wonderful marriage hits midlife crisis

[Albuquerque]

TAMF,

Your H sounds a lot like mine. My H is still fairly involved with D and continues to contact me a lot. When I first started on this forum, I tried to follow the "rules" and limit contact. But he continued to call me, text me, email me, IM me etc. And it wasn't necessarily important stuff, it was just stuff he found interesting and that he thought I might find interesting. He asks D and I out to eat often and often does those weird unexpected "nice" things that seem surreal. Yet, I can see him, in front of me, texting the OW. I know he's going to visit her (even though he hasn't admitted it and I haven't asked) and I see her posting all over his FB. Is H doing some cake eating? Absolutely. Does it piss me off? Hell yeah. But it pisses me off in a detached sort of way. I'm mad not necessarily at him, but at the situation. I can see him texting OW (in what he thinks is a surruptitious way) and find it more sad for him than anything else. Because I can also see his confusion, depression and frustration with how his life has been the last 6 months.

I've debated whether I'm making the right approach with continuing constant contact and allowing the cake eating. The choice I made was for ME, not for him. I feel that I'm living up to my commitment for the M by being there for him when he feels he needs some human contact.

Wow. I'm sorry, I just totally disagree with that. If he were a drug addict, would you sit there quietly while he shot himself up with his drugs?

I get the whole "treat it as an addiction," whether it's MLC or infidelity, and I happen to AGREE with that approach. But it must be done with healthy BOUNDARIES, and I'm sorry, disrespecting you (and your kids) by texting OW right in front of your family is incredibly disrespectful. It's not healthy for YOU, and it's also not healthy for HIM to have no boundaries placed upon his behavior.

Puppy

Puppy,

I don't totally disagree with you. I've struggled with this myself. The problem (at least for me) is that I don't know FOR SURE that the OW is a reality. I'm pretty damn sure based on what I've seen, but he's never admitted it. On my own thread, I asked others whether I should fess up to H about being sure about OW. The general consensus was NO and the reasons were sound. The reasons changed my mind because I was leaning towards doing it. The reasons were that it would

1. Be a confrontation no matter whether I meant it like that or not
2. Cause him to likely lie about it and the last thing *I* need is to deal with more lies
3. Wouldn't change a damn thing about the R anyhow.

So basically, he doesn't know I realize who he's texting. I guess he thinks he's sly. If he were to finally fess up, then I probably WOULD set some boundaries in place, but that's not where I am right now. I don't mean this to sound defensive. Believe me, if someone has a better idea of how to handle this, BY ALL MEANS let me know your thoughts. At least as far as I'm concerned, I've manged to detach enough to where I can see it and yet continue on without letting it affect my mood. I get your point Puppy, believe me I do. I feel like a total doormat sometimes. But I'm not sure how to handle the situation at this moment, any other way. Forgive me for hijacking your thread TAMF, although, this probably helps you as well given the similarities in our situations.