Last night after my wife and I had a wonder night out, I check my email before I went to bed and saw that on my work account I had gotten an email from the OW that said she missed me.

My wife was sleeping already - so I tossed around waiting till in the morning but decided to wake her up. I am glad I did.

Seeing the mail made me feel very anxious - and my feelings were all over the place.

Once I woke her up though, i started to feel better. The anxiety wore off - and was able to go to sleep ( eventually ).

I deleted the email , and we talked about it a little more this morning and re-read through my contracts which this time I kept. In the past I have broken them by reaching out to her when we were arguing or in major disagreements. It was a very difficult time, and I see how much i hurt my wife by doing it, and how selfish it was.

I still have urges to reply, but I am going to pray today about it and ask for help.

Even though this weeks devotion in Draw Close for us is The Art of Respectful Persuasion - I was able to use it for this latest email issue.

The Bible verse said

- Two are far better than one
- though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves
- a cord of three strands is not quickly broken ( God, My wife and I )

There is no doubt now that last night / today if I were to have tried to tackle this myself - even with the best intentions, I would have most definitely failed. I would have ultimately broken my contract, which in turn would have compromised all the work we have done together, and the Love Bank Balances we have both built up.

I accept that i was pulled, or that I felt something when I saw that email. I couldn't control those emotions.

What I can control are my responses to them.

Anything other that sharing openly and honestly would have torn us further apart.


I am trying to just bury it.

It feels good to share, and I am feeling better ( i.e. feeling less pull ) - thank you.

Li, the best thing you can do is prevent those emails from getting to you getting at all. Can you change your email or ask an IT person how to automatically dump any emails from OW?

li_runner, you showed up here professing to be in recovery. Fair enough. So did I.

However, you've never said much about your journey or timeline to recovery.

Did you never send a "no contact" letter? (If not, why was was this step skipped? What did Steve Harley advise you on that issue?)

In one of your initial posts, you referred to changing personal phone/email accounts, I believe. Will you be taking steps to help assuage your wife's anxiety by getting your office email address changed and to have your company's IT specialists arrange to block messages from OW's known address so that you will not receive them?

Why wasn't your contact information changed? Is OW married?

Did you write a NC Letter?

RocketQueen - I'm doing that this morning. They had been in place, and I got a new system recently so will make sure they are in place.

thank you.

Brainhurts - everything was changed, the first was my phone and phone number which is how we communicated. Extra email accounts were closed / deleted.

the account this hit was my work account, which I couldn't change. The email filters will be the easiest way I can block the emails from her.

GloveOil,


My wife spoke with her, and I also sent a no contact letter in the beginning. No contact has been made.

I immediately changed my cell phone number, and put filters on my email. The must have been lost during a system upgrade recently. They are going back on today.

She is not married, and we had EA which turned into a PA almost a year and a half ago for appx 6 months. She is my wife's cousins best friend.

We don't live anywhere near her, so there is no chance of running into her.

We have been going through sessions with Steve - and it has helped tremendously.

He helped me realize my biggest problem was basically myself, and my perception of things.

GloveOil,


Just curious - what forum should I have been in if not the "In Recovery" one?

One thing that might help is to have your wife reply to the OW email, saying that you shared this email with her and wish to have her reply instead of you.

That will send a strong message to the OW that you and your wife are united and she is an outsider.

sorry for the threadjack, Lil R.

Minjo, are you still here? I would love to see an update. I have often wondered how things turned out for you.