and you have given yourself to him anyway. He supports his wife financially and in other ways and has made a public declaration to the world that he will do so. If his wife were feeling herself to be in a loveless relationship, why would she be staying? If she knew he could nto bear to be with her and longed to leave, do you not think she would tell him to go? What woman wants to live with a man who is unloving to her, and unhappy?

The answer is that he is not unloving and unhappy towards her. He makes her feel that their marriage is worthwhile, so what does that say he is doing while he is with her?

He gives you what leftovers he can squeeze out when she is not around. You are taking the scraps from under another woman's table - like a cockroach. Do you not have more self-respect than that?

Liz,

And of course he claims he sleeps separately from wife and has not had intimate relations with her since Jan.

Right around the time you started communicating with him, if I understand your timeline. This is not a coincidence. OM is claiming that he had the affair because of this bad marriage, in fact his marriage is bad because of his affairs. There is a good chance he has had many btw.

God Bless
Gamma

Melody, thank you for your opinion. I do have the feeling that contacting her would only serve to make ME feel better and would hurt her (and him) in terrible ways, so I'm not sure it would really serve as "amends". In your opinion, would I call her? Email her? Tell her I am the woman with whom her husband has had an adulterous relationship for 7 plus months? Do I give her details? Do I give her data (pictures, emails, voicemails)? Seriously...would that be helpful to her or is it better to just stop the affair from my end and hope that HE has the decency to come clean to her and make his own amends? I don't know...I'm asking this not to be defensive, but to get guidance from someone who has been on the other side.

Have no doubt that your AP is sleeping with his wife...or another OW. You really believe he's only had sex with you on the three occassions you met up...in a year?

Yes it would be helpful to her. She has the right to make a decision about her life and her marriage. WH isn't going to show decency. Didn't you just say that WH was hoping to make BW the bad guy and have her end the marriage w/o the knowledge of the A? If WH/OM is so miserable in his marriage, then he should be happy if she kicks him to the curb but you know better. Get real.

It is time to pull your head out of the sand here. Deep down, you KNOW he is lying to you, in the same manner he is lying to everyone else in his life. You know he is lying about leaving her. You know he is lying about having sex with her. Every night while you sit by the phone waiting for it to ring, she is in bed having sex with her husband. Chew on that.

And I'm sure that's painful. But that is what you signed up for when you decided to start an affair with a married man! His wife had no choice, she is sharing with you and didn't get to choose, in fact she doesn't even have the courtousy of knowing it!

If you want MORE from a man than just crumbs, you must require MORE for yourself and OF yourself.

Make no mistake. THIS, is the reason that you are not calling his wife right now.

Not to protect her (if you cared in the least for his wife's protection you would have ended this 5 minutes ago).

To protect YOU, and to protect your AFFAIR.

Are you going to follow the right path?

You said yes, but now you are trying to play with words and pretend that you do not want to tell his wife because it will CAUSE HER HARM in some way. The TRUTH about her life is not what will cause her harm, it is the AFFAIR that you are CURRENTLY STILL IN that is causing her harm.

The TRUTH is your first step down the path to a moral life.

Will it end your affair? Whether it does, or doesn't, is irrelevant, because you are going to end it anyway, aren't you? Isn't that what you meant when you said you were ready to take the right, the moral path?

I ended it with HIM. I have blocked his email and his number from my phone. It is still unclear to me what I should or if I should contact her. I did a google search of her workplace and did find an email. I don't know.

LW, there is no need to start another thread. Please stick to your original thread...it makes it easier for posters to follow.

Tell her. Do it in one letter/phonecall/e-mail, that you are certain she receives. At the end, apologize, give her a way to contact you if she needs to, and exit.

Here's why: Now that he's rid of you, you know damn well he's going to play the same game with another woman. As gesture of humanity, you owe it to BW to let her know what's likely to happen.

FYI exposure of an affair is not MelodyLane's personal opinion, it is recommended by Dr Harley and the MB program.

Telling this poor woman the truth about her life is one small step to making amends. She deserves to know. Telling her is the right thing to do. Withholding that information and keeping her in the dark about her life, is the WRONG thing to do. Being selfish and protecting yourself and your AP is the WRONG thing to do. Don't you want to do the right thing?

When you tell her, whether that is by phone or email (phone is best as you are sure she gets the information), you give her whatever information SHE NEEDS. Do you see a pattern here? The pattern is to stop thinking about what YOU need and what your selfish AP NEEDS, and start thinking about what your VICTIM needs.

Here's another pattern: your AP does NOT HAVE DECENCY. Relying on his 'decency' to come clean to his wife and make amends, is about as silly as thinking he is only having sex with YOU during this 'long distance affair.' Come on now.

Contact her. And I would do it now before he has a chance to tell her about the 'crazy lady that is stalking him.'

You already said you would want to know. You would want to know the truth about your life. Why is it that she doesn't deserve the same?

True.

Yup, that's how my ex described 1 of his OWs when she contacted me.

How did you end it? What did you say to him?

After you contact his wife and provide her with the information she needs, you should eliminate any means for him to contact you. This means if necessary CHANGE your emails, phone #'s, etc.

This is for two reasons:

One, to protect YOU. You want to be a decent, moral woman. You want to require more for yourself. Yet you may start to have withdrawal from him and get weak, and making it impossible for you to contact him will protect you from trying to do so. This is not the kind of man you want to be with. This is not the kind of man you want to parade around in front of your children. Protect yourself from him.

Two, to protect your VICTIM. Whether your AP's BW decides to try and recover her M, or whether she decides to leave it, you can STOP doing damage to this poor undeserving woman by not throwing salt in an open wound. By not continuing contact with her husband. By not being an unwelcome interloper into her life.

You cannot repay the BW for what you have stolen from her, but you can start to act out of respect for her. That is the most that you can do to try and make amends for this betrayal.

Tell the wife. She deserves to know, so she can make a decision for her life and her childrens life. Do as unwritten said, do it now.

Yes, it would serve as an amends because you would be alerting her to the destruction going on behind her back. If her bookkeeper was stealing money from her, would you not warn her becuase it would "hurt her in terrible ways?" Of course you wouldn't accept that logic because it is irrational. Just as it is irrational to not tell her because it would "hurt her." It is the AFFAIR that has hurt her. And it will not "hurt" her husband, it will HELP HIM become a better man.


You should do both. Give her all the evidence and end your affair with her husband.

Hi, Liz, welcome to Marriage Builders. I can't believe noone has posted Dr. Harley's Q&A columns for the other person in an affair yet:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5037_qa.html
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5037b_qa.html

We have a gaslighting thread for things that WS's say to their BS, but not to the AP. We should, they ALL say the same thing!!!

"our love is special, unique, different..."

"this is what God wants"

"we are soul mates"

"my wife/husband is an evil, terrible, horrible person who (fill in the blank)"

"you are so much better than my wife/husband because you (fill in the blank)"

"I would leave my wife/husband but...(fill in the blank with any number of excuses)"

"I love her but I'm not IN love with her..."

"we sleep in seperate bedrooms...we do not have sex"

"we live as roommates"

The wayward handbook on how to keep the desperate AP from taking away cake.

(Why are you starting another thread with this question?)

I posted to you on your first thread, about how my H strung his OW along for 9 years.

I would have given anything for anyone to have told me about the first two years. I found out myself, and when I told OWH about my discovery, he cried for the wasted years of hope that he had spent since his own discovery.

His own children found out about three years before I finally exposed to him. They found out during the first year. His son ran out of credit on his phone and pinched his mother's (OW). He discovered "hundreds" of "filthy" text messages from my husband to his mother. He remembered the period following his mother's previous "emotional affair" (actually another 4-year PA with her driving instructor) that ended some five years earlier. He remembered the fights between his parents and his father's begging her not to leave. That OM would not leave with her then either, but she felt that she could not stay in her marriage and got a job and a flat in another European country. When her H nixed that job, she told him she hated him and would never forgive him. She stayed in the marriage but carried on her affairs, and here was her son discovering yet another. He went to his older sister and showed her the texts, and together they decided not to tell their father, because they did not want to see him hurt like that again, or to split up the family. So those two kids (about 13 and 16) kept that secret for YEARS.

And while two kids who should not have had to take on that responsibility tried to patch up their parents' threadbare marriage, my H and OW got deeper and closer for another two years until I found out for myself (and still I did not expose for nearly another two years).

So much pain was caused by so many people knowing and not exposing. I knew, her H knew and their kids knew, and because of our collective silence lives were wrecked - mine, her kids, her H's, and my kids even though they did not know why their parents were always unhappy. And though I hold no sympathy for her, OW wrecked her life waiting for my H for 9 years.

I would give anything not to go through what I did when I found out about the depth and scale of the deception. I would have been grateful for anyone, including OW herself, to have told me the truth about my own life.

In this case, you are the only person who can tell the BW. You are the only person who knows about this. You know her H won't tell, so who else can?

You've harmed her horrendously, and you owe her a debt that you can never repay. Pay part of your debt now and tell her.