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Let’s try a different approach....

What exactly are you willing to do to ensure that you are a safe partner to your husband? What changes or sacrifices are you willing to make going forward?

What does reconciling with your husband look like to you?

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:11 PM, August 28th (Wednesday)]

After reading this whole thread

About how hard people are.trying to make Violet understand her mistakes and solve them.

And she keeps defending her narrative.

Let’s try a different approach....

What exactly are you willing to do to ensure that you are a safe partner to your husband? What changes or sacrifices are you willing to make going forward?

What does reconciling with your husband look like to you?

Great idea, Except it’s what she is not willing to do that’s the problem.

Seems like Violet is in her mind reconciling. Hubby dares not confront OM, Violet refuses to stop fielding his phone calls ,

hubby sucks it up for the kids , and when she breaks NC he’s disappointed , but not pissed off enough to do anything .

Why should Violet do anything different. ? She’s in total control and if hubby rebels she’ll just sign the papers if it comes to that.

It appears since she hasn’t had sex with him yet again that she’s making an all in effort on her mind .

What can she be willing to do that does not involve honoring NC ? And on that one, OM

Is just a big meanie for wanting to bed her but not mean enough to not leave the door ajar

There are lots of comments picking Violet's every word apart. Violet, I think it would be helpful to hear what steps you are taking to dismiss your infatuation and limit any chance of contact.

You blocked om in your phone and, I assume, social media. What else have you done? What else are you considering doing?

As for making a scene where I work. Yeah, it's not worth that.

Not worth what? Your M?

There is just no sense in dragging personal issues into a professional environment.

I can understand this, and agree on a professional level, but you have already broken your valuable sense of professionalism by engaging with a co-worker in an affair, so how doe this make it still professional?

I really don't care how personal the issue. Work it out or don't. Making fools out of each other is not going to do that.

There goes your sense of Entitlement again. The Princess shows her true colours. You do not care about anyone else. True wayward mindset.

If you are truly hoping to R, then it would not matter if you make a fool of yourself and your AP, as the sense of empathy for your BH & your children would be overriding everything.

Anyway, why does it have to be a big production to get your AP's email blocked at work? Am sure a private talk with the senior person in charge can sort that out if you truly want to save your M.

By leaving that door just a tiny bit ajar, you are hoping that you AP will contact you again, and then you will resume your betrayal of your BH.

I read a quote by Johnny Depp.

"If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really loved the first you wouldn't have fallen for the second."

As for you husband's present actions of forgiveness and not expressing his feelings, believe me, if he is like most quite men, this is eating him alive inside. He may not be saying it but it is silently ripping his heart to shreds. It may take a long time but it will eventually chew it's way out. Right now is your only chance of trying to heal the hurt he is so effectively hiding. I was always told to be very cautious of a quite man because you can never tell what he is really thinking. I do wish you well.

[This message edited by anoldlion at 3:00 AM, August 29th (Thursday)]

BS here. Your problem right now is that you keep thinking about how things affect YOU. You are also detached from your BH and have demonized him to some extent, so you have little to no empathy towards him. A lot of waywards are like that and my WH was no exception. It makes sense, you were selfish and unempathetic for at least the length of the affair, probably for a while before, and it's not easy to just all of a sudden stop doing what you want and accept the consequences for your poor choices. Idk if you've always been this way, if that is the case then it'll be even more challenging to change to caring and empathetic, and you likely won't get there without quite a bit of IC IMO.

People are telling you some pretty basic requirements for R and you are calling them blackmail, vindictiveness, unprofessionalism, humiliation, etc. You have a high opinion of your BH huh? I'll concede that BS's are people too, and some are more vindictive and selfish than others, but I can guarantee you that the reason new BS's are advised to demand NC, demand the WS quits the job (in case of coworker OP's), expose the affair, do the 180, etc has absolutely NOTHING to do with revenge. As a BS, I can tell you with complete honesty that I have zero wish for revenge or punishment of my husband. I don't have the energy and I don't want my life to be about that, plus I have no reason to be with my WH other than wanting him, I don't feel trapped and see no point in dragging him down with me. Truthfully, I feel sorry for WH because he messed his life up so bad and has to deal with everlasting consequences when he and I could just be enjoying life. He had everything he ever wanted and more, the future looked promising, and he almost lost everything he ever cared about due to issues within himself. This is a long-winded way for me to say that there was no vindictiveness in my demand for NC, quitting job, telling my family, telling HR, going to IC. It was simply a matter of feeling a tiny bit safe when I knew I could no longer trust; it was about him showing me that he wanted me, not her; that he was taking active steps to get over OW and reconnect with me; that he cared about my deep pain, my physical and mental health to not put me through that anymore. It wasn't about HIM, it was about ME; he had been extremely selfish and disrespectful during the affair, if he wanted to stay married he had to be selfless and respect me and help me heal from his actions.

Put yourself in your BS's shoes please. And I'm going to tell you what I told my WH: REALLY try to walk in HIS shoes, not the shoes you think you'd be wearing if you were in him, e.g.: just because you think you'd rugsweep the hell out of it if your BS had cheated, doesn't mean that that's what your BS should do; just because you think that YOU would be acting from a place of vindictiveness by demanding that he disclose to people at his job, doesn't mean your BS is. Stop projecting. Find your empathy.

I'm sorry but you can't really avoid consequences. One way or the other, your A is going to affect you deeply. You have some choice in what those consequences will look like: could be divorce, could be an unsatisfactory marriage where your husband detaches from you, could be you own up to everything and do the work and R (or not)... Stop running and choose.

"If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really loved the first you wouldn't have fallen for the second."

I have seen this quote and I profusely disagree with it in terms of what happens with affairs.

I think that when you have an affair you don't really love either person. You are looking for someone to provide value to you that you don't provide for yourself.

So, in terms of my own affair - it was limerant, I thought I loved the AP. I also thought I loved my husband. The truth is I was in a state where I was not actively loving anyone. And by picking the "second" one in that scenario it would have been the most devastatingly worst decision of my life.

What I think Violet really must do is evaluate what love really is. Make a commitment to a decision - be alone, be with husband, divorce husband and chase down this fantasy with AP. Even if I don't agree with the third one as a good long term solution, it's still a decision and no more fence sitting. But, until she learns to love herself and respect herself to uphold an integrity that is screaming for her to uphold, she can't possibly love either of these two men as it stands.

Hiking Out

It would seem that you have the only BS ever that isn't really bothered by your affair in any real way that I can see listed in your posts.

We did have another couple here 2-3 years ago. The wife was just like her. Her husband niced her out and defended her. She posted and inflammatory post about how mean BS were and that they should all nice out there WS and that was the only way it worked to move forward in wayward. A few months later he returned stating we were all right and she was still the same person and last I knew on their way to divorce due to false R due to her sliding down the slippery slope of flirting or something like that. I just can't remember the couples names. It is the only one I remember since coming here. She allowed the BH to take all the blame and narrated R.

That doesn't mean I don't value the marriage,

Bingo. Value. Not love or respect. Just value the marriage for now. You really don't want to be the bad guy here.

Disrepecting him is the worst thing I've ever done and I get how bad it was.

Not as bad as losing your reputation. Your reputation and respect from others is more important than respecting him even when in the wrong.

There is just no sense in dragging personal issues into a professional environment.

You already did that by having an affair with a work colleague. There is a sense. It stops him from contacting you. You don't want that because it would embarrass you and you will not have that.

There would be nothing left to talk about after that.

Yeah there would be plenty to talk about. Just nothing left to talk about to you because you would again threaten divorce if you were humiliated with consequences. Which you would never do because you know how dependent your husband is and enjoy it, you value what you can get out of the marriage.

Using them as leverage to make me do what you want?

You are right about that. It wouldn't work. You would just get resentful because you really don't care or see it any other way. Like BS that have RA. If the WS doesn't love you, they aren't going to feel jealous or hurt. They will just see it as being vindictive. To you everything is vindictive because you don't care and you are way too selfish to even bother understanding what the real message is.

It is a threat using information to control someone.

Not to control. To make a decision. Though telling the children should hopefully be a mutual decision to do so or not. We told our children. It was used as a learning and coping tool. I didn't want them to blame any of my wifes depression after or her crying on her. We kept it simple Daddy made a bad choice to hurt mom by doing things no one should do in a marriage and I was going to fix it. She had a right to be hurt and angry.

Wrong, sure, I mean obviously. But how is it vindictive? I have nothing I'm looking for revenge for or hoping to feel some sort of satisfsction for inflicting suffering. That is nonsense. Vindictive behaviour is about spiteful actions to get back at someone, not simply poor conduct.

How is it controling? I said many times that I would listen to what he says and respect his wishes. Right now, he says he loves me and wants to be married to me. I haven't used any sort of tactic to make him say this. How is that controling? They were not done as an act of revenge or in the interets of controling anyone.

Your hierarchy of moral and ethical values is so warped no wonder you are stuck. Really? You do all those things in a passive aggressive way with a twist of cruelty. You control because you know he is codependent. You are vindictive because you are resentful and still choose to hurt him. What makes the difference is his is out of pain. Yours is out of selfishness and entitlement. You are more controlling than him and you know it. You bank on his condependency and love. He cares and you simply do not.

Everyone would just see him as vindictive, controling and wrong.

You come across as wanting that over his head. You want him to be the bad guy here. Not you. You have spun a nice fairy tale of where most of the blame goes. On his reactions and on who he was before you cheated.

You remind me so much of my mother. I can tell you I resent my mother very much for how she treated my father. I feel nothing but sorrow for him and what she put him through with her entitlement. You should really reflect what you children will feel about you as they get older and out from under your house. My sister hasn't spoken to my mother for years because my mother is not humble. I rarely see her myself. She has never caste away her entitlement and she has zero humility. She is a very lonely woman, but hey, she has her pride.

[This message edited by Zugzwang at 8:39 AM, August 29th (Thursday)]

"If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one, because if you really loved the first you wouldn't have fallen for the second."

I concur. It isn't about love. It is about value. Most pick the first because they did really love that person at one time and they do value them the most or they would have just divorced. Though in some instances the second should be chosen because the first one deserves someone better are so much better than the cheater and the second one.

I call bullshit on it all. Your words are idle threats. If you didn't value your marriage that much you would have divorced. Your husband will stop nicing you out and you will be scrambling here in several months for advice to prove to him how much you love him and you don't want him to leave when he begins to show a backbone because then and only then will you show or have respect for him. Which is just cruel that he has to do that to get you to treat him kindly, compassionately, and respectfully. Yeah, that is vindictive in a very controlling way of you.

[This message edited by Vomitousmass at 10:38 PM, December 10th (Thursday)]

I’m afraid that until my WH didn’t stop perceiving my needs as punishments/revenge and see them as key to recover from his A there was no marriage to save. Were we living in the same house? Sure. Was there a marriage to save? In reality, although he thought so, I was working on my recovery from the shock of it all before calling it quits.

When did he start perceiving my needs as vital for the recovery and REALLY started to do anything to support my healing with the hope of building a new marriage? When he truly owned up to still being in contact with his AP (he was very proud, just like you, that the sex stopped) and owned up to his fuck up.

He knew at that point he lost me. Suddenly he realised I’m not a doormat and I’m not staying no matter what. It’s been 19 months since dday 2. I told my WH if he wants to have a relationship with me I need to feel safe (that’s what months of gaslighting do to you, you become “paranoid”). In this time: he went to the police and filed a complaint against the AP who turned bunny boiler and wouldn’t stop harassing. Told his manager and HR partner who the AP was and what’s going on. Filed an official HR complaint.

Besides all these actions his entire family knows. Partly because of me (on dday I didn’t know how to react and I called his mum sobbing as I am close to her) partly because of him owning up to it.

He says he doesn’t care what other people think. He spent his entire life pleasing others and being concerned what they thought and then he showed he doesn’t care what opinion the only people in his life that matter have about him, me and our kids.

You know, reading your thread has two effects on me, one is feeling sorry for your BH, my heart breaks for him because he’s suffering in silence while you’re here pretending to know what he needs and what he feels, and two... it makes me realise that maybe, just maybe, my WH is genuine when he tells me he loves me, I’m everything to him and he’s a changed man.

Oh and on top of that: my WH never thought I told his mum out of revenge. He knows me so much better than that. He also used to send me pictures from meetings and FaceTime me in the first few months, that’s how traumatised I was.

At one point someone saw him taking a picture and messaging it to me. They complained to HR (security breach). I got stressed. He explained why (they already knew) and nothing happened. I expected him to stop after that as it would have frankly embarrassed me if I was in his shoes. He didn’t. Again, he told me he doesn’t care one inch about what people think. He’s doing his profession to the best of his ability and he’s appreciated (he even got a promotion in the last year). What people think of him as a person does not interest him at all. What matters is redeeming himself to me, the person who’s opinion of him he altered so badly it pains him. He also tells me he never wants to see that disappointment in my eyes ever again.

Can you say your husband matters that way?

VioletElle - I don't know what else to say to you that will matter. We have all tried. WS and BS alike. We are all saying the same thing. The only one who is saying anything different is you. Please - ask yourself why that is.

I come here because I am hopeful [hopium as it turns out] that you will have some glimmer of getting it. But all I've seen is you in damage control mode and self preservation mode. Not seeming to care who is collateral damage.

And if you won't help yourself - perhaps send your BH here to get the healing he needs. I feel sorry for him. Because with each of your defensive posts [and that is the lowest common denominator - defensiveness] you are hurting your BH and your "attempt" at Reconciliation (I spelled Reconciliation out because Rugsweeping also starts with a R) Or are you afraid of the outcome for you if/when he does?

Avoiding Relapse? There isn't relapse if there was never an end to the affair.

As a BS with a pretty remorseful WW (at least compared to VE), I find this thread incredibly frustrating and heartbreaking.

VE-I am so sorry you keep putting yourself above your BH's needs. You are both very broken people due to your actions. This will all come crashing down one day, once your BH wiggles out of his self protection mode (and one day he will). You can either face it head on right now or it will come out when you are not expecting it. Unfortunately, in order to face this now, it seems like you are going to have to drag your horribly abused husband with you.

I have not seen the term “nicing out” before. I think I know what it means based on comments here but can someone explain it more. Sounds like the SI version of white knighting or Mr. Nice Guy syndrome. I wonder if I am doing it with my wife. If the BH is doing that with the OP then no wonder she’s still breaking boundaries and walking around with a bad case of narcissistic intrarectalcranialitis.

“Nicing out” sounds like rug sweeping to me. I remember during my WWs A telling her my love was unconditional. I knew she was in an A at the time (she didn’t know I was aware) and I thought if I conveyed to her that I would accept her back she would come to her senses and end it. I was swallowing my pride and it was pathetic.

It didn’t work.

I can identify with the infatuation issue so will respond to that. ETA -on the exposure issue raised by others, I also agree that you should re-examine your statement that you would see that as a trigger for you to file for divorce. That is highly problematic, and misses the point of such an action - moving forward in transparency and honesty, weakening the affair bond.

Now, back to the infatuation - I can share what I have done and maybe some will resonate and help. For me I think the infatuation is gone but some limerence remains, it is not an easy on/off switch I agree. But that is because of the faulty wiring within our brains. We can turn it off by reworking that mental system. Contact fuels the A, fuels the mental pathways you used for the fantasy, and all the related feelings, it keeps it alive. It has to stop. It is so much better for me now that I have gone limited contact, no contact when I can (EA, we work in same company, not much together). Please stop responding when he writes to you at work. There was a period where I felt like I had it all figured out and was distanced enough, but when I had to interact with him on a rare, brief project, I was surprised to see my feelings surge again. Contact with OM is a huge barrier to healing and losing the grip of infatuation and limerence.

However, I was able to push feelings back into their place focusing on what I do not need in the OM, what I do not like about him, what I love about my husband. It also helps to examine the dark side of my attraction to the OM aside from the obvious. I think we women can be conditioned to be attracted to a sort of dominant energy that is actually not always healthy....I can’t express it well - not saying all of that energy is bad, but our culture has some messed up ideas is all I can say, and I have absorbed some of it and do not like that- hope I make sense. I recognize there is some weird stuff being triggered when I feel flutters for the OM. Flutters are a lie. The feelings aren’t based on reality, just pure messed up fantasy. I remind myself of the problems evident in OM, the amazing qualities in my husband, and what qualities I am lacking and looking to fill through escapism and fantasy.

Also helps that I told two of my friends and my mom, brother, and they are all “friends of the marriage.” They help me keep my perspective. It also helped to not have OM be a dirty little secret. I keep my husband appraised of my feelings, fluctuations, and i take care of him too. Loving him well helps me detach and focus on what is important to me in my heart of hearts, and to live my values.

I read “not just friends” by Shirley glass and it was great and helped me better understand true boundaries. A commenter here on SI told me about the concepts of windows and walls she describes, maybe read or revisit that.

The infatuation is tough. But I think like an illness or fever it has just got to run it’s course. Mine has lost its hold but some lingers on, we have to help that along by not making contact with the OM. It is way better now for me but I still have some butterflies when I see mine in passing, i am working through my limerence in therapy and I read a lot at the blog Living with Limerence, which you may want to check out.

I hope you and your husband can continue to work through things in MC, but recommend IC for you as well if you haven’t already done so. Yoga and meditation too!

[This message edited by Justsomelady at 8:43 AM, September 6th (Friday)]

I haven't read this entire thread. My dday was a little over a month ago, so I probably don't have much ground to stand on, but HOW and WHY???? You say you haven't blocked/changed numbers and social media. You can absolutely block his number. I did that right away. You can't close your social media accounts, ok but you can lock them down so damn tight that no one can find you. Have you done that? Have you blocked his email? If not, then again WHY not?

You also said something about not being able to flip the switch on your infatuation with the AP. Uh yes you can if you truly want to be with your husband. You flip that switch down, duct tape it, unscrew the face plate, cut the wires, and nail a piece of wood over that hole so new switch can be installed. Flip the damn switch!

Then this had me to

By all means, if he chooses to go on some sort of disclosure rampage he can go ahead and do so. I have not told him that if he does that he can expect divorce papers. I mean that's what would happen but not because he defied me, but because he chose an action of his own free will.

We chose to have an affair of our own free will, and here we are begging our husbands to give another chance. An affair, something that completely destroyed our husband's life and world, something that has changed that man for the rest of his life, something that we will both live with for the rest of our life. Yet, if yours outs you, then you will divorce him? Color me confused, but what the actual fuck??

[This message edited by LifeDestroyer at 6:58 AM, September 6th (Friday)]