I have been married for 5 years.

My husband cheated on me 5 years ago. He had been married prior and I met him 1 year out from his divorce. He had 1 child with his ex wife, a little girl

We dated for a couple of years, then we married. His ex wife has been very difficult to handle. She is a very religious lady and feels they should never have divorced. He divorced her.

She has borderline personality disorder.

I don't think he had actually resolved with her their relationship, because 3 years ago he went back to her, leaving me for 3 months, and before he came back to me, he got her pregnant.

So there is now a little boy just over 2 years old, in addition to the older child.

What happened when he came back, was he said he was sorry to me, then he wanted to rug sweep. He felt it was best to move on as soon as possible. I was not able to do that. My trust was destroyed, he hid the new child from till after it was born.

We have expended massive amounts of time arguing. He was also having conflict with the ex was clinging and using the children to jerk him around. Finally he sorted that in terms of visitation and custody recently. He is very angry from all of the problems there. Though from what I can see, his ex has given up on him. When I see her, she is calm. That is only in the last few weeks.

In terms of him and I, since he feels he can't take back what he did, he refuses to discuss it, he insists on full privilages to do as he wants in terms of friendships with women. He has a number of very casual ones, and one that appears to be casual now, but over a period of about 18 months has had me so upset that it has infected my capacity to recover.

I don't ask him very much ever about the affair. He explained to me why he feels he did it. Basically I think he is being direct with me on that.


What we have had though, in the last 3 years is a lot of drama and conflict over the affair (until the last year) and my upset over this friend of his.

I am going to be honest about my own part, here. I am not proud of myself for some parts of it, but here it is:

I am stuck. I feel stuck because of this woman friend of his. She is someone he works with. When I first met her, she set me off because I felt she was overly friendly to him. I told him immediately how I felt and asked that he make her keep her distance. He said he would, but he ended up working with her a lot, and as they did they became better friends.

This woman is married, and by her claim, she is very religious and loves her husband deeply.. they are planning to have children.

However, she has also engaged in a number of flirtations at the office, several of the men falling for her, then she tells them she didn't mean it that way... you get the picture. Then she moves on to someone else.

In my opinion, my husband became overly attached to her.

He doesn't actually HAVE to work with her as a partner at work. They have a variety of projects going and he likes working with her ( in a group of 6 other people) because she is good at the job, easy to work with, and fun.

Well that is nice. But I feel bothered by her.

So after I learned about the other child, I felt very shocked and anxious. I had been asking him to work in the other groups instead of with this woman, and all of it really was becoming too much for me to handle. I was upset a lot and he was mad at me a lot for persisting in the request and for being so upset.

Then one day, he mistakenly thought I had said something rude to the woman. I work in the same company but am in a different department. Often I see my husband during the day. At that point I HAD met his co-worker and honestly, I was cool to her. I didn't like her at all.

But, I was not rude to her. Well he jumped all over me and told me that I was not to attack that woman and he said he would file for divorce if I did it again. To say the least, I was offended. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about and couldn't he at least tell me what happened before making threats like that?

Due to SUCH a strong reaction at me, I became even more sensitive to this woman.

A few weeks later, one of the flirtations the woman co-worker had been in.. the man involved became jealous of my husband for being friends with the woman and he started a conflict. My husband said he denied it and said if that man wanted to be jealous, he should be jealous of the woman's husband, NOT my husband, because he had nothing to do with her on that level.

As you might guess, this ramped up my sensitivity even more. My husband flat out refused to work in another group. He said he was NOT going to feed into my paranoia by punishing his co-worker because his co-worker was innocent and everyone was JUST working and no one did anything wrong.

Well when the fight happened, I did say to the woman that if she was going to be causing problems for my husband probably she would end up elsewhere and certainly I was not happy with her myself. She smiled at me, and she said, "Did HE say that?"

Then she said that she felt he and her were close enough as friends that my husband would not feel that way.

I told him about it and he was irritated with me. He said all of this was in my head and I was making my own self feel terrible and I have no one to blame but myself for my unhappiness.

I don't know.

So this goes on and on. I became so uncomfortable that eventually he told me that he would not work in the same group. In fact, he had gained a leadership position and he could pick and chose. He said in return he would appreciate it if I calmed down and at try to make friends with his co worker so I would see how nice she really is and how I have nothing to fear.

Eventually I was offered a position in his department. I wanted to accept it, but his coworker was getting mad and went into talk to management to tell them that she felt I would cause problems. And my husband backed her up. He believed I was so volitile over his coworker that I would if fact cause drama.

I was humiliated. So I turned down the position. Management brushed off the conerns but I knew I would feel very uncomfortable there. My husband's coworker made clear to me that she felt she won something.

I myself was very upset about it on top off everything else. I complained about it a lot to my husband and I REALLY wanted him to not have anything to do with the lady.

Ok, this is where it gets bad. And I am sorry, I know I am writing a book here, but I want people to get the full story.

One day a few months after that, my husband's cell phone rang and I answered it. Normally I don't but that day he had left it when he was on an errand. It was his co-worker. She told me she needed some information for a business trip they were taking. And as it turned out it was him and her only going.

I kind of lost it. I felt like he had let me down. When he came home he insisted that it was a business trip only. But I had enough. Maybe I am paranoid. Maybe I am messed up in my head. But I found his co-worker's husbands place of business number and I called him and told him what I knew about the office flirtations and the man who started the argument with my husband over her and I said I felt she was trying to be too close to my husband.

OMG. It hit the fan. My husband was furious. He accused me of trying to ruin her marriage and said I humiliated him in front of everyone. He walked out on me telling me that "all of us have had enough of you and we would like it if you didn't contact any of us for a long time".

He asked me to apologize to his co-worker and tell her husband I was mistaken. He told me if I didn't, he would be filing for divorce. Well I don't want a divorce. So after a while, I did write an apology and I did explain my reasoning to her husband and apologized for any offenses. She told me off and threw in back in my face, telling me that my husband wants to get rid of me but he can't figure out how.

So he came home, I confronted him on what she said, and he said YES, at that time when he was so upset, he had said he wanted to leave me and hoped I would leave him alone. I was very upset and I said ok, I wouldn't stop him.

Then he calmed down and said that just get OVER whatever was bothering me and let's move on. he said forget about the baby, get over the affair, because dragging this with me is destroying our marriage. He said I was just paranoid and mentally ill now and to see a psychiatrist and get help.

At that point I began to have panic attacks. Every time I thought he was around her, I had a huge panic attack. So I went and got anti anxiety meds. Which helped some. But as time went on, the attacks grew in intensity when he was around his co worker and I could see it.

This brings us up to a few months ago. His co worker was assigned to a job temporarily in a different city. When she was gone, I was so relieved. I felt so much happier and the panic attacks subsided. Our marriage improved by leaps and bounds. I knew the co-worker was only gone temporarily, so I began to work very hard to heal so that when she came back, I would be able to be calm and handle things.

She came back.

I said to my husband, would you please avoid being around her for a while longer so I can continue to get better? His reply was no. In fact he had been thinking of a way to ramp up his career and in order to do that, he needed the best people with him. And she is one of the best, so he would be having her permanantly on his team. He said he knew how I felt, and that he knew I believed what I was asking was the right way to handle things, but he had plans. He said he was not going to let me get in the way and he just couldn't give up the opportunity. He said just accept it, you won't change it and if you accept it, we will have a great marriage and be happy.

I wasn't happy. I had been doing so well. I told him I didn't agree his idea was a good one and could he wait a few weeks. He said no. And the next day, he pulled her into his group and they all went to town doing their thing and they have had awesome success. They have.

But me.. the panick attacks came back. Every day. We go to work and I watch him go into his office and I see her there immediately engaging him in the latest project. She knew I hated it and was smug to me. Every day I leave work with a massive panick attack. Weeks of them. Until one day I lose it on him. I am so hurt and angry and lashing out. I realize this won't sound nice, but I was cursing at him and yelling at him during the panic attack. My whole body shaking, my heart pounding.

Over and over, I honestly reached such a point of rage and panic and despair, when she "accidentally" walked in on us in his office, I turned on her and I said you are a #%*@*&$#(@90 b**ch and if you don't back off from my husband I am going to tear you to pieces.

Well they were both stunned and she ran out freaking out and drama all over the place. My husband said YOU ARE MENTALLY ILL. He said I wasn't even acting like I was human. He said he was tired of me attacking his innocent coworker and humiliating him. He was DONE and he walked out and he left me.

So I went home. And I went quiet. And I stayed away from him. For 3 weeks. I only saw him in passing at the office. He never contacted me. I tried to talk to him yesterday and he refused to speak to me or look at me. Today I tried again.

He said he just wants me to leave him alone. He said I am selfish and try to get what I want at the expense of others. ( that I was pushing so hard and getting so upset over the coworker woman.)

I said I understand that you are upset, but please don't answer from the state of upset.

So he told me "I don't want to deal with you because you are agressive, dangerous and causing intentional damage to people who are not involved."

"people" being his coworker.

We did talk a bit. He calmed down some. I mistakenly called him "honey" and he said he is not my honey. He said he is a very tired and angry man. He said he had to go. He indicated we could talk at a later date, but he was pretty fed up.

And that is where we are. I don't know what to say or do right now. Except I know I won't be trying to talk to him for a week or so. It's just what feels best. To give more time to calm down.

I honestly don't know what to do about the panic attacks and upsets. I appear to be obsessed with this woman. He has told me in the past that he believes I am victimizing her, unfairly placing my pain and anger for his actions on her. I don't actually feel I am doing that, totally.

The panic attacks DID stop the day he left. I can feel they might still be there but they have not blown up. He has moved in with his mother and sister.

When I am in my sane mind, I think probably his co-worker is mostly a flirtatious troublemaker. But I don't know.


What do I do now? He made sure I knew nothing would be helping with me being so angry and hostile at him. And he really doesn't want to talk if I am going to be.

I hope a few people are willing to read all I wrote, because I could really use some sensible advice.

You will get a lot more assistance if you cut your post down to the bare essentials and not more than a few paragraphs.

Trust your instincts. Your husband is having an affair.
Click on Notify at the bottom of your post and ask the mods to move your thread to Surviving An Affair. You will get more help there.

To summerize:

Your husband cheated on you shortly after you were married. He had an affair with his first wife. A child was conceived. You may or may not have all the details. You still see the ex wife.

He insists on having female friends. He has one in particular that upsets you. He works with her. You've asked him to keep his distance from her, but he doesn't. She is very flirtatious.

He defends her when he thinks you are rude to her, and threatons divorce.

She has told you that she is close friends with your husband. He would like you to be friends with her, too.

She has prevented you from working in the same department as your husband. He backs her up on this.

You find out that they are going on a business trip together, alone. You lose it and tell her off. He has an angry outburst over this. He threatens divorce again unless you apologize to her and her husband.

He still refuses to stop working with her.

hi Atlanta, that is way too long to read. Can you cut that back to about 3 paragraphs? Most people do not have the time to read an overly long post just to get it.

I did read the first section and see that your husband had an affair and had a baby with his OW, his XW. He has never cut off contact with her, never done anything to recover your marriage and carries on workplace flirtations. In other words, more affairs are inevitable because your marriage never recovered from the last affair.

If I were you, I would probably accept that this is hopeless and move on. I predict your future will be one of more affairs and he will continually go back to his XW when the spirit moves him. If you divorced him, he could re-marry his XW.

You are in a marriage with a serial cheater and an abuser. You can't change him either. I would get out before this becomes more complicated by having a child.

wow. well I am not sure it is an affair. he is pretty narcisstic and extremely defensive of how he looks to other people. he actually told me that he thinks my reaction is stupid. he said he doesn't care how SHE feels, what is important to him is that I made him look bad and that I was acting in ridiculous ways trying to get my needs met.

He was in a real rage over how bad I made him look.

I wanted to check if I am the problem because I am getting so upset at him and if the key to turning it around was really simply me being calm.

It certainly looks like a classic full blown out-in-the-open office affair and you are going to destroy your health if you continue to try to bury your completely normal feelings this and about the last one.

Mel is one of our best vets and she does not usually advise pulling the plug so listen to her and start taking steps to protect yourself.

"Gaslighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory, perception and sanity.[1] Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim." here

Sound familiar?

You are not the problem, my friend. It is your husband. Your husband has demonstrated in many ways he does not care about your feelings. He has not even begun to make amends for his affair with his XW and has changed none of the reckless tactics that led to the affair. He is very likely having another affair now. What would stop him? He has demonstrated that hurting you does not stop him.

Unless and until your husband makes radical and drastic changes in his lifestyle, you are headed right for the next affair train. That's if he isn't already in affair #2 and I assure you that he is.

I will tell you how to approach this. If your husband will make radical changes in his lifestyle, you have a chance. If not, I promise that you are headed for more affairs. [if he is not already having one now]

Set him down and explain to him that you want to have a romantic, loving, SAFE marriage and that you won�t stay in a loveless marriage where you are subjected to more affairs. Tell him you are willing to give him an opportunity to earn your forgiveness for his last affair. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. This is what it will take to keep you interested:

1. end all contact with the XW-OW for life [all contact should be facilitated through a designated intermediary]

2. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle

3. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc

4. no more opposite sex friendships

5. complete honesty about his affair<s> � passing a polygraph

6. quit his job and find another one - end all contact with his current OW and find a job where he doesn't work with women

7. commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

Tell him "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage."

Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on his willingness and ability to make radical changes. His lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. He is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. He must also meet your emotional needs in a way that until now he has failed. Unless he makes a 180 degree turn in her approach to what it means to be a husband, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if he won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage.

The above approach is your only hope.

The problem is not you. It's an affair, and he is gas lighting you.

*depressed*

Atlanta,

Get out NOW before you have any children with this man, I don't see a happy future, only replay after replay of affairs.

I would suggest that WH is addicted to the admiration he gets from other women, his charm with other people is not real as you well know, but only a way of keeping his drug supply flowing.

Please get out, and don't look back at his sodom and gomorrah.

Don't be depressed this is your liberation from 10 or 20 years of suffering.

God Bless
Gamma

Do what Melodylane has suggested, and you cannot fail.

Do you have children?

we don't have any children. I look at his son and I think there is the baby I wanted. He gave it to someone else. :'(

His ex wife told me yesterday she is tired of him and doesn't want him around at all. she just wants to live alone with her two children and have a peaceful life. I think they wore each other out.

So much anger and pain in this situation.

Did you read my post?

Don't count on it.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to be married to a man you love AS MUCH OR MORE as your husband but he was a man who loved you, cared for you so much that he took extraordinary precautions to avoid an affair? Why would you settle for an abusive cheater when you can have that?

You can have short term pain and long term gain OR you can have short term pain AND long term pain.

Take your pick...

Please read.
Please Explain Gaslighting

I read your post Melody, thank you.

I know already he won't quit that job right now.

His communication to me for many months has been that my constant "fighting" has worn him out and hurt and angered him so much that though he would like to do as I ask him, he is so resentful and worn out he doesn't want to do anything for me at all. He requested that I drop the "fight" and simply let's work to be happy. And when he has restored, he feels he will want to do as I ask. Right now he says he could care less. He says he comes into contact with me and he is happy to see me and looking forward to talking and immediately I ( he says) beging to attack him and be angry, etc. , and at that moment, all desire to talk to me and interact leaves him.

What do I do? I am so hurt and angry myself. I tried to do it his way all of January and February. I got positive results from him until I asked him to wait a while to start his efforts to have his super team at work. Then it all went to heck.

Melodylane told you what to do. It's a plan that will work.