Do you think he's not going to hem and haw regarding to these EPs (changing email, phone and closing FB) and you don't want to rock the boat, pinkstraws?

Because I honestly cannot understand this resistance in a thread that begins with your emphatically telling us about how your WH has failed to protect you by hanging on to affair emails, after being repeatedly asked to erase. If that's not a red flag, I am not sure what else needs to be said to convince you.

I will tell you a story:

During the Second World War, partisans instructed the farmers of a small village to install a road block to prevent German tanks from entering the village.
When they came back after a few hours, the farmers pridefully showed them a large tree, that they laid down on the road to the village.
The partisan said: "But the Germans could easily get around that!" as the road was surrounded by corn fields.
The farmers said: "But I'm sure they would never drive over the corn field and ruin the crop?!"

Your tree is blocking her e-mail or facebook.
Did it ever occur to you that there are several billions of other e-mail adresses and facebook accounts that she could use to contact your husband any time she wanted?

The same things do not happen twice? Of course they do. That is what we call a pattern, a modus operandi or a weakness. I would not ask if he contacted her. I would ask myself why not? He has sent her some wishy washy no contact letter full of "You are the love of my life" bridges of Madison county crap.
Why should he not make a few extra phone calls to let her off easily, as poor her is so suicidal? Please take care of yourself so that it will not be you who is feeling that way in some time.

You deserve a safe and happy marriage. But that is not achieved by having your head buried in 5 tons of sand. Wake up and get a little madder. You owe it to yourself and to your marriage.

I love this story and actually I think we are saying similar things in different ways. I completely agree that there are millions of other ways to get around one block. Another poster mentioned that his WS started an affair on myspace and then picked it up again on fb. That is what I call two different things. I could put a lot of effort into blocking fb and he could find something else. I cannot block the world and frankly, I do not want to try.

I am not being argumentative...I realized I was wrong about the travel issue. But I have to be comfortable with my decisions and I have to have full buy-in myself, for anything I do in my life. I'm thinking about this and talking about it with my H. I did mention it this morning, that we should consider the impact of fb on our lives and he pulled up fb and blocked her right then. I was like, no wait - we will talk this weekend. But he was like, I don't want her to be able to contact me again. It could be a show, but he never even put on a show when he was having the A. He is pretty much on the surface that way (and yes, the A was obvious and incredibly easy to discover/prove).

Yes, I am torn apart by the things that he did with her, including giving her gifts and similar things. It's like a knife to the heart, all of it. But that is not to say I do not see how the A developed. I wouldn't be with my H if I didn't get access to their email archives where I could see exactly how the A developed. That was important for me. I do not think I could find the energy to make this work if I did not understand. It is just my way.

If my H randomly got entranced by a woman out of nowhere...well, he works with women, he has to email them or meet them at work. If it is something he is likely to do again, I might not be all that into this process. I am just being honest. If he even WANTS to do it again, he should just leave. I am not into this living my life with an H who roams around looking for other women or even wishes he could be with other women. Maybe this isn't the right program for me. I realize this statement is probably not very MB friendly. But whatever, it is how I feel. I am not so old I feel like my life is over, but not so young I feel like I want to spend the second half of my life dealing with this crap from a 50 year old man who can't control himself. That is not who I married.

There are trustworthy men out there. I do believe I married one. I believe people make mistakes and being family means sticking by someone through all sorts of terrible times and giving them a chance to correct their mistakes. But my unease with this whole fb thing is I am not signing up to be my husband's babysitter. And I do not like the feeling I get when I look at his things without him knowing. I don't care if it's wrong or right for other people: it feels wrong for me. I agree with Dr. H - we should have no privacy, no secrets from each other. But my H is going to know what I am doing.

If my honesty and openness gives him experience to cheat again, then he should just leave because I am not turning into a person I don't respect to keep him under control.

And yes, if was addicted to crack, I'd feel the same way. We can work on anything, but we cannot have a constant battle for his heart and mind.

No it is the same thing. If socialising with OS members on social media is what led to the A, then all social media should go. It should become impossible for OS friends to meet his needs on a socail media site again. As THAT is what triggers romantic love.

I'm guessing it is still possible for a old HS girlfriend to find him on FB and send an admiring message saying hi?

Insanity is defined as doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.

You only need to block members of the OS meeting his needs. Not 'the world'. If you don't want to, cool. No one said you had to. If you would rather risk a second A, than put protections in place, that's your call.



Anybody - you, me, the pope, Dr Harley WILL love whoever meets our needs.

So it is a good idea not to let OS people meet our needs. That is something that would happen to any one of us.

Its nice when people are funny, interesting and affectionate to us online. It draws us in. It gets us addicted to FB.

Look at you now, defending FB to the death. Is it really THAT important??

If your H needs FB to chat to members of the OS, he WILL get his needs met there.

If she contacts his FB or email from another source, then she WILL meet an admiration AND an affection need.

Why are you leaving the latch out for her?

Have you read Dr. Harley's new article?
The Risk of Opposite-sex Friendships in Marriage

It's not fb, it's the question of what caused the affair to happen, which I did not think is fb. Anyway, I was rethinking MB for a minute and so checked out some of the writings and no, I am sure I am reading this correctly:

"The first step, complete separation from the lover and eliminating the conditions that made the affair possible, requires a complete understanding of the affair. All information regarding the affair must be revealed to the betrayed spouse, including the name of the lover, the conditions that made the affair possible (travel, internet, etc.), the details of what took place during the affair, all correspondence, and anything else that would shed light on the tragedy."

I have this. I have over 200 emails spanning the entire development of the A.

Stage one:
My H and I were not getting along and spending a lot of time apart. Coincidentally, around this same time, my H found a bunch of old friends from high school on FB. One of them (future OW) had become a marriage counselor and licensed grief specialist. As they chatted, via email, she drew him out about his marital problems, therapist-style, developing trust. OW by her own admission has been in love with my H since she was 18. He had no idea she was alive until last May (I have seen their first correspondence)

Stage 2
OW convinced my H our marriage was in severe crisis. All of her advice to him was designed to make things worse between us, and he was following it as he believed she knew what she was talking about. I have several emails that include the sentence: I know what I am talking about here, trust me, in my experience.... or: In my practice, people think that too, but you can trust me, it isn't right. And lots of the same trust-me-BS. My H's focus slowly changed from talking to her out of concern for our marriage to responding to her (very disguised) flattery and reminiscing about high school but it was still very "flirty email" style and nothing I would have been too alarmed over had I seen it, until:

Stage 3:
December. We had a stressful (thanks to her manipulations) visit home for the holidays and H remained in the US while I took kids back to school. He did not see her (she wanted him to, but he resisted - seen the emails) and he came back home after a few weeks. But he was acting so weird and wouldn't talk about anything with me. In her emails that month, as I later saw, she was advising him not to speak to me or feel like he had to "explain himself" to an irrational wife (I was pretty upset by his behavior by this time).

A few weeks later we had a death in the family. Less than 24 HOURS after this news, the OW started in on offering my H sex. It was like she had struck gold with this tragedy because she knew exactly how to go in for the kill as a trained grief specialist.

Indie girl says affairs are like a drug and this is true and the OW knew it. My H needed an escape from this and she offered it. When I spoke to him in this time it was like dealing with someone who was being brainwashed. He spoke using her exact words, he was utterly controlled by her. And then he left. The A became physical. We did not talk much in this time.

Stage 4:
He claims he woke up at her house one day in April with no idea where he was or how he got there. He bought a ticket back home the next day. He sort of snuck out of the US and - coward, yes - tried to end it with her via email and phone. She went crazy (I saw these emails, she said told my H she had guns in the house). He pacified her - she had convinced him he had used her and he felt guilty. I saw him on May 3 or 4th and he seemed like he was in touch with himself again, but I was so out of control angry for about a month; I would't let him come to the house and when he was in my presence I just broke things and raged at him. He ended his relationship with the OW in this time. He was sloppy about it but May was a seriously sloppy month for us both. We weren't really thinking things through, just reacting.

Anyway, going back to what Dr. H said, my "complete understanding" of what happened has led to the removal of the conditions that made the affair possible, which was - I think - an unusual situation for us.

I am not making excuses: there is a reason why therapists are not able to have affairs with their patients. Marriage counselors are skilled in the ways a marriage can come apart and the OW used this to take my marriage apart piece by piece for her own benefit. A therapist, when they gain someone's trust, can make that person extremely vulnerable to suggestion and get them to act in ways they would not normally act. A grief specialist has intimate knowledge of the grief process to the point where they are able to know exactly what weaknesses a person might have at any stage, and exactly what sorts of diversions and temptations that person will follow.

So no. it isn't fb. It isn't even social media. It isn't flattery (by itself). If it were that simple...well, I don't know what I'd do. I'd have to think about that. I genuinely and sincerely do feel as if both of us are this woman's victims. It isn't a red flag that I hate her. I hate her because she set out to destroy my marriage and used a family tragedy to make that happen for herself. Who does that? Not normal people.

Will this repeat itself? Well, I'd be really surprised if these circumstances in our lives repeat themselves. And if they did, if he was ever that weak again, he certainly wouldn't be alone. I made lots of mistakes too.

But I do get that maybe now that he has done it once, he might do it again. Boundaries being stretched and all that. I think tonight I have come to the conclusion that there won't be a next time. He is out on his ear in two seconds if he so much as takes a single step in that direction. I have just been through too much this year.

You don't get it. But that is ok. YOU WILL when it happens again. Will be here when it happens.

Pink,

I feel the same way in a lot of respects about my FWW. I trust her now, even after her second affair. But I am verifying this trust with active snooping. I've also said if I have to babysit a grown woman with two kids from straying again, it isn't worth it. I so get that. I also have not blocked FB...against the forum advice(but we did a clean sweep of all OS friends). She kept her smartphone...against the forum advice (but every messaging app except FB was deleted). I know Dr. Harley would side with the forum on these two issues but I can't build a marriage for the sole purpose of preventing a third affair. And, I really believe some waywards clean up fast and on their own, scared at what they have become. I think my W is one of those but it doesn't seem from previous posts that your H is. Am I wrong?

I guess at the end of the day, YOU have to be satisfied with your EPs since you suffer the results. But understand you are taking a potentially huge risk; picking and choosing MB principles generally ends poorly. You've got a similar situation as me, so I'm rooting for you.

Yep. And I am confused about one aspect of this: In my H's needs survey he rated both his need for intimate conversation and his need for honesty and openness as his two LOWEST needs and says that I over-meet these needs.

I obviously brought up that the OW seems to have filled these two needs most clearly (she is not attractive at all - his other needs were mostly met, though recreational activities needed improvement and our love banks were at zero)

I do need to get to the root of this as I cannot let him convince me not to meet his needs, if they are in fact, greater needs than he is reporting. Why would anyone report a need as lower than it is, though?

Well, I agree and root for you right back! Whatever you do has to work for you and be part of who you are. I like this program so far as it is helping, but I think I have to consider I am not fully on board with the EPs so maybe the rest of it won't work. Not sure. I need to think about this. I do see where picking and choosing is ill advised.

We are all taking a huge risk.

Why would Dr Harley think that? Why would the forum think that? He has only specialized in recovering marriages from infidelity for 40 years? Could he be crazy? Could we all be crazy paranoids who don't possess your personal wisdom? Or could it be because Dr Harley and the people on the forum have experience and know how to recover a marriage?

I am very sad that you have just handed pinkstraws an anchor while she is drowning instead of a life saver. The advice you just gave her is very dangerous and misguided. Take it from someone who in a fully recovered marriage

You can't build a marriage unless you do take steps to prevent a third affair. That is the whole point. What you and pink are doing is sending the alcoholic into the bar expecting him/her to "clean up on her own." That completely misses the point. If an alcoholic wants to stop drinking, you REMOVE THE TEMPTATION. You keep him out of the bar and keep the alcohol out of the house.

What you are doing is expecting the wayward to resist temptation in a tempting situation. But that does not work. What does work is removing temptation and removing any avenue of contact. That is what makes a marriage happy, safe and affair proofed.

MMM, I think it should be noted that you are here due to your wife's SECOND AFFAIR and you still are not following very basic Marriage Builders precautions to avoid another affair. You are not in a recovered marriage yourself so how is it you feel qualified to give advice that contradicts Dr Harley?

Do you want Pinkstraws husband to have another affair like your wife did?

If you don't build a marriage for the sole purpose of preventing a third affair, you won't have a marriage. Why wouldn't you want to protect your marriage from another affair? Are stupid, inane things like facebook and smartphones REALLY so important that you would sacrifice your marriage for them?

Really?

NO!!!!

When there's been an affair there has to be iron clad EPs put in place.

WHATEVER avenues allowed the affair to happen must be closed.

If Facebook or texting or emailing or....allowed the affair. Then those avenues must be closed or another affair will happen.

PROTECT your marriage and follow MB to the letter. Do not cherry pick the program.

If a person is determined to communicate with another person online or have an affair in the 8 hours a day they spend at work, there is no way to truly stop that without keeping them locked in a room.

What I am feeling right now is that EPs give you the sense that you are in control during a time in your life when everything feels out of control. That is about as tempting as anything I've ever heard of because I want it to be true. But I had to question it because I just don't believe it's possible.

That doesn't mean I am "drowning" it means I am able to see that there are a million ways for my H to get around any EP I could think up. I'm not playing this game of what do I have to block today. I'm already spending way too much emotional energy trying to keep track of the EPs I started. I never find anything and I know I never will. My H is not stupid. This is not spy vs. spy. And if this is truly the only way to keep my H from having another affair, I'm not suited to it.

EPs are designed to protect you from getting into an affair and causing pain and devastation to the people you love the most...your family. It is a lifestyle designed to prevent you from being "manipulated" or accidentally falling into an affair.

EPs are how both spouses protect themselves from being the cause of total destruction to others.

You are still pretty new here Pink. I sincerely hope that you keep reading and maybe sign up for a few sessions. Why don't you email the Harley's with your comment above and get their response? Maybe they can explain it in a way that will make more sense to you.

How would your H feel about periodical polygraphs to verify his truthfulness?

Since he has not been trustworthy, agreeing to them would show some consideration of the nightmare he has put you through. (and help him reconsider crossing lines with other women).

So if your WH will not put EPs in place and follow them to protect you and your marriage. Then what will you do?

Pink,

I'm sorry but you seem full of denial and don't seem to understand why everything is done in the MB program. You appear to know the information but not the why, allow me to illustrate:

- If someone is a recovering alcoholic is it more dangerous for them to hang out in bars than someone who has never had a drinking problem? THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS YES!

You are trying to believe your WH has the the same outlook on things that you do and guess what, HE DOESN'T. He already cheated once, he showed he doesn't know how to keep an appropriate boundary for the OS on his own and yet you're refusing to enable him to do so? It is plain in sight to everybody criticizing your actions, he doesn't know how to protect your marriage and he has proved that. Why would you not teach him?

It is cruel if anything to hold such high expectations for him by subjecting him to temptation on one of his biggest weaknesses over and over. This is exactly like a wife of a recovering alcoholic forcing her husband to take her to bars so she doesn't have to change her lifestyle.

I hope you wake up because it will be bad news for you if you don't. Sadly, you are the one that is going to suffer the most if/when another A happens, is this honestly what you want for yourself???

**edit**