Oh, all of this reads like my life. For me it was my husband and his secretary. Again...started as EA, I was unconfortable, spoke up a little, lived in denial and trusted my husband while "bought" all the justifications and tales always felt something was way off. I could have written what you did.
This board helped me open my eyes to the fact that no, they are not just friends. Life does not work that way and it was a full blown everything relationship.
Trust your instincts and take all advice with a grain of salt and reflection before acting. You will be okay. It is pure hell.
I don't know which route you should go. Divorce Busting was the best route in my case because things were SO bad that had I demanded he end it it would not have worked. But also my husband stated after so many conversations that if I saw this coming, why didn't I speak up? Anyway, I showed him my pain and talked about how much it hurt me but I never said clearly "End it" "no contact" "she needs to find another job". By the way because of stupid legal stuff she is still working with him...that is the challenge I am currently fighting.
Good luck and take excellent care of yourself and you will find the right things to do. The coaches here were really good too.
It's more than a friendship. You don't need to second guess yourself. It is easy to second guess and in time you might get the "how could I have even thought otherwise" head slap that I did.
Okay, well I've been reading at marriagebuilders.com , and it seems that they would say I've taken the wrong approach. Apparently, my H was vulnerable to an Emotional Affair because I wasn't meeting all of his emotional needs and because we'd ceased to be each other's fun buddies. The advice there suggests that I should be playing nice and trying to meet his emotional needs - not giving an ultimatum and exposing. So now I'm completely nervous in my approach - what if I just drove him further away? What if my handling of the EA is going to be the real nail in the coffin? I still love him and want it to work. But at the same time, I don't know if I have it in me to play nice given everything that's gone on.
Also, a lot of the advice I'm reading in multiple places says things like "WS must completely cut off all contact with OP," but there is no advice for how to encourage this than to be nice and try to meet emotional needs. Which is where the idea of ultimatums and exposing come into play. . . gives the beytrayed spouse some power back and makes one feel like there is something that can be done. But of course now I'm worried this will seriously backfire and have the opposite of the intended effect. I know there are no guarantees in this situations, but certainly enough people have gone through this in a lifetime for there to be "best practices" in place for encouraging a spouse back onto the right track.
I feel like I'm in the Tower of Babel . . . every source is contradicting another source . . . some of the advice contradicts common sense (which is sometimes appealing) . . . but at the end of the day I still feel like I'm shooting in the dark.
In rereading my post, I must clarify that by "play nice" I essentially mean the DRing and DBing strategies (or some version of those). I don't mean that I can't be civil, I just mean that I don't know if I have it in me right now to be over the top kind and generous for a WS who is not appreciative.
No Melody- "Plan A" only works less than 10% of the time. I wanted you to read about withdrawal and how to recover from the affair, not how to bust the A--you were doing all the right things. You can meet the emotional needs of each other during reconciliation. If you read more, Dr. Harley recommends going to Plan B (legal separation, no contact) if the spouse doesn't end the A.
YOU ARE on the right track!!! Don't second guess yourself- if your H ends the A sooner than later, it prevents them from getting closer and wanting to leave their marriage and kids to be together.
me,34 exH,34 S,16 months S:3/31/09-left for OW started DBing 10/09 d final: sometime 10/10 current: http://www.divorcebusting.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2022856&page=1 met in 2004
Thanks - I needed reassurance that I did the right thing for the situation. So an update for today: H came to house while i was at work and took his clothes. Took enough to last awhile.
He texted today regarding passwords (we agreed not to change any passwords to joint accounts and lock the other person out). He has already locked me out of his email accounts (which I figured would happen). In our brief text exchange I said "I want you to know that everything I am doing is because I love you and I want to save our family." His response was "OK" and then "Love ya too." And that was the end of the convo.
I know it's early and I need to have some patience, but I'm finding it hard to know what to do with myself. I forget about everything for awhile while I'm working, but then when I set foot out of work, it all comes back and I can't concentrate on anything but this. Yuck.
Yes, living in a whirlwhind of contradicting advice and information is so much fun when the stakes are so high - not. It can drive you crazy. What do you do for hobbies now? Anything you ever wanted to get into? Do you excercize and eat well? If you have already answered these things please excuse me. You really can only control your own behaviors. Once I started becoming more empowered, excercizing, getting back into Karate I had an epiphany that ...okay, he's just breaking up with me. His loss - I laughed a lot and felt like I did in high school. With all this said, I did a lot of reflection and work and realized my part in all of this. The book "the five love languages" was really the most powerful thing that happened for both of us. It opened our eyes to we were not just not compatible...we just did not know how to support each other in the manner that meant the most to us. That really started to turn things around...turns out he was still sleeping with his secretary through all that but that is another story. You come out of all this stuff wiser and stronger. It just really really really is very painful. Take good care of yourself because you can control that. If you are healthy, everything else will go much better no matter what.
Yes, the stakes being high makes this no fun. Decision making can be paralyzing. I don't have a lot of hobbies, to be honest. Nor do I have many friends in the area. I had quite a few friends when I wasn't married, but when we got pregnant we moved to my H's home area. Between working and taking care of our daughter, I haven't been able to put in the time to new friendships.
The people I work with are mostly family people (I teach at a Christian school) and so we're all social at work but then everyone goes home to his/her family. I wanted the same thing. . .
I do have some very close friends from before I was married - we're still like sisters and they've been a tremendous help over the phone through this. They live in other places so I think I am going to add some visits to them on weekends once I can get away.
I have been excercising and eating right (at least up until the last few days when I've had no appetite at all). So yeah, I do need to get some hobbies. And, I have to figure out a way to get babysitting coverage for my D so that I can GAL.
I'm on Day 2 of separation. A mutual friend (who has taken my side and decided to support our marriage) told me that he asked my H to get a beer tonoight and my H responded that he's out drinking with his coworkers. Great. He hasn't even called to talk to our D and my D (4 1/2) now realizes something is wrong - she had a meltdown at bedtime.
I am so angry with him right now that it's hard to force myself to be a bigger person and not go crazy. I want to turn off his credit cards, cancel his phone, etc. but then I know that if we do D this will not reflect well on me in terms of negotiations. Nor is it the right thing to do. Turn the other cheek, right?
Hang in there Melody. I have been dealing with a co-worker affair for 13 months since exposure. The situation is rotten. Keep taking care of yourself. Your daughter needs you.
I am so angry with him right now that it's hard to force myself to be a bigger person and not go crazy. I want to turn off his credit cards, cancel his phone, etc. but then I know that if we do D this will not reflect well on me in terms of negotiations. Nor is it the right thing to do. Turn the other cheek, right?
That depends. If it's just to protect our own FEELINGS, then yes, we are taught to turn the other cheek. But if it's to protect our ASSETS, or our FAMILY, then there's nothing wrong with doing what needs to be done. The Bible also teaches us "there is wisdom in many counselors," and warns against co-signing for others' debts.
Who pays for your husband's cellphone? Is he using family assets (credit cards) on another woman?
