Hello,

I am NeverSayNever13's BH. She asked that I join and I believe another person asked as well. I am here for comment and I have read the entire topic. I appreciate everyone's willingness to help us in this matter. Also, I am very familiar with addiction as I have dealt with it personally in the past. I do not disagree that there is extreme danger in her seeing the OM at work, however given the unique situation of her position and his and the job itself, immediately it is the best option given I currently am seeking re-employment and hopefully will land something very soon. WW and I have agreed that should there be any complications with this that her seeking a new job will be the only option. I have asked that she be 100% honest with me going forward and notify me of ANY....ANY contact she has. Before everyone throws stones at me for saying that, please understand that "I", the BH, need her to do that regardless so that "I" can start building trust in her again. She is a horrible liar (hence why she got caught in the first place) so if I even think for one second she is hiding something, we will go to option 2 which is her finding a new job. Ok. Hopefully that sheds a little initial light on why I even agreed to send the "alcoholic into the bar". And again, thanks to everyone for your support. I am very glad I found this site...and I am looking forward to continued support. BH

Hi NSN, thanks so much for signing up!! Just know that there will never be any recovery if she continues to work there. No recovery. None. Recovery is impossible. It will be like an alcoholic who goes into a bar and has drinks but tries to stay sober. Every time she goes there and every time she sees the OM, her feelings will be triggered. Just as an alcoholic is always triggered by the first drink.

I am a recovering alcoholic with 28 years sobriety and if I am "honest" with my spouse about taking a drink, I am still just as drunk. Being "honest" will not negate the damage. Being "honest" misses the point entirely. And she can resume her affair every day she goes there and you wouuld never be the wiser.

So anyway, you need to make a choice between this job and your marriage. You can't have both. Sorry.

No, you don't need her to continue to see her adultery partner. And it certainly will not EVER create trust. Trust is created when someone behaves in trustworthy manners. Going to see her OM every day is NOT an act of trust. It is risky, stupid behavior. You already know the result when she goes there.

If you get by a car playing chicken, do you try to become a better chicken player or do you get the hell out of the road? Your marriage will never recover until she gets out of the road. NEVER.

Hello NSN. Thank you for joining us and thank you for loving your wife enough to try for recovery.

I suggest you start a different thread then your wife and then agree to not respond to each others threads. You both have different needs at this time and its better to not muddy the water.

NSN,
I believe you are looking at this backwards. Your wife is being trustworthy in demanding that she has to quit her job in order to never see the scumbag again. Whats really "untrustworthy" is agreeing to stay at her job with the scumbag for ANY reason (including you telling her to).

Every time she sees the OM, or even sees his car, will put her back to day 1 of withdrawal. She will be in a perpetual state of withdrawal and may even leave you for the OM. [or get pregnant]

If she stays there your marriage is over.

NSN,
If your wife was a crack addict would you demand that she hang out in crack houses to "prove she was trustworthy"?

Would that be a loving thing to do?

Points all well taken. However, say she has a new job and never see's him again, without learning some sort of self control on her end, what's to say she will not fall down that path again? What if seeking the "new" is the addiction and not the OM? As in AA, the alcoholic is insane in thinking he/she has control over anything that involves the addiction. I guess the true question is, Is the addiction the OM or is it the feeling of wanting something new, the excitement of the affair, the excitement of having needs met? I am working on the unmet needs part and if the addiction is the OM, then her quitting her job and not running into him again could work.

As Dr. H has pointed out frequently, there are situations where everybody can be trusted, and there are situations where nobody can be trusted. APs seeing each other is a situation where nobody can be trusted, so it is not a fair test. You need to affair-proof your marriage. Then you are in a situation where everybody can be trusted. Follow the advice given here, and you will succeed in affair-proofing your marriage. Step 1 is no contact with the OM. You need to support and enforce this, not tempt and test it.

That's correct. She will do this again if she does not clean up the boundaries that allowed her to have an affair in the first place. For example, she likely has opposite sex friendships and has personal conversations with men. That was probably one of the conditions that led to her affair.


If she is a serial cheater, which I sort of doubt, then you would need to take more stringent precautions, such as being with you 24/7.


Exactly. Which is why the alcoholic stays out of bars, stops drinking and keeps alcohol out of his house. He doesn't try "social drinking" to prove he has will power. HE HAS ALREADY LOST THE BATTLE WITH WILL POWER. So the solution is to not get on the field of battle again.


She should get the excitement of getting her needs met in her marriage.

Even so, she is addicted to this OM and the solution is to stay away from this addiction.

NSN13sBH:

Welcome to marriage builders. I am sorry for the reason you are here.

The addiction is to the "high" she gets from contact with him. Any contact. Even looking at his photo. Even planning to "bump into him" in the stairwell.

She first has to go through the withdrawal of being apart from him. But she can only do that when she IS apart from him, with no possibility of future contact. Once she is through withdrawal, she can begin to accept deposits in her love bank from you. But likely this will not happen until she is through withdrawal.

You say you know about addiction. Great. You are ahead of where I was when I first came here. But then you also must understand you cannot let her go into the "crack den" to prove she is strong enough to resist.

You cannot trust her enough at this point. And that will take a long time to re-build. But it IS possible. You have found the exact right program to follow to make this happen. So listen to the veterans here, heed their advice.

Brainstorm for other ways to handle this.
Can she work from another location?
Or at home?
Perhaps she will need to ask her superiors to recommend a position at another company.
Or, you could contact the OW's company and ask that he be moved somewhere else.
Or both of you could take on part time jobs elsewhere to cover your expenses while you both continue looking.
Or cash in some of your retirement savings.
Or sell one of your cars to tide you over.
Or borrow funds from family to tide you over.

Working on this together as a team, you can think of lots of other ideas.

You can do this. But not if she keeps working at that location.

I know all about this, NSN13sBH. My WH had "business-only contact" for five months, and reported daily to me about his meetings w/ the OW. He now says, it was not possible for him to keep away from her. That he wished I had found out earlier, to help him get away, all the while he was also begging her to run away with him. He was finally so relieved when we did move away, and I subsequently discovered the A had been ongoing, and that is when he was finally able to end it for good.

That's how impossible it is for your WW to stay there. And she knows this.

And I cannot express how much MORE damage the 5 months of "business-only" contact did to our marriage. That discovery was immensely more painful than the first one, if you can believe it. And I still struggle with it. Don't come down this road.

Your marriage can survive a rough financial patch. But not further contact.

Recovery is a process NSN. Don't jump to step 5 before you finish step 2.

You have valid concerns BUT you can't address them right now with the continued exposure to addiction still there. Remove the exposure, let the withdrawal proceed. Then address the other issues. You can't begin to address the whys of an addiction until you break the addiction.

You should really have your own thread, but I think you have the right questions with the wrong answers (your own answers, not those provided by posters previous to this).


So, let's talk about the addiction to the OM, and how we would avoid destructive transference (a new addiction).


1) Knowing that she is addicted to "men" (really, having men meet her emotional needs), and that she is a married woman, she will institute Extraordinary Precautions to prevent any man other than her husband from meeting her needs.

2) YOU will become an expert at meeting her emotional needs, and so that work does not become undone, you will also eliminate your love busters.

3) YOU will become her new addiction, by establishing and maintaining Romantic Love in your marriage.


Her part is to provide to you a written list of extraordinary precautions, a set of plans and behaviors to prevent any contact ever again with the OM, for the rest of your lives, as well as to prevent any future affairs.

Now, lets' get YOU a thread started.

Catwhit,

Thank you so very much for this feedback. All of what you said makes sense and I have a lot of analysis to do moving forward. The key take away from everyone is that she must move away from the temptation, leave the job, and avoid at all costs contact with the OM. My WW and I have a lot to discuss and plan and I thank you for the kind but firm feedback.

NSN13 and NSN13sBH;

Glad to hear you are re-thinking things.

The plan for recovery/thriving here is simple. Not easy, but simple. You can do this. But not if you skip steps.

Your marriage can be better than you ever imagined. THAT's how you overcome the addiction, get rid of the resentment, re-build the trust. And this is the ONLY place to get the program.

Keep posting, it helps.

But you should have separate threads, so each of your perspectives can be addressed.

Agreed and thank you again everyone. Best, NSN13sBH

Your posts and the replies have been moved here.

NSN13sBH - PLEASE listened to ALL the advice and comments from the senior members, BS and I joined this site I believe back in May of this year, I "thought" I was following the MB's plan, we "thought" we were doing what we were supposed to in order to begin our journey of recovery - we were WRONG, we've only now just started putting into practice what we should have started with.

Mrs_cen,
I am listening to everyone on here. I am also making sure that my WW is following the suggestions on her post from everyone here. I honestly think this is our saving grace and this many people saying the same things, can't be wrong. Thank you.

What are your plans so she never sees OM in 10 days?