Hi TBS,
I am sorry you had cause to return, but I hope we can be ‘there’ for you and help you work through this. I have followed your story from its beginning, a few years ago, and I am familiar the history/chronology of it.
The reason the history matters is that I see a lot of parallels between recent events and those in the past, and it is hard to avoid concluding that your wife has learned nothing at all from the original events.
Apologies if that sounds harsh, and apologies for raking up the past, but these are the reasons for my misgivings.
The original ONS happened with a male work colleague who, to the best of your knowledge, your wife hardly knew, and had no history with. She had invited you along to an after work party, but you were unable to go due to your work. So it is plausible that the ONS was unplanned.
Your wife stayed, got drunk, and ended up with just the other man (OM) paying attention to her after everyone else had gone. That led to the ONS in a car outside the restaurant. You were worried about where you wife as, and you arrived, looking for her, just as she was walking to her car and the OM was driving away in his.
She then confessed, and so began a very challenging period that rocked your trust and confidence in her. The lessons that she could/should have taken from that are:
1) She is impulsive/compulsive and has a lack of self-control (subsequently identified as sex addiction), and;
2) There are many difficulties that arise from continuing to work with the OM, and much insecurity caused for you because of it.
Several months after the ONS, your wife was offered a promotion that would have made her the direct manager of the OM. You were concerned, posted about it in SI, and after making your misgivings clear to your wife about how inappropriate that would be, both professionally and personally, your wife turned the offer down.
The lesson she could/should have taken from that is that it is unacceptable, unprofessional, totally inappropriate, and verging on cruelty to you for her to even think of being the manager of her OM.
Several months after that, she was living apart from you, and she told you that she was going to meet with mutual friends for dinner, rather than attending a work party that she was not going to attend because the OM was going to be there.
In fact, she either blew out the dinner completely and went to the party, or went to the party after the dinner, not answering any of your calls because she had lost her phone. She got drunk, and that led to the second ONS with the same OM.
You were concerned for her well-being after being unable to contact her, and suspicious about what she was doing, so the next morning you went to her office early and found just two cars in the car park; hers, and the OM’s.
You started asking every colleague of hers as they arrived if they had seen her or the OM, and what contact there had been at the party, explaining that she had vanished the night before and was not answering her phone. They said they recalled the OM supposedly calling a cab for your wife because she was drunk, but sadly it seems to have been a cab for them to go back to his place, which is why theirs were the only cars left in the office car park.
Your actions put the events of the night before on the radar of the management, and your wife was called into the office to explain them, and why they were impacting on the smooth running of the office. The result was that she was told her actions were unacceptable, and she was transferred to another office, around an hour’s drive away from her original office.
Among several lessons that she could/should have learned from that development are:
1) Having continued contact with an OM in the workplace is likely to lead to a repeat of past actions, and it did.
2) Inappropriate actions and relationships in the workplace can have consequences on her reputation at a company, and on her career path as a professional manager of people.
3) That she may be using alcohol to absolve her of responsibility and enable her to cheat, by which I mean, she did not cheat because she was drunk, but she got drunk so she could cheat.
4) She has issues of self-sabotage/self-destruction, because she told you at the time, “…it was just her way of giving up”.
Fast forward a couple of years, and she is pushing for some kind of fresh start in the relationship, a recommitment to precede the starting of a family.
And yet, at the same time, she has entered into a totally inappropriate relationship with a new male work colleague, and one that she manages directly. Essentially ignoring every lesson that she – as a married woman identified as a sex addict attempting reconciliation after infidelity, and a professional manager of people – should have learned from the recent past.
What worries me is that she seems to have learned absolutely nothing, and she has created exactly the same mess as before, with the potential to damage the marriage and her career and reputation at work.
It is almost like some self-sabotage mechanism has gone into high gear now she has been talking to you about recommitment, because she is surely intelligent enough to know the dangers and likely consequences of her actions and not expect to be taken as some wide-eyed, naive person who can be ‘friends’ with a male colleague who has been actively pursuing her for sex. She knows exactly what happens in those situations.
I also find it hard to credit that an intelligent, professional woman who has cheated twice with a male work colleague thought it was wise to meet up with another male work colleague who she knew was interested in her sexually to spend time with him when you were out of town, particularly after she knew their relationship had already become so problematic that she had sought advice about how to ‘shut him down’, while hiding everything from you.
You have not said what advice her Dad gave her, but I doubt that he said the best way to discourage a predatory male colleague is to secretly meet up with him while her husband is out of town. What she did gave the man a huge green light, and let him know that she was not serious when/if she really did shut him down.
Her actions have given him a big green light, and now – despite her knowledge and experience - she is right back where she was a few years ago, only this time she manages the man rather than just working for the same company.
And the theme of lessons going unlearned or ignored seems to continue, because you wrote:
When she told me it felt like another Dday. All the trauma from the first times came back. I asked her to leave and give me space. She went away to her dads for 4 days.
She came back and we talked. She [said] 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.
That concerns me, because she seems to be blaming the past or the marriage, rather than identifying the real problem, which is her actions and addictive/compulsive behaviour.
Does she really not see how significant it is that she has chosen to begin another inappropriate relationship with a male work colleague – exactly what damaged the marriage before – at the same time as she is pushing you for recommitment?
It may well be subconscious behaviour, but it is as if she is trying to force some kind of change to occur, either the destruction of the marriage, or a re-boot into marriage 2.0. Remember her saying she had the second ONS as a way to end the period where you were living apart? The parallels with this new inappropriate work relationship are unmissable.
However, firing a missile at the marriage in the form of a new inappropriate relationship is not going to encourage you to recommit, and that makes me think it is self-sabotaging behaviour, rather than an effort – whether knowing or subconscious - to force you to make a decision.
She really needs to get to the root of that in IC, because her actions totally contradict what she says she wants (recommitment).
I am also concerned about this:
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).
There are countless married women whose affairs begin with a male work colleague or friend who wants to confide in them about problems in their marriage or life. That opens all sorts of doors for the woman to talk about her feelings or uncertainties, and boom, there is suddenly an emotional connection that a smart player can exploit to his advantage. There are plenty of stories in SI that show exactly that dynamic playing out.
It is a classic textbook way for an affair to begin, but what bothers me more than that is:
1) Why was your wife, as a manager, getting involved with a subordinate’s personal life?
2) Why does your wife think she could help him when she cannot control herself, and she has no experience as a counselor?
3) In the formation of the ‘connection’, and the OM describing his addictions, did your wife reveal her sex addiction to him? If so, she might as well have painted a big target on her forehead, because the guy will think that he just has to keep pushing and at some point she will give in.
4) If your wife did reveal her sex addiction, how confident is she that he will not tell other men in their office that she is a good potential target?
5) Having become so personally involved with a male subordinate, how does she propose to continue working with him and managing him when they know so much about each other, and he has attempted to get physical with her? She needs to have a very clear plan about that, because the OM is not simply going to give up and go away. She already sent him very mixed signals by supposedly shutting him down and then meeting up with him when her husband was out of town.
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. I think she thought she had it under control. But clearly didn't.
Has she given any kind of commitment to tell you immediately about any approaches/relationships with other men in future? Does she understand why keeping it secret has increased the damage, whereas telling you sooner could have boosted your confidence that she has changed her coping behaviours and made some positive progress?
Has your wife read, “Not Just Friends”, to develop an understanding of how ‘friendships’ are frequently something different?
Opinion is divided about whether or not men and women can be friends without sex entering the frame, but I think most people would agree that it is not possible to have a friendship with someone who has expressed sexual attraction and tried to get physical. That being the case, how does your wife plan to sever this ‘friendship’ and detach?
We love each other very much. But it IS a struggle to work through R and build trust back. I agree that if this past year of our marriage is as good as it gets, it's not sustainable for another 30 years. But at the same time, I don't think that was as good as it gets. I'm definitely still working through things after 3 years.
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?
The governing factor, and the thing that has to give, is your wife’s capacity to change her coping mechanisms and need for validation, which seem to overrule her common sense and intelligence in situations that are fraught with negative consequences.
She may be a manager of people, but she needs to learn how to manage herself, because of she does not, she will destroy every relationship she gets into. And that is something she needs to think about, because the same behaviours have caused a repeat of the past.
None of this is meant as an attack. I have written several posts in your threads over the years, and I have always tried to be supportive. I know how hard the past few years have been for you, and I would never want to add to that. However, there are times when tough questions have to be asked, and issues identified that need to be addressed.
The sense I get is that your wife has not owned how her repeated actions are keeping the marriage in a state of limbo, suggesting that the sadness/tension is just there by itself.
It is not.
She keeps putting it there, and she has the power to remove it by changing. And the marriage will not change until she changes.
Whether she can do that or not is another question, and one that is very difficult to answer in a forum, without really knowing a person.
I hope something here is useful, and my thoughts and best wishes are with you.
[This message edited by M1965 at 4:33 PM, May 5th (Wednesday)]
