Hello my new friends,

I am now one of you, a betrayed spouse. I just gave birth to our second child two weeks prior to his confession. So everything is exceedingly difficult and painful.

My husband has ended the affair, but is having trouble with the no contact provision. They work together and we can't leave this position for at least a year. There is some vague hope that she will be fired but no guarantee. He has committed to not speaking with her or reaching out to her. He has been open about every instance she has reached out to him and has shown me any emails or texts that she sends. We have blocked her from his email, social media outlets, and blocked her number from his phone, but she is rather persistent. He has also sent an email committing to no contact to her supervisor at work. (PS her married supervisor is someone else she has been sleeping with for a long time.)

Well my issue i need help with is his refusal to shut her down when she does contact him. He will not tell her to stop contacting him. the most he can muster is to show me the message and then delete it. Perhaps i am asking too much of my "addict" husband. She is also returning back to an abusive relationship he helped her get out of and he has strong urges to go rescue her from that. He just won't be blunt with her. please let me know your thoughts and insights.

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.

Dr. Harley would recommend that unless your H agrees to leave his job and never speak to the OW again you should plan to separate and go into a dark Plan B. His continued contact with the OW will wear you down mentally and physically. This not only will cause great misery and potentially long-range health problems for you, but sticking around while he sees the OW at work makes you an option for your wayward husband. You don't want to be his option, right?

Hello Torn...I hope that you will listen to LongWayFromHome's advice. She has been here for a long while and helped me greatly when I found myself in the same "club".

Your husband's affair has not ended. Please know that every time that he sees her or hears from her at work, it is filling his love bank. I apologize for saying that so brutally, but it is the truth. He needs to *never* see, hear, talk with, this person ever again in order for recovery to even begin. {{{Hugs}}}

Hello Torn...I hope that you will listen to LongWayFromHome's advice. She has been here for a long while and helped me greatly when I found myself in the same "club".

Your husband's affair has not ended. Please know that every time that he sees her or hears from her at work, it is filling his love bank. I apologize for saying that so brutally, but it is the truth. He needs to *never* see, hear, talk with, this person ever again in order for recovery to even begin. {{{Hugs}}}

The biggest item that has stuck out to me in this discussion is that he is still getting his love bank filled emotionally by her. Even in just passing Hellos in the hallway. And I agree that the emotional and physical turmoil that this is causing me is torture.

As far as exposing him at work, they already have exposed themselves. In fact his bosses knew he was planning on leaving me prior to him telling me. (fun moment of hell there) But i am preparing for this next phase of exposure. We are currently reading through "Surviving an Affair". I am having him read the chapters on How an affair should end and how it typically ends. I plan to present him with the conditions from "Should end" (as also listed above by LongWayFromHome). If he doesn't fully agree to them then I plan to expose him from stem to stern as that will be him recommitting to the emotional affair (which will then lead back into the physical).

I am having a hard time exposing him prior to this. I know it says I should, and I am sure the reasons apply to me too. I just can't do it yet.

Thank you for your support and guidance. Please keep it coming if you have anything else to add.

Already at no contact, but need tips for the emotions.