WAW w/Exit Affair or WW? - 1 Year Divorced (7)

[BL42]

Vapo,

I do try to offer my advice to people in this situation, esp. having gone through the same thing myself. Very rarely is my advice accepted, but very often I get a "You were totally right, I so wish I heeded your advice."

How many situations have you weighed in on in real life? Sounds like a number of them?

LH19,

I'm trying to give him a bit of coaching about strength and respect and not taking comfort in the EA vs. PA.

What is your advice? How is he accepting it?

I get the sense that while he knows it's not good, he thinks "well we're having sex more and on family vacation so it's not that bad", whereas it's my opinion that the situation is much more serious/risky/dire than he believes. Now, maybe that's through the lens of my sitch and I'm jaded, but we all have seen the countless situations play out here. I'm pretty concerned for him and have been trying to reach out regularly.

I told him to start hitting the gym hard. He's certainly not overweight - you might call him thin relative to people his age - but he could convert some fat to muscle and bulk up. Him and his W went to a predominately engineering / high male ratio college but had a hockey team seen as the athletic cool guys who apparently she hooked up and dated a few before they were together, so maybe she's having fantasies/flashbacks about that. He a great guy but not a college athlete type.

I told him to start acting out of strength and flipping his mindset that he's the prize and she's crazy if she leaves him. Stop being weak and making excuses about "just being friends" and "helping her friend out with a breakup". She's cheating and lying, and he needs to recognize and accept that and act accordingly.

Also to try to release control. It's gonna be her journey and he can't force her to do anything - if she's going to PA he can't stop it. He has to focus on himself.

I'm honestly not sure what to say about how to deal with the calling and texting of the EA. He's seen phone logs and spied on texts, and knows it's more than friends. It reminds me so much of where I was went I took my son away with them during the period right after my BD where I knew my then-W was texting her coworker inappropriately. But...does he tell her to stop? He can't control her. But if he doesn't does he then just go along and accept it? That's weak. She knows he knows she's talking to a "friend" and they both now at a minimum it's crossing a line. They've talked about it. And he's had check ins with her about it, which I told him to stop.

Honestly the two of them...he's a high performer engineer for an aerospace company and she's a PA for a medical organization. Just estimating but they must make $300-400k between them, have two wonderful children in grade school (around my kids age maybe a year or two older), beautiful home in the suburbs of a big city. No abuse, no drugs, no money issues...etc. It's this seemingly idyllic two kids and a picket fence life which most dream of, but as we know around here that doesn't matter. I just hate to see things blow up. It'd be a tragedy for everyone involved, him, the kids, and (imo) even her.