Thank you for confirming that this is likely a ruse. We are making our way through his accounts.

Can I just say, this really sucks?

I had no idea. No clue.

Normalcy will not return unless you follow very specific steps to recover. Any deviation from the path will haunt you later.

We understand. but you are in the right place.

I have wanted to tell my mom. I know she'd be there for me. But I hate the idea of everyone hating him ;(

He is a big boy. He can help them get over it by making amends to you. Don't protect him. You need your family at this time, April!

He will be more motivated to change if he also has to answer to his parents and your parents. I would expect you to tell me if my son behaved like such low down trash. I would want to know because I care about my son.

How did they come into contact in the first place?

Are there ever any occasions on which he is away from home?

She was a girl friend in his 20's. During our marriage he apparently felt like I wasn't giving him enough affection. And he had lost his dream-job. So he sought out Facebook friends and old contacts. They started talking and confiding and sex came up. It spiraled from there.

I'm having a hard time understanding. We love each other enough to put this behind us/cut ties to her yet not enough that this would happen in the first place? Ugh.

If she knows his work address (and phone number), then she has been contacting him at work since his "NC" telephone call; you can count on that.

Expect her to fly over to see at his workplace as soon as she gets out of the hospital. He will take a break from work and go and have coffee with her, and eventually agree to see her again. If she is booked into a nearby hotel he will probably take a few hours off and visit her there for sex. All you'll know about it is that he's in a meeting, or at lunch, or on a training course in another building and uncontactable at his desk that day. He can be contacted on his mobile phone, but unless you've enabled the GPS tracker on the phone, you won't know where he is speaking from.

Please don't be naive and believe that the NC telephone call was the end of this saga. It really isn't. OW will have been contacting H at work already since the call, and she will keep contacting him, and because he cares about her he will allow her to contact him. A 4-year affair does not die with one phone call unless your H immediately removes himself from the place where contact happens - his work - which he has not done.

You don't need to ask me how I know; I'm sure you can guess how.

Oh, you understand all too well. You are absolutely correct. You do NOT love each other enough (or rather, he does not love you enough) to put this behind him and cut ties to her. I'm sure he loves you and does not intend ever to leave you for her, but he loves her too and is addicted to the high of the affair. He will not cut this off no matter the level of your grief, or how much he loves his children, or how much he wants to stay with you.

He wants to stay with you but he wants both you and her, just as he has had for four years.

You need to assume the worse because this is not over, and you will have a nervous breakdown each time you take his word for NC and then find out that NC never happened.

I'm not saying it can't be fixed; my situation was very similar and it was eventually fixed, but not until my H eventually retired from work. It took 8 years from the first D Day to the last for that position to be reached. The final 5 years included contact every six months or so, and only by telephone, but this was still shattering for me to discover. Don't go there, please.

How old are you both, how long have you been married and how old are your kids?

Is he the only child for both of you? Has either of you been married before?

Sugarcane:

Thank you for the thoughts. I am aware that it can continue or happen again. Especially since it was so easy to hide!!

I did feel like the email helped to confirm for me that he hasn't contacted her...yet.

We deleted his secret account, blocked her on his cell, and will block her or change his email. However, I don't feel that any amount if deleting can truly stop it. If he wants it to happen, there are many ways he can hide it.

Tell your parents, siblings and children...and his parents and siblings if he has any. It will be a relief to get it out there, April, vs eating at you and feeling like you are going to explode by watching everything you say to your family. It does suck but the exposure will help you and your marriage. People will be mad at him and should be but exposure is the BEST defense you have of killing this affair. OW tend to be extremely pathetic...as witnessed by that email she sent. You nuke the affair and get the support you need...it is a win-win.

Welcome to MB

I can't imagine telling our son. He just beginning to learn about romantic relationships. This would crush him.

I think he might not contact her, but I'm certain she will contact him and he'll allow it. How do you tell someone every day for years that you love them with all your heart, and without them your world is empty, and the only reason you are not with them right now is because of your son, and then just put the phone down on them when they ring you at work? The answer is that you don't. He won't.

This is all quite pointless if you cannot monitor his work email and landline, and check whether he keeps a pre-paid phone at work to contact her. Can you do those things? Can you search through his workstation for a hidden phone? I couldn't check my H's emails because my H was in a secure job and was not allowed to log into his email off the premises, and of course, a phone call to his landline could have been made at any time. I wasn't going to be there when one was made!

I'm sorry if I'm bringing you down, but I've lived this and know that it will not stop easily; not because he contacts her but because she contacts him and he allows it. Women having affairs seem to fall in love with their affair partners in a much more obsessive, downright mentally ill fashion than men doing the same. I've noticed that if a man is dumped by the married woman he is having an affair with he might contact her a few times to see if she means it, but if she sticks to her guns, his pride won't let him beg. However, a woman will beg and pursue her married OM, threatening suicide or, as in your case, self-harming. She will keep up the pressure with emails non-stop, and will turn up at his work and sometimes even at his house, telling him that he made her love him and he cannot just abandon her now; her life is in ruins and he is responsible.

And this works.

It works either because the married man really does love her and is genuinely torn about what to do, or because he really does love her and does not want her to think he was a typical, cake-eating, dog-dirty married-man cheater.

You've got a serious problem on your hand with this woman, as you can see from the hospitalisation already. The problem is not that she'll kill herself, which she won't (and which is not your problem anyway) but that she'll keep trying to reach your H, and very soon, something that she tries will work on your husband's feelings for her.

On Dday1, my children were 6 and 8 (my boy being the eldest) and yes it sucked but I exposed. It is never a pleasant thing but it does help to get on the road to recovery...personal and/or marital. Your boy will know something is wrong. You should tell him so he doesn't create all sorts of scenarios in his head.

If he's learning about romantic relationships he should learn this lesson too...what NOT to do.

I don't have time to post more but the sooner you get the exposure over with the sooner you can start healing and rebuilding. Do not let fear drive you.

So glad that SugarCane is helping you. You have a text book nut job on your hands. Most men do not have good nut case antenna. The needy behavior makes them feel strong and manly. At least it does until they have to listen to it every day. Then it gets boring very quickly :-)

I'm another that had a nut job OW to deal with, borderline stalker, etc. I'm also another one that endured a needless false recovery because I wasn't serious enough about NC precautions the first time around. I thought doing the basics would be enough, and it wasn't.

Eventually, any WH will cave if they're sobbed at enough times. The only way for them not to cave is to make it so ZERO sobbing, pleading, or begging doesn't make it through.

Your WH will only be as serious about R as you require him to be.

Then you need to find those ways and block them. Otherwise, you are facing a few more years of this affair. It is doubtful the OW will give up.