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...thought I'd ask here too. What does LM mean, from black_raven.
LM = LeanieMe
BR = Black Raven
NG = NeverGuessed, the guy who first suggested you not open iterative threads, my friend. It was neither a "rule" nor an "opinion"! It was "advice" based on "convention" here, and a "courtesy" to those that want to help you. Like me!
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Now, the actual problem you have.
WH is still mentally taking care of OW#2.
His head cannot be with you when he is thinking about how OW#2 is doing.
If writing that stupid apology and handing it over to YOU does not make a difference right away (within 24 hours) .... I really think you should consider that WH is only half-heartedly approaching marriage recovery with you.
You are his wife. If WH has any consideration what-so-ever for another female's "feelings" about him .... he is STILL very much a risk for you. Yes what she said.
Married 1/2000.
D-Day 3/7/11. WH moved in with OW and they married in 2013.
Single mom of 4.
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...Anyway, my WH feels horrible about what he did to her. He got involved with her to try to get over his 1st OW and then went back to me. He wants to write a formal apology letter, hand written and mailed via USPS, with a section from me stating that I am aware of the letter...
Here's something your husband (and you) need to get, asap: Whatever he "did" to her or with her, she was a willing participant in every respect. He held no gun to her head, he slipped no drug into her coffee. Whatever was done to her or with her, was done only because she willed it & chose it (just as he did), and could not have been done without her willingly choosing it. They committed a moral crime together. They weren't victims, they were co-perpetrators.
Leanie, I'm speaking to you as a former wayward. And yeah, for a spell after the affair, I felt bad about what I saw as my role vis-a-vis the other woman. And that's a common bunch of fogged-out, crap-thinking, of a kind that impeded recovery for me & my wife in the early months. First of all, it was willful blindness on my part, in not wanting (at that time) to see the affair-partner completely as she really was -- which was as someone who was willing to mug my wife (figuratvely speaking), & to take away my wife's husband & break up our family (literally speaking) in order to satisfy her own selfish wants. (Not that I'd been any less culpable than she, but you get the point.) The other woman trashed her own marriage in the process. I felt bad about that, but that's a consequence that she willingly risked & chose. And second of all, every second I wasted thinking about the other woman's (self-inflicted) predicament was a second I could've & should've been spending tending to the care of my wife, whom I had hurt so badly, tending to her needs so that she'd feel safer in meeting mine, so that our marriage could be saved & prosper.
And insofar as your husband is actually not only wasting time thinking about the other woman (or women), but actually thinking about contacting her  , please answer me this: Exactly what part of "No contact, for life" does he not understand?
If he's serious about recovering his marriage & dialoguing about all of this with someone who's walked in his shoes, send him here -- send him to talk to me. If he has any brains to take advice, if he gives half a damn about doing the right thing (even though, as is obvious, he doesn't know how), I'll be happy to set him straight.
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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... The 2nd OW was an innocent victim caught in the middle of something she did not know about until after the fact.
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...I know that WH is essentially a good person who never wanted to hurt anyone. I believe that this might be a way for him to help forgive himself. ...
I also would challenge your supposition that your husband has standing or prerogative to forgive himself. What he did, he did to others, and in that respect, he lacks standing to forgive himself, and will lack it whether or not he recontacts her or gets forgiveness from her. But you can bet your bottom dollar that for months afterwards, he'd be wondering, every day, whether, in the mailbox that, there might appear just some sort of letter from her -- maybe to offer forgiveness, maybe to try to send some expression of parting with fond memories, or some other little form of affirmation ... See, LeanieMe, there it is:
... that affirmation is exactly the drug waywards get hooked on when they get into an affair! (By the way, I'm not yelling at you here, I'm whispering to you so you'll hear me, really pleading with you, to understand this, because it's so very important): Keeping alive his view of her as any source of affirmation whatsoever, is so incredibly dangerous to your marriage, and you need to realize it. His desire to contact her is just too risky to be countenanced at all. The way -- the only way -- for one to end an affair is, one ends it. That means the relationship is ended. It means there is no relationship. It must cease to be. That means no contact, ever, for life.
I'm a hard man, LeanieMe, but not hard-hearted. No, your husband has no standing to forgive himself, and he shouldn't be soliciting forgiveness from his affair-partner. BUT consider this: He also needn't be the one to exact punishment on himself. In my faith, I can drag my sins to the foot of a cross -- I can't quite lay them down on this earth yet, because on this earth, there are still consequences of what I did, consequences that cannot ever be undone -- but at the end, I know I'll be able to lay that chain down. And in the meantime, I'm not going to waste more of my life exacting punishment on myself. That'd be time & energy wasted, that I could be spending on my wife & kids & my job & friends, and there's no reason for me to cheat them any further. So it is, too, with your husband. But he needs to look to your needs, to your feelings, for the present & future, not allow himself to wallow in the mire of the awful choices he made in the past.
Me: FWH, 50
My BW: Trust_Will_Come, 52, tall, beautiful & heart of gold
DD23, DS19
EA-then-PA Oct'08-Jan'09
Broke it off & confessed to BW (after OW's H found out) Jan.7 2009
Married 25 years & counting.
Grateful for forgiveness. Working to be a better husband.
"I wear the chain I forged in life... I made it link by link, and yard by yard" ~Jacob Marley's ghost, A Christmas Carol
"Do it again & you're out on your [bum]." ~My BW, Jan.7 2009
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I agree with GO. He hit the nail on the head.
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He needs to compensate -you- for the affair by sticking strictly to the marriage. He can't do that if he is trying to gain acceptance/forgiveness from OW. Besides that, if he gives any leeway to the OW, she will believe he has been forced into choosing his marriage for some reason - and that it is not his choice. That makes it far more likely she will contact him in the future. (I've seen several OW's write as much in other places - they just go quiet and wait until the BS lets their guard down. Then they start to work on the WS again.)
It is to be The End - no friendship, no contact, no nothing.
That's the only way and the only reason MB works.
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[I'm a hard man, LeanieMe, but not hard-hearted. No, your husband has no standing to forgive himself, and he shouldn't be soliciting forgiveness from his affair-partner. BUT consider this: He also needn't be the one to exact punishment on himself. In my faith, I can drag my sins to the foot of a cross -- I can't quite lay them down on this earth yet, because on this earth, there are still consequences of what I did, consequences that cannot ever be undone -- but at the end, I know I'll be able to lay that chain down. And in the meantime, I'm not going to waste more of my life exacting punishment on myself. That'd be time & energy wasted, that I could be spending on my wife & kids & my job & friends, and there's no reason for me to cheat them any further. So it is, too, with your husband. But he needs to look to your needs, to your feelings, for the present & future, not allow himself to wallow in the mire of the awful choices he made in the past. [/color] Beautifully put, GO.
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Gloveoil - thank you so much for your perspective on this, it helps me to understand my WH a little better. I didn't feel like you were yelling at me or questioning my intelligence (which I have a problem with thinking everyone is doing). We talked last night and no letter will be sent.
Me BW mid-40s EA/PA while engaged 20 yrs ago
Him WH early-40s EA/PA twice in 2012
Married 19 Yrs
DS 11
DS 8
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Great decision I am glad that issue was resolved
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LeanieMe, did you see the questions we asked you on your other thread? It would be helpful to us to see your response.
D-Day 2-10-2009
Fully Recovered and Better Than Ever!
Thank you Marriage Builders!
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