Hi,

I've been married 7 years and we have been together as a couple since 12 years. We always had a good relationship and were seen by our friends and relatives as a very solid couple, despite some communication problems, mostly due to my inability to express my deeper feelings and habit to avoid important discussions or contrasts.
We have two children, 4 and 1 years old, and we live abroad since 5 years as an "expat" family.
Recently, during year 2012, we went through the big challenge of being separated for more than 10 months in a row, when my wife was pregnant with our second child and my employer forced her to remain back home, where better healthcare could be provided.

During this time we met only a few times, though we were in constant touch by telephone or skype, and we ended up experiencing life at two completely different speeds: my wife was practically in a state of suspension, all about taking care of her pregnancy and our first child, while I kept going on with my work and gradually built an active social life, to fill my spare time.
I never got myself into situations at risk of infidelity, I simply did not care about engaging this type of experiences, until 6 months down the road I met a girl for whom I quickly started having feelings, which she reciprocated. We both knew the situation was not sustainable, but in the matter of a few weeks our affair had started both emotionally and physically.. and it went on for more than one year, driven by the strongest affection and passion, even after my wife and our two children moved back abroad with me.

I maintained a double life for a long time and fed my marriage with a lot of lies and omissions. I always realized how terrible a thing I was doing to my wife, yet I was unable to stop it. Now I understand the sense of the word "addiction"...

All this year I spent my time at home and my energies hiding, instead of providing full care for my family. My wife did notice my "absence" and just recently asked me to do something about it.

Now my affair is over and despite I still miss my lover so much I am being successful at not having any contact with her at all.

Slowly, also thanks to reading a lot from this website, I came to the conclusion that I should expose my affair to my wife, in an attempt to stop the hiding and lying that were affecting our relationship. About 10 days ago I did expose the affair and that has totally shocked my wife and instantaneously destroyed all her beliefs, trust, self esteem... not to mention her respect towards me.
I knew the reaction would have been terrible, but I optimistically believe that we will get through it with time and lots of dedication.
Now my wife has moved back home again and needs time to decide what to do next, while I'm trying to convince her that marital recovery is possible. She completely hates me, not simply because of the betrayal itself, but because I sustained a relationship when she was giving birth to our second child. She is right and I am completely unable to understand how could I put so much energy into that affair and how could I keep it up during the time my wife needed me the most.
Now, communication with my wife has become very difficult and, because she hates me so sharply, her language became so bitter, angry and often offensive that I cannot come up with a proper way of convincing her to come back and try to reconcile and rebuild the marriage. I can imagine it will take her some time to process her feelings, so I am not pushing her; rather, I am encouraging her to express her feelings towards me, as bad as they may occur, but at the same time I am not able to reply to her attacks and want to do something more before her resentment grows too much.

I need advice how do I improve this situation...

First, you made the right decision in ending your affair.

I encourage you to read Surviving an Affair by Dr. Willard Harley. It has a plan on how to recover a marriage from adultery.

Second, I encourage you to expose your affair to family and friends also. If your affair partner is married or in a relationship you should expose to the partner as well as her family and friends.

Hi mane, welcome to Marriage Builders. I would strongly suggest that you move AWAY from your current home and move home close to your wife so that recovery is possible. Living apart is a disaster for marriages and you won't be able to recover anyway until you find a way to be together every night.

I would take her a solid plan to recover your marriage and make a proposal that affair proofs your marriage and restores the passion and romance to your marriage..

Have you ended ALL contact with the OW?

Technically, the affair died of a natural death, when the balance between my lover's and my needs and what we could do to sustain them became negative.. Eventually my lover spoke first and ended it herself. I initially even tried reasoning with her that we could find a way to go on, but then I decided to make the opposite move and reveal the affair at home. This has caused major damage to my relationship with my wife, but at least it has helped me to stay away from the affair.
My wife, instead, says she is more disgusted by how selfish I've been to speak up than for the affair itself...

I wish to reveal the whole story to my close family as well, but my wife wants to keep it secret for now... so I am afraid if I expose it any further, she will feel betrayed once more and it will be more difficult to find a common ground to restart...

I am reading the book Surviving an Affair and plan to share it with my wife, too. Hope it will help her to understand why I exposed the affair, instead of just stopping it and moving on without saying about it.




Agree with you that we have to move away from this place and restart everything being together. It will take some time, though, to find an alternative job to support the family and then make the full move, so I also have to find a way to be with her in the meantime... do you have any suggestion how to make a solid plan?

As for ending ALL contact with the OW:
there is no calling, no emailing and no texting, either; we are still Facebook friends, though, and I think some of her posts are hidden messages for me, but I am ignoring them. I miss her a lot, though, and being here alone is not a good thing at all..
I have not yet written her the letter to tell her the affair is definitely over, but I plan to do that, too, with my wife's agreement. I'm also prepared to take the extraordinary precautions suggested by Dr. Harley's book.

Now my biggest problem is that my wife resents me so much for telling her about the affair and shows it with such an aggressive behavior that I am simply stuck when I try speaking with her and she won't believe that reconciliation is possible.
She is not cooperative and our distance is making things worse, yet she asks me to make a "miracle"... how do I do this miracle if she won't give me a chance to be with her?

Get your BW her own copy of SAA book and get her to come to this site to at least read.

Also you should try to counsel with the Harleys. Even if your BW will not do so now it would still be very helpful for you to get ideas on how to jump start your recovery.

If she were posting, I would tell your wife that you are not serious and to not recover with you.

No contact = no contact.

It doesn't mean: Continue getting hits of veiled admiration from my mistress who is still my FRIEND(!) online + leave the door wide open for the A to resume.

I'll even bet your contact details are unchanged so the mistress can reach you and you have kept the contact details of your mistress 'just in case'.

Annnnd you live apart from your wife - still.

It's not miracle-level is it? It's not even close to good enough and no wonder your wife is angry. She is fully entitled to be angry with a man who values his A so much over her. You still have the A on the backburner and are waiting to see how hard your wife will work to undo YOUR mistake!

I am relieved past all measure that your wife is not a doormat and can see through you and the addiction to some outsider's admiration you still cling to.

Are you serious? Then lets get to work:

A) Block your mistress on facebook. You won't even begin withdrawal from this addiction until NC STARTS. You have not even completed the first hour of withdrawal yet.
B) Change your contact details and inform your wife of what your contact details now are and why you have changed them. Give her the passwords/control of the old email/phone accounts/sim card so she can use them/delete them at her discretion.
c) Write the NC letter exactly as it is phrased in SAA and send it handwritten and signed to your wife. Make it clear that you do not expect or deserve another chance but she can send the letter to the OW because the A was an attack on her.
C) Give your W the full identity, address and contact details of the OW is.
D) Expose your A to your loved ones and encourage them to support your BW. They should support her even if her decision is not to recover with you. She deserves that.

It would be amazing if your BW could post here. Perhaps you could send her the link to this thread and extend our invitation for her to get support here?

If you hesitate for her to see what you have written, I'd encourage you even more because you need to change the habits of dishonesty and hiding your true feelings.

Go home. You need to get a way from OW. She's your addiction your choice and it will just be a matter of time.

Agree that you need to change all contact information. Block OW on Facebook and/or delete Facebook.

Have you been tested for STD/I?

Will your BW come here and post?

Two things you need to do right away to recover your marriage.

1) Get a job that doesn't require travel.
2) Drop Facebook altogether. The fact that she is still a friend of yours on FB is a complete slap in the face. And deep down you you know she is a friend because it is a way for you to stay in contact. This prolongs the addiction.

You are taking some good steps, but you have far to go.

This is where I would start. Expose the affair to everyone. Let them know what you have done so you can garner support for your marriage. this is the first step towards recovery.


Can you take a leave of absence and go to her and look for a job there? How many resumes do you have out in her area? Can you get a transfer to her area? Your marriage won't "take some time." You need to move to be with her NOW.


So, in other words the affair is still on? Any contact is just a continuation of the affair. If you are serious about ending your affair, you need to change all of your contact information, delete your facebook account and end the affair. You have not done that. That is why your wife should not take you seriously.


if you want your wife to believe you are serious, you have to GET serious. You have to end all contact with the OW, send her a no contact letter and implement extraordinary precautions. Otherwise, we would not recommend that she have anything to do with you.

Do you work with the OW?

Do you work with this hoe? How close does she live to you?

Thanks all for the feedbacks you are sending.
I need a good shake to start doing things right and your posts are serving the purpose so well.


A) Done.
B) I'm using a company phone, so until I change job I'm stuck with this number. That's the only phone number the OW knows and actually the only one I have. As a temporary solution, though, I can set up a firewall app on my iPhone, which segregates anything that comes from or goes to the OW's number. My wife will have access and full control to the logs and folders of this blacklist thing. The only drawback: the tool actually needs her number in my contact list for it to be filtered away..
Also, my wife already has full access to my main email address (not known to the OW) via her iPad and she knows the password to my other email address (which I use only for website subscriptions and is the only one known to the OW, but she never sent me anything and probably never will).
c) Agree. I will prepare the NC letter and pass it on to my wife for her to agree upon and eventually send.
C) OK for sharing the identity, but don't know if sharing the contact details is a good idea. What is the purpose? As I will have no contact whatsoever with the OW, I'd expect it to be a good thing if my wife had no contact with her, either...
D) I will, as soon as my wife will agree to it. As I wrote in my second post, I want to spare my wife to feeling betrayed again if I reveal the affair to the family against her will...



I told my wife I'm seeking advice and I've signed up to this discussion forum and will encourage her to participate herself. For now she does not really sound like she'd do anything I ask her, but maybe she could try to take a look. Not sure, though, how would it be if she decided to post something on this very thread... how do you guys see this?


I'll do this for sure. Unfortunately it will take at least two months because of the obligations I have towards the company I work for..

The affair is NOT on and this discussion is helping me to keep it this way. My FB account is there but she is now blocked.

As for my contact info, the only contacts the OW knows are my company cellphone number (which I can't change, but but she's now blacklisted in my phone so her messages or calls do not get through) and my secondary email address, which my wife knows and can check anytime. I have no other way to be contacted by the OW.

No we are not colleagues. She works for another company that has nothing to do with me or my work. She lives in the same (small) city, about 5 km away from my place, but in an area that is not common at all to go to for us expats.
Also, I use my company shuttle bus to move between home and work and she uses her company means of transport so I believe we have no way to come across each other.

Sir,
Stop protecting your affair partner.
You should give your wife her contact info (which you have thus far refused to do).

Have you exposed your affair to family and friends?
Is your affair partner married? Did you expose to her family and friends?

Why do you need to keep FaceBook and your secondary email address? Even if the OW would not try to contact you in the past, she may do so now. At the very least, NOT having these means of contact open is better for your wife.

My fWH was SURE the OW would not contact him. I insisted he change his work number, which he did for my piece of mind. He was SURE she didn't have the new number. But, SHE GOT IT, and SHE CALLED five months later.

Then she tried to friend him on FaceBook 2 months later.

Then she requested to be linked to him on LinkedIn two months later.

Our recovery was set back to zero every time she tried... Don't do this to your wife. It is nearly impossible to recover from...

Show your wife you are serious, by eliminating all means of possible communication. It is these demonstrable actions which save the BS's wounds. Not the apologies or words...

Facebook will be a trigger for you and for your wife. Every time you are on there there will be a chemical reaction in your brain that will elicit the high of the affair. Eliminating it will show your wife that you are serious about reconciling and respecting her. Eliminate all triggers. As fun as Facebook is, you need to spend all of your social time making time with your wife and re-building your relationship. You will be just fine without Facebook.

Jobs that require a lot of traveling are a serious threat to marriages. Dr. Harley talks about this all the time. What happened to you is not unique. Not only do you have to learn to put up barriers around the opposite sex, but you need to be anchored to your home and eliminate the independent behavior that led you astray.

Your wife is in shock. She has been battered by the devastating news and it will take a long time for her to recover. In the meantime, show her through your actions that you are going to make changes that put an end to this affair and all future ones.

Have you watched this?
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6806_inf.html

I know this advise seems extreme/harsh but consider why you are doing this. Your W has just been given the worst new of her life and she is still asking you to make a miracle happen (Do you even understand that she is still giving you a chance that you are not deserving of? . Miracles don't come easy and your wife is worth it don't you think? Make the miracle happen friend, don't make excuses.

And can be unblocked in 2 seconds flat. You can unblock her at any moment and be triggered all over again. You can also gawk at her messages and her Facebook page at any time. That is why it is important to just delete it. Facebook is not worth it.

Any contact AT ALL with the OW is a form of a continued affair. You have been in contact with her this whole time via Facebook.

Your secondary email address is also a problem if the OW can reach you that way. I would cancel that email address entirely.

It is very problematic that you live so close to her but that can be resolved if you move to your wife's town.

Your wife does not have the contact information for this OW?

I didn't see your answers for these.

If I'm here and I've created this thread it's because I want things to move in the right direction and because, despite the terrible offense I've given to my wife, I do care for her so much and truly want our relationship to become better than it was even before the affair.

I've always been regarded by others as a good, caring husband and father and I want to achieve that status again, no matter how long it takes and how hard it will be.

The affair has been an awful mistake and shameful chapter of my life, which I want to make up for.

I've started by exposing the affair and I will definitely go all the way to make sure it does not occur anymore.
I appreciate your and other member's advice, as harsh as they may sound, and will follow your suggestion without making excuses, since that's probably my only chance to have a successful recovery.

Sometimes I do not see the immediate benefit of some suggestions, but that does not mean I'm worried about my A partner or that I'm dictating any conditions. Yes, I'm going through withdrawal right now, but I'm not going go give in again. That's a closed chapter now and all I care about is to rebuild an healthy marriage.

Maybe I have not explained myself well enough, but I'm conscious that all the rights to say, decide, do anything are on my wife's side. If she will agree to give me a chance I'll be forever thankful to her for it; if on the contrary she will refuse trying it will be a fair punishment for my mistakes (or maybe not even close to being a fair one). All I can do is to try to make up for my mistakes in the best way possible and try to be there with a good recovery plan.

I'm most worried for my wife, cause she's going through major pain and I can't be there to help. She does not even want me to be there.
I do agree with you that I should expose the affair to our family and close friends for them to support her but that clashes with her own belief that I should have never exposed it to her in the first place; that's why I've been a bit reluctant. I hope one day she'll start seeing the positive aspects of revealing the truth to others.

Said so, I will:
- simply delete my FB account and my secondary email account
- look immediately for a new job and move away from here
- share all details of the OW with my wife, and anything else that she might want to know
- open up to my close family and friends (actually, I just started, with my brother)