Do you know his name? Have you looked him on social media, like Facebook?

Do you know his phone number? Done a background check?

You need to find out who he is so you can expose on his side.

This is why I asked if the affair is over or not? The way you cause conflict is to expose to his family, friends and employer. BUT, if he dumped her, I would back away. This is why I suggested you confront him and find out.


It hurts your case to ENABLE the affair. And that is the only reason a WW asks for space.

What is the CAUSE of the affair according to your MC?

I talked to her yesterday. The call mostly centered around how she felt about the counseling. We both agreed that the MC is fair and objective, but when I brought up issues around wanting to know the general strategy toward reconciliation she agreed. She said we should bring up all these issues next week at our session and either the therapist will provide satisfactory answers or we'll find someone else (was pleased to hear that).

On the subject of the OM, I asked if she had had any contact with him recently. She said that she had seen him once in passing at the gym but they hadn't spoke. I was concerned that seeing him was making it harder for her and she said no, because she "pretty much hates him now" after all this and something new he did. She didn't want to talk about that then but said it wasn't anything to her. It's clear that she thought whatever he did would hurt my feelings or make me even angrier with him, so either he trashed me or he trashed her publicly. Who knows. I asked if she would talk about it in counseling and she said maybe, which probably means yes. I asked if he was seeing anyone else and she said, "I don't have any idea, nor do I really care," in a tone that was consistent with her being over it. Between the utter lack of consideration he's shown her and whatever he did recently, I'm confident it's over. She has always been very good about cutting people off, emotionally (aspect of borderline personality disorder).

Her complaints about me are mostly around control issues and the power imbalance in our relationship. I am not nearly as bad as my father but all this has helped me become aware of these traits and work to purge them from myself. I have been successful at purging other negative traits I "inherited" from him in the past and I'm confident I can overcome this.

Other issues are that she is not physically attracted to me anymore (I am getting in shape and have so far lost about 10 pounds of 30 I need to lose at 6' tall) and sexual issues that she never told me during our relationship for fear of hurting my feelings. That is an overriding theme: bottling things up to avoid hurting my feelings. I have told her I can only fix a problem if I know there's a problem.

Recently, she accepted what I and the counselor have suggested, which is that she has issues she needs to work on in IC outside of our issues (or my issues). She cited this as major progress for her, because she was blaming me for a lot of those things before. She has stated that she realizes now that she feels "broken inside", and so she is beginning IC this week. She has a lot of boundary issues, too, so she's trying to work on those.

The continued separation is because of all these things and because she feels like she needs time and space to work through her personal issues and doesn't have the emotional energy to work on us full-time at the same time. She also started going back to school full-time last week and started a new part-time job, so those are a drain on her.

I said that for a long time I was who she went to to confide in, and then for awhile it was the OM, but who is that for her now? She said that's her brother and her close female friends right now. I told her I'd like to be that person for her again but acknowledged that she wasn't ready yet.

The biggest problem to reconciliation is, I think, the lack of romantic love she feels for me. But to allow her to open up again requires that she begin to trust that she can let her guard down with me. To that end I've been trying to steadfastly avoid any "love busters" for the last couple of weeks. That dovetails with the personal changes I'm making.

We discussed the MC schedule briefly. I asked her how frequently she wanted to meet for MC and she said that with her weekly IC she was leaning toward every two weeks for now, but said that it is not just up to her and that I have an equal say and that we can talk about that if I have a different opinion (communications progress, by the way). I said I'm fine with every two weeks for now but that we need to see each other more frequently than that. She asked what I thought and I said once or twice a week. She said maybe, but let's hash out the details at MC after we talk to the therapist.

Did you have a question for us?

No, that is a (long-winded) answer.


Oh, I'm sorry, I misread and thought you said my W. The MC has not said definitively yet but it's largely in line with what I wrote.

This is a dream of every wayward to go off to "counseling" for a few years to avoid resolving the problems. When that happens, divorce typically ensues, because, like I said before, counselors have no experience with affairs and do not understand the fog. An IC will help a WS obtain their desires based on their PRESENT mentality. A wayward spouse who is in the fog desires to pursue her affair. The IC will typically recommend a separation, divorce, or even the pursuit of the affair.


The "separation" is so that she can pursue her affair. That is classic affair speak. If she needed "space" she could go in the bathroom or the garage. "Space" is a classic ruse to avoid interference with her affair. From the sounds of it, she is still going to the gym in pursuit of the OM.

I am not sure how we can help you. We can't help you save your marriage if you are going to be following the bad advice of a counselor who has no experience with infidelity. The advice we give here is from Dr. Bill Harley, clinical psychologist and author of Survving an Affair. While there are no guarantees, it is your best chance of saving your marriage. We can't help you if you don't follow that advice.

It seems you are very impressed with the counseling profession and here is what Dr. Harley says [in addition to stating that marriage counseling has an 84% failure rate]



here

here

here

If you or WW are opposed to moving, I would probably cut my losses and walk. That you have only been married two yrs and don't have children would be a big consideration as well. If you know WW would be resistant to moving out of the area...that alone would have me calling it a day. She shouldn't be going to the same gym either or live in close proximity to POSOM.

That WW has started taking class at the local university...it doesn't look like she is open to moving away.

Welcome to MB

I have a very hard time believing that WW having a meltdown on OM's doorstep is a result of a brief EA and sleeping with him twice.

How would she know he did something new if she wasn't still in contact or talking to others about him? None of the above means their affair is over...APs can go from hating each other to claiming they are soulmates in 0 to 60 seconds. So long as you and WW live anywhere near OM and keep going to this gym, you will be wasting your time and spinning your wheels.

This is bad news your WW is still keeping secrets about the OM and the affair from you.

I expect that she will tell me what happened in our counseling session on Saturday. I will press her on it if she doesn't, as that will be a huge red flag for me, too.

MelodyLane, I appreciate your advice, but you are making unfounded assumptions about me. The whole point of discussing this strategy with the MC (in my opinion) is to determine if it will line up with the advice in Surviving an Affair, which seems to me the most likely way we will work things out. If her plan doesn't I will challenge it. You are also making an assumption about the MC, who has been persistent about making my WW face the reality of the character and nature of the OM, and has been a consistent advocate for me.

As far as how my WW heard about whatever the OM did, she has gym friends who know him. A close female friend hates him, and she has a guy friend who also knows him. (I'm not thrilled about opposite sex friends from this point on and I know Dr. Harley is against them as well. This will be something we need to address.)

I am not happy about her continuing to go to the same gym but she avoids another large gym in the area because it is near his apartment and she is waiting for a new gym to open in a couple months. For the time being she is trying to avoid going when she knows he goes. I will raise this issue again on Saturday.


She had sex with him once (the second time was not full intercourse). I believe he was far more important to her than she was to him. She also has a number of mental issues which she is on medication for and has had occasional meltdowns in the past with me. When these have happened with me I take care of her and put her to bed--when they happened to him he threatened to call the police.

I'm not excusing any of this, as I was extremely angry to find out she was continuing to try to contact him. However when she lies it's through omission, not invention.

No, I am not making any assumptions about your MC. I am basing this on the fact that he/she does not understand the dynamics of an affair or know that "space" is code for "want to pursue my affair."

Your MC is delusional if she believes that "making your wife face the reality of the OM" means anything. That is like imagining that you can make a falling down drunk "face the reality of the true nature of alcohol." As you can see, your wife is not done with this affair, so she has not faced any "reality." She is still going to the same gym in pursuit of her boyfriend.

I just want to point out that you seem very enamored with marriage counseling for some reason and you should know that marriage counselors are typically destructive to marriages. Marriage counselors have an 84% failure rate and actually have a higher divorce rate than the general population. So you can see how risky marriage counseling really is. We just want to warn you that you are not likely to get much quality help and may even harm your chances.


If she were serious about avoiding him, she would not go to the same gym. But she is not serious as evidenced by her actions and her request for "space."

Do you think this same counselor could make a heroin freak face the reality of the character and nature of heroin? If not, then why not?

Sideways, I don't want to turn this into a debate about "counseling" so I will just assure you that you don't need counseling to turn this around. What you need is a plan to kill the affair and save your marriage. You don't need counseling for that. For example, your wife has said she is done with her affair. If so, then she should not object to following the steps on this checklist:

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.

Agree with Melody about the counselor. You should lose the counselor and stick with MB.

As I read through this thread I was shaking my head at the numerous mistakes that are being made here.

Counselor supporting the separation.


Telling you two to limit communications.


Trying to convince your WW that OM is x y or z. (Pointless. OM is like crack. You just need to keep her away from him and let her defog. You cannot "convince" her of anything while she is still foggy)


Not encouraging you to confront the OM and to expose to his family/friends.


The most important step once the affair has been killed (which I am NOT convinced has been done in this case) is implemting extraordinary precautions to prevent C with the OM and to prevent another affair (eliminating opposite sex friends and your WW should NOT be going to the gym).

Sigh.

Oh I missed this. The affair is still ON.

With all this you still can't find information on OM to expose the affair on his side?

You need to spend your energy exposing OM.

I talked to her a couple days ago. OM told other guys at the gym and they were in a circle laughing about it. So high school. WW was humiliated and said to me he disrespected her and he disrespected our marriage (she didn't even appreciate the irony of that statement, but I didn't say anything). She was afraid to tell me because she thought I'd go hurt him and make the situation worse, but I truly don't care. She made her bed. I told her he wasn't worth it, but I secretly thought, "You're not worth it."

I told her she needed to stop going to that gym altogether and she said she wants to switch but is waiting for this new gym to open and then she'll switch. But who the heck knows when that's going to open? I don't even think they've started construction. It's not nearly enough for me, and I think if she were serious she wouldn't want to even be in that environment in the first place. I'm going to raise the issue again on Saturday, in addition to the discussion about what the reconciliation strategy even is.

She also acknowledges that OM was never really her friend (she has always only referred to him as her friend) and that he was only after one thing and he got it, and now she wants nothing to do with him. I talked about OS friends and she said her guy friends were not a threat and not trying anything. I said that's how it starts. She dismissed that. I've heard it all before.

Basically she's as stubborn as a mule. I think she genuinely isn't interested in interacting with the OM but she has always been overconfident in herself and her ability to deal with things (despite repeated evidence to the contrary) and disregarded my concerns when it comes to stopping any chance of contact. I'm getting tired of it.