My wife approached me last August, after 31 years of marriage and told me she no longer had feelings a wife should have for her husband and was going to leave. She had recently lost a good deal of weight and had started wearing "younger" clothes and was running around with two of her lady friends close to her age - one a divorcee' and the other a widow. My wife has long wanted to learn to dance and since I have no rhythm I had no desire to embarrass myself she started dance lessons with one of the friends. She later confessed that once, while I was out of town, that she went to a club with them and one of their boyfriends tried to teach her - which I let her know made me very upset. Anyway, after she told me she was leaving, I talked her into staying until the end of the year, at least, to try and work things out - to which she agreed. During this time, our relationship seemed to have taken something of an up-swing. She was responsive in the bedroom - which she had never been in 31 years. She was open to intimacy in other places (drive-in movie, car, living room, etc...) which she had never been before either. But every two weeks or so during the four month period she would come in crying saying that she loved me as a friend, just not as a husband and thought that she should just leave. She went and looked at an apartment, but when she put a pen to it discovered that she could not afford to move out and stayed.

The first week of December I started noticing that she was deleting all of her text messages every night before she went to bed and she always had her phone on her person. Thinking that she might be sneaking back out to the clubs with her friends I asked her about it. It wasn't long before she confessed that she had had an affair with a co-worker (married man 17 years her junior). She initially said it was over, but later confessed he had asked her that very day to meet him that night, which she had declined. They had been together 5 times, once at his house during lunch, twice in his truck in an open pasture in the country outside of town, once in the workplace after everyone had left and once in my home, in my bed when I was out of town (the same night she had danced with her friend's boyfriend). As many on this forum have experienced, I was crushed and destroyed. I contemplated throwing her out right then, which I feel I would have been justified doing, however, I made no decision that night on how I would handle this. Over the course of the next four days of internal hell, I contacted five friends I could trust to be discreet and give me sound, Godly advice on what I should do. To make a long story short, I decided the most Christ-like thing I could do would be to forgive her and I did. In doing so, I also realized how I had emotionally abandoned her for 30 years, leaving her open to this temptation. I had hardly ever complimented her, supported her emotionally - which is the door the other man had come in through. He had started sending her text messages complimenting her outfit then progressed to making suggestive comments and then the outright invitation. She told me afterwards that "attention" was her drug and he supplied her "fix" when I wasn't. Anyway, I told her that I forgave her and then apologized for my failing her. That day, we started over - Day 1. We are now on Day 44. The last 7 weeks have been, by far, the best of our marriage - outside of the lingering images in my mind of her and him together.

I have not said anything to our two grown children about the affair. I have not said anything to the other man at this point. I told my wife that I did not want the two of them working together as it was difficult, to say the least, to know this man who had had her in every way as me was still able to see her everyday. She says he will not even talk to her since she told him that I knew. I have monitored the phone/text records daily to know there has been no contact via that medium. My dilemma: my wife says she is not able to get another job making the same money as she does here so she is not wanting to quit. She said the other man was already looking to get a job in the next town, but because he won't talk to her she does not know if he is actually trying to leave there. If I say something to his wife (whom I know) the first thing she would do is go to the workplace to confront my wife which would result in both of them getting fired - making it almost impossible in a good economy for my wife to find employment elsewhere - much harder in the current economy. She says she has no feelings for him - and he has none for her. She gave him sex because he gave her attention. He gave her attention to get sex from her. Now that neither is giving the other what they needed there is no danger of the relationship flaring back up so I should not worry that the two of them are still working together.

In my heart, I believe the affair is over. I am working hard to give her the attention she desperately needs to make sure she does not have to look elsewhere for it. Likewise, she is being more attentive to my needs as well. My question is two fold: 1. Do I need to pursue the issue of them continuing to work together at the risk of her losing a much needed job that would be almost impossible to replace? And 2. How do I drive the images of her with this other man out of my head? I appreciate any advice on either of these two questions.

MAB,

Welcome to Marriagebuilders. I am sorry that you are in this situation, but you are in the best place to recover your marriage. Thirty-one years is a long time to have been married. I am certain many of those years were good ones. Don't let your wife re-write the good times. According to MB plans, busting up an affair and recovering a marriage is entirely possible. However, you need to follow a plan and varying from the plan lessens or maybe even eliminates your chances at recovery.

First, expose the affair. Tell your children. Tell the OM's wife. Tell your wife's employer. Yes, your wife will need to leave her job. Even if the other man were to leave his employment, YOU would suffer. Your first priority should be the recovery of your marriage and building a better, more passionate marriage - not whether she has a job or not.

To address your second question, the agony of the images of your wife with this other man will fade away IF you recover the marriage.

If you haven't done so already, read the articles on this website and get and read a copy of the book, "Surviving an Affair".

AM

direction<<<<click and read everything.

You have landed in a virtual goldmine for recovering from an affair. Now you need to pick up the tools and use them. That is your best shot at recovery. It is pretty clear from your post that you have not read much here and that is just one of many mistakes that you are making.

Hi mab, welcome to Marriage Builders. You are definitely in the right place if you want to recover your marriage. There is a very narrow path to recovery and most do not make it. Your marriage will not make it unless you follow these rules. The first of which is to expose the affair. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so if you don't expose it, your wife will either resume her affair or start a new one. By helping her keep her secret and trick her victim, [the OM's wife] you enable the affair and keep that door open for her. Your wife will never feel remorse until this is brought out in the open anyway.

So, I would start by contacting the OM's wife and informing her of the affair. Follow that up with a workplace exposure, and exposure to your kids and close family and friends. The more people who know, the more people to hold her accountable. GEtting fired from her job would be a consequence of her workplace adultery and a desired outcome. The reason it is desired is because your marriage can NEVER EVER recover as long as she goes to see the OM at work every day. They are free to carry on the affair at work every day.

The next steps will be for her to send the OM a no contact letter that is approved by you and mailed together. There is a sample on the Exposure 101 thread. Please read through all the links on the first thread in this forum.

Affairs are not something that can be swept under the rug and blindly forgiven. You are facing more affairs if you try to do that.

Please listen to the advice you have received here, and not to what you would believe are your "instincts", but are in reality your fears.

You believe that the scab forming over the wound means the crisis is over, but what you can't know, and we've seen all too often, is that there is a festering infection in the wound that must be excised.

Exposure to the POSOM's BW, your WW's entire family, and the workplace is necessary.