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NP5

I am sorry for your pain. You are a GOOD man. A good husband. A great father. You have gone more than the extra mile trying to salvage a marriage that your wife tossed in the trash a long, long time ago. This is NOT your fault.

This has been building for a long time. You have fought the inescapable conclusion. I know you wanted your old wife back. I know you want to protect your kids. I know you wanted NONE of this.

But I also know you will fight. You will fight for your kids and while it doesn't feel like it now, you will fight for yourself. And believe me when I tell you, God will be with you. There is a better world out there waiting.

There really is.

Strength and blessings to you.

Go Navy!

[This message edited by reallyscrewedup7 at 5:39 PM, December 11th (Friday)]

NP5,

You are strong. Stronger than I would have been under these circumstances.

I know your faith is strong. You, and only you, get to decide your path going forward. Divorce is an option. If you are Catholic, then it's definitely an option.

If you decide to keep working on R, that's fine too, but you have got to start worrying about yourself.

I know that whichever way you go in this decision that you will be happy. You will find your peace. That's from within. Your WW cannot take that from you if you do not let her.

Sending strength brother.

Wishing you strength man. You don't need or want her respect. You got your own.

This paragraph from tushnurse is spot on and is the only thing you have control over (besides getting your kids into therapy) in this whole mess:

The person you need to fall in love with and rebuild with is you. You need to find you. Learn what makes you tick, and what makes you feel happy and fufilled in life without your wife. It's time to have the best Revenge affair of all, and that is the one with yourself. Learn how to be independent, and not need her. Learn how to be strong and stand alone, and what makes you an awesome person. When you do this you find strength within, and realize that you Never Ever Again have to tolerate one more moment of disrespect from any person ever again, this includes your wife, and your kids.

Working on yourself gives you some breathing space, a chance to clear your head a bit from the last revelations, an opportunity to make the right decision for you and to NOT simply react to this latest pain.

Hugs!

RS

[This message edited by RippedSoul at 6:45 PM, December 11th (Friday)]

Just checking on you. Hope you are still gathering the strength and necessary to keep moving forward.

Wishing you strength man. You don't need or want her respect. You got your own.

^ This is the best kind of respect ^

Thinking of you NP5

Last night the OM was a few miles away and doing a show.

I had looked into hiring a group to picket his venue with signs saying "Home Wrecker!" or "Adulterer!" or "Stay Away from My Children!" banners with a bullhorn blaring insults.

It would cost $740 for 3 professional picketers for two hours.

The show is a significant money maker for him and it's right in my back yard.

The purpose of the picketing would be to embarrass him and hopefully dissuade people from supporting him in the future. Perhaps the venue wouldn't want him back next year.

I did decide against doing the picketing. Some of the reasons include hurting the other performers who had nothing to do with OM's actions, that he picketers may say or do something that could provoke a lawsuit, it may make local news causing too much publicity, it may present the wrong message.

Anyway, I am still have my sights set on delivering him some consequences.

Edith was fine with me doing the picketing. She was supportive and refused to give any negative criticism of my plot. When pressed to give her opinion, she thought a letter campaign would be more effective and less public.

Christmas went fine, but I triggered a ton. I'm not nearly as happy as Christmas's past as the love of my life had abandoned and betrayed me. I've reached a plateau of sadness and anger and I'm sullen often. I snap at Edith and sometimes my children which I never used to do. I am definitely changed by all this. At least I have for the present.

But there are good times too and Edith and I have stopped the free fall. I'm anxious and fearful she will cheat again, but she provides me evidence of her whereabouts and she knows another polygraph will come one day to check on her. She promises to be the best wife ever, and I see her really trying. She is going to IC mostly every week and reading a lot about fixing herself. She seems to be doing the work now. She shows me love and affection every day.

I still do love her, very much.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to post about positive stories.

Thanks to all of you for supporting me for so long. It has helped more than I can say.

Take care and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hi np5. Glad to hear you were able to share Christmas with your children

Dating yourself is a great idea.

I am definitely changed by all this. At least I have for the present.

You will always be changed by this, and there is no going back to a time before. Sometimes it can actually be better, but possibly too much was done this time.

In a sense, you have been to a war and back...no to equate affairs with wars, but you have been stressed to the point of no return to the past.

You are fearful she will have another affair, and that will be with your for a long time, especially if your wife cannot give you a real reason for doing it this time, and she cannot, because there really are no valid reasons.

Live and learn is what you are going through right now. You learned about things you never ever wanted to.

Stay strong and realize, this was never about you.

As for the OM, he has absolutely no morals or ethics and hopefully the karma bus will get him.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Sorry to threadjack, but I have to address Craig

NP5 is likely to live his entire life (from this point forward) in an unsafe marriage. Unless he loses his memory, he is always going to remember the vile way Edith lied throughout the entire affair - LIED TO HIS FACE - conducted the affair right in front of him while he begged for it to stop. She has lied for years. Over and over and over again. This board nailed it in that she WAS still in the affair. She was still in repeated contacted with OM. And still holding onto his trinkets. Longing for him.

She is not just unsafe. She is cruel.

Two months of compliance to get NP5 to drop his guard and submit to her manipulation is NOT going to allay his fears. Au contraire. It is just going to destroy his soul further when six months from now he finds out she is still locked onto the OM.

It is a sad, sad thing. And only NP5 has the power to extract himself from the cruelty and betrayal.

np5 - It's just my opinion, which may be worth little, but I suggest you stop worrying about the OM. He's not really the problem. He may be a jerk who goes after married women, but he didn't make any vows to you. If it wasn't him, it might well eventually have been someone else. Edith12 is the one who hurt you.

Problems in the marriage fall on both of you. But, unless he drugged and/or forced her, she made the decision to betray her family, and that is ALL on her, not him (regardless of what a piece of cat vomit he is, and regardless of whether he went after her or he simply acquiesced).

If she realizes this, and is truly working to fix the parts of her psyche that led to this, that's great!! If you're both determined to work on any marital problems as well, that's terrific . . . more power to ya'!! But the second EITHER of you start trying to blame the OM for any little part of what happened, you are moving the focus from what I think you need to be working on to save your family. Whenever you seek revenge upon him, you are deflecting the negative feelings elsewhere rather than dealing with them properly.

Again, just an opinion, but I think you will feel better when you reach a point of not caring about OM. You don't need to forgive him, but as hard as it seems, maybe you should work on forgetting him.

Thanks for checking in NP5. Good to hear form you. Wishing you and your family a Happy New Year!

yop

Wishing you peace, np5. May 2016 bring about some real positive changes in your life. Make it a great year!

Good to hear that you've stabilised np5. I sincerely hope that 2016 is a year of healing for your family.

This need to punish her AP is misplaced anger. She betrayed you with him but HE isn't your problem. I hope one day you are able to express your feelings of anger to your wife. Why so many betrayed husbands are unable to do this, I'll never quite understand.

Merry Christmas NP5. Wishing you clarity and peace for the new year.

This need to punish her AP is misplaced anger. She betrayed you with him but HE isn't your problem. I hope one day you are able to express your feelings of anger to your wife. Why so many betrayed husbands are unable to do this, I'll never quite understand.

Merry Christmas NP5. Wishing you clarity and peace for the new year.

I agree with reallyscrewedup and betrydwife.

First of all, Happy New Year to you too NP5.

I feel both AP and Edith are the problem. Someone has to punish the AP in this case as he is a serial adulterer and you are the right one to do it but you won't and haven't. Edith continues to move on consequences free.

It is like a thief who doesn't get caught or a thief who gets caught but is allowed to keep the $$. You see the Santa icon to the left ? That's not Santa, that's Edith walking away with your heart and her spoils from the affair and the smile is that she got away with it.

What I would like to see from you in a New Year resolution is for you to find a way to destroy the AP. This must be done. He caused too much damage to you to get to go around like Andre Rieu and keep smoozing the women while playing his cruddy violin when that violin should have been shoved up his ass tip first a long time ago. But as Betryedwife said, it is about Edith. If Edith is not on her hands and knees begging you to stay with her and giving you some major concessions by April 1, you still aren't showing her proper consequences. Schedule another poly for only a date that you know. Of course, since Edith reads here, she will be able to prepare for this It's too bad she reads here only to check on you and attack you further rather than help you heal from her heinous actions. The proof of course is the fact that she is never on here as a member trying to fix herself. This time, ask about the NC and other issues. Build a list of questions based on what people here suggest and don't tell her in advance.

I agree with those who say you will never get over this. Who would. But you can move on victorious at some point. You still have 13 years until your last child is out of High School. Is Edith the one you truly want to grow old with ? You need to weigh out the benefits and detriments financially and family wise of leaving as opposed to staying now. Mentally too. Everything else is moot.

[This message edited by Western at 6:42 AM, December 31st (Thursday)]

I suspect when np5 begins to take care of himself, he will set the bar very high and the other pieces will fall into place.

yes but when is when ?

Happy New Year to you, Edith12, and your family, NP5.

I apologize for any here who have started speaking about you in 3rd person on your own thread. I don't really feel that's appropriate.

You are the one most in touch with your feelings. You know best where you stand, how much you can accept, and how much work you can do.

While I understand the visceral feelings, I strongly suggest you think very carefully before acting on any advice about 'punishing' the OM. He may well be an awful person, but one could get into a great deal of trouble acting upon gut feelings against him. Further, trying for revenge of can backfire, and even if it doesn't, often only validates the actions of people like him (in their minds at least . . . they got a rise out of you, made you lose control, act on instinct like they do - or worse even . . . well, then they win!) Please, please reconsider if you were thinking about acting on the 'destroy the AP' idea, I think that would be a distraction, and could do more harm than good.

I'd recommend (to the extent possible) you ignore and forget OM. He's nothing really, unless YOU turn him into something. Any time you dwell on him, you're giving him more time than he's worth. It's about YOU, Edith12, and your family. Please don't misdirect or waste any effort making part of it about him.

Concentrate instead on YOU, and your family, and Edith12. Only you truly know when enough is enough for you. I wish you the best in determining what will bring YOU some measure of happiness and contentment this year.