Jan 2003 H(now 35) moved out while I was at school and called to tell me. Feb 2003 we started dating. March 2003 H had a female move in with him and did not tell me. We still are dating and in April I found out about her. I quit dating him and went to being his "friend" He filed for Divorce. May 2003 H kicked OW out and told me he wanted to work things out. June 2003 We moved back in together and started working on things. OW kept emailing and calling. I asked him to stop contact and he said he would. July 2003 Made H disconnect OW's cell phone that he had on for her( I found out about it) Aug 2003 D is final and I found out he was lying about contact with OW so I moved out. Also he was working alot and not putting any real effort towards working on us. Still dating though.....November we start talking about commitment. Dec 2003 Move back in together and BOTH commit to working on relationship. Jan is mild and in Feb. I find out OW is still contacting. Big fight and I tell him that if a friendship with her is more important than our relationship then he can go that route, but I will not accept her being a part of our lives. He agrees and promises no more contact. We start building a house.....things go along pretty well( minor bumps along the way) and we move into our house in July. Buy a new vehicle. H is coming home on time....no problems with me asking questions about where he is and such. Aug 2004 we get remarried Oct. H is acting odd one day and this lasted a couple of days. I call him right about lunch time and he tells me he is running errands( I can hear the background and know he is in a restuarant and he only eats at 3 in town) He was at the 2nd one I went to....called him 3 times....didn't answer so I went in. He is having lunch with OW. Big scene and he and I fight for a couple of days. I explain my view( I did not think he was cheating, but he did lie to me) He had a valid reason...it was a business lunch, BUT he should have told me and invited me along if that was the case. H promises no more contact. Feb 2005 H is acting kind of odd again so I created an email addy pretending to be OW and drop him an email that it is my new addy and I wanted him to have it in case he wants to write. He replies!! Going out of town will write when I get back. I print out and confront him. He is mad at me for "trickery", but I told him he should be angry with himself and not me. Anyway....he says she emailed him a couple of weeks ago to let him know she was getting married and that he was going to tell me when she let him know a date and so on....he thought I would be relieved and so on. I am livid....I am hurt....I have so many feelings going on it is hard to think. I know he is not going to sleep with her or anything like that, but I don't even think he should speak with her. She says she just wants to be his friend and wants him to be happy....I just want her to stay the hell away! He is a nice guy and hates confrontation so he tells me he just doesn't want to hurt her feelings. I think the hell with her feelings...what about mine?? He and I have had fights about the lies and trust issues, but he won't tell her not to contact. Does anyone here have any advice? I am open to advice, but I will say this.I love my H and I know he loves me. He has had a rough life that sometimes required him to lie in order to survive so I try to take that into account. I have no intention of giving up on him so I need to know where to go from here..how to proceed. I have thought about this some more and decided that I am going to ask my husband for some things and if he is not willing to do those things then I don't think I can stay with him. I Love him, but I have been working on this for a long time now and we keep having the same issues...always over her. I wrote him this email....tell me what you guys think of the email....
I thought that my writing this in a letter would be an easier thing to do than trying to discuss it. I feel this way you can read and assimilate what I am trying to say to you without chances of misunderstanding my words or either of us taking anything that is said the wrong way. Let me start this letter by telling you that you mean the world to me. I love you more than I think you realize and I want us to be together always. It has not been easy for us and will continue to be difficult for a while it seems, but if we both agree to work on it and do certain things then I feel we can make things work. I have done some research and reading while you have been gone. I have printed out some articles and spoken to a couple of friends who have been in similar situations as you and I are going through. Before I go much farther in this I want you to realize one thing….I am NOT trying to “rub your nose” in the things that have happened. I am not trying to make you feel badly or throw things in your face with all of this, but it may feel that way to you sometimes. That is not the case and if it feels that way please tell me so I can reassure you that I am not intending to do so, okay? I am trying to be open and honest with you about my feelings and how I can feel better about things. The first thing I want you to understand is this…..I thought we had Shawna out of our lives over a year ago and I was trying to deal with my emotions over it. You know how that made me feel. I felt I did not give you something that she could and I wondered what was wrong with me….I still feel that way sometimes. You made promises to me about her that you have not been able to keep and that has been very hard on me and made me question myself more. I wonder if you have a relationship with her that I can’t give you or if you feel more comfortable talking with her…..I wonder other things also, but I don’t want to go on and on about that. I know you will say that I am being silly about it, but these feelings are very real to me and I am trying to work through them. Every time you talk to, email, or take S out…whatever and break your word it feels as if I am transported back to the day I found out that you were with her and not me. When I find out that you lied I feel all the feelings I had back then…..I feel all those horrible things again. I hope that you can understand that and try to take that into consideration. I would appreciate it if you would. I am going to do my best to deal with things between us and to be open and honest with you, but you are going to be upset with me and possibly angry. I hope that you will see past both of those and try to understand what I am saying to you and respect me and what I need. Please think on everything I have said in this and make an informed decision and not a hasty one. The way I feel is that we are basically starting out from the beginning again. If each lie transports me back to having the same feelings then it seems logical that we start at the very beginning on working these things out. I am more assertive than I was when we first committed to working on things and this may be a bit of a problem, but I hope not too big of one. I printed out some articles that I would like for you to look through and you may have resistance to this, but once again I want to point out that I am not trying to make you feel badly about what has happened….I just want you to understand me better. I want you to understand my feelings about this so you may be more receptive to what I am going to ask of you. We are starting from the beginning and that means that I am going to ask things of you that you are not going to like, but these are things that I need in order to deal with this and if you do not wish to grant me theses concessions I will feel that you do not truly want to work on our relationship. Of course you will argue that fact until you are blue in the face, but I am going to ask you for some things and I feel them necessary so I hope you will understand. You will see in the articles that I am going to give you that I am not making these things up and that while it will take time to work things out it is possible. It takes longer for some than others and since I am so difficult it will take longer for us,LOL. Oh, Robby….I Love You with all my heart….please don’t forget that. Now on to the important things….. Some of the things I say are going to contradict things I have said and done in the past, but I am starting to look at things in a different way. I am looking towards the future….what is going to make me feel more secure in this relationship. I also want to know what will make you feel more secure as well….okay? You have to agree to do some things for me in order for me to feel secure with the S incident(s). I know that you don’t like me checking up on you, but until I feel I can trust in you then I am going to check up on you. I would hope you understand that and will agree. I want the passwords to all email accounts that you have so that I can go into them if I choose to do so….I may or may not, but I do want the passwords. I want you to be honest with me and save copies of emails that you send to others that do not have to deal with business and also save emails sent to you so that I can read them if need be. I only have your word on what was said between you and S, but you have to admit that you have stretched the truth on some occasions so I do have reason to doubt. I have given you the passwords to my accounts and am more than willing to do so again if you feel the need to look at my mail. I know that you have been feeling insecure lately also and maybe that will help you as well as me. The other thing that I need from you is one that is very important and I worry that you will have a problem with it. I want a no contact agreement….what that consists of is that you sit down and write an email to Shawna telling her that you do not want anymore contact with her. One of the articles I am giving you is about no contact agreements and what they need to say….the reason for them and such. I started to write her, but realized in my research that you have to be the one to do this. You need to tell her to stop emailing and not to call because you want to work on your relationship with me. I want to read this letter before it is sent. Sending this letter to her will show me that you are willing to let her go to work on us. I don’t feel you have truly let go of that relationship because of the continued contact. I will also expect you to tell me IMMEDIATELY if she calls or emails you and none of the excuses I have received so far. The last two paragraphs have outlined what I need from you in order to feel better about that relationship and why it needs to be concluded. Until now it has not concluded because of the continued contact so that is why I ask that you write the no contact letter. I don’t want to be hurt by this relationship any longer. I feel that if you truly want to work on our relationship you will be willing to do these things for me. You have said that this relationship depends on me and what I choose to do…whether I choose to stay or not. I have stayed through many trials and tribulations because of the love I feel for you….I want our marriage and this relationship to work. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I need commitment from you. I need the things I have asked for in this letter. I need you to do these things for me. I want you to willingly give me your passwords knowing that I may check on you and understanding why I feel the need to do so. I want you to willingly write the no contact email to Shawna and to understand the need for it to be done. I feel those things are important steps in the recovery of our relationship and so I ask them of you. If you can’t bring yourself to do the things I have asked then you will have a problem. I don’t want to threaten or coerce you in anyway, but I don’t feel I am asking for too much after all that I have been through with you. If your pride or lack of privacy gets in the way of our relationship then your love is not what you thought it was and maybe you need to reevaluate the situation. I am willing to stay and work on this relationship with you, but only if you will do the things I have asked of you. I don’t feel I am being unreasonable with my requests and according to my research it is the best way to start trying to work though the problems we are having. I hope that you see the point of this and agree. I put our relationship in your hands…..if you feel you cannot do these things for me and for us then I will understand that, but I will not live that way. I want to work on things and rebuild us and these are the things that I need from you in order to do so. I Love you so very much and I always will regardless of the choices you make in this situation….I would do anything for you and for us, but on these issues I cannot waver. I have to stand up and do what is best for my emotional well being. I am so scared I will lose you, but I would rather take that chance than to live with the indecision I have lived with for the past year and a half. This is your decision….accept and do what I ask or don’t. Please let me know as soon as you decide so that I can make any plans that need to be made.
Once more…….you are my life, my love, my fate, and my destiny. I want to be with you, but not at any cost. I Love You.
I am open to any advice and will not be giving him this letter until Friday night so please be opena dn honest about what you guys think!!
You've threatened, but not followed through, so obviously that doesn't work. And you certainly can't make him see your side of things. He's not considering your feelings because you're not giving him a chance to.
My advice? Drop the OW subject. Stop asking question, quit trying to trap him. The more you try to stop him from being in contact with her, the more likely he is not to see anything wrong with it.
I know you don't trust him. That's okay. But try putting your focus on other things...such as what is going right in your M.
If you are not willing to enforce your own boundaries, then H won't bother either. *IF* you are really unwilling to continue this R without H DOING what you ask (not reading, not understanding, not agreeing, just DOING it), then you should be able to say that in just a few sentences. If you MEAN it, there is no reason to beg and plead and explain and justify. All those things just indicate that you are very unsure about what you're saying, that this is a debate, that counter arguments could easily change the conclusion. If you have a boundary, it is your job to take it seriously and enforce it with your own choices and behavior. (You can't make H do anything, though you can kindly, simply, and clearly inform him of your boundary.)
If this is not, in fact, a deal-breaker for you (and your past behavior indicates that it has not been a deal-breaker in the past), then Nevanna's advice is the way to go.
You asked for honesty, so here it goes. I agree with Nevanna!
With regards to his relationship with her, there’s really nothing you can do – except walk if you feel it is continuing in an inappropriate manner. “No contact” letters or e-mails, even though they’re very popular with the BS for obvious reasons, don’t mean squat unless the WA backs them. There’s nothing to stop the WA from calling the OP five minutes later and saying “sorry about that letter/e-mail/phone call, my wife forced me at gunpoint and I had to go along to preserve peace at home. You know I didn’t mean it.” In fact, if you read “Other person” boards, that seems to be the modus operandi for most affair couples.
In other words – the relationship will be over on his timeline. Maybe it really is just a friendship, and he’s simply too soft-hearted to say “don’t contact me at all anymore”. Maybe he’s hoping it’ll just fizzle out and die a natural death – which, by the way, also happens quite frequently.
Focus on yourself and your R with him is my advice.
Thank you for your reply....I am glad he has been out of town this week as it has given me time to research and reflect a bit on what it is important. I know I love him and I don't want to be without him. I want to work on things with him so threatening him with that letter will not accomplish what I wish to accomplish so I thought I might do this instead.....I am going to ask him to write a no contact letter to her and then I am going to tell him that I will trust in him to tell me if she contacts him. That I am going to try my hardest to believe in him and hope that he doesn't let me down. Any thoughts?
Thank you all..I guess I knew in ym heart that I would not walk out on this relationship and needed someone else to point that out to me. I do appreciate it from you guys. I would not ask for honesty unless I truly wanted it. I DO NOT believe that he is after a R with her in the physical sense or anything like that......if I thought that I would not be here still, but he is WAY soft hearted. He hates confrontation and is nice to everyone. It took 6 years for him to stop giving his best friend money that he never paid back....he owes us thousands by now, but H would give it if he had it even nowing he would not get it back. He finally stopped.anyway..thank you again and I will keep checking here and updating.
I would strongly recommend the book called Survivng an Affair. I believe the authors are chalmers and Harvey. My H lied about an ongoing affair. The lies will drive you crazy, they mess with your reality. Read this book it describes recovery better than you think it will.
Hi Working on it. I do agree with Nevanna. You should stop asking question and tying to trap him. However, and now this may go against the rules of “DB”. But I really do think that you should send the letter and try talking to him about it. There has to be a point where enough is enough. Now do not get me wrong I believe in the principals of DB. But I think that once a couple is recommitted to the marriage there has to be some changes. YOU BOTH have to work at it. Turning a blind eye to something that pains you, is NOT WAY to communicate with your partner. And really lack of communication is what got most of us to here in the first place. There has to be a time when we stop being doormats and start standing up for ourselves. You and your husband are married for the second time. He has to figure out what is more important keeping a friendship with her. Or keeping his wife happy and secure. The choice should be easy. I am sorry if this is harsh. I truly believe, that when a person cheats and then wants to fix their marriage they should be willing to do anything to make it up. Staying in contact with her is just a slap in the face. (Again I am sorry for sounding so harsh, I am not good with the sugar coating thing, something I am working on for my marriage) So my advice, send the letter – I think it is very very well written you did a good job of expressing your self and validating him. But he has to want to get your trust back and he should. This in my opinion is a very strong sign he is sorry for the past. Talk to him, listen to him ( hopefully he will agree with you), give him the opportunity to do the right thing. In the mean while DB your butt off. It is not right for him to stay in contact with her. Sometimes we all have to decide what is important. Pick your battles if you feel strong enough about it stick with it.
Hi, Couple more things, Trying reading "after the afair" I recommend your H read it to. It will help him understand what you are going through. I am sure you have worked very hard to save your marriage. Has he? Please remember to talk to him a non threatening way.
Last edited by married_three_months; 02/22/0507:59 PM.
I am going to talk to him, but I think that letter may be too threatening in parts. I may refine it some before he gets home. I am so tired of carrying around this anger, jealousy, and suspicion so I am trying to let it go. I am looking for a way to do so, but I just don't know how. Thanks for your advice.
