SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I appreciate all the strong calls to report this guy and I now agree with them. My support network is similarly convinced. I expect it to happen and I want to do it right (there's process and fact gathering etc). I also need to really pray about it.

My WW is also feeling like it needs to happen. Not to shirk responsibility that she had but that it needs to be on the record.

As I said earlier, I am worried about my families safety along with the future safety of the people he could wrong. She is worried about that too and she knows the guy.

I have been trusting to a fault in my life. Always seeing the best in people even when it's not there.

From the jump this guy is a POS in my eyes. But I PROMISE you all that I am not punting on this.

I recommend you report him simply because I believe your wife is not the first or only woman he has slept with. I bet there are other women who has been in the same spot as your wife. There may be a couple right now he is sleeping with. If reported this may come to light.

It's the law of survival of the fittest. He was a predator, but now he is lagging behind the pack. He is vulnerable. A lion doesn't think about the poor old and slow impala. It's just lunch.

Time to thin the herd.

Be the lion, not the impala.

It’s good to see your WW is on board and not trying to stop this from happening in any way. I hope she sees him for the trash he truly was and who she traded in her marriage for.

Sounds like she does from your description.

I’m for this action as long as it doesn’t take both of your focus away from the repairing and healing steps you need to take individually and together. Filing the complaint can actually be seen as one of those steps you take together.

I hope IC was helpful and you continue to use it as a way to get thru this painful time.

Take care

Ps: I sent you a private message. Let me know if you cannot find it.

Ask your attorney about the requirements for getting a restraining order. There's no point in pretending you're friends or there is any reason for contact.

I'm very glad to see you're doing the right thing.

[This message edited by Wool94 at 12:41 PM, January 3rd (Thursday)]

Hi hdybrh,

I appreciate all the strong calls to report this guy and I now agree with them. My support network is similarly convinced. I expect it to happen and I want to do it right (there's process and fact gathering etc).

I think you are 100% right to want to do things properly. There is no point to do it too quickly or without getting good, informed advice about it. At some point, it will be worth consulting an attorney about what your plan is, so you can be fully prepared.

I have been trusting to a fault in my life. Always seeing the best in people even when it's not there.

From the jump this guy is a POS in my eyes. But I PROMISE you all that I am not punting on this.

There is nothing wrong in presuming the best until a person gives you reason to think otherwise. It is much better than hating everyone from the get go! I suppose a happy medium might be to sit on the fence and wait for people to show us who they are, but we all have our own approaches to it.

And I don't think anyone thinks you are punting. You have a lot to be dealing with, and I think you are handling it very well.

Sending you strength and best wishes. You are a good man.

Wrong thread.

[This message edited by toby at 4:38 PM, January 3rd (Thursday)]

Some updates.

Doing fairly well all things considered. Fairly productive at work, getting about 6 hours of sleep a night and just talking a lot, to my support network, my WS... had first IC appt and my WS has two IC sessions next week. Have been able to shield our kids who think that Mom and Dad have been sick and just needed to talk about stuff.

No doubt the roller coaster is still there, tears and/or strong anger make an appearance when least expected and often. Particularly waking up, every morning it just is THERE even after some restful sleep.

It's strange as what is helping more than anything to work through the details with my WS is the details from my own EA. I didn't even know what an EA was I just knew that 4-5 years ago I fell in love with someone and had a deep connection and friendship which faded into a loss of romantic attraction but I never wanted to leave my W and of course it never got physical. I hid that from my W who could see at the time I was distant. While this does not let a WS off the hook for taking her A to an egregious physical level, it really helps me understand the procession of their A, the infatuation and attachment and delusional view. It gives us a common language and experience in that area. There are things she did that I also did and did without remorse making it easy to forgive. I never thought I would be so open about where I was at that time. It's not for me to say "How could you fall in love with that guy!?!" That I understand completely, it's more about how could you not set boundaries and do something to hurt me and our family so much by taking it to that level. it's a weird head start to have that as common ground because I'm sure so many BS also have to deal with how they could "love" someone else. The images and thoughts of their physical relationship... well that is going to take a LONG time to get out of my head.

This notion of limerence was also very interesting to read as a way to frame the state that my WS was in. Not to justify it but to elucidate how someone could get so obsessive and mold their formerly solid worldview to go where she went pathologically, to make a player PT into a shining armor knight there to save her and then chose to risk her marriage and family for it... like a drug addict and the drug was the POSOM.

There is so much from other stories that is helping to read through here. Still a mess with a long road ahead but thankful for progress.

Gently, it sounds that in your posts you go out of your way to mention your "EA" and make the comparison with your WW's cheating, honestly, based on what you've posted (PA aspect of it aside) in my opinion it's not even close.

Full disclosure was that a few years back I had a similar experience of falling in love with someone for a period of time while still in my heart wanting to stay married and loving my wife. The person I fell for was also married and we both kept boundaries so there was never a risk to me of it going anywhere, but she is and was a dear friend who gave me the emotional support I needed at a hard time. We never verbalized feelings or took actions.

Based on this it sounds you were attracted to this person, maybe even "fell in love" but since none of you verbalized it (no ILY's etc.) or took actions, your boundaries never let it go any further, at least to me this is very different than a typical EA where the APs express their feelings for each other. Anyone could at some point feel attraction for another person and even develop a "crush" (one-sided or not), that however won't become an A (PA or EA) if strong boundaries are put in place and no feelings are expressed and/or acted upon. I'm glad she's getting IC to find out her "whys" and to address her poor boundaries.

Hdybrh,

I wish you luck, whatever happens. Everyone on here has their opinions and some seem to be going so far as to project some of their own anger onto your situation... Definitely not helpful.

The thing we all need to realize is that from the get-go, you both seem to want to pursue the goal of staying together. The old marriage IS dead. However, there are plenty of people in the Reconciliation area of the forums who made the conscious decision you and you wife want to try to pursue. I was going to suggest that you might want to head over there and maybe read and get some advice to see how some of their journeys started and have been going/have gone.

It has been 5 years since my world got destroyed by my WH. We were married 13 years when it happened. We did not make it. However, to this day I do not see things as black and white with how affairs start, how they get justified, how they are talked about or thought about afterwards. Some are muddy, some are clear. Some stem from simple situations, others from years of underlying problems.

Some things I DO believe are pretty black and white, however:

1. Trust is an extremely hard thing to rebuild, but with resolve, effort, strength and commitment to the CHOICE of achieving that goal, it can be done.

2. People claim that feelings of dissatisfaction, boredom, depression, etc., make them have affairs. However, as all of us seem to be quick to point out, it is the CHOICE to ACT on those feelings that is the downfall of the marriage.

In the same way, to me, feelings of betrayal, mistrust, disillusion, disgust will exist once an affair has happened... and these do not last forever. It once again comes down to the CHOICE of what feelings you decide to ACT on, that will determine if you divorce or reconcile.

The choice should, of course, be based on rationality: Is this a pattern? Do they seem to be showing remorse? Are they committed to figuring out what inside them allowed them to make these decisions and, even more importantly, are they committed to learning and deciding to make choices for the marriage instead of just themselves?

People can't control feelings... but they Can control CHOICES.

3. Communication and the commitment to put it first and foremost from here on out is essential. Not communicating to your spouse right away at the first sense of danger to your marriage is the biggest problem in my mind (i.e. "We need to talk. I feel like I am losing my connection to you and am finding myself starting to gravitate towards other women. I never wanted this to happen and I want to see what we can do together to try to stay committed to each other in our marriage. Can we see a counselor?"). Trying to "feel" or "figure things out" for Yourself to avoid hurting your partner when you are in a marriage, where the two of you are supposed to be seeing yourselves as one half of a whole, is a mistake.

When your leg gets cut, it doesn't try to hide the pain from the other parts of the body so they won't feel it; it communicates the pain to the rest of the body. Then, if the body is a healthy one, the other parts jump into action to help the leg and keep the body alive: the brain decides the course of action, the hands reach down to clean and bandage the cut, the other leg takes on the weight that the cut leg can't carry until it's healed. But if the leg doesn't communicate the cut or the pain, it can bleed out. It can get infected. Then the entire body and all the other parts that join the leg in making the whole body are in jeopardy of dying.

It's a crude analogy, but the body is the marriage and the parts Need to communicate when there is danger to keep the marriage alive.

I do agree with everyone else about reporting the guy to his profession's board, especially because he can't seem to respect the boundaries that even your wife has now set down about no contact. If he's willing to ignore those boundaries with you and your wife, he probably wouldn't have problems with anyone else's marriage and families.

I do wish you luck again whatever direction you end up going.

hdybrh, how are you doing?

It sounds like you are beginning to wake up. You needed to.

Only then will you be able to overcome this and move forward.

It is fair that you can see passivity in the posts but also that I can only do so much at this stage each day.

I want to applaud you for seeing that wisdom so early in this process. It is a process and it takes time.

IC for both? Check.

Support network? Check.

NC? Check

100% transparency in thoughts, feelings and actions? Ok, but still room to work on it.

hdybrh. Your logical mind is serving you very well at this point. I agree you have to get through the crisis first before you can focus on other things.

Keep working on yourself in IC. Allow your W room to work on her stuff in IC too. Right now you both have things you need to heal individually before you can work on building the M again. You might come out of the IC process seeing that the M might end. Right now, "you don't know," and that is OK.

I can tell you that a WS that has a conscience and remorse will be a candidate for R. Is your W? Too soon to tell. Right now keep up with IC and get your feet back under you. Once you are on stable ground you can change things up.

I know it doesn't feel like it, but you are doing well. This is a marathon. It takes time to process things and make big decisions. Honor your own values by taking that time.

If you are in love with a person you will do everything possible to avoid hurting them.

So her claim that she fell in love with the OM while still loving you is BS. She had to fall out of love with you to make space in her heart for him.

Is she in love with you now? Maybe. More likely she loves you like a very good friend or parent who supports her.

You choice if this is good enough for you.