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We have been in reconciliation for 5 months now and my WS is doing everything right. We have been in MC also with a great counselor. We both feel our marriage is better now because we are communicating so much better and understanding each other.
My H has been deployed 3 times and I know has been suffering from PTSD since 2004. Many times I begged him to get help and he felt he didn't need it.
A much younger female started paying attention to him and he gave in. They had a 5 month affair. During this time he was not himself and I kept blaming it on PTSD. This woman blackmailed him often about going to the military and turning him in. Also, she would threaten to tell me. He said he felt he was trapped and couldn't get out. She wanted to marry him and he told me to get her to shut up about it, he got her a ring. Then he took it back shortly after.
When I asked him if he was having an affair he confessed everything. He said after he told me about it he was so relieved and felt like he could finally escape her, which he did.
Needless to say, she did file charges of adultry to hurt his career. He has accepted the consequences and is so thankful I haven't left him. We have been married 30 years, so I decided to try and work it out.
My problem is I keep thinking about him asking another woman to marry him and it kills me and makes no sense. Has anyone been in this situation and if so, do you have any advice?
He has truly changed for the better and is working so hard to make all this mess up to me. I never thought I would be going down this road.

DDAY-Jan.31, 2013
WS-53
Me-52

Well, my fWH never actually asked OW/xBFF to marry him, or ever bought her a single thing, but they certainly talked about getting married someday and having children.

He also told me early on he was just feeding her this stuff, but I don't know. Most WS truly have no intention of really leaving, but it is part of the fantasy. This person seems so perfect, that why would they not want to marry them? I found an email once of my husband telling her that he "couldn't be in a relationship without trust again, so she would have to trust him if they could move forward towards a lifelong relationship"

Really? That's weird, I wonder why the relationship didn't have trust.

Anyway, this is basically one of those details that you are going to have to come to terms with if you are both going to be in R. Know it wasn't actually real and clearly he had no intention of actually being with this woman long term. People will do and say anything to keep a fantasy going.

Bumping for someone who has experienced this to offer some advice.

My W's PA lasted 4.5 months, close to your H's 5. ow blackmailed my W, too, with the threat of outing her (and the threat of killing herself). My W gave ow a ring as a 'sort of' engagement ring, since same sex couples can't M in Illinois.

This just boggles my mind. How can anyone be engaged to person 2 while M to person 1? It just doesn't compute for me - my brain just stops.

For me, the 'engagement' is so far removed from reality that I pretty much discount it entirely, so it becomes a pretty small part of the whole recovery from the A project.

Also, I think the whole A was out of touch with reality, so nothing I've heard about her 'relationship' with ow has really stuck out for me - it's ALL bad.

That's my experience, which I offer tentatively. That's because I think if it had been an om instead of an ow, I might perceive the 'sort of engagement' as a bigger threat. Also, the ring was pretty cheap - if it had cost a more substantial sum, I might be more upset.

Still, if her ap had been an om, and if my W behaved consistently for R, with virtually no lapses, I think I'd come to the same position - she was out of her mind during the A, and nothing in it was real.

I hope that helps.

[This message edited by sisoon at 1:46 PM, June 19th (Wednesday)]