First Post - Advice on a nightmare with no end

[Hope4us]

Jimi, First, welcome to the club no one wants to be in. Second, you've come to the right place. You'll get lots of good advise here.

Now to your situation. I think you'll find two schools of thought on what you should do and only you know your wife and situation so you're going to have to decide what to do.

That being said, one thought is it's obvious your wife likes spending time with you but she's not ready to give up OM yet which tells me (I think) that she's testing you to see if you've recognized the things she's complained about and are changing them.

So, one of your choices is continue to "date" her, show her the changes you're making, get a life of your own (GAL), and totally ignore OM who is nothing but a predator and will show his colors eventually. Him being so far away is good and bad. Good in that you don't have to worry about them being physically together too much, but at the same time, it's hard for affairee's to get on each other's nerves when they aren't physically together. Trust me, I know about this one. Probably extended my wife's affair by a good number of months once OM moved away and it became a long distance affair, but I digress.

But anyway, first idea is ignore OM, continue to "date" your wife and pray she see's you as the better choice and drops OM and returns to the marriage.

Now the second idea. Your wife is a cake eater. That is, she wants the excitement of her OM, but she wants you too and as long as she's getting what she needs from you and OM, she'll have no reason to change. And if that's the case, how long are you willing to put up with the way things are? Cause she could go on like this for quite a while.

I was kind of in the almost same situation at one point in my W's affair. OM had moved 250 miles away and she knew I was watching her like a hawk so they couldn't physically get together even though I knew it was still going on through phone/IM/TM. And for me, because I knew they weren't phyiscally able to get together, I was able to continue to be the nice guy hoping she would see I was the better choice. Well, that worked for crap. All it did was allow her to use me while she planned the next meetings with OM and the demise of my marriage, so that's when I got aggressive.

So your second choice could be to get aggressive. If you want to do that, let us know and we can help.

It's all going to depend on what you can take and what are you willing to risk? Cause with OM far away, the status quo could last for a LONG time.

Read the other posts here. You'll see examples of some people who do the "be your wife's best friend and she'll eventually see you as the better choice" camp and you'll see examples of the "I'm in a war and will risk the end of my marriage to save it". Personally, I did a whole lot of the first example early on and all it got me was more heartache and "disrespect" from my wife and once I got aggressive in trying to save my marriage, it started to turn around.

All depends on what you have a stomach for and how long you're willing to take the disrespect that is an Affair.