SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have been lurking on SI for the past few months and am amazed by the compassion and thoughtfulness of the community. Not sure if I should be posting here or in the General Forum -- it has been six months since D-Day 1 (six year long PA/EA) and four months since D-Day 2 (hiring prostitutes intermittently for 15 years). Married for 26 years in what we both would have described as a great marriage (Rug sweeper, meet rug sweeper). Four young adult children. WH wants to R. I have said I am committed to trying to understand what happened and am mostly ambivalent about R. I am still in shock, though just recently starting to have moments where I am more accepting that this is reality. I am in IC, and we are in a group therapy situation with other couples who are struggling with infidelity, which has been very helpful.

WH initiated NC after discovery which was via an email that said he was committed to me and wanted no contact -- no phone, text, email, in person, etc.-- with AP. Last week (six months later and three days before our wedding anniversary) he received an email sent to his work email account from his AP. He told me immediately, we opened it together and the email asked for a 15-minute phone call for "closure." He deleted the email, says he has no interest in any contact with her and we've spoken about what he would do and say if she reaches out again and/or calls, which I am sure she will. WH is saying mostly all the right things, is willing to discuss and modify to make sure that I am comfortable and says he's committed to acting in ways that will show his commitment to me and wanting to make things safe. He also says he does not think about AP and is committed to our marriage. Yet I am in full-on Fatal Attraction mode and feel that AP will now continue to pursue this until they can talk and that she is a smart, angry and unstable and potentially dangerous person. This all could be true, but also might be my trauma brain talking. Would welcome thoughts/advice on this.

Also struggling with WH not "getting it." He has made major strides since DDay but still will not get to deep core of what allowed him to make the choices he did. At my insistence he was in IC for a few months but dropped it, saying he doesn't really see the purpose, saying "tell me what to work on and I'm happy to keep going." Of course I'm not a professional and things will get nowhere if I'm telling him what to talk about in therapy. I'm trying to be patient and let this go, hoping that perhaps in time he'll get curious and realize he has some heavy lifting to do, but the 'white knuckle' approach he is taking is not reassuring, even though he believes that he's made a decision not to have secrets and therefore everything's under control.

TIA for any feedback.

The biggest takeaway I get from your post is that
He needs to be made clear that HE needs to be the driver in fixing himself. Or you’ll drive right over to the attorneys office. You should not be leading this AT ALL.

I think you should read 1stwife’s story. Also, the prevailing wisdom is HE should be doing all the hard work while you stay on the fence watching. The fact that he has dumped all this on you to fix means he is basically selfish.
I am not making any suggestions anymore because your story is no where near mine. Your’s is lies of omission for the life of your marriage. Mine is that my husband cheated while traveling and it did not last long and there was no emotional component. I am so angry on your behalf that I cannot even pretend to be fair about him.

My own approach was that my W was not responsible for ow's attempts to reestablish contact, as long as W told me about it immediately and stayed NC. The ap was persistent enough that my W refused to answer the phone or open letters from ow. But W wasn't working, so there was no possibility for ow to contact her via work address or phone.

If necessary, a lawyer's letter stops some aps. a Restraining Order is sometimes necessary.

I think you're catastrophizing, though. The ap will probably give up if she doesn't get a response.

The thoughts you've described are normal, IMO. Being ambivalent about R makes sense - 6 year A, 4 months since a 2nd d-day, and 2 types of infidelity are very big concerns, as is your H's 'inability' to understand that he needs to take himself apart and put himself back together.

Most (IMO) WSes cheat to get external validation. The cure is to learn to validate themself, but that takes work that your H doesn't seem to be doing. But your H may be more complicated than that.

Can/have you told him something like, 'To R, you need to change from cheater to good partner. Tight now you look like a dry drunk to me. I see your new behaviors as punching a ticket rather than a true change. For me to stick around, you're going to have to convince me that you have expunged from your head, heart, and gut the thoughts that enabled you to conduct a 6 year A and hire prostitutes and replace them with thoughts that prevent further infidelities of all kinds and keep your commitments - physical and emotional - to me. How will you do that?'

I didn't have to ask that question, because my W said on d-day that she was committed to changing her ways of coping with life no matter what I decided to do.

I'm really sorry you have to deal with this.

You say you're committed to understanding what happened. What do you think that understanding will do for you, if you get it?

Have you considered D? What makes you want to R?

*****

Most threads by BSes can live in more than one forum. Post where you think is best for you.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:14 PM, Tuesday, January 21st]

Yet I am in full-on Fatal Attraction mode and feel that AP will now continue to pursue this until they can talk and that she is a smart, angry and unstable and potentially dangerous person.

Has the AP said or done anything that make you suspect that she's a bunny boiler?

If not, then I don't think you should get worked up imagining the worst. Her request for a 15-minute phone call for "closure" isn't alarming, since the word itself implies that she knows the relationship is over. She probably just wants reassurance from him that his feelings for her were sincere. I think the lack of the response alone will disabuse her of that idea.

But if it would make you feel better, you can ask a lawyer to draft a formal "cease and desist" letter. If she's a reasonably sane person, it should be enough to scare her off. If not, it's the first step toward building your case for a restraining order.

At my insistence he was in IC for a few months but dropped it, saying he doesn't really see the purpose, saying "tell me what to work on and I'm happy to keep going." Of course I'm not a professional and things will get nowhere if I'm telling him what to talk about in therapy. I'm trying to be patient and let this go, hoping that perhaps in time he'll get curious and realize he has some heavy lifting to do, but the 'white knuckle' approach he is taking is not reassuring, even though he believes that he's made a decision not to have secrets and therefore everything's under control.

If he doesn't want to go to therapy and doesn't think it's useful, that's his decision... but it's his responsibility, not yours, to come up with alternatives. While I'm sure he would like nothing more than a list of tasks he can check off and say "See, I did everything!" he's setting up himself up for failure and setting you up to take the blame if what you suggest doesn't work.

Try to explain to him that him being proactive and demonstrating the willingness to try (even if he's not always successful) is part of the process of transforming himself into someone you can trust, proving his love for you, and demonstrating his commitment to the marriage.

Him saying that he "made the decision to not have secrets" isn't going to cut it... he made that promise to you at the alter and broke it. He's lied to you and he's lied to himself before. He needs to understand and be able to live with the fact that, for the foreseeable future, nothing he says has value unless it's supported by action.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 5:18 PM, Tuesday, January 21st]

I’m going to give you my take on this.

The OW reached out about 30 days after no contact was initiated by my H. He immediately showed me the email. He did not respond but I did. I asked her to leave us alone. Very politely worded email.

That resulted in a drunken 2 am email filled with rage and hate from the OW in response. She also sent me months of their email exchanges. She wanted me to know "what type of person I was really married to". As if I did already know 🙄🤪😂.

She then went after me in social media calling me a loser or staying with my H. I her opinion it was ok to be the OW but terrible to remain married to a cheater. Again - I didn’t respond.

But I was concerned she would reach out to my children. Because my STUPID cheating H had sent her photos of our kids. 😡😡😡😡

So I understand your fatal attraction mentality. I get it. Put everything on lockdown (not public) and block her from phone, emails, social media etc.

Regarding your H’s idea of reconciliation and how things should be handled. Obviously every couple is different. So R will look different.

One I personally think the OW reached out to try to re-start the affair. She doesn’t need closure. She needs to see if she can get things going again.

Two as others pointed out, my H was in his own to make our R successful. In my mind he had ability to cheat, so he should have the ability to figure out how to R on his own.

I did not set boundaries. That was for him to decide what needed to happen.

I did not lift a finger to help him figure out how to R. It was up to him to figure out why he cheated (I already knew why) and what HE needed to do to make amends.

He knew I was set on Divorcing so he realized he had a very short time frame to turn this around. Somehow he did it. He was deeply sorry and recognized his actions were selfish.

I also demanded a post nup agreement to even consider Reconciliation, which he willingly signed.

I did the hard 180 at dday2. To this day I still don’t do his laundry and he doesn’t expect it or complain about it.

I re-defined my role as a wife and decided I needed to put myself first. Not him. Not the marriage.

Reconciliation was on my terms. And I can tell you 11+ years later I am very happy.

But I’d be happy with him or without him had we D. That’s just who I am.

PS I used to be a doormat and give in. Now, I’m certain my H is sorry because he unleashed in me a "take no prisoners" mentality. I don’t back down but will compromise when warranted. He’s probably sorry he ever unleashed this side of me.

PSS I think he expected he was going to sweet talk me at dday2 and things would settle down after a few days. When I told him to "get out" and did something about it, he realized he lost all power and control in this marriage. He no longer has the upper hand.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 5:38 PM, Tuesday, January 21st]

Hi, welcome to SI. So sorry you are now a member of this club no one wants to join.

My WH AP worked for the same company but at a different site on the opposite coast. WH dumped her on D-Day and would not even accept any business emails from her, his admin took care of them as well as a few others so it didn't look suspicious.

In any event, AP would email WH using bogus email accounts, but by the user names she chose it was obvious it was her. WH ignored them.

Several months later WH started another job and OW was sending the same nonsensical emails to WH. It was quite obvious they were from her. Crickets from WH. She stopped.

So....my suggestion to you is exactly what your WH is doing, ignore, ignore, ignore. AND he must inform you immediately if she tries to contact him by any means.

Did your husband read How to Help your Spouse Heal from an Affair and Not Just Friends? Great reads to perhaps help him understand how he was able to betray you.

My WH really "got it" when he was faced with massive consequences for his actions which helped him look into why. IMO he did it because he wanted to and enjoyed the validation.

Post often. Again, so sorry you find yourself on this Board.

Just a thought. Does your husband openly and willingly discuss the affair anytime you need to?

There are some positives in what you share.
Like... your husband has established NC and made that clear to the AP. He has closed what paths she has to him that he can close, and responded correctly when he saw the email sent to his work-address. IMHO he passed several tests along that path.

I think this can be viewed as a learning-moment. Like – here he recognized the email was from OW by the address (since he didn’t open it until with you). What if she uses another email and he does open it? How should he respond (basically – let you know, give a reason why he opened the email, you be the first one to know, not deleting or lying about having opened it...

I think this is also a good point for you to emphasize the pain he has created for you. Yes – it’s OW reaching out, but it’s because of what he did. The OW isn’t the cause for the pain, but rather the fact he had an affair.

My suggestion would be to ignore her email in all ways possible.
If she sends another email and/or tries any other form of contact, then I suggest he has an attorney send a cease and desist style letter. It has limited legal power but is a very clear indicator for the OW that she’s not getting anywhere.

--
I’m a bit worried about your WH stance to IC. He seems happy to go to MC and all that, but the problem isn’t a lack of sex or not spending time together or anything like that. The issues are within HIM.
I’m not so keen on people buying sex. If you have kids, then maybe try asking him if he would be OK with some random guy getting sexual service from your son/daughter – even if we assume they are 20 years old and paying their way through university that way. If we can’t accept it for ours – why expect others to be content with it?

I'm going to follow up on some great points from Bigger...

I’m not so keen on people buying sex. If you have kids, then maybe try asking him if he would be OK with some random guy getting sexual service from your son/daughter – even if we assume they are 20 years old and paying their way through university that way. If we can’t accept it for ours – why expect others to be content with it?

Whoa, I completely missed the mention of prostitutes in your first post, OP. All affairs are bad, of course, but your husband's callous disregard for your health, squandering of marital funds for extramarital sex, and-- as Bigger put it-- purchasing the use of another person's body for sexual pleasure are indicative of a person who is missing an empathy chip. For this reason, I don't expect the "what if this was your son or daughter?!" argument to land with him.

Also, I'm willing to bet that if you stepped back and looked at your relationship with your husband objectively, you would observe that it's probably transactional in nature as well. Although he might not say so explicitly, he might feel entitled to do what he wants on the side because of whatever "services" he thinks he's providing you (for example, being the primary wage earner, or help around the house, etc.). You might also consider whether your husband actually sees you as a human being with your own agency and inner life or just as the "role of wife" that serves a particular purpose to him.

I’m a bit worried about your WH stance to IC. He seems happy to go to MC and all that, but the problem isn’t a lack of sex or not spending time together or anything like that. The issues are within HIM.

I differ from many people on SI in that I don't consider a WH's willingness or unwillingness to go to IC as a measure of their remorse or commitment to change, but I agree with Bigger that your husband's willingness to go to MC in lieu of IC is indicative of his belief that his cheating is a problem with the marriage and not with him.

But even if you do manage to convince him to go IC, keep the following in mind:

-There are limits to what IC can achieve. IC is not going to give your husband a character transplant or reincarnate him into someone else.

-IC is only as effective as the commitment and efforts of the person going into it.

-Therapists vary considerably in skill level and experience. Some can be manipulated easily by the clients. Most prefer a non-confrontational style and aren't going to call out your WH on his bullshit even if they detect it because they don't want to lose his business as a client.

-The IC's advice is going to be based on whatever your WH tells them, so if he's lying to, misrepresenting, or withholding information from the IC, he will (at best) get no benefit from the experience, or (at worst) he will get very counterproductive advice.

-Your WH might use his therapist as an excuse to do things you don't want him to do or avoid doing things you've asked him to do. For example, he might say, "My IC thinks taking a solo trip to Miami would be good for me!" or "My IC thinks you're being controlling by asking to read my emails."

-Even if your husband goes into therapy in good faith, gets a top-notch therapist, and puts in the work, your husband may, over the course of the process, conclude that the best course of action would be to get divorced. What's good for him as a person might not be what's good for your marriage.

And lastly, I think you would be best served by focusing less on him and what you can do for yourself. As a first step, you should cease MC and find yourself an IC instead.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 6:07 PM, Wednesday, January 22nd]