Bob,
now you are the one making my head spin! just kidding.

okay I feel like you are extremely focussed on her not working on things. and I understand your feelings. You sound so much like my H back then. I think you are kind of having tunnel vision just a little here. You are so focussed on for the connection to come back she can have no contact with the om. I think you have this set in your mind and you want me to confirm it for you. I feel like you are missing the part about how you need to be friends first! They got a connection by being friends. You and her got a connection in the begining by being friends didnt you?
Have you read Davids story? His W was involved with another man and he helped her pack to go on vacation with this om! He was being her friend. They are a success story today! There is not just one path to take.

okay let me point something out to you rearanging the order of your own words here:
"We are past discovery (though they still talk on a limited basis) and now trying to get into recovery."
"But that does not change her feelings and attraction to OM."

Just because you are past discovery dosnt mean she is past her feelings. She still has to let go. reread my above posts where I talked to you about what I went through.

1 step at a time. First she must let go of other man and SHE must make this decision.
you want her to open up to you and discuss feelings etc. yet she is confused and probably dosnt feel very safe doing that with you yet. you are on the other side of her wall. This wall must be taken down by her. to get there you must become friends first. She needs to learn to trust you with her feelings.( I know your trust in her has been destroyed as well but you are asking me about her so I am trying to help you understand whats going on with her okay?)

She had a relationship and she needs to go through the mourning and letting go. before she can really move forward in her relationship with you. ( sorry I know that was a painful one to hear) This does not mean you cant work on your friendship with her.

I think her talking to him at all drives you crazy and you just want that to stop completely and for her to never talk to him again and make it clear to this om that she has chosen you and he is not closer to her then you are and you want her to make you feel secure in that as well. And you have every right to feel this way its totally understandable if this is how you feel.
Really ask yourself what your true feelings and motivations are. Is it that it hurts like hell to know she talks to him and so you want to use the we are working on recovery so therefore you cant talk to him, as a way to control your pain?

"The problem is that she is not really putting any effort into the recovery process."

This is your view from your perspective right?
Maybe she is not ready to do what you feel you both need to be doing to recover.
remember how I felt: later when I was ending it I had to deal with those feelings of letting go and that made it hard to be around my H. I had to keep up a fasad of being okay when I just felt so torn apart and hurt so bad inside. I didnt feel I could let go and get over the om because my feelings felt like I just couldnt control how I felt and I just didnt think it would go away. After truly letting go and getting over it it was then easier to go out with my H.

also remember:
Backing off I am sure is helping, you just probably cant see it because she isnt showing it in an obvious way. She is very confused right now and she undoubtley has walls up between you because she probably dosnt want to hurt you with her turmoil that she just dosnt understand. Thats how I felt.

You asked:
" As I said before, how do you get a connection with someone back if you don't do the things it takes to connect with them again. How can you fully be in recovery if you still have feelings for OM."

ahhhhhh!!!!!! you are killing me here!
remember work on being friends first. you want to give her a safe place.
What exactly does it take to connect with someone to you?
Do you expect her to turn off her feelings for the om?
I am not sure what to tell you there, ask your counselor. I am just a regular housewife who has been through alot and worked very hard to get out of where I was at and move forward in my journey.

"We are 6 weeks past her admission of EA and things have gotten worse and not better. We are no further along then we where when we started couseling in June."

hmmm. okay let me tell you this. My H pressured me into mc before I was ready. things got much worse after we started going. I hadnt forgiven the past and didnt know how to let it go. So listening to him talk about being hurt by my actions of the ea just made my blood boil! it brought the past back for me with avengence. I needed further personal counseling but my H was going nuts so worried about what my feelings were and how we seemed we were getting further apart. He drove me crazy. I understand the intense desperation and turmoil he was going through but it did not help matters at all as far as bringing us together. it was through my own thoughts and my personal counseling that I decided to let go of the om. My counselor and I talked through so much and what ifs etc.
then he told me you need to make a decision and stick to it. I made the decision to let go of him. For a long time my H tried to control that part. When all was out in the open it was quite ugly! and I was ordered to never talk to him again and he was ordered to never talk to me again. it was awful. It was left with such an open book and no closure. so many questions making my head spin. The more hell my H gave me the more I wanted to talk to the om again. During MC, it got so incredibly hard on me I started talking to om again, I just felt I needed his friendship and suport I couldnt imagine life with out him. I didnt have feelings for my H other then anger and a lot of pain, and yet was trying to work things out with him for the kids sake. I had feelings for another man that was forbidden, how in the hell was I suposed to do this? I was overwhelmed. it was too much for me to grasp at the time. I had to take it one step at a time. I was afraid to let go of om. I prayed for my feelings for him to go away and that made me so incredibly sad. it was a horrible place I was in and I felt I was asking myself to do the impossible. I had to stop looking at counseling as the ultimate goal was to love my H and spend the rest of my life with him because that was scary to me as well.
BTW, it was a year after discovery that I finally let go of my feelings for om!

Her feelings are out of your control other then you should try to provide a safe place to talk to and open to. Dont push her or put pressure on her she needs time to heal.

"She sees the good things happening she tells me yet there is no reaction."
It takes time! I went through the same thing! the pressure needs to be taken off as well, not just by you but her as well. She needs to not pressure herself to suddenly have these deep feelings for you back. Theres hurt to forgive and overcome and let go, and the feelings for om to let go of.

"OM's wife called me today to see how we where doing. She says that things are no better in their house. OM keeps talking about the past with her etc."
He is going through the same thing I am sure. I know the om and his w were going through a D a few months after discovery and you know what, she was having an affair for over a year. there were problems in their marriage before!

Found out the day after discovery they spent 2 hours on the phone, probably planning the story they where going to spin to both of us."
Okay what would you do in their place, how would you feel? whats done is done thats past dont even bother with it!

"What do you think would have happened had you not had an EA?"
I think I would have left my H. The EA enabled me to prolong my misery in my marriage. He suported me and kept me going at a time when I was so broken down. I felt I was drownding and he put a hand out to me. I had already planned on leaving. I wanted my kids to have their family though.

" Do you think that everything would have come to a head with hub?"
what do you mean? not sure I understand.
what I think is I would have left and he would have broken down like he did and got help to keep him from losing his family and i think our recovery time would have been much easier. It definitly made things much harder!!! but also forced my H to realize just how bad he was treating me. just like many here at the board have learned the hard way.


" How long did you guys talk on the phone?"
we talked several hours a day everyday. he would call me early in the morning after I got back from taking the kids to school and we would stay on the phone all day until it was time for me to go get the kids from school. He was working nights. We both cleaned our houses while we talked.
and he wrote me every night. and he called me from work when he worked OT during the day, and from pay phones if his W was at the house.

that there is a big life change as well. they were used to talking and being there for each other and comforting and suporting one another through everything. then to have it suddenly gone - its hard!

I was totally honest with my H and told him all he asked. Really that didnt do any good, just gave him things to dwell on and throw at me in anger.

its so sad what can happen.
That must be so incredibly hard on you to have them accross the street. I cant even imagine!

My om WAS my H's life long closest friend from when they were 4 yo., and he lived 2 hours away. He lives where we are from so when we go back home to visit family its painful for both my H and I.
I really didnt think our feelings would go where they did, we were just friends, until we noticed the feelings just really snuck up on both of us.
When we talked the several hours a day everyday that was later when we both realized what our feelings were and he was going through the D and I was planning on leaving my H as soon as he was stable enough. I feared leaving him he was very unstable and the om was very concerend about my safety of staying with him. I never thought it was possible to get to where we are now. I had a hard time forcing myself to keep trying here I wanted to give up countless times. I knew I didnt want to make a decision such as to split this family up without first trying to forgive my H, and let go of the pain and anger of the past. Then I thought when I did that then we could really focus on salvaging our relationship. after doing that I was able to see my H's changes with a positive view rather then a negative view. (see Rondos thread "she dropped the bomb")


oh gosh do I hope this helps it took me quite a long time to type this and thinking about the past dosnt feel very good, but I sure do feel thankful I am not there anymore!

You are right its much easier for you two to work on your relationship and move forward if the om is out of the picture, that is up to her to do that because she wants to in her heart not because she hased to because you said so or the counselor said so. Otherwise the What Ifs will make her head spin. I came to the conclusion that you can never know which path is the best path so you just have to make the best decision you can and stand by it. sure you can always look back and think well it would have probably been better to take the other path, but you just dont know until you walk it.

what helped me was listening to my heart and not my emotions, there is a diference. right and wrong is written on your heart and acting on emotions will get you no where fast!

Sue