I discovered last October my husband had an affair the previous year. He said it was over and had been for over a year. We had a long heart to heart about the affair, and things were going really well.
This week I found a birthday card to my husband from the OW. I think it is from last year, but his birthday is months after when he told me the affair was over. The card also mentions that he was planning to leave me for this women. This was a detail he also left out in our "heart to heart".
I have told him he has to tell me everything for me to start healing, and for us to put htis behind us (which I thought we already had) but he says "he doesn't remember" when the affair ended or even how many times he saw this woman. I'm not sure I could believe him anyway.
I want to call the OW. I'm not sure why or what I would say. I want to tell her how pathetic she is, but know this would not solve anything. I also want to ask her how long the affair lasted or maybe find out if it's still going on. Am I just opening a big can of worms?

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> myHisanA <hr></blockquote>great name<p>What do you expect her to te you?

Thanks - I wish it was not true.<p>Anyway, I thought maybe she would give me more details than my H has been able to fill in. Granted, he has told me a lot, and I already know who she is (long story - and that information didn't come from him I found out about the A when I found an email exchange between the two of them) but I need more information. I don't know when the A started, when and if it ended, how many times they saw each other. I know she may not tell me, or may not be truthful but I can't stand doing nothing.<p>Or maybe I'll just call and tell her how pathetic she is. [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>I want to feel better and I wonder if confronting her will help me do that. <p>I know telling her she is pathetic will make me feel better at her expense - which is why I didn't call her when I first found out - and why I really won't do that this time either. It just feels good to say it.

i don't think I would reccomend that see what others say though. She may feel she has you on the ropes (so to speak) if you call her. If you call she may think she has anther chance to be the OW and take him away.

Thanks for the input - I agree, the last thing I want is this woman back in our life if she is in fact out of it.

I did contact the OW through my H email and she wrote back saying if I only knew what really happened and stuff. So I wrote to her telling her what he had told me and she wrote back things some true but also some lies. Like she tried to tell me she was in my house and that my H loved her and was only trying to work it out with me for our son. I of course questioned my H and he told me what part was true and what part she lied about. But once that doubt is there, it eats at you. He said she was never in our house, so I emailed her back telling her to describe my house and she couldn't. Basically what I'm getting at is you have a 50/50 chance of her telling you the truth. This eat at me so much it was blocking my recovery, so I had my H write her a letter and he did and he put things in it so that she would know I didn't write it. This helped me have closure. I was so afraid she would be lurking in the background waiting for us to fail. In the letter he set her straight (thank goodness). <p>Good luck to you.<p>sty

I would not recommend contacting the other woman. If you were a BS male, I would say never because male tempers get out of control and people actually commit murder and end up an article on 60 minutes. Anyway, I still can't find much good in you contacting her. I think you are making a mistake trying to get over this too quickly. It takes an average of 2 years to get over it. He needs to know this. You are letting him off the hook when you try to get over it quickly and doing it at your expense because when you don't/can't then you will think something is wrong with you and beat yourself up. He needs to understand that you may have two years worth of questions if he wants to stay together and that he needs to break down and get honest about everything he can think of to get past it as soon as is feasible. Also do everything you can to get him to tell you things he remembers instead of you having to be the one to ask all the time. That will take you out of the interrogator role sometimes because he will get tired of the questions. Also, when he does tell you something you don't like, especially if he does it on his own, DON'T jump on him. Just ask questions for understanding. If he finds that whenever he answers honestly or brings things up himself he gets slammed, he will not be so willing to keep doing it. Self preservation you know...Good luck.

Thanks DSF-<p>You have given me very good advice. I am trying to get over this quickly because I want my life back. It's good to be reminded that getting over it quickly is not an option.<p>Unfortunately while I was looking around to find more information about the A, I found things that suggest that he has probably had more than one. Now I wonder how many there have been, whether one (or more!) is still going on. I basically stay awake at night making up different scenarios about my WH life when he's not with me. I feel awful.<p>I told him about this and that I think (hope) that what I imagine is way worse than the truth. This has not helped him come clean at all. Although one day he said "Anything I can do to help you get over this I will do for you" I almost slapped him - since I have told him that knowing the truth would be a big step. Was he even in that conversation?<p>You are right about not getting accusational when (if) he ever tells me the truth. I did not handle finding the other information very well. For instance, I found yet another ex-girlfriend's phone number in a pile of papers. I asked him about the phone number, and he denied having it. So I blew up at him. He continued lying, I brought up the other A (the one I already knew about) and he said he was never going to tell me the truth since I would just use it against him in court. Since then we have not talked about the A(s) at all. I did not even bring up the other things I found suggesting he has had other affairs and is probably having one now. <p>(Actually, I did not mention them - because I want to find out if his behavior changes. If I tell him what I suspect, his behavior will definitely change.)<p>We start counseling again tomorrow. I'm hoping this helps him understand that he needs to come clean about everything and tell me the truth. I don't have a lot of hope though, since the last time we were in counseling he was active in the A and did not feel the need to talk about it. I really don't see us working out if he cannot tell me the truth and tell me the whole story. I will not live with someone who thinks it is OK to lie to me and thinks they can treat me with such dis-respect. <p>I'm rambling - sorry - I really just wanted to thank you for the advice [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] Thanks Again!