Hi,<P>I'm the WS. I broke it off with the other woman in April, but it didn't stick. We are still basically having an affair, but I need to break contact altogether. I care for her, so I want to help her too. Breaking up is hard to do! She doesn't believe me when I tell her that we're "in the fog" and that what she is feeling is false love. She is married too; but I doubt her relationship with her husband will ever recover due to other things. <P>So, I'm looking for a good book to get for her that will help convince her that the affair is pointless and must stop. Thanks for any suggestions.<P>Thanks,<P>-dmw

deadmanwalking,<BR>I would like to know. does her husband know that she is having an A? And does your wife know about this? There are good books here on the site that will help but only if both parties involved want to be helped. If she wants her marriage to survive, then she will have to work hard to save it. You cannot help her. In fact if you want your own marriage to survive, then you must break all contact with her. I understand how you feel because I too was a WS.<P>If you are truly coming out of the fog and want to work on your marriage, you must not have any contact with her. It only gives her false hope that you two will get back together. What happens to her marriage is her business. You must concentrate on your own marriage.<P>Go to the bookstore here and read what it says about each book. you may find some that will help you as well as her.<P>Debbie<P>------------------<BR>"I find the great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it ---- but we must sail, not drift nor lie at anchor." Oliver Wendall Holmes

Privat Lies is the most honast book I have read... Chapter10, I practically have memorized the reasons why affairs dont last. <P>But the more you try to be compasionate with your OW the more hope it will give her to hang on. If you truely want to be compassionate and allow her to move on you have to be final. No calls to see how she is doing, not notes, be honast with your wife and tell the OW you are telling your wife everything. YOur careing for the OW is at the expense of your wife.<BR>Lora

DMW,<P>The kindest yet most convincing thing you can do to convince OW of finality is to CUT OFF ALL CONTACT.<P>There are no two ways around this. There are plenty of Old Timer WS and BS here that will tell you the same. You won't hear anything else from us that will work.<P>Buying her a book will not do anything except maybe tell her you still care for her enough that you went out of your way to buy her a book to help her. <P>I'm sorry this may sound brutal, but it's reality.<P>Jo<P>

Hi DeadMan,<P>You're not a dead man here. <P>I also cheated on my spouse. Resillient offered some very strong, sound wisdom to you for your situation. It may not be what you wanted to hear, but it is something you are going to have to do someday soon anyway. <P>I'd like to offer you one additional word of advice that stems from my own expereince. Cut off contact with this woman immediately, and never look back. If only you would be so concerend about your own wife's feelings. She's the one you need to be buying books for.<P>Everytime she cracks the book open in any attempt to help herself or her marriage, she will be reminded of the relationship the two of you had that she can no longer have. You may feel like you are giving her a gift, but in trying to sever a bond for GOOD why would you want to give her a token of your affection and care for her.<P>Buy books for you and your wife. <P>"Surviving an Affair" by Dr. Steve Harley<P>"His Needs, Her Needs," ibid<P>And I also recommend Private Lies.<P>Wishing you the best of luck on your journey,<P>Khyra

Hi Dmw,<P>I will be an echo to Resillient's comments. The best help you can give her is complete removal from her life regardless of her efforts to keep in contact with you. Depending on what kind of person she is, she may try to manipulate you in any which way she can. Being mean, being nice, being bitter, being sweet. Eventually being pscyotic.<BR>That yoyo effect of emotions is enough to make anyone psyco. <P>So the best way is to remove yourself. If she chooses to be psyco, let it be with someone else. Right now your best of intentions is not good medicine for her regardless of what she may say. <P>I am the BS, my H is the WS. OW has been calling and calling. Even though the no contact agreement was done over 2 weeks ago (3 weeks this coming Monday evening), OW tried last night (call and page at 11:30pm) and 2 calls on H's cell this morning. All calls and page were not responded to. Do you think she got the message? Nope. H does not want to be mean to her but even not responding to her calls is not enough. What is? Well I have my opinion different from my H, so least to say I would answer and hang up for starters, then tell her if she doesn't stop harrassment charges will be filed. Oh yes, H has to change both the work cell and pager. Been after him for a while. H uses the excuse that customers on return trips have been given his number but that excuse is getting old and he knows it. So got another commitment again today. <P>You see where this can go? H is not good medicine for the OW. <P>OW is also like a cancer for you. She will grow on you and squeeze out your W. Sorry for the gory analogy but from the BS standpoint and that of most caring onlookers, that is what it looks like. Now would you treat a cancer gently? Think it will go away just by ignoring it or gently tapping it? Hm......<P>JMHO.<BR>L.<P>

I concur - you must simply end it, and cut off ALL contact.Do what is necessary to ensure no more contact, blocking emails, changing email, changing phone numbers, whatever! No book buying for her to ease your conscience, or to make it easy for her - it will just make it harder.<P>Focus on you and your marriage now. Yes there will be pain, and you have a lot ahead of you, but keeping focused on your marriage and your future will be enough, and in fact all you should focus on.<P>You are not being mean - you are being practical, for ALL parties involved.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses.<P>My W does know - I told her about it. Her H does not know. To be honest, I don't know that I want to patch things up with my wife, we've been working on that since I told her. We're kind of back to normal. What I do know is that I don't want to have an affair anymore (or ever again!).<P>Your points about giving false hope to the OW are interesting. I won't be giving her a book. <P>I guess the thing I've been trying to avoid is her going 'psycho' as one of you called it. So I've been too nice in the let down. I guess its inevitable now - either she'll go psycho or she won't. But that will happen either now, or sometime in the future. So beating around the bush doesn't help. I know you are all correct with your advice. But that doesn't make it any easier!<P>Thanks again,<BR>-dmw

Dead Man....Love the handle...loose the Broad....learn a leson....be an honest man again....look into the mirror each day....like what you see looking back at you...Well worth the effort! d2k

This will probably get my butt kicked, but I don't necessarily agree with the others dmw. There is a litany about this stuff, and a one size fits all mentality re the no contact issue. Yes I am a ws, and I care deeply about the ow. I am attempting recovery with my w, and going along ok, after a long rocky start. I disagree vehemently with the mentality that human beings are only children and must be "protected" from each other (ie the addiction model). I may come to regret the ow, but I doubt it. Unless she proves to be something other than I thought, she is a decent human being, who like me, found herself in a hard emotional place. <P>Pretending she never existed, or the love was not real is a form of brainwashing, and one of my biggest hot buttons is being manipulated, I won't allow it. My wife and I have fought over this for months, I think she finally accepts that my feelings are mine, belong to me, and are a part of who I am. If I must somehow lobotomize my ability to love the ow, then I have lobotomized my ability to love anyone. This is no reflection on her, or on what may or may not be possible for us. Loving someone other than your spouse is not in itself evil, misguided, or even wrong (although it could be), it is part of the tapestry, the mystery of human bonding. The distressing issue is that it happens while married, and threatens the marriage, but that usually comes about because the marriage is seriously troubled. <P>Many times the affair is trivial, and childish, and lustful....but this is not a given. Other times it arises from the same things that led you to marry your spouse, and is everybit as real, and therefore an important part of who you are. IMO denying that to yourself is well.....denial. I will never be the same as I was, and frankly I am glad of that, I didn't like who I had become in my marriage. I will always care about the ow, and will make no phoney effort to block her from my mind. Yes no contact is necessary, the conflict of focus does not work. But before I parted with ow, I spent a lot of time discussing this stuff, giving her MB stuff, and so forth, as I would any friend I cared about. <P>I am one of the black sheep, an unrepentant ws. I know what happened to me, and I know why, and I know it will not happen again, and I am sorry my wife was hurt. But I also know I am a man, I decide my fate, and I do not need to be treated as a child, or a drug addict, or an alcoholic. Love is not an addiction, anymore than eating is an addiction, anything can be abused, but love in itself is what humans do. I will either choose my wife or not (as will she me), and it will be on my terms (and hers), it will not be because I pretend the ow never existed, or that I can "never" be reminded about her. Personally I can't understand why any bs would not prefer their spouse deliberately choose them, not default to them cause they have been coerced away from ow. IMO the test of a restored marriage is the ability to feel however you want about the ow, but choose your spouse, and they are content and secure with that.<P>I have been honest with these feelings to my wife, she has the right to know them, and reject me if she finds it unacceptable. But right or wrong, it is who I am. This was not a fling for me, a silly mlc. I care a great deal about the ow, and her welfare, just as I do my wife, I cannot divide myself into 2 different people, 1 who cares, and 1 who does not. The ow is going to try and find what is real for her and H, under difficult circumstances too. And she may feel as many do her, that it best she never hear from me, if so I will honor that. But I do think it is possible for people to find themself in a place where they do come to care a great deal about someone else, but realize they cannot pursue it, but not feel it necessary to construct some kind of artificial wall. IMO I would by all means tell her about MB and send her some literature, or a book. The benefits of that far outweigh the concerns mentioned in this thread.