Sometimes it's not about "looking strong". It's about "being strong". Being strong means that you act authentically regarding things that are meaningful to you. If your ring is meaningful to you as a representation of your vows and your marriage and you haven't given up on that yet .... keep wearing it. Then your actions will be congruent with your convictions, and that shows. Without words. In your general energy and demeanor.
Spot on, Kett. I’ll keep wearing it.
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You're not responsible for her terrible choices, but in some degree, silence does give consent. I understand the wisdom of waiting for clarity and calmness to confront. But when that has been achieved, and still you keep discovering new relatively passive workarounds to try to derail the affair, anything to avoid exposure and/or confronting her directly and decisively with what you know ... why???
Confronting her won’t work. She’ll just become angry and indignant and turn it around making me look like the insane, jealous husband. I’ve already been down that road.
I know people say that confronting the OP doesn’t work, but I think it’s my only option at this point. OM is a cop and we have mutual (cop) friends. He’s married to a rich woman and probably isn’t ready to lose his meal ticket. His professional reputation is important to him. Even an accusation is going to look bad and cause him problems.
What makes me think this might work is this: There are only two people who know about this A. One is ff that is acquainted with my W, but doesn’t really know her. She clocked the A immediately based on my description of W’s behavior. I was in denial at the time.
By the same token, OM doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I’m capable of. W thinks she does, but he’s in uncharted territory. That will make him nervous. If I calmly approach him with something like, “I know what’s going on. You two are on a pretty slippery slope, and that concerns me. You’re a police officer, OM. You know that people have ways of uncovering information. You can thank your lucky stars that I’m a softhearted guy. I haven’t gone to your wife or your superiors with what I have. I hope to keep it that way. Go home to your wife.” I don’t think he’s ready to call my bluff. I don’t he can afford to test me.
I know this might only turn up the heat on the A. But I don’t see any other option and I can’t stand to watch this go on any longer. I have to do SOMETHING.
H: 50 W: 48 Married 20 years Bomb and separation: 9/12/09 A discovered 12/02/09 http://tinyurl.com/yctnhec
