SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I didn't do very well with boundaries and consequences and thought I would try that first

Yeah I think it's safe to say that is more than something to try. It's pretty much pointless to demand NC without any consequences. If she doesn't think you will act, then she will continue to do whatever the hell she wants.

But why are you obliged to go back to her now with warnings of consequences? Here's an idea.....

You: I told you I was not okay with this. You committed to NC. Now you have broken that commitment. And for that, there are consequences. The consequences are that I have filed these D papers which I'm handing to you now.

It would have been good to previously establish your consequences, but there's no rule book that you have to telegraph them now.

She acted unilaterally by choosing to cheat without warning. You can decide on your consequences without warning. There ain't no fair play here. This is not business ethics. It is surviving infidelity. So you do what's in your best interest to stop the infidelity right now.

Why are you so resistant to your wife leaving this job? Nc is impossible to really ensure and the greatest probability is the affair goes underground or resumes later. And you will never know if it does or doesnt. Is a job worth it the not knowing, the risks, and the stress?

[This message edited by william at 4:50 PM, June 6th (Tuesday)]

brief interaction which ended with 'I will contact you later'.

I'm not sure the significance of this has been discussed. I read this as they have taken the affair deep underground and this little screw up means they might be getting sloppy again. You should be on the lookout for more evidence that they are still together.

I didn't do very well with boundaries and consequences

Well, no one ever goes to "How To Deal With a Cheating Wife" class - at least before d-day. You've done the best you can and are learning more all the time.

You really have to get past this fear of divorce that you have. A bad marriage is NOT worth saving. You don't have to live with their mother to be a wonderful father for your children. They will respect you more for doing the right thing for yourself than if you simply "stay for the kids". You cannot set firm, effective boundaries when you are bluffing about the consequences. She will sense it and walk all over you.

Lastly, I maintain that if they are still working together - she's still fucking him. They've already crossed this boundary together and stepping across it again is as easy as falling off of a log. Your dream of reconciliation cannot be fulfilled as long as they work together.

20yrs,

I am surprised that no-one has suggested this so far, but have you considered having your wife take a polygraph test? It might be a tough thing to suggest, but it seems like you still have a lot of doubt, which is not helped by the work situation. What you want is some kind of certainty. However, a ploy may not 'feel' right for your situation, and that's fair enough.

I hope that your wife will find another job soon, detach from that guy completely, and get her life back on track.

Take care, 20yrs.

thanks m1965, falling a little behind here in response but wanted to comment on a few things here

I know it is hard to trust anything at the moment, but you could look at it from the angle of why would she lie about being positive things relating to the family and her commitment? It would be cruel to you to lie about it, and pointless for her, because if she wasn’t happy, and wanted to go, lying about wanting to stay would just be making things worse for herself.

It is possible for us to get into a mind-set where we view our wayward spouses as alien creatures who get some kind of warped satisfaction from lies and deceit, and who always do the opposite of what they actually mean or feel.

It is hard to trust, especially after finding the email but I do agree with the point here.

She could just leave, I asked her as much and said she didn't want to. She is asking for another chance and wants to prove herself as a better mother and wife.

Of course its possible she is lying. Especially given previous history but if that is my conclusion then I should just end this. At the moment my gut tells me she is not lying. There are all kinds of issues with me trying to get over this that may lead to a seperate end. But I am trying to reconcile and find a way to move past that. That is my real struggle. I am glad something came out of the email and it has reaffirmed the need to do something and not continue rug sweeping.

It is great that the ‘no contact’ letter has been written, and that she did it without resistance. The content really tells her as much as it tells the OM. I honestly don’t think that she would be so co-operative, and so positive in her attitude to the marriage, if she had any intention to leave. There would be no point for her to go to these lengths to bullsh*t you,

The letter was pretty emphatic that there would be no contact, nothing more then a nod of acknowledgment. No speaking, not even 'hello' and this was her making a good choice to help the recovery. She stated she was committed and loved me and her family. She expected this distance would be respected. I take it with a grain of salt but also see it as a small, positive step. For me the counselling and reading 'not just friends' will accomplish more towards the reconciliation. That will be my focus now.

Obviously, getting out of that job will be a major help to her efforts, and she needs to focus on that as a means of putting distance between herself and the OM as soon as possible.

I am in total agreement that moving out of the office and a job change is also critical. She is actively applying for jobs that will completely remove her from the AP. Once one of these jobs come through they will not physically see each other through work.

20

You sound as confident as you can be in the path you are taking and that is all that really matters.

Time will tell and I really hope you two make it and can talk someday about this rough patch you had in Your relationship 30 years ago and how it really turned things around for the two of you.

I was wondering, what was the reason she gave for saying she would contact him later?

20YI

You said in your earlier post

"However I guess we could say it was meaningful in the fact she wanted to hide what had happened. Even though I had no way of knowing. "

How is it meaningful? That she thinks it's ok to continue a "friendship" with the AP and still lie to you about it? Are you actually misconstruing this action of hers as her desire to stay married and you are feeling happy about it? She probably thought the same thing when she first had feelings for the AP. "I will continue my friendship with the AP and hide it from 20YI because although I know it's inappropriate, I can't possibly let it spiral down into an affair". We know how that went.

Your story will have a "happy ending" (if you can call it that) only if correct your approach.

Firstly, and this is only based on my assumption of your current situation, you should ask HER to do the heavy lifting. If she is carrying the cross to save your marriage, there is no way she will have any inclination to continue the affair. Investing in both an affair and a marriage is virtually impossible. Scheduling MC, family activities, nice evening at home and all the nice stuff. No one would want to screw up something they worked really hard to salvage after they almost lost it once. In your mind, you might think for a marriage to work there should be an equal partnership. But that is for for a marriage not damaged so heavily by an affair. If she does the heavy-lifting, she will know the importance of fidelity. You should acknowledge her efforts time to time and actively respond and participate, but she should drive the reconciliation effort. When she slacks a bit you will know if there is something wrong.

You said

" I always regretted not seeing the 'break up' text. And had I been a little more informed or clear headed would have demanded something to follow that up. There was always a lot of waterworks at that time around any discussion of the affair. A lot of self pity mostly"

You can still know. What was her tears about? Missing the AP or the shame of being discovered?

You should ask your WW to write down or at least discuss with you in detail, about her reasons for reconciling. Why did she choose you instead of AP despite him promising the moon for her? If it's just kids, but if she is lying that it wasn't just kids, it will show. The right reasons to stay in a marriage is history and the loyalty that comes with that history. Family and children come next. Even if she did not have "feelings of love" for you and probably doesn't have those now either, if she only felt she needs to be loyal to your history and does not want to throw away that history, will show she is in here for the right reasons. Children, are and should be only secondary reasons. If she knows the importance of the marriage and if you know that she knows it, you can rest assured that you have a better chance.

And lastly, get the complete timeline and every detail about the affair. If you don't get it out all in the open, if there are secrets between you, there will never be any kind of reconciliation. Rug-sweeping will come back to bite you in the rear and when it does, all your efforts thus far will go in vain. If anything, sit her down this weekend and talk about it all. Delaying this till you get there in the book will not be of help at all. When you get to that part in the book, you can ask her to give the timeline and the details again so you can re-verify what you got now.

[This message edited by hadji at 3:18 AM, June 8th (Thursday)]

20yrs,

“She could just leave, I asked her as much and said she didn't want to.”

Infidelity creates an atmosphere where we feel like we have to verify that the sky is still blue – I have been there, and I hated it – but when you think about it, you have offered your wife the option to go and be with the other man, and she does not want that. When offered that choice, she picked you and the kids over him. And that decision was made even though he had discussed ‘being there’ for her. Your wife making that decision puts the affair into context; it was not an exit affair, and when offered the stark choice between you or the OM, she chose you. Trust is still an issue, but there were no lies involved in that choice; she could have gone, but she didn’t. There’s a truth in that action that does not need verification, it is there in black and white.

“She is asking for another chance and wants to prove herself as a better mother and wife. Of course its possible she is lying. Especially given previous history but if that is my conclusion then I should just end this. At the moment my gut tells me she is not lying.”

Having chosen to stay with you and the kids, in preference to leaving, your wife will know she has to try and redeem herself. And unless she is totally callous and self-centered, she is bright enough to realise what she has done and how much pain she has caused you. So, in the act of opting to stay, she knows she has to up her game and try and make up the ground she has lost because of the affair. As she has chosen to stay, I cannot see why she would lie about wanting to be a better wife and mother, because if she had no commitment to doing that, what is she staying for? She is not stupid, quite the opposite, and when offered the choice of staying or going, she will have considered how much she would be throwing away if she left. So she does place value in you, the marriage, and the kids. Even at the height of the affair, she will not have been without love for you and the kids, she just got caught up in the ‘drug’ of the affair, which was a separate thing to the marriage and family, not a replacement for them. And her decision to stay confirms that.

Affairs can happen for a multitude of reasons, and they can have different ‘characters’. In your situation, it appears that your wife established a second relationship, outside the marriage and family, but with no desire to end/destroy the marriage and family. That sometimes gets called ‘cake eating’, where a person mistakenly thinks they can conduct two relationships simultaneously, side by side, without either one impacting on the other. As countless threads in the forum show, that never works. But just because a person starts a second relationship does not automatically mean they stop loving the people in their first, and main, relationship. Is that selfish? Yes. Is it disloyal? Yes. Is it deluded and potentially destructive? Yes. But at the start, affairs can have the same ‘taboo’ attractions of getting into drugs. And the more I read up on affairs, the more sources I find that say affairs really can have a drug-like effect on peoples’ minds and personalities. Call it a ‘fog’, call it a ‘high’, but the one thing it does not seem to be is something that is done entirely rationally, or with what we would think of as ‘normal’ thinking. And as a result, it can take people a period of time to get out of the ‘drugged’ affair state of mind and back to reality. It sounds like your wife is coming out of the cake-eating, two-relationships-at-once period, and faced with the choice of one or the other, she has made her choice, and she knows she has to make an effort to make that choice work. Which brings me back to my reasoning about why lying through her teeth at this point would make no sense, and it could backfire badly on her if it makes you decide you want to call time on things.

So although there are no cast-iron guarantees of what your wife’s thoughts and intentions are, she would really have to be an idiot to have chosen you and the family over the OM and then endanger the rebuilding of that relationship by lying and continuing the affair. I know she is guilty of lying and betraying, but look at the position she is in. You have the power to end the marriage if you choose to, which leaves her where? Either on her own, or with the OM, who she may have felt was fine as an affair partner, but as her choice shows, she clearly does not think he is someone she wants to spend the rest of her life with. And she would then have to face her relatives and friends and explain why she is in that situation, which is something many waywards dread having to do.

Which is a very long-winded way of trying to say why I think it is very much I her interests to re-establish herself in the marriage and family, which is what she says she wants to do. And you feel, in your gut, that she means it. What I have tried to do is see whether there could be reasons to back that up. So for the time being, as you would like reconciliation to happen (even though you struggle with some elements of it), I think you are best to proceed as you are, trusting that she means what she says in relation to the marriage and family, and doing positive things like working through books with her, perhaps going to counselling together, etc.

There are all kinds of issues with me trying to get over this that may lead to a seperate end. But I am trying to reconcile and find a way to move past that. That is my real struggle. I am glad something came out of the email and it has reaffirmed the need to do something and not continue rug sweeping.

I found it very hard to get past some of the basic, black-and-white ‘facts’ of infidelity. I also had a horrible thing where instead of mind movies, I had a kind of Jiminy Cricket voice in my head that would describe certain aspects in the most unpleasant, emotive way, as if it was deliberately trying to stir me up into a rage. It was a terrible period. However, you have resources available to you that I didn’t. For a start, you have this forum, but beyond that, you have the option of Individual Counselling. I really think you should give that a try, find one who specialises in infidelity if you can, because you will be able to talk through the elements that you are struggling with face-to-face, with another human being.

Without going into each individual issue that I had, there was one angle that I did not consider, but which I think is an important element for any betrayed person thinking of reconciliation to mull over. It is this:

Does what happened in the past mean there is no chance of a ‘happy’ future?

The problem with infidelity is that it can become a fixed point in time that we keep going back to, and that focus on the past means we barely think about post-affair future, and whether or not it could be good, bad, or indifferent. We kind of stop, and even though time is passing, we have our own personal courtroom drama playing out in our head, day after day, week after week. Our waywards are in the dock, and on some days we are the prosecuting attorney, on others we may be the defence, and on yet others we feel numb and just sit in the jury, thinking, “I really don’t know what to make of this”.

Perhaps what we need to do to enter the reconciliation process properly is to reach a judgement, close the case, and mentally agree with ourselves that the details of the case do not need any more thinking through or dwelling on. That is very hard to do, which is why people say the reconciliation process takes time.

If we are able to close the case, we can then focus on what we need, and what it will take, to have a ‘happy’ future. And that should be the target for both parties; ‘happy’, not just scraping by.

Although there are bound to be elements of the affair that hurt, and with which you struggle, you should also ‘listen’ to your own inner voice. The fact is, you did not throw your wife out with a couple of suitcases when the affair was discovered. You have not filed for divorce. You are hoping for a reconciliation, if you can get past the issues that bother you, and if your wife is genuine in her stated aims of rehabilitating herself in the marriage. So I think that as you ponder the elements that hurt you, and make you feel like calling time on things, you should do so acknowledging that what you as a person actually want is reconciliation and a restoration of the marriage. What you ‘want’ is very important in these matters, even if you or other people can make arguments that go in the opposite direction. What everyone here would say, of course, is that you must not rug-sweep in an attempt to bury the facts and make achieving your ‘wanted’ goal that much easier to reach. I agree with that completely.

So here’s a suggestion, which you can take or leave. You say there are aspects that you are struggling with. Why don’t you keep a notebook (or whatever), and write them down as they occur to you, put them into some semblance of order, and then talk them through with your wife, and/or with a counsellor? I really think that working through those things – the most troublesome and contentious things - with your wife could be a way for getting her to understand what you are struggling with as you try to save the marriage. That way, she will get a much better understanding of what you are going through, and based on that, she can try and do whatever she can to help neutralise those issues, and provide reassurance for you. She says she wants to be a better wife and mother, and what you tell her about the issues that could break the likelihood of reconciliation can really give her something to focus her energies on. Show her the wounds she has given you, those that really hurt, and give her the opportunity to try and heal them.

“The letter was pretty emphatic that there would be no contact, nothing more then a nod of acknowledgment. No speaking, not even 'hello' and this was her making a good choice to help the recovery. She stated she was committed and loved me and her family. She expected this distance would be respected. I take it with a grain of salt but also see it as a small, positive step. For me the counselling and reading 'not just friends' will accomplish more towards the reconciliation. That will be my focus now.”

I think that is a good way forward. Of course you won’t feel absolute confidence or trust, that is a given, and those things will only return with time, after hard evidence that they should return. But as your gut tells you that your wife is sincere in what she says, giving your wife as many ways to ‘heal’ the marriage and prove her sincerity would be a good thing. The letter is one. Working through the book, and the counselling are others. If you choose to run with my suggestion of working through the toughest elements that you are struggling with by explaining them to your wife, that is another ‘healing’ thing that she can put her energies into. Quite often, people complain that their wayward spouse isn’t doing much, but I think it can sometimes be hard for them to know what they should be doing beyond saying, “Sorry” every ten minutes. The more things you can think of that your wife can do, the better, for both of you.

Take care, 20yrs. I think that you have a good plan for making progress.

stevesn

The problem is, if it goes on much longer, there may not be a "whole family" left to receive those benefits.

Are you willing to bet your M on whether or not her company will transfer her? I wouldn't let it go for much longer. It's been a while already. Even transferred I don't like that she'll still be at the same company. She should be looking outside the company too. Remember you all can relocate if it will save the M.

Your mental health counts for something too in the M and her seeing this guy every day or week constantly affects your psychiatric well being.

These are good points. A third opportunity just came up and its in another city. It does look like this will happen. There would be no reason to physically see each other with any of the 3 opportunities at the moment. I do agree there is still the opportunity to communicate via business network, but that could happen anyway via any number of means.

It will be a relief when she is physically out of that office.

wordsofwisdom

20yrsin, even if your wife genuinely wants your life as a family, it will be extremely difficult for her to stay on the right track because her lying and cheating became the core habits of her mundane life. I think you both could benefit from reading "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg. This book might give you an idea of how to make this no-contact and no-cheating work and how to establish new and healthy coping routines for your wife. Otherwise, she might fall back into lying and cheating despite her genuine desire to stop.

Habits are an interesting thing, thanks for the book suggestion. She actually read a book on habits shortly after d-day and loved the book and actively worked on establishing good ones.

Funny enough though, she really didn't get my concerns on the 'lying habit', feeling that it was over and had been addressed. I was very firm that this is still an issue and it needs to be worked on along with compartmentalization.

She had 100% trust from me which certainly made me an easy dupe. For myself I now know 100% trust is foolish and not to ignore gut feelings or be afraid to question things that just don't seem right.

At the moment I do feel things are on the 'up and up'. But I am guarded and realistic about this. For the moment I am still on high alert.

At the moment I do feel things are on the 'up and up'. But I am guarded and realistic about this. For the moment I am still on high alert.

For some reason, I don't think that the affair has actually ended or at least that your wife is actually feeling any kind of remorse.

A FWS who is actually remorseful will find it very difficult to be in any kind of contact of with the AP. The AP is a reminder of her shame. Her greatest mistake. Many FWS in fact turn hostile to the AP because the AP hurt their family. Some even though do not turn hostile, try to avoid the AP by all means possible so that they are not reminded of their shame. Of course, note the "F" there. All these apply to "Former" waywards. But if as you say your wife is remorseful or feeling any kind of shame, then there won't even be the casual interactions.

You should be on the guard until she shows any of the traits above.

I do agree with Hadji. You can read many WS threads here and the ones with real remorse show a disdain for the AP.

What reason did she give to say "I will contact you later"

Has IC for WW been booked as promised?

"She could be lying, but my gut is saying otherwise"

With all due respect, the level of 'conversational familiarity' that she would have to be engaged with him to not just ask for a private password but 'I will talk to you later' should be driving up your spider senses no matter what. It's so egregious that i think what most posters (and myself) are very respectfully trying to say is that perhaps you should re-evaluate why you are so willing to blindly believe in this instance

Tell her you have scheduled a Poly test and watch how she reacts. The physical affair may have been put on ice for now, but the emotional affair was absolutely on simmer. All the facts point in that direction

20yrs,

She had 100% trust from me which certainly made me an easy dupe. For myself I now know 100% trust is foolish and not to ignore gut feelings or be afraid to question things that just don't seem right.

At the moment I do feel things are on the 'up and up'. But I am guarded and realistic about this. For the moment I am still on high alert.

You are exactly where you should be.

A third opportunity just came up and its in another city. It does look like this will happen. There would be no reason to physically see each other with any of the 3 opportunities at the moment. I do agree there is still the opportunity to communicate via business network, but that could happen anyway via any number of means.

It will be a relief when she is physically out of that office.

I hope this new job pans out, for both of you.

hadji

You should ask your WW to write down or at least discuss with you in detail, about her reasons for reconciling. Why did she choose you instead of AP despite him promising the moon for her?

If it's just kids, but if she is lying that it wasn't just kids, it will show. The right reasons to stay in a marriage is history and the loyalty that comes with that history. Family and children come next. Even if she did not have "feelings of love" for you and probably doesn't have those now either, if she only felt she needs to be loyal to your history and does not want to throw away that history, will show she is in here for the right reasons.

Children, are and should be only secondary reasons. If she knows the importance of the marriage and if you know that she knows it, you can rest assured that you have a better chance.

Not too long after d-day (7 months ago now) I asked her to write a letter. I was looking for more of a timeline and details and while it touched on that it it was a little more high level.

While kids are definitely a reason for us to be together, she said as much during the d-day period, looking at our son doing something funny during that d-day period she just couldn't bear to not have him in her life on a part time basis.

In the letter it had three parts. It opened with an admission of feeling ashamed of herself for what she did. Then there was a little background on how she thought we became disconnected and also how she started to notice the AP when they were both part of a major project.

There was a bit of blame in this part. Although she has always said she owns this and should have handled things differently she pointed out things I did that contributed to our 'bad state' at the time.

The second part was a few details of the affair. More on this later.

The third part was very positive and hit on many of the things you are calling out such as history, being part of the significant moments in her life. A deeper kind of love. A declaration of making the rest of our lives better, not losing sight of the important things. Asking for a chance to be part of my life.

At the time I was pretty frustrated with the letter and felt it was premature to be declaring these things as much as I wanted to hear them. We had a lot of work to do on the affair part which was glossed over to some degree. 3-4 paragraphs to cover a fucking year.

hadji

And lastly, get the complete timeline and every detail about the affair. If you don't get it out all in the open, if there are secrets between you, there will never be any kind of reconciliation.

Rug-sweeping will come back to bite you in the rear and when it does, all your efforts thus far will go in vain. If anything, sit her down this weekend and talk about it all.

Delaying this till you get there in the book will not be of help at all. When you get to that part in the book, you can ask her to give the timeline and the details again so you can re-verify what you got now.

The letter she wrote did reveal a couple of things. Some of which we verbally went through in the first few weeks after d-day. She had deleted all emails from her work computer on d-day. I had a look at a few of the emails which were pretty damning. Basically they were declaring love to each other on a regular basis and who knows what else from when the PA started until they were found out.

This deletion of emails nearly ended it for me. Still bothers me to this day.

In the letter she talked about how things got started with a kiss and escalated over a couple months to sex at a conference they went to. She said she was living two lives and always told herself it was almost over. But as we both know it never ended. I often made the comment that if she hadn't been found out it would probably be still going which she denies vehemently. She said it was making her sick and depressed and hated herself. All things that ring a bit hollow to me.

To some degree you can trace all their dates to 'bullshit' social events she claimed to be attending. Because we are so busy with three kids we keep a calendar and plan most things where we will not be together well in advance.

She admitted that she would tell me she was going with one person and meet him, sneak off while doing errands to meet him and that they went to sporting events, concerts and patios.

I can pretty much trace most of it to pictures of my kids that i would take as I was left holding the bag while she was off fucking. Not that i'm bitter lol.

So there is a bit of a highlevel timeline in this letter.

Just a month before d-day things hit an all time high or low, depending on your perspective. She went away to a 4 day conference and for months prior to the conference kept pitching to me that she would stay for a couple days after to tour around.

At times I offered to go with her and it always struck me a bit odd that she was proposing this. We always agreed it wasn't practical for me to go. Who would look after kids effectively and it would be expensive just to go for a couple days. At one point there was a story of another girl staying to do the same but then she couldn't go.

So it was a 5 day fucking honeymoon for the two of them. Apparently there she was overcome with guilt and they broke up at the end. In the letter she admitted this break only lasted a short time as she tried to maintain friends.

It was a few weeks after the trip that douchebag wrote his letter and took her to one more sporting event. His letter did support the claim of her being overcome with guilt.

The story she told about how she got tickets for this sporting event was outlandish and that did set off my spider sense into overtime. At this point things were not being planned well in advance. It wasn't long after I found a few texts but not before they had fucked one more time as a bon voyage for his 2 week vacation.

Those 2 weeks he was away things fell apart for them and I had my evidence including his letter which had the comment, ' I would like to make love to you one more time' among other enraging things. That was the smoking gun and within 48 hours I had my confrontation. Knowing what I know now would have done things quite differently but we are where we are.

From the expanded detail of your story she was almost expert at the deception she assaulted you with.

I don't know how you believe she is not betraying you now especially since she still sees him daily or weekly.

If it were me I would tell her she has 1 day to tell her boss she needs a transfer or she has to quit and if they won't do it, then she leaves the job.

Otherwise you file. I believe you're leaving a lot of this just to hope.

I really wish you good luck because I have a bad feeling about all of this.

your wife wants another chance to show shes going to be/can be a better mother/wife.

ok. give it to her.

tell her leave the job.

I was reading this post and thought of you. It's a bit different situation as he is the wayward struggling to stay away and go NC with the COW he says he has to keep working with.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=599805&HL=57400

What struck me was how no matter how confident he was in his and her plan to "keep it all business ", in the end they just couldn't.

I'm making up these stats, but if it's 20% likely that waywards will have a relapse after goin NC, it's probably 70% if they keep seeing each other every day.

Put down a drop dead date. E.g. She gets a new job by the end of next week or else she either quits or you start having the lawyer draw up papers. If it gets to that point she might want to make a last ditch effort by telling her boss what is happening and let him know if she doesn't get a job elsewhere immediately she is going to have to quit.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 7:39 AM, June 12th (Monday)]

Frankly I don't see how you can ever recover from a betrayal of this depth. That they still work together and (likely) chat every day I would say that you have a 0% chance of recovery.

And even if she's in another office she will *never* interact with him again? Why can't she just get a job somewhere else? You will never be able to trust her around someone that she clearly loved so deeply to risk everything for him

I'm with William on this...you've been given lots of great advice and while the situation with your WW and the AP does look way too cosy, none of us know the truth of it.

However, if she wants to commit to the marriage she needs to leave the company; it's ridiculous that they still work on the same floor and have to interact for business. That is not doing the work she needs to reassure you.

Your M should be more important than a short-term financial hit or career progression and so she needs to hand in her notice now, period.

If that is a dealbreaker for her than she's either still in the A or does not feel strongly enough about your feelings to be worth R with.

20yrs,

Firstly, I wish we could be there with you. The extra detail adds a lot, but I know how it must have felt for you to type those words. It took me right back, and my stomach turned over. You are doing better than me. It was a long time before I was able to tell anyone what had happened, even though that was a vital part of my healing.

You say that if you had known then what you know now, you would have done things differently. I am not sure what the difference would have been, but I have to say that you have handled this extremely well. Better than you think. The truth is that there is no perfect way to deal with these things. What is ‘right’ depends on what you want for the future.

It sounds like you have all the details of the affair, and for your own good, I suggest you treat it as a done deal that needs no further investigation or raking over of ashes. To keep replaying it will just hurt you. I know that from my own experience. I kept going over and over the details, and that was so pointless and painful. It sucks, it was horrible, it should never have happened, you did nothing to deserve it, but it looks like the main, active part of it is over.

How you proceed from here depends on how you feel, and what seems like the right path for you. There can be elements of ‘projecting’ as we offer suggestions in this forum, so I am trying to rule out any trace of me saying what might be ‘right’ for me.

I do think it is essential that your wife gets out of that job, as a matter of absolute, marriage-saving urgency. She cannot stay there, so close to him, and unless she is an idiot (which she clearly is not), she must be able to understand that.

You have been extremely tolerant of her remaining there, and I respect that. There are perfectly rational reasons for doing that, no matter how much they contradict what you may have wanted to happen. However, I do think that she should agree to a deadline by which time she will be out of there. I know that is difficult, and the practical, logical part of your mind wants to give her unlimited time to find the right new job. However, there is another priority here, which is your peace of mind, and your healing. You are the wronged party here, and if what you need is for her to be out of there, then she moves Heaven and Earth to be out of there as a way of proving her love for you, and her commitment to rebuilding the marriage. A career is a career. It is important; it can be a thing to be proud of; but if it comes to a choice between a career and a lifetime commitment to another person, that commitment has to take precedence, if it has any meaning. If it doesn’t, then the ‘commitment’ is not truly heartfelt.

I will take a moment here to focus on the ‘inner voice’, which sounds like Hippie nonsense, but it is something that made a profound impact on me. A long time ago, I worked in a supermarket while I was at college, and I got to know a girl called Katherine. We used to talk, and I really liked her. She told me that one of the other guys who worked at the supermarket had asked her out on a date, and she had mixed feelings. So she asked her brother if he thought she should go on the date. “No”, said the brother, straight away. Surprised, Kat asked if her brother had heard something bad about the guy that has caused him to say, “No” so quickly. Her brother said, “No, I don’t know him. But the fact that you are asking me whether you should go out with him tells me you aren’t sure, and if you aren’t sure, then you shouldn’t go out with him”.

What that taught me is that we should learn how to hear, and heed, our inner voices. In your case, your inner voice is saying that you want to try and save the marriage, but what you need is real, hard proof that your wife is committed to the same thing, and not still lost in the fog of the affair. So I think it is perfectly legitimate and fair for you to sit down with your wife and set a deadline for her to be out of that job. And by ‘out’, that means either in another job in the same company (better, but arguably not ideal), or simply out of the job, and temporarily unemployed (if your finances can ‘work’ with her being out of work for a few weeks until she finds a new job). Ideally, she should be working for another company. The point here is to get her to accept and sign up to the idea that still working with the OM is totally unacceptable, and that it has a finite, fixed amount of time that it will be allowed to continue.

As an adjunct to that, and this may or may not feel like something you are comfortable with, you can say that if she has not found another job by the deadline, and she does not simply leave the job, you will send their HR department the hard evidence you have gathered, with a covering letter explaining the background. This may not be your style, and if it is not, that’s fine. I am not suggesting this as an option so you can be Arnold Schwarzenegger for a day, bang the table with your fist, and say, “Do as I say”. Instead, it is about you defending your boundaries, and getting your wife to face some consequences for her actions and prove to you that she will make sacrifices to remain in the marriage to make up for what she has done.

Now, and this depends on what feels right for you, you could – and it is only a ‘could’ – wait for your wife to leave the company, and then write to HR to inform them about the affair, with evidence, to blow the OM out of the water. Totally up to you, whatever you feel (either way) is fine. I must admit that the way I am wired up, I would do it. I am not saying that is right, or good, or blah blah blah…But I would do it as a way of making that POS face some consequences for the things he has done, and by doing that, make myself feel like I had struck a blow back.

Bottom line here is that your wife has to respect your feelings about this, and she must acknowledge that there are more companies than hers that do the same kind of work. Present it like this: you are giving her the opportunity to demonstrate how committed she is to moving forwards together.

Infidelity can make it feel like all control has been wrested out of our hands. In fact, you are far more ‘in charge’ than you realise. Whatever you ask her to do can be presented, quite rightly, as what you legitimately NEED to feel like you have any kind of a future together.

This is not about you ‘taking charge’, it is about your wife making your happiness her number one priority. That will be good for all concerned.

Just my thoughts, take what feels right for you, and ignore what feels’ ‘wrong’.