Please post again here so that we know you are coming back and reading, ok?
I am STL’s wife, Zorweb (he is the one who posted just above). My response to you if very long as there was so much I wanted to bring up.
I am so sorry to hear what you have been going through. You do not deserve what your husband is doing to you. YOU ARE LOVABLE and deserved to be loved. No one deserves to be treated this way.
While you may feel that your husband has not loved you and that you mean nothing to him it is not true. He is married to you because you are the most important person to him. But he is so messed up that he has to hurt you to feel ok about himself. If you leave him he will be devastated. Let’s face it, if he was going to leave you he would have already one it. You have so much power here and don’t even know it. Your behavior is that of a girlfriend not a wife. A wife has a certain social and legal position and many many rights. You are not using any of them. As THE Queen of your home and your marriage, take possession of your place in your marriage and demand that you be treated as the Queen your are or start chopping off head (ok I know that’s a little bit radical but I hope you get the idea.) There is a non-love-busting way to do this. Do it softly, with class but firmly. This is your life, your marriage and your home.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have been fighting for our marriage for almost 6 months now. Showing my husband all my love and affection to the point that he said he fell in love with me again. But still could not decide who he wanted.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You have done one of the most important things a person can do in your situation… everything you can. Once you have done that and your husband does not respond then at least you have the peace of mind to know that you worked your butt off and were not remiss. You have given your husband more chances than any person should ever have.
What he has been doing is a form of severe emotional abuse. Actually, for the harm it has caused you, he may as well be beating you. Keep that image in mind as you wonder why you were depressed for all that time.
Your husband has bad a choice…. It is the choice to string you and the OW along for as long as he can. Let’s face it. He has the best of two worlds with at least two women to meet his needs. He will not end his affair(s) until someone else makes the move to leave him. So either you could leave him, or you could come down so hard as to force the end of his affair or at least force him to chose. I’m going to touch on this a little later… you need to do something really drastic to force his hand. The way things are going it seems that it does not really matter which way he goes but more importantly that you get peace in your life one way or the other.
Unfortunately I am no stranger to infidelity. My ex-H and I were together for 20 years, married for the last 14 of those. He had many affairs during that time. Like you I was not aware of them for a very long time. Or just saw things that were not right but stupidly trusted him. A few years after divorcing him I married my current husband. There were things there that I ignored too. In the 9th month of our marriage I discovered that he had been cheating with a few women through our engagement and the first part of our marriage.
There are things that the BS picks up on. I call them poltergeist. We know that something is wrong… there is something unseen going bump in the night (actually in our lives). But these things are not tangible, we cannot see them. We only feel them. So we start to think of ourselves as nuts. Like your husband, my previous husband pointed at my unhappiness and confusion as an excuse for his behavior. But like your situation, the affairs pre-dated by going down hill emotionally. Do you know what depression is? It is a person using their emotional energy to literally depress something. From the very start of your marriage, you have been using your emotional energy to depress your recognition of the poltergeist. To hide from the truth.
It seem to me that you need to stop using the energy to depress the feeling that you have. To stop holding it all in. You have every reason to be furious at your husband and the women he had cheated with. You need to acknowledge this for your own mental and emotional health. You need to tell him, ALL of the women you now know of, a counselor and anyone else you can use for a support system.
His telling you that your depression is what caused him to have problems and to have affairs is like an assailant telling their victim that they are making too much noise as they beat them. Remember that he was having affairs from almost day 1. Your depression was probably in a large part your reaction to his affairs, secretive behavior and not meeting your needs. HOW DARE HE try to blame his bad behavior on you!!! And that is exactly what you need to tell him.
He says that he has fallen back in love with you but has not ended his affair and changed his behavior? Why should he? There is a huge problem with Plan A… it’s good in the short run. But with 6 months of it he has learned a very important lesson… there is a new lifestyle in your house. He gets to do anything he pleases as long as he plays lip service to whatever you want. And you are going to meet all of his needs and not interfere too much with his freedom. He has two women vying for his attention and meeting his needs. No wonder the likes affair… I’d like to have one (or many) too. He is loves and pampered more then he could ever be in a monogamous marriage. You and the OW’en have taught this man that he is the center of the universe and deserves this enormous amount of love and attention. And that there are no real consequences for it. Well, the only consequence is that you and the OW give him grief from time to time about him not ending the affair/marriage but that he has learned to deal with by lying to the both of you. I can guarantee you that he is lying to her as much as he is lying to you. Now you have un-teach him this.
You are in a great position right now. You have shown him through what seems to be a very good plan A that you are a good wife and his love for you has grown. Now you have to let him know that there are consequences. That the only way he can have you is if he shows you the love and respect that he promised to give you when he married you. The love, respect and decency that is deserved by any person. But you are the one who has to do this. He will respect you only as much as you respect yourself. And through all of this you have not really respected yourself very much. A person can only be abused (or cheated on) as long as they allow it to happen. I can say this only because I had to learn the same hard lesson myself.
IMHO, it is almost time for Plan B. But if I were you, I’d give it, say one more week and go one week at a time deciding if it’s time for Plan B. The reason is I think you need to do one very serious Plan A blitz. Blitz is my term here, I’ll explain. You have laid the groundwork with a good Plan A. Now he has to know that beyond all doubt he is loosing you and very very quickly. If it does not work, then you have lost nothing that you have not already lost. You cannot continue to allow yourself to be abused like this… so draw a very hard line in the sand. Timing is very important here. And all of this has to be done with out vindictiveness, but with the understanding that the veil of secrecy has to be lifted from his secret life.
We talk about something here called the 180…. It’s a concept talked about in
divorce busting. The idea of it is that if what you are doing is not working then do exactly the opposite. It will force a change in your relationship. You have been too ‘nice’, letting him and all of the OW’en get away with far too much. So the 180 I suggest is that you suddenly draw a very definite line in the sand. There are a bunch of things that I’d do in one day. You want to shock the living daylights out of your husband and get him to end his affair. If he does not in a very short period of time then you really do have no choice but Plan B. 6 months of Plan A? This has gone on for far too long.
As I see it there is nothing you can do to change your husband.. only he can do that. You only have control over your own choices and behavior. So as I see it you have 3 choices here: Like it and stay; hate it and stay; hate it and leave. If you decide to hate it and stay, but expect nothing to change… so shut up and up. So where does Plan A come into this all. Plan A is a very short-term way of trying to affect change … it’s the choice of “hate it, stay and try to fix it”. It has not worked. With that in mind I suggest that you let your H know that you are ending your marriage (Plan B and on to divorce) unless it all comes to a screeching hault right now!!!!!
1. As for your H’s secret email account. Save all of the emails to disk. Make a copy on CD if you can and get the copy of out your home to a trusted storage place (work, family member, friend, safe deposit box.) Also make a copy of all addressed/contact info in the address book.
This way it cannot ‘disappear’ and it is now yours to do with as you please. Some people will tell you this is harsh and you do not have this right. I strongly disagree. You H is messing so badly with your life, you have every right to protect yourself and your marriages. You may need these emails to do this.
Other things you could do is to change the secret question and password to the account so that your H cannot get back into it. Also, if there is another email address in the account info, change that too.
If you do not hijack the email account, you could delete all of the emails and all of the info in the address book. Now he cannot contact these women as easily.
2. Blow the cover on his affairs.. all of them. Not just the current one. One of the quickest ways to end an affair is to expose it to the light of day. Does his current OW’s H know about the affair? He certainly needs to.
MB encourages that the BS confront the OW to let her know that she is interfering with a marriage and to ask her to step out of the affair. Like me, you had not one OW but several to deal with. Yes, yes I know you think that all but one of the affairs is in the past. But from the sounds of the email you got back from the music teacher, there is still a lot festering in at least that one.
Having found all of these emails is really a good thing for you. Perhaps the good lord was looking out for you as He definitely helped you stumble on some this very valuable. Knowing the full extent of what has gone on is so important for you mental health.
Right now the OW feels very special. He ‘loves’ her and is willing to hurt you for her. I’ll bet that all of the OW feels so special. You can ruin the ‘special-ness’ of their relationship with him. It has a two-fold purpose.. it protects you; and let’s these women know how badly he is playing with them. They too have the right to know. Who better to tell them then you?
It was certainly the case with my H’s OW’en (He had simultaneous affairs with 10 women over a 2.5 year period.) But they felt special because they did not know that they were nothing more then one of many. Since I knew the truth I really did feel an obligation to tell every one of my H’s OW’en about what he was doing… that he had lied to them, that he was married and that they were one of 10 affairs.. that they were not his soul mate or his love. So I did my civic duty. I still believe it was the morally right thing to do. I also believe that doing this saved my marriage.
These women have hurt you terribly. You have the right to put the truth out there, to stand up for yourself. To lessen the likelihood of him continuing to have an affair with the current OW or go back to any of the others you can ruin the feeling they have of being ‘special’, of being his ‘soul mate’ and all that other garbage.
I contacted every one of my H’s OW’en. I told them that he was married, asked them to back out of their affairs, and (this is a BIG AND) I told them all about each other. This broke the illusion each of them had. They were no longer special. We also sent each of the OW’en a no contact letter. A couple of them contacted me after they received the no contact letter to complain that there was nothing personal it is… that it was well, like a form letter. My response was something like “well?”. All of us (my H, me and them) had to learn to deal with the facts of the situation.
If I were you I’d write a letter to the current OW. I think that a letter is better then in person because then there is a record of what you have said… it cannot be twisted to suit her needs. Plus yours should (IMHO) have much more info then the normal ‘get out of our lives’ letter would because of the multiple affairs. Here is a sample letter. It is meant only to get you started in writing your own. So change it as you see fit. If you want further help with it, then post yours here and we can all give you input.
_______
Dear sleazebag,
I am aware that you have been involved in a physical extramarital affair with my husband for over 2 years. Your involvement in this affair is interfering with our marriage. It has alienated my husband from me in so many ways. I am sure that you are aware of the damage and pain you are causing to both my child, your husband and me. I am asking you to please end your affair with my husband. I love him dearly. Months ago I told him that he was free to leave to be with you if that is his choice. He has told me that he loves me, he has begged me to stay with him and work on our marriage. But he has also told me that he is having a problem breaking off his affair with you. He is being a cake man, he has it made with two women meeting his needs and vying for his attention. So he finds it impossible to give up this hedonistic existence and have only one woman to meet his needs. Please care enough for him to let him go so that he can rebuild the marriage and family is so obviously does not want to give up. If he wanted to give it up, he would have walked a long time ago. I, like anyone else, can not force him to do anything.. Much less to stay where he does not want to be.
I also feel that I have an obligation to let you know that my husband has not only been lying to me. This may come as a surprise to you but he has been playing a very sick game with me, you and several other women. I discovered recently that my husband has been having affairs with several women for the entire time we have been married. Some of these affairs are on going.. over lapping with his affair with you. We are both be played for fools by him.
So that you know I am not making this up I have included the email address, phone numbers, names of these other women. I am also including copies of many of the emails I have found between my husband and these women.
Please be aware that I have allowed myself to be abused by my husband, you and the other women for too long. If my husband does not end all contact with you and the other women immediately then I will institute no contact with him. I cannot allow this ridiculous, abusive game to go on in my life one moment longer.
In addition, don’t you have a marriage that you need to be concerned about? What you and my H are doing is distorting tow marriages. Please allow us to work on ours even if you do not care about yours.
Also be aware that in order to end my complicity in your and my H’s sordid affair and in all of my H’s affair with all of the women he has cheated with over the last 5 years I have sent copy of this letter with all the attachments to your husband and all of the other women my H is involved with.
I as I stated earlier, I am expecting that you will end all contact with my husband immediately. I have sent a copy of this letter and all attachments to your husband. If the affair does not end immediately. I will seek support in this matter from all people who I feel will be of help for my son and I… my family, H’s family, your family, you employer, etc.
Please do not contact me or my husband further. Any contact from you will be construed as harassment and will result in my filing a criminal complaint against you.
You are of course free to contact all of his other mistresses to share notes and stories. I am sure that all of you have a lot in common.
Attached you will find:
--- copies of emails/cards/letters/photos/etc that are evidence of your affair with my husband.
--- # (some number) of emails from OW#1, OW#2 and so forth
--- Names and contact information for each of the OW.
Sincerely,
Goddess
____________
In the copy to her husband, include a P.S. or a note suggesting that he read the book “Surviving an Affair”.
Then I would make changes to the above letter for each of the OW in that email account and send all of the info to all of them. Make sure you also send a copy to all of the spouses of the married ones. I would also tell all of them that there will be no contact with you, your son or your husband. Sure they may contact your husband. But if you have his account you will know this and can answer them accordingly.
Now this may anger your husband. That is NOT a love buster. You are not required to keep his dirty secrets nor to put up with his affair. The OW’en may get angry but oh well…. Did they worry about your feelings any? Nope.
As for the music teacher and any other one who was a family friend.. I would be a little harsher. Does she work independently? Or does she work for the school system?
3. Install keystroke tracking software on your computer …
www.iopus.com sells the one we use. You will be able to track all of his email and chat activity . Make sure you install it in stealth mode.
You are welcome to email me at zorweb@hotmail.com if you want to discuss any of this further.