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seeking his advice on how to shut this guy down and still be professional.

NO. If you want to make it somewhat less abrasive NO THANK YOU.

ETA - repeat the above as often as necessary, getting slightly louder each time.

Years ago - my father gave me dating advice. The older I get the more apt it seems. "when you say no, say it like you mean it"

[This message edited by Chaos at 1:00 PM, May 3rd (Monday)]

A recommitment of old vows is unnecessary. She just needs to commit to the original ones. Men pursue women "tirelessly for a few weeks" when the man sees the boundary wall is penetrable. As a man who used to pursue lots of women, I can tell you it's an easy read.

Her pursuer saw it was just a matter of time and doubled down on the compliments, kibbles and feel good statements. They make her feel so she can't remove herself from the situation even though she sees the train roaring towards her as she sits helplessly on the tracks.

If his pursuits weakened her boundary wall, her agreeing to meet with him under the pretense of "as friends" obliterated the wall because nothing can happen unless he gets her into a 1-on-1 situation, which he was able to. He knows anything can happen then.

I'm not even going to get into what or what did not happen as her breaching the new commitment boundary wall after the previous affair is in itself enough to rethink what you have here. Some people have to experience the absolute worst case scenario (divorce) to permanently eradicate their wayward mindset and she may be one of them.

It could be coincidence but it probably wasn't that the meetup occurred at the same time you were out of town. She is perhaps more complicit in the meetup than she admits considering the timing. If this is the case, then it's slightly worse because it's separate from the potential AP tirelessly pursuing her. If she conspired to meet while you were gone, then that's completely on her, not him.

I remember my father in law asking me to drive him to the liquor store to stock up on "spirits for the holidays" once. It's funny in retrospect but I was none the wiser. My MIL was livid at my FIL for the calculating measures he took to obtain liquor and using me and the holiday as justifications. I stayed out of it, but it was a pretty slick move on my FIL's part. Calculating and manipulative are words that come to mine. Your wife may have been equally conniving.

Lastly, your new city will have as many POS's as the old one. You can move into a senior citizens facility and still run into a few. Your wife will have to become the standard bearer of marital fidelity.

No other location, job, church, circle of friends or community can stop the temptations of engaging other men until the tingles she gets from attention of some men are replaced with triggers that make her sick and queasy. I'm not sure she's reached this yet.

Subordinate: "Hey sexy boss lady."

Boss: "That's not appropriate for the workplace."

Subordinate: "How about outside the workplace?"

Boss: "Our relationships is a professional one as colleagues. There isn't anything outside the workplace."

Boss: "This type of behavior is unacceptable. This is your warning. Further incidents will result in action from human resources"

***

Her pursuer saw it was just a matter of time and doubled down on the compliments, kibbles and feel good statements.

The story of "relentless pursuit" of TheBlindSided's wife from a person reports to her is not a story that TheBlindSided or us should be accepting at face value.

It makes no sense on its face.

It's very unlikely that this man would pursue TheBlindSided's wife, his superior at work, in any way if she told or signified to him that his extra-curricular attention was unwanted.

Given the dynamic, it is far more likely that it was made clear to this man that his attention was welcomed, or even more likely that the source of "attention and pursuit" was flowing in the opposite direction, from her towards him.

***

@TheBlindSided, what do you know about this man? Is he married or in a committed relationship?

And is your wife still working with him and seeing him daily/frequently? I think you have to factor this into your thought process with regard to the future of your reconciliation.

[This message edited by faithfulman at 2:00 PM, May 3rd (Monday)]

Last week I went out of town and had a feeling something was off. I came home. WW admitted to me that there was a new guy at her work that has been pursing her tirelessly for a few weeks. While I was out of town she agreed to meet with him as friends and he tried to cross a line.

You felt and asked, and she admitted, right? So if you didn't ask, they would continue (if they still don't, of course).

As everyone says, she lies and minimizes the story. As his boss, she doesn't have to think too much about what to do to get him to not pursue her. Not even a word just a cold look was enough.

She all this hurt being brought back up and this situation made her think that there is a level of unhappiness in the marriage that is unsustainable. That we can't live in the hurt of the infidelity and be healthy.

She can't throw wood into the dying fire and then complain, "I guess this fire will never go out".

That new ring, new marriage things are all nonsense if your wife is not new.

She told me how much this hurts her and makes her feel like I can't ever see a marriage without the brokenness of infidelity.

Yeah, she's right. And the best solution for that is to cheat on your H with a new guy.

We love each other very much.

You can only be so sure of your love.

I don't want D. I don't think she does either. But we also both agree that something has to give somewhere. We would both be heartbroken in D, but how do we know when enough is enough? Is it possible it's time to just give up?

Why do you talk about her as if she were the passive side? She is the active responsible side of what happened, more precisely, for what she did.

If she really doesn't want it, it's obvious what she's going to do; to know the value of the second chance given to her and to stop cheating.

I think this is the third guy that you know about and like they say three strikes and you're out.

Sadly she is 10 steps ahead of you in this, and she has already taken the off ramp to infidelity while you are still thinking of reconciling.

Trickle truth is prediction is that lines (grope/kiss/oral/more) were crossed on her date.

I asked why she didn't talk to me about it and she told me she's afraid to talk to me about something like this because she's afraid it will push me further away. Valid honestly.

No, it's not. This is an excuse straight out of The Cheater's Handbook. How does it measure up to this:

That being said, I do believe she reciprocated. I'm sure there were flirtations and she liked the attention.

She didn't tell you because she didn't want you to know what she was up to. She's minimizing her involvement even now despite you knowing that she was involved. You don't just go out "as friends" with someone who has been relentlessly hitting on you and not expect them to interpret it as more than friends. You especially don't do it secretly the moment your spouse isn't around to find out.

This feels like a betrayal all over again because it IS a betrayal. It falls right under the definition of an EA. She hid it from you. It was inappropriate even without getting physical and it did escalate. She was getting validation and ego kibbles from it. It doesn't matter what she thought was happening - that she could control it or that it doesn't count because it's not a PA. What matters is that you were once again shut out from the truth of your marriage in order for her to fulfill a selfish desire. Don't aide her in minimizing that and don't accept her reasoning as an excuse. She did it and she needs to own up to it for you to move forward.

Ask yourself - what would have happened if she told you about this guy from day 1? How in the world would that push you away if she was honest from the very FIRST time he hit on her and she tried to rebuff him? How could that have been any worse than what you are going through now? There is no way it could have done anything but strengthen your trust in her UNLESS she knew she was making a bad choice by participating from the get go. But even then, the fall out of 1 day of wayward behavior from her doesn't compare to what you have on your hands now. Do you really think it would have been okay if she shut him down during their secret date and you never found out? Wouldn't that embolden her to try it again on another OM in the future?

Given your ages and the fact that you just tacked on a few more years to your healing timeline, do you really believe that this marriage is working for you? If you both see yourself with children in the near future, is this really the most stable environment that you can provide for them? We can't predict what 30 years from now looks like but if she's still placing blame on the state of the marriage and by extension your healing journey ("Blameshifting" in The Cheater's Handbook) and thinks a commitment ceremony is what you need, I can tell you it's not looking good for you feeling safe and secure.

She needs IC. She needs to aggressively address why her need for ego kibbles is greater than your marriage and your safety. Because she made her vows before and it didn't matter enough to keep her from cheating. A second time isn't going to work any better. Until she fixes her need for validation, she's leaving herself vulnerable to temptation. Your marriage sure as hell isn't any better now and there will be times in the future where it might be even worse. You deserve better than having her open a window or door to someone else any time things get tough.

If she's not willing to dig deep and fix herself after 3 strikes, don't stick around for more of the same.

We would both be heartbroken in D

I wouldn't be so categorically sure of this.

You might surprise yourself once you detoxed from her and met another woman who had higher quality standards for herself.

And I'm not saying this is definitely your WW, but narcissists have a way of springing back once they find another succubus victim to drain.

Here's a question: have you thought about what is called a therapeutic separation of 30-90 days to clear your head?

The book "Cheating in a Nutshell" recommends it.

We are 3 years out from last DDay.

3 years is nothing. I showed up here in the R section three years out from D-Day with my WW still not doing some of the basic things I needed from her. I was an absolute basket case.

In many ways, I still am an absolute basket case, with just 1.5 years tacked on to that. In that 1.5 years, my WW has failed a polygraph, I landed in a cardiologist's office from the stress, and I've walked right up to the brink of divorce.

It takes a LONG time to simply recover from betrayal trauma. 2-5 years is the recovery time for YOU, not for reconciliation.

Reconciliation can only happen really after and ONLY if a WS gets it and does the work.

[This message edited by Thumos at 3:37 PM, May 3rd (Monday)]

So. Your wife is an SA. Maybe recovering, maybe not?

You do know that it is possible for behaviors to start with porn and compulsive masturbation and escalate to physical cheating.

You can't reconcile a marriage if one of the partners is dysfunctional. Being an active addict, is well, being dysfunctional.

There's just no other way around it.

I'd like to hear more about how your wife is tending to her recovery daily? Is she reading? Doing some sort of meeting work, whether it's a 12-step group or a smart recovery group? Has she worked wiht a CSAT?

Because honestly, your wife's behavior doesn't really sound like she's interested in reaching out to others when she's about to act out. Meaning, she's still thinking like an addict "even if" she's only cheating on you once a year or so.

So, my question to you, OP, is why you want to spend your life with an addict that isn't in recovery? You don't have kids. Your wife works.

There's a good "partner of SA" thread in the I can relate section. Lots of resources posted. Educating yourself is a good thing.

[This message edited by secondtime at 3:29 PM, May 3rd (Monday)]

Here's a question: have you thought about what is called a therapeutic separation of 30-90 days to clear your head?

The book "Cheating in a Nutshell" recommends it.

Interestingly enough it was suggested today by a new counselor that I started seeing. I'm taking it under consideration. As he put it, if there is hope of saving it, a separation is needed. If she decides to cheat during this time, the answer is easy. If she does the hard work, maybe explore if there is anything salvageable.

I'd like to hear more about how your wife is tending to her recovery daily? Is she reading? Doing some sort of meeting work, whether it's a 12-step group or a smart recovery group?

Yes, she is attending meetings usually 3-4 a week. Doing step work and sponsoring 3 girls. Well she was until last week. She's thrown away 3+ years of her 'sobriety'.

I'm not disagreeing with anything above this post. I know everybody is fixated on TT. But I've been on this ride enough to know when I've got it out of her and I feel ok. This wasn't a romantic dinner date or something of the such. It was an after work run along the local streets. NOT DEFENDING IT. Please hear me. I am not minimizing what happened. It was completely inappropriate. She knew better. She wanted the ego-kibbles for sure. It was, as many pointed out, an easy shut down. Never should have moved outside the walls of the workplace. No debate.

There are a lot of attack style posts on here pointing out I'm not in R. I agree. We were working on it, but this showed it failed. If there wasn't good in this still, I wouldn't be considering it. I'm sure some of you have been there too. There is a lot of hurt from infidelity. This is a big step back into that mess. Just trying to navigate it.

As he put it, if there is hope of saving it, a separation is needed.

Excellent advice. Looks like you might have a good IC there.

This wasn't a romantic dinner date or something of the such. It was an after work run along the local streets. NOT DEFENDING IT. Please hear me. I am not minimizing what happened.

In terms of this, I don't think you are minimizing it. I think you're shell-shocked by what has happened, blindsided and that's why you showed up here again.

So on this, just bear in mind you really don't know what happened. You're getting the story from what writers call "the unreliable narrator." Usually that makes for a great novel with a twist at the end. In reality, though, it's just a mindfuck. And I know it feels awful, because I've been there.

Look, again, 3 years is nothing. Your brain is still deeply traumatized by the first couple of hits and now this. Give yourself a lot of grace.

Your WW seems to really have no idea what she's unleashed here.

TheBlindSided, the "pursuer" of my XWW walked casually up to my XWW's office and aroused her interest. Thereafter she pursued him relentlessly. (He wasn't objecting). She was his immediate supervisor.

I went away for a few days to look for land for the ranch, our lifelong goal. They fucked for the first time in an LTA. Nooners and quickies after work at his place followed along with lots of fucking all over the place for another 3 years.

I found out 10 years after the first fuck. It was 4 years after DDay1 that we finally separated. It was 2 1/2 years later the D was final. What bothers me the most was the length of time I let this drag out smoking the hopium pipe, drawing lines in the sand then another one, then another one, etc. What I needed from her I wasn't getting and I kept telling her what I needed and never got. How I wish I had those years back.

Is this guy that works for her single or married or in a long-term relationship?

Is this guy that works for her single or married or in a long-term relationship?

Not really sure. Don't really care. If he's in a relationship, me blowing it up isn't going to help mine.

If my wife is attracted to this guy and wants to be with him, that's fine. I'm not doing a pick me dance here.

She's an adult and if she wants this marriage, it's on her to put boundaries in place and show me why it's worth even trying for.

But wouldn't you want to know if you were the other betrayed spouse or girlfriend?

TheBlindSide, I meant to end with this but sent to quick.

My XWW would have been fired for intimacy of any kind with a subordinate had HR known. Her AP would not have been. XWW applied for her retirement before being found out by HR. They knew before she retired but let her run out the time until retirement (a couple of months).

I suspect your WW may be in the same situation. Lots of companies have such rules. It would only take another employee to bring it to light.

Flirting on the fringes of loose boundaries still holds an intoxicating appeal to her instead of a disgusting one. Hence, she can't shut it down because her physiological response is pleasure and intrigue and not one that induces sickness and concern.

She may not be able to get to where she needs to be until you no longer offer her the opportunity to prove herself worthy. You and she wants to stay married but unfortunately for you that may be the thread that keeps her from not making the complete change needed for you to feel safe.

Not really sure. Don't really care. If he's in a relationship, me blowing it up isn't going to help mine.

If my wife is attracted to this guy and wants to be with him, that's fine. I'm not doing a pick me dance here.

She's an adult and if she wants this marriage, it's on her to put boundaries in place and show me why it's worth even trying for.

As we say before beating someone over the head here, gently...

If you continue to be nice to her, and allow her to continue to work with this man, you are playing the pick me dance whether you like it or not (ask me how the year went where I pretended like it didn't hurt me every single day my fWW kept working with her EA AP). The pick me dance is really just short for allowing her to have multiple options that include you. The opposite of the pick me dance is allowing her EITHER multiple options OR only you. Making her decide is the opposite of the pick me dance. It's kind a weird name when you think about it.

Yes, she is attending meetings usually 3-4 a week. Doing step work and sponsoring 3 girls. Well she was until last week. She's thrown away 3+ years of her 'sobriety'.

Something's amiss.

My husband is a recovering SA. He tried to do the work the first time. He worked with a CSAT, went through some Carnes material. But it wasn't enough.

He started slipping, marching towards a full blown relapse. Never got to full blown.

The thing is, he knew he was in trouble before he started slipping. And the slips started like once a year.

I follow a thread of non-sa recovering addict on a mommy board I'm on. It seems like it could be fairly common that recovering addicts in general know when they are in trouble before they actually get high.

So. In your situation, I would really want to know why my partner didn't reach out. That is information I would want to know to guide my decisions.

I would also want to know what my partner plans to do differently in the future to prevent a relapse. Because, again, current state isn't working.

So. In your situation, I would really want to know why my partner didn't reach out. That is information I would want to know to guide my decisions.

Well that's the crap part. She did reach out. I wasn't in the loop, but she reached out to her sponsor and support system prior to seeing him outside of work. She explained to them she felt a connection because he confided things in her and she felt like she could help him with some of his issues (addiction). My wife is that way. To a flaw. She always wants to help everyone.

I don't think she did this to intentionally hurt me. I also think that in her mind, she had it beat and could provide help to this employee. I feel like I have to say again, I'm not making excuses for her. THIS WAS WRONG. But I do also believe she didn't think this one through all the way and failed the marriage.

new guy at her work that has been pursing her tirelessly for a few weeks

^^^This contradicts what she is telling you below.

She explained to them she felt a connection because he confided things in her and she felt like she could help him with some of his issues (addiction). My wife is that way. To a flaw. She always wants to help everyone.

She went out in secret. She did not confide in you. She met him while you were AWAY. She knew damn well it was wrong and this meeting had absolutely nothing to do with addiction. If she did reach out, IMO she tried to justify meeting a man solo because she could "help" him.