StrongerMe, great point about his actually feeling empathy FOR ME rather than self-pity. I have to say that I did see a bit of it today. Plus I did a little "test". Tell me what you think...

my brother called early this am to tell me that he DID already hire a laborer, straight out of his church, and someone who knows my husband and personally cares about both of us. My brother told this man that he may not WANT the job...because if my H has contact while on his watch, he will be fired instantly. The man still wanted the job and has even offered to DRIVE my H to work if I will drop him off at his house each morning!

So...I figured hmmm....if there is a reason that H was playing me last night, it is that he wants to go to work. So I told my brother that yes that is acceptable for this week only, and then I will see what Dr. H has to say.

Well....H was STILL acting compassionate towards me, helped me carry things for shipping (still tough on me after cancer surgery to lift too much weight), and said I'm sorry a million times today.

Something else that he did, and I could see that it almost killed him, is that he called his MOTHER right in front of me and told her exactly what more he has done as far as breaking NC, including that he warned the skank of the exposure. He also admitted that he had SEX with her for the entire 12-1/2 years, including on D-Day #1. <---this made him physically nauseous, I could see that

He also told his mother that *I* am trying to do everything that I can to save our M and that he "keeps lying to me". I could hear the chewing out that he got from her, and his response to that was "I have an addiction and I need help or I will lose my M".

OH NO SusieQ, I don't believe that my H is getting it yet. Far from it. There are some glimpses that I've never seen before. But after 1-1/2 days, those glimpses aren't trustworthy and they could be more fox-smarts. The self-pity is definitely still there.

YES it is all about MY protection now. Can I still talk about the A now, since we are not in recovery? I'm not back to talking "about" the A (egad, after what I heard on Sunday, I don't even want to think about it), but I am calling him on wayward thinking when he is telling me that he broke NC because he was just "being selfish" again. I'm tired of that card, and I want him to tell me exactly what was going through his mind.

I'm off now to do some work again, yay! Also, H has said that he will read GloveOil's story tonight and that he will post to his own DumbMan thread. We will see.

okay, here is the next email that I sent. And yes Melody, I did give them my phone number when I sent the original email today

2nd email to Joyce:

Following up to my first email because the forum people tell me that you may need more info.

They want me to let you know that as for us moving/not moving...the OW lives 30 minutes away and in a town that we never pass through. However, her home is about five minutes from an entrance to a freeway that we DO drive on (together) once per week to go downtown to service my in-law's rental properties (prior to D-Day, my husband drove this alone but part of EPs are that he never go without me again).

They also want me to explain that the OW was a customer of my husband's when he was in the plumbing and heating service business. He did change jobs and is now working for my brother and being watched all of the time by a laborer that my brother hired from his church. NO MORE service work. Ever. He is now working on new construction homes (IF you say that it is safe for him to go back to work). My husband's means of contact with OW is that he would make up stories about working late or stopping someplace on the way home. Then he would occasionally "go missing" and be out of phone contact for an hour or two after he was supposed to be home. He would stop at her house for their fun. She is a 65 year old divorced woman. We are 50 and 52 (him) if that matters.

A forum member wanted me to tell you that I have heard that you do not recommend post-nups because of their effect on recovery, but I was told to enquire about the need for one in our case, because the affair was so long and entrenched, and because my H maintained contact after D Day. He is clearly badly addicted and the affair is deeply embedded into his life. If I make financial losses and move, away from all of my support networks, and then he does this again, my personal losses will be great (greater than they already are now), and I would appreciate some financial guarantees against these. Should I seek guarantees in the form of a post-nup?

And they want me to clarify that we purchased the Home Study Course, and not the online course. So we do not yet have access to a coach.

Thank you so much!

You know, he is being honest when he says he was being "selfish." That is exactly what he was doing. I get my panties in a knot when he tries to say he is "dumb" or "stupid" or "made a mistake." That makes me crazy because we all know he is about as dumb as a wily fox! After all, he hid an affair for 12 years!!

And how did he manage to sneak off for 12 years and have sex with skanky? How did he cover up that time? And what kind of woman does that? Do you have any sense of why a woman just put out for free for 12 years with nothing in return? I ask out of curiosty because it is unusual for a woman to allow herself to be treated like an unpaid wh*re for years on end. Typically they want to take the relationship to #1 concubine.

Does he think that being addicted is an excuse? Yes, he is addicted, but oddly some people believe that is an excuse. I like that he is saying he is addicted in the sense that it helps you understand how important it is to move away. He is very addicted to her and it will take ALOT to crack that addiction.

By the way, I attribute his breakdown last night to the loss of his addiction. Losing access to an addiction is like losing half of yourself. It is a horrible feeling.

Hi markos, by mentioning Dr. Harley's plan, are you meaning the first step NC? Or are you meaning the Basic Concepts? I guess it's like slicing hairs here lol, but I am starting to feel confused about what I should be focusing on.

Here is what I think, and you all please correct me if I'm off base:

As for actions from HIM...I am watching every move, every gesture, every teary eye, every crinkle of his cheek (I've just started noticing that it crinkles when he is going to cry), every word that comes out of his mouth, every silence...So the ACTIONS that I need is consistency. Consistent extraordinary care, consistent honesty, consistent SELF-honesty, consistent willingness to protect, consistent putting me first before all others including our dogs. I'm not kidding here. I am d-o-n-e unless those are all there. And I figure that will take a loooong while to change 13 years of behavior.

I'm not quite sure where I will go from here if he does start showing this stuff for a little bit. I guess I will take my cue from all of you who have gone before me.

I think that we are not in recovery, I had planned to do a gentle plan A, but I am not...for now until I hear from Dr H I am being pleasant, I am treating him kindly and I am not LB'ing one bit. I am talking about his wayward ways to him. When he brings anything up that is focused on himself, I am practicing re-directing it so that I don't really even "hear" it. Instead I am responding with as best-as-I-can do right now kind 2x4s to let him know that I'm not buying it.

For instance, today he tried talking about how we were really improving when we were doing MB. So I responded with, "I'm not even getting what you mean, how were we improving at all when you were carrying on your A?".

Trying to start to take care of myself again (better than I did this past weekend I mean).

Other than that, right now I am trying my best to NOT think about the A, because the new info that I got is extremely painful and I do not want to go back to where I was on D-Day #1 (mind tapes every three minutes, constant shakes, waves of grief that were so painful that I wanted to die).

The actions you need to see are extraordinary precautions. That means he proves he is not having an affair anymore. You should be in Plan Recovery, which means he does gives you just compensation and does his best to meet your needs.


I think he says this because it was better FOR HIM. He doesn't really understand yet how terrible it has been for you.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends. [/quote]

I hate that "selfish" excuse though, Melody. He keeps saying over and over how he loves me, loved me, never wanted to leave me, and then my continual question is "then why did you do it?". And he says because he was a selfish [censored]. That's what he has said since d-day 1. I am sick of that answer. I want to hear just WHAT he thought of me that allowed him to purposely stab me in the back over and over!

I had CANCER debulking surgery 1 year and 2 months ago. They pulled my organs out to do biopsies. My intestines had not yet healed! And every SINGLE time I have had to deal with this again, my intestines flair up and I start bleeding again! He KNOWS that I can barely walk for three days afterwards, each time! Selfish [censored] doesn't CUT IT!

Yeah, dumb...he tried to tell me today that this is such hard work to do soul searching, and my answer was..."the only hard work you had after D-Day was figuring out how to get around a GPS tracker, my monitoring your phone and texts and emails". I dunno, I don't want to sound bitter, but it's the truth! And he did respond with how he meant hard work in the last 1-1/2 days. Barf. You call that hard work? I've done it for SIX MONTHS!

well I do have to say that he isn't great at any written (typed) words, and it does take him a long time to type, he didn't have a clue how to quote before I showed him, he is just starting to learn how to find his posts lol, and he definitely did not even know how to use a mouse before he signed onto the forums, and he is still going at it in spite of all of that. So I guess I'm starting to give him a couple of points for that (but don't tell him).

He was quite able to sneak off easily because of both of our jobs. We both were independent Melody, we really were. We both took our M for granted. We both talked to OS people about our personal issues. We both were walking LoveBusters. He just had the unfortunate luck to be snagged by the real deal skank. I mean a low-life like you wouldn't imagine. If I showed her photos here versus mine, you would all 10x4 him instead of 2x4. BUT she told him that everything that he did smelled like roses, and she talked to him and "supported" him. She wasn't the whore, HE WAS!!!! Well...she was a whore too, obviously...but what she did was give him sex and then he fixed up her whole house, her children's houses, her car, her children's cars, etc. My daughter calls her a cougar. I'd never heard that word before.

How did he cover up the time? By only being 1-2 hours later than what we promised to be home. There was always a good reason because of our jobs.

Well, that's probably coming from me...I've used it constantly this weekend because I want him to understand that even IF he really intended and intends to have NC, that it is BIGGER THAN HE IS. He has an addiction. I got that from you guys.

Yep, not all of it though, I will say that some of it was different Melody, BUT no worry, I took what you guys said this morning, and I told him the same thing...I said no, it is impossible for you to be remorseful after 1 days of being caught. You are in withdrawal from her and you are not having radical honesty since you are not telling me your feelings. I asked him about withdrawal after D-Day 1. I even posted in my thread how I didn't get it that he was showing no symptoms. DUH!

Melody, I won't know if he is having an affair anymore until way down the line. I am not going to trust that, and I know that you're not telling me to trust it. So HOW can we be in plan recovery? Okay just compensation...man when he called his MOTHER on his own today, that hit a home run...his mom is soooo overbearing and he just had to know that he was going to get a 2x4 from her. And he told her that they had SEX. That's huge to me because his mom thinks that the moon and sun circle around him. I loved hearing the chewing out in the background, haha. Other JC...he arranged today for starting an annuity fund for me locally in case he does this again (he has not followed through and finalized it yet, but we did go to the bank together). I dunno about more JC...he did write out those letters to the family. He was willing to quit his job until my brother called today and I told my brother that it was okay...but he didn't KNOW this until the end of the day.

No Melody, he doesn't really understand yet how terrible it has been for me. He doesn't have more than the tiniest of clues. Although today he did magically notice that I cannot lift boxes. Big whip, it will take more than that.

Oh no. You would have to know NOW. If you won't know "way down the line" then your marriage is not affair proofed. That is the whole purpose of integrating your lifestyles. He will no longer have the ability to cheat because your lives will be so transparent that conducting a secret second life will be impossible.

EP's means he CAN'T cheat because he could never get away with it. For example, if he is in the same room with you he can't cheat.


Just compensation would be the actions described in this article:

here

Melody, I am getting so confused. We DID these EPs and he still found a way. And you're right...the only way that I can KNOW for a fact that he is not cheating, is if he is in the same room with me 24/7.

Honestly, he can quit his job, we can move, and we can go to a restaurant together in another state. AND he can walk into the men's bathroom and text her on an affair phone that he has in his sock.

HOW am I going to know that he is not having contact with the skank?

The goal is to create EP's where it is impossible to have an affair. THAT is where you need to focus. If a spouse has an affair, then your EP's are NOT tight enough.


Not if you are in possession of the affair phone and with him in the bathroom. If you think he will do that, then you need to be with him.

How would he BUY an affair phone if you have access to his bank account and his check goes into your joint account?

See? EP's means you block ALL holes in the wall.

In other words, it is the WRONG approach to say "oh, he is just going to do it anyway." The right approach is to find a way that he CAN'T do it. Structure your lives in a way that it will be impossible to carry on the necessary secret second life. If he "can just do it anyway" then that means there is something lacking in your EPs.

Okay, I was kind of put off (as in wondered what you meant) to read this, but then I realized that you are totally RIGHT. (of course lol)

I haven't watched his CASH flow. He gets cash from all over the place, and it doesn't go into our account so I've had no way of knowing.

DUH I needed that Melody. Thank you.

Okay, the big cash leak could be the apartments that he takes care of. I go with him every Friday (now) to collect the rents, so I need to ask to see the stash. Also there is turning in scrap, selling tools that we don't need, etc. I am going to have to tell my brother to tell the laborer to question all tool sales.

This is one reason why I wanted you to speak to Dr Harley. You need some creative suggestions about restructuring your lives so you don't have all these holes.



Complete and total transparency and accountability will be necessary.

My stbx did most of his work by cash only. You will have to do some serious recon looking for cash here and there as it sounds like he is likely to have many stash piles that have probably financed his affair. Not just obvious places such as wallets or a home safe. Check filing cabinets (not just in various sleeves but underneath), duct work, chimney ledges, attic crawl spaces (under the fiberglass), breaker box, tool boxes, taped on underneath sides of drawers.....you get the idea.

Got it, and I appreciate your bringing it up. I realllly did not consider the apartments, because it never crossed my mind if H would take $ from his Mom's rents, kwim? We just go there and collect the rents for her after H's dad passed, mostly because we don't want her in the inner city with cash on her body. btw, THAT is the only reason that we have to drive on the freeway each week like I explained to Dr. Harley in the letter that I wrote today.

Not sure, but I will definitely check. Most of his debt came from my not knowing that he was using our c-cards and I would send in whatever was on auto-withdraw each month (life, house, car insurance), it was not huge amounts, but I never knew that the balances were rising and over the years it became staggering. I don't think that he actually used "our" money (past the c. cards) to finance his A, but I did know that he got $ from the apartments over the years for his time, and he never turned that in to the family coffers, kwim?

BS2013, another thing you should do is pull a credit report on him tonight and go over everything with a fine tooth comb. Get your hands on every credit card he has. Every line of credit he has will be on the credit report.

Can your mother hire someone else to collect the money? Think about how you can eliminate that piece from your lives.

You can also set up his credit report to send you a notification if any new activity. I would be checking his CR once a month. [and yours too!]

And if you are sitting there thinking "OMG, I HAVE BECOME THE POLICE!!" Put that out of your mind. All of these steps are the necessary steps towards creating an integrated, intimate lifestyle. Dr Harley and Mrs Harley, for example have a completely integrated lifestyle and they know exactly how much the other spends every day. They are usually together every day, for most of the day. They have full access to every aspect of the other's life. They are not miserable, they are very CLOSE.

That is exactly how my H and I feel. We feel very CLOSE and integrated in our marriage. You will feel this way too, BS.