HI this is my first time posting and I was wondering what your advise is for me. I'm dealing with my 51 yr. old h who had an affair with the wife of a couple who was in our social circle. H and I have been married 30yrs. This happened to us before in our 10th yr. of marriage. We never divorced, he did move out but after 18months we got back together, because we were dating again and I told him that I could live with him or without him and he needed to make a desision. Now hes at home, and he is acting like hes in a land of confusinon. He thinks that there is amajor flaw in our marriage or else this would never have happened, I agreed but I pointed out that there is nothing we can't put back together. He feels like we are just roommates, although I though that our sex life has been great! We are going to the same counslor right now seperately and then hopefully together. I told him and he agrees that our biggest issue is that we grew apart while our 3girls were needing us, but there is no reason why we can't get this marriage back on track. All he sees are the negatives in our relationship, I keep pointing out our good times and telling him that he needs to be positive. I would so appreciate any input you have. He still is in contact with the OW he told me and that all they do is talk by phone. HELP jhd

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"He still is in contact with the OW he told me and that all they do is talk by phone. HELP jhd"</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">No wonder things are the way they are. There can be no marital recovery until the WS(wayward spouse) ends ALL contact with the OP(other person) FOREVER. Every time he has contact with her, he is practically going back in time. By him still having contact with the OW, he is maintaining an EA(emotional affair) with her. Even though he may no longer is having sex with her, he is still relying on her for some of his most important EN(emotional needs) and thus taking away vital energies to work on rebuilding the marriage. I suggest that you contact the OW's(other woman's) H(husband) and tell him that his W(wife) and your H are still in contact with one another. If her H confronts her, she MAY decide to end all contact with your H otherwise she risks ending her marriage, and that may not be what she truly wants.

Thank you for your reply and I understand what you mean about not being able to go forward in marriage recovery until he stops seeing the OP. But I am reluctant to make contact with the OP's spouse because he is a bit of a loose cannon on a good day. The OP is recovering from alcohol addiction and my H helped in getting to the right resourses to get counseling. MY H likes to rescue people (hes a cop) and this time he got himself really sucked in with her problems which also included the OP's spouse not being to supportive in her recovery in the beginning. When I found out what was going on the OP wanted to meet with me to apoligize. I agreeded and kept the meeting down to 15 minutes. She e-mailed me to thank me for meeting with her, and her e-mail contained alot of remorse for the pain she caused to me and our daughters. That was in the beginning of Sept. I'd like to make a copy of it and send it to her maybe she needs to be reminded of the pain she has caused, or ask her what ever happened to this person. I don't know if it would cause more problems or make her think? Thanks for your input,,,,,,,,jhd

This is in reference to my 1st post, would it be a good idea to have my H do an emotional needs survey. Especally since he can't seem to tell me what he needs from our marriage that hes n0t getting and has to go outside of it to someone else? jhd