My wife and I have been together for 7 years and married for 6 years. We are both 29 years old and we have one child who is 6 years old. I work a normal office schedule while my wife is a stay at home mom. My wife is the wayward spouse. She had an emotional affair. DDay for me is 3/29/2014.

Leading up to the affair there were a lot of red flags that I should have noticed, but didn�t. It also did not help that I was going through a really hard time at work. Due to all the stress at work I just kind of shut down when I got home. Around January my wife began withdrawing from the relationship. She began going out with a recently divorced friend of hers every weekend. Every Friday and Saturday night they would go out and I would even watched her two kids. I knew we were going through a rough patch and having girl time made her happy, I just did not know this would lead to her having an affair. March 29th my wife went out with her girlfriend like every other weekend. I noticed her kindle sitting on top of the fridge I log on and discover my wife was been having an affair for about a month.

At this point in time (DDay) my wife had no contact with the OM for about two weeks. Two weekends prior to DDay my wife went on a girl�s weekend with her recently divorced girlfriend. I was originally told that they were visiting a friend of her girlfriends but this was not the case. They were visiting a guy friend of hers that she knew since grade school. When she was visiting she talked about her marriage that was over and about her new man. Later that night when my wife was drunk and passed out her guy friend that they were visiting called the OM. I am not sure what was said but whatever it was it scared the OM off. Both of these guys are in the military, and the OM got into trouble recently. He got in trouble for a DUI and some other things. I have no idea what was said, but since that night OM has never contacted my wife again even though she tried. My wife now hates this guy. She does not understand why he would run off her soul mate.

After I found out about the affair we talked about why she did it and what was wrong in our marriage. I asked what changes needed to happen and I began to make the changes she asked for. At this time I also installed Webwatcher on my computer so I could see what my wife was up to. Even though I could confirm that my wife was not having any contact with the OM I exposed 4/4/14. I exposed to everyone on her Facebook friends list, her family, and everyone on the OM�s and OM�s mom�s Facebook friends list. When this happened my wife was extremely mad and did not understand what I was doing since she was not seeing him anymore. About a week later my wife and I sent a no contact letter, she never received a response.

Since then we have been working on our marriage. At first I was the only one trying since my wife thought the changes I made were just for show, but after a month my wife slowly began to put effort into fixing our marriage. I believe our relationship is on the path of recovery, but I know she still has feelings for the OM and is still in love with the OM. During the day when I am at work she will look at the OM�s Facebook page. When her girlfriend goes out on the weekend my wife asks if she ran into the OM. I confronted my wife that I knew she was stalking the OM (this is not the first time), she confessed that she did, and I told her that if she wanted to work on our marriage that she needs to stop or the next time it is over for me. I am not sure how much more of this I can take. How long does a wayward feelings for the other person last. It has been about 5 months since no contact. We both know what each others most important emotional needs are and we are meeting them. We spend 20 hours a week with each other and our relationship is in a better place now than it ever has been in the last 4 years. My wife is still hanging on to the OM however. I am not sure if I continue with Plan A or move to Plan B.

Hi FayScott, welcome to Marriage Builders. The reason your marriage has not recovered is because extraordinary precautions have not been in place. For example, she still has facebook account and she still goes out running out like a single female even though she has had one affair that way so far. Get the book Surviving an Affair and follow the program in it. Here is the checklist you and your wife should follow:

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.

Also, if the OM is military, I would report him to the IG. It is illegal for a military man to have an affair with a married woman.

It sounds like you did most of the required exposure, did you report the OM to the Inspector General where he is stationed also at that time?

Since she did the N/C Letter, I am not sure if that target should still be hit.

But now, you say 5 months since contact. In reality, it's only days since her last peek at his FB Page. Everytime she does this, it resets the clock back to Day 1.

That loophole needs to be closed off. No internet or Facebook. It is part of the EP's she needs to be doing. (Extraordinary Precations)

Do you own the book, "Surviving An Affair" by Dr. Willard Harley?

Read it. That's everything in a nutshell that you will be advised to do on this forum, along with shared experiences and corrective guidance.

LTL

Yes, it should be. It is illegal to have an affair in the military and his authorities should be informed. This will also ensure that he never responds as long as she is chasing him.

Can you describe how you spend these hours?

I would like to thank everyone for the support

- I agree that extraordinary precautions are not yet in place. I will move forward with her deleting of all socail networking accounts. Looking back on why I did not move forward with this in the past was becuase I wanted to see what she was saying to her friends. What she would say to me vs. her friends was different. I was affraid of losing this information. What I was doing wasnt working so i will move forward with this advice.

- Since DDay she has not gone out. She is no longer allowed to go out at night by her self, I need to be present or its not happening. I follow the same rules.

- I do not have a copy of Surviving an Affair - just ordered on Amazon, will try to read this week.

- I have reported the OM, I work with a lot of people who were in the military and I was able to find his commanding officer. I called him and follow up with an email with what took place. I was told that since the affair was not phisical, and that since the OM cut of contact when he found out that she was married there was nothing that they could really do. After this I reached out to the Inspector General and told him the result of what his commanding officer said. He told me that an investigation would take place but since he did stop contact when he did find out the best result would most likely be a dirrect commaned to no contact.

- We spend an hour a day after I get home from work cooking together (5 hours a week). We go to bed at the same time now and spend at least an hour in bed (7 hours a week). We have a date at least once a week. (5 hours a week). We spend an hour or more every Saturday and Sunday morning in bed (2-3 hours a week). I am trying to increase this amount. It is hard because when I get home I still have work I have to do. I have to go into the office most Saturdays as well for a few hours.

Ok, deduct any time that is less than 2 hours because it won't help you achieve your goal. In order to be effective, it should be in blocks of time from 2 to 4 hours and without children. UA time spent at home [outside of waking hours in bed] is largely worthless because it is too easy to get distracted at home. You also have a child at home.


Deduct that time unless it is at the END of hot date.


This would count.


Doesn't count unless it is at the end of a date.


I would sit down and start planning 4 - 4 hour dates out of the house. Do this planning every Sunday afternoon by sitting down together and writing out your schedule for the week. Write out times, date, and make your plans. And then line up babysitters. Don't schedule UA time at home, because it is lousy UA time and rarely does the trick. Here is the worksheet you should be using.

If you will start doing this, your wife will fall in love with you again. The way you are doing it will NEVER work for you. It wont' even work for couples who are in love. It is real important that you change your habits and start putting your marriage FIRST. What you have done is barely changed your routines but have attempted to "count" what you are already doing as UA time. Print this out: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forms/FiveSteps_Time_for_Undivided_Attention_Worksheet.pdf

That would be a good outcome because the OM could face penalties if he maintained contact with your wife in violation of his No Contact order.

Sir, you will need to move out of the state in order to maintain no contact with the OM

FS, I want to point out a couple of things. The first is that this program does not work if you don't follow the policy of UA. When Dr Harley was in active practice, he refused to counsel people who wouldn't do this step. He told them to find another counselor because his program won't work without it.

What most couples do when faced with this step is maintain their old habits but start poring over their daily schedules looking for ways to COUNT their present schedule, ie: "30 minutes here, 15 minutes here, waved at each other while passing in the hallway: 10 minutes," etc, etc, etc. In other words, in a check the box exercise, they maintain the same lifestyle that led their marriage into the ditch.

This is not a check the box exercise. In order to be successful, you must change your lifestyle entirely to put your marriage FIRST. Start putting your marriage first by spending quality UA time out on dates.