Now that is a different story.
If your H is having issues disconnecting with the OW, that is not an easy one to deal with. Believe me, there are scores of us here who totally understand the difficulty in this manner.
Has he explained why he continues calling her?
He needs to read a book...or you should photocopy sections of a book for him...Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass is GREAT.
Let us know what's happening.....
Denise
"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things"
As Dee said, there are lots of us here who have had to deal with this. My H continued to phone and e-mail his OW for three years after he told me about the A and vowed that he wanted to stay with me. I tried sending him letters explaining why it was so hard for me, asked him to choose between us, cried, ranted, abused, begged, explained, sympathised: the whole shebang. And none of it had any impact until HE was ready to give her up.
Can you talk to your H about why he needs to be in contact? For my H it wasn't any great romance, just that he didn't want to be the bad guy in her fairytale. He kept hoping she would see that it was over without him actually pulling the plug. It was all to do with his self-image and his great need (because of issues in his childhood) to be liked by everyone. He wanted her to like her even though he didn't want to be with her.
The problem was, eventually he couldn't avoid meeting up and they had sex, which I found out about and set our whole reconciliation process back years! Now he acknowledges that telling her it was totally over (via the kind of NC letter people posted) would have been far kinder to everyone including her. But for three years he couldn't do it.
So I don't have any real advice for you. I wonder if I had insisted on NC at the beginning whether it would have made any difference, but I don't think so. I really think it was a stage in him, something he had to reach himself. Maybe some form of counselling, or at least having a male mentor with whom he could have discussed the options and consequences, might have accelerated things. Are you and he having some sort of coulselling? Maybe if I had really done the 180 and had more strength and conviction he might have hit rock bottom earlier, but that was a stage I had to reach in my own time.
So as they often say here, it does take time, for both the WS and the BS, to process everything that has happened, come to terms with it and then work out the best way to go on. For some that will involve recognition that the marriage is important and worth working for; for others there is a realisation that the A has damaged things beyond saving. However it works out, it takes time to see the path to the future for the WS as much as the BS.
I am in the process of writing my story and putting it on my profile, I'm hoping to get it there soon.
My story is long and ugly Aileen....there are many of us who's story isn't short - simple - done. Many of us dealt with either several d-days (discovery days), several OW (other women), separations, false reconciliations...so many layers of it.
My first d-day was October 2003...my 5th d-day was February of 2006 - I had over 2-1/2 years of ugliness that still isn't fully gone. I continue to work with my H towards reconciliation.
My H also was one that could not cut the ties with the OW. As Liz said, I begged, cried, wrote letters, showed him books...all of it. It really wasn't until he was ready to end it that he did. It wasn't anything that I did to force it - because believe me, I went and did as much as I could and was willing to do to force the issue.
Liz wrote: So as they often say here, it does take time, for both the WS and the BS, to process everything that has happened, come to terms with it and then work out the best way to go on. For some that will involve recognition that the marriage is important and worth working for; for others there is a realisation that the A has damaged things beyond saving. However it works out, it takes time to see the path to the future for the WS as much as the BS.
I could have written that word for word...actually almost your entire post Liz - beautifully written.
I guess what I and Liz are trying to let you know Aileen, is that you are most certainly not alone in all of this. We've all had our share of ugliness, some are still in ugliness, and for some the ugliness isn't in the forefront - but is remembered.
Read the helpful link section and perhaps read a few books. The first one I read was After the Affair by Janis Abrahms-Spring and in the first few pages she writes, "this may be what you are feeling"...I can remember reading that list of potential emotional feelings, sliding down my wall in my room in tears because someone KNEW what I was feeling....actually KNEW it.
WE KNOW IT Aileen....all of us here do in one way or another.
Hugs to you!
Denise
"Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things"
