Makes all sorts of sense. I never thought about his mind being flooded with memories and he might enjoy them, ugh.

I do want to clarify a bit though...we won't run into OW in our home town. It is two towns northwest of us. And we also won't run into her two towns northeast of us where H was working for my brother (and where I did a bunch of my scouting for my business also). We have set a boundary where neither of us are allowed to travel that includes about 10 miles in a radius around her home and one of her adult children's home.

The only possible way that we could see OW is if H breaks no contact, or if one of us happens to pass her on the freeway (the freeway that is about 30 miles from our house...but us and OW would have to use that freeway to go into or out of a big city near us).

BUT like you all have pointed out, just the sight of her can trigger him (or me, ugh), and so I am listening to all that you are saying.

BS, first off, just compensation would INVOLVE moving. That would be the necessary change of environment to accommodate recovery. You should move *IF* you decide to save your marriage. You shouldn't place your marriage in harms way to "see" if it works out because it is not going to work out unless you don't! That is like the alcoholic saying he may leave the bar *IF* recovery goes well enough. nonononnonononono, leaving the bar is an essential part of recovery.

And I do understand that you won't be able to up and move tomorrow. It takes time to make such arrangements.

And no, you should not give your husband enough rope to hang himself. That is not how this works. You should REMOVE the rope and affair proof your marriage. HOW can your husband go to work tomorrow and prove to you he is not in contact with the OW?

That is what you have to determine. No nooses, don't take the chance. We don't take chances here, we make the necessary lifestyle changes to avoid a repeat.

I totally appreciate your honesty Melody, and I do remember that you and LWFH and mrs cen, and others, have moved. I guess I'm just feeling after all of this that there is very little hope, so if anyone knows specifically of a really LTA though that has moved and then recovered, I would love to read that story.

Man alive, I needed to read that again!

Okay, so I just asked H what HE could do to make me feel safe and prove to me that he did not contact the OW...he said a polygraph at any random day, unannounced until the day of. He is saying that the threat of that alone should be enough that he wouldn't even mess with trying to break NC.

What do you think?

But, you don't need to read any stories. [you have our examples, btw] Dr. Harley advises moving if that is what it takes to NEVER see the OP again. You are in that very situation. In your case, living within 30 minutes pretty much guarantees that you or your H will eventually run into her. We have had affairs start up after the WS just drove past his OW on the road. In your case, it is even more imperative because a long term affair is even more entrenched than a shorter term affair.

That doesn't stop him, though. He is perfectly willing to take the chance of getting caught. He was willing to take the chance in the past. That has never stopped him in the past and it won't stop him in the future. He is an ADDICT and won't care about that.

BS, it is entirely up to you, but I would not wipe out your financial support and your health insurance unless you really must. Why not accept your brothers offer and in the meantime, start brainstorming to find another way to live.

What do you think?

SugarCane, believe me, this morning he wasn't agreeing to anything. He was as wayward as they come, and thanks to all of you yesterday, I finally saw just how bad that it is. I needed to see it, so you did me a favor.

As for requiring more action, I think that I need to ask all of you to watch me (and him on his thread) closely, and let me know when you see me rationalizing. Please?

What I *think* that I have done as far as requiring action today...he was laying on the couch half asleep talking with me and I USED to talk with him like that. This time I told him that I would not be talking about this until he could sit up and look me in the eyes and be totally involved in the conversation.

Another thing is that instead of going round and round with his wayward nonsense about last night's thread, I told him that I disagreed with him and if he thinks that you guys were so rude to him, that he needs to read it again and tell me exactly who was rude and how they were rude. We read each post out loud, and after two pages, he said wow, he couldn't believe that he had said that stuff.

Yes maybe he was just trying to appease me. Like Melody said he is cunning and sly. And an exceptional liar.

So what I did to get him to tell me the truth (AFTER you guys adjusted his thinking a bit, THANK YOU!!!), is that I said that I was not even going to entertain recovery until scheduling a poly. But that we don't have the money for it now, and so what I was going to do was put my entire website on a 50% off sale so that we could (literally) have thousands of $ by the end of the week.

A 50% off sale would have meant that I was literally making zero profit on some of my stuff, but that I would be turning cash to put it back in hand. It also would have meant hardly any remaining inventory for the Christmas Season.

Well....I had it all set up to click for 50% off and he said "No, Wait. We have to talk."

It came spewing out like 600 year old dirty diapers. I wrote two pages of questions down AS I asked them, plus I wrote his answers so that I can compare with the poly. Yes we will still get a poly, but honestly I don't need one for that stuff any more. HE doesn't have to know that, and now he has thought of having a poly every so often any way if he gets to keep his job.

Exactly, so how would that make me feel safe? I guess that I could feel safe right AFTER he passes each poly, but man that could get expensive.

The problem (for me) is that my brother won't hire that laborer until maybe this next week or the week after. And sometimes my brother moves slower than he promises. So for now it would just be my brother and one other guy watching my husband. And they won't BE at the job all of the time. Just in and out during the day at un-announced times.

There is a story near the top of the threads in recovery right now that will illustrate just how short the trip is from the desire to recover to divorce - it has to do with two things; a very long term affair, and not moving after the A was ended.

1. Are you still seeing a marriage counsellor? Stop, if so.

2. Write to Dr H at the radio show first thing on Monday. You don't have to be on the show if you don't want to, but you do need specific advice directed to your unusual situation of a 12-year affair.

Exactly, so how would that make me feel safe? I guess that I could feel safe right AFTER he passes each poly, but man that could get expensive.[//quote]

You won't feel safe because you will not BE safe. Giving him polygraphs will not prevent contact. You might find out afterwards but by then it will be too late.


How about exchanging phones with him tonight and asking your brother and the other man to keep their eyes peeled until they can hire the other guy?

Dr Harley is a genius at coming up with creative solutions! He can be a great help in finding solutions for you.

Melody, I am not willing to go through one more day of being unsafe. I just told him that either he quits tomorrow or we get a divorce.

He says that no one is telling us that we have to change things this second, but that we do it ASAP. He says that no one is telling us to put ourselves into financial ruin over this without trying to stack things at least in our favor. I told him that I asked for this to be planned out on D-Day 1, almost six months ago, and if it had been planned for, then D-Day #3 may not have happened.

I do not want to live one more day of my life like this. Tell me if I am wrong, please.

BS, you need to decide for your marriage what is necessary for you to feel safe! No one here can tell you what that might be. It is not my ox getting gored, after all! So, you do what is necessary to protect yourself.

Thanks HHH, I looked quickly and couldn't find it, but I will check them all out tomorrow. I appreciate it!

He is talking about MikeSmiling. They didn't move and had occasional run ins with the OM and his wife. They are now getting divorced. They were both very pro-recovery after the affair but cut that corner. It wrecked their marriage.

The rule is that if you can't guarantee no contact, that you need to move. Living within 30 minutes means you can't guarantee no contact. Affairs have started over something as insignificant as passing an OP on the highway.

It basicly meant that there were daily reminders of the affair, and also meant that any and all Love Bank deposits were immediately eroded into the negative.

It was impossible for MSS to get his LB to the a threshold where he even liked his wife, let alone felt romantic love.

Living in such close proximity to so many triggers sets a 100% rate for failure.

Thanks, I am going to read that thread right now. I had read a bit of it before, but can't remember much about it.

It is 3:15 am here and I just now was able to get up and come downstairs to ask for advice about this next thing:

I am afraid that H may be not doing very well with his guilt (he is sleeping right now so I'm okay down here for a few).

He seemed okay earlier. He agreed to not go into work tomorrow and he came up to bed and held me. I cried and thanked him so much for putting me and our marriage first, over the finances or our house. I fell asleep and when I woke up later, it was with him sitting up and sobbing on the side of the bed.

He just kept saying over and over how he can't go on with this pain, how he doesn't deserve to live, how he ruined everything, how people died in our wars that didn't deserve to die and yet God lets him live after what he has done.

I held him and said over and over how I loved him, and he would settle down for a minute, but then the same cycle would start again.

I thought of myself after D-Day and how I didn't want to live and how the pain kept coming in waves, and so I thought that if that is similar to what he is feeling, that I could tell him to ride out the waves while I held him. That seemed to work for a little while, but then he got upset because I was being nice to him, and he seemed more agitated with my trying to help.

He finally fell asleep. But he doesn't seem to be in too deep of a sleep, and he is already a sleepwalker, so I am afraid of missing if he gets out of bed during the night and comes downstairs.

GloveOil, mrs cen, anyone else? Has anyone gone through this and can you tell me how long it lasts? My husband has always been totally mentally stable, and this isn't "instability" necessarily...to me it seems like an overwhelm of emotion just like I felt after D-Day.

From the way he's been acting it seems like a very foggy wayward's way to keep an almost-out-the-door BS from going out the door.

Has he done this before today? Showed the slightest bit of guilt or regret in this extreme a manner?