pp 51-53 (my emphasis - your husband has already TRIED the trick Penny warns of below)
What will my spouse do when I initiate Protection Phase?
A few wayward partners will do nothing at all. If they‘ve been out of touch for a while they may continue to remain so . More often the straying partner increases attempts to make contact with the betrayed spouse. Men and women who vowed they didn‘t care if they never saw their mates again suddenly have all kinds of odd excuses to be in touch. This is the chemistry of attachment at work. Your job is to maintain your boundaries and avoid contact at all costs.
I know of many cases where the hurting spouse initiates Protection Phase only to have their partners contact them with a sob story about how they were planning, just that day, to end the affair and come home. And, as soon as the betrayed partner engages in contact with hope alive in his/her heart the promise disappears, conflict reemerges, and the affair goes on as strong as ever.
Spouses who let finances, home maintenance, and child visitation fall by the wayside suddenly have an emergency need for a pair of old tennis shoes stored in your attic. Don‘t fall for it. Take care of you, live your life in the mo ment, and stay out of contact.
Don‘t be fooled by attempts to see if your boundaries are real. I f the affair has indeed ended and your partner wants to come ho me, there‘s plenty of time to work through that process.
And then what?
The affair will most likely end, just like 90 to 95% of all affairs do . If you did the right things in Intervention Phase, it will end sooner. When that happens, you need to be strong and healthy if you are going to be able to work through the Reconciliation and Healing Phases.
Most people just want life to return to normal after an affair. And most people know that normal, as they once knew it, is dead and gone. Reconciliation is more than just coming ho me and taking up wher e you left off. It r equires a deep level of honesty about the affair, how it began, what kept it alive, and how it was hidden from you. Recover y requires setting in place precautions and co nd itio ns that protect you from a repeat performance œ either with the current affair partner o r someone else. No one can guarantee that another affair will never happen œ but we can make it much le ss l ikel y a nd we ca n create conditions that alert us as soo n as something begins to go awry. These ar e the things negotiated during Reconciliation Phase. Of all the Phases for overcoming infidelity, Reconciliation is per haps the most counterintuitive and the one where exper t professio nal help can give you the mo st benefit.
Once you‘ve negotiated the hows and whens o f Reconciliation, the real wor k o f Healing beg ins. You may ne ed to r ebuild your marriage from t he ground up. As daunting as that sounds, it is the chance to have the marr iage of yo ur dreams. Havin g survived a trauma of tremendous proportio ns can give yo u the clarity of vision to live yo ur life and
your marr iage with intentio n crafting your dreams into reality.
But since he is with someone else, doesn't he want to lose me? Or is the idea that the someone else is distracting me from the true realization that he could very well lose me for good and he just hasn't confronted that reality yet?
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
He has a strong bond WITH you already... but he needs to be cut OFF from it in order for that bond to be triggered...
Each time he has any kind fo contact with you... even dropping by your home to pick up the mail when you aren't there he REFRESHES that bond of home and family all over again...
Once he realizes he CAN'T have that bond he will gradually become HUNGRY for it... it will make him anxious to find out hwo youare, what you're doing.. who you aer wtih etc...
Imagine motehrs who let their kids off to school for the first time... Or their child's first night away from home with a friend.. that BOND kicks in...
Absence CAN make the heart grow fonder IF they know they are unwelcome to return... ie : He needs to know you arne't Plan B or his safety net anymore.
As long as you keep contact it offers him that reassurance that he can come back at any time.
Once you cut that cord he will start to panic... YOu have likley seen him leave a LOT of excuses to make contact over and over again...
Even him coming by to pick up the mail was an excuse... He WANTS to feel welcome to return when he feels like it...
YOU have to tell him NO
Yes, he has legal rights to the house, but you can REMOVE all EXCUSES to return and NOT be there when he does...
I would suggest you change your phone number and give him the number of an intermediary contact as well... He needs to know you aren't at his beck and call.
Ignoring his calls helps a bit, but disconnecting the number and NOT giving him the new one helps a LOT MORE
Alright well I successfully got through not contacting him while he went on his flights and now he's halfway across the US and I didn't check to see if he got there ok or anything, so yeah me.
However I do have one update--I don't remember if I talked about this before, but I had heard that he had contacted one of my male friends (the huband of one of my closest girlfriends) about a week ago via email. That person shared the email with his wife, who told me all about it in detail. Get this: he invited THAT guy to come over to swim in the pool (remember he had asked me to do this before and I said no) and have a few beers so they "could commiserate about the more difficult aspects of their wives' personalities." Can you believe that? Ok so he leaves me, has an affair, and pushes for a divorce, and yet he wants to hook up with my girlfriend's husband to talk about how she and I are "difficult"? And he's still saying "wife"? I can't understand this at all. He also said in the email that he was grateful they were helping me out because I obviously "really needed a lot of support" but that he was "just fine and didn't need any support", and that contrary to my saying he "needed help" (like professional counseling) that he was feeling "really good about his decisions" and just hopeful that I could "come to accept the reality of what was going on." He ended the email by saying that he would like it if this man were to overhear me and his wife talking about the situation if this man would "stay out of the conversation" and that he "really enjoyed having met him before and thought they had a lot in common."
???? Any guesses on what the heck any of this means or is motivated by? What he was trying to DO by sending this email to someone he barely knew, my close gf's husband? God it is so condescending I could vomit.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
???? Any guesses on what the heck any of this means or is motivated by?
Antonia, STOP trying to make sense out of the senseless. It's a cheeseless tunnel. What it means is that he's having an affair, and he's highly movitated by its addiction.
Anything else is pure speculation, and a frustrating waste of your time, Antonia.
You're right Puppy, I needed to hear that. I guess the thing that just confuses me to death is that he fluctuates between coming off as pompous or condescending in an email to me or like the one above, and then another day I'll get a very sincere email that says things like "don't blame yourself", "I was to blame", "I was programmed to fail from a young age and I'm shocked I held it together as long as I did", and "it was never about the OW, I was breaking away from our relationship before I ever even knew her name." He has also said that even if he wasn't with her he wouldn't be with me. I guess those last 2 statements make me think that any attempt I make to save this marriage is completely useless. Or do addicted people say those things too?
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
Oh hang on I found both of those last 2 statements in Penny's Overcoming Infidelity. To the letter. So the addicted person really says that stuff and later realizes it is wrong? I know I ask people here to speculate a lot, it just all seems like if someone says that crap now he'll never NOT say it.
M45 Bomb 6/09; EA 6/10; Divorced 1/11 Proud single mom of 7 little feline girls and one little feline boy "Fall down 53 times. Get up 54." -- Zen saying
You're right Puppy, I needed to hear that. I guess the thing that just confuses me to death is that he fluctuates between coming off as pompous or condescending in an email to me or like the one above, and then another day I'll get a very sincere email that says things like "don't blame yourself", "I was to blame", "I was programmed to fail from a young age and I'm shocked I held it together as long as I did", and "it was never about the OW, I was breaking away from our relationship before I ever even knew her name." He has also said that even if he wasn't with her he wouldn't be with me. I guess those last 2 statements make me think that any attempt I make to save this marriage is completely useless. Or do addicted people say those things too?
Only about 90% of them.
Mine certainly did. Now, I'm sitting here with her gazing at our 5-month old granddaughter, and celebrating our 50th birthdays.
