This is another case study in my series: “Should I Confront the Other Person”
1. What was your purpose for confronting the OP and what did you say/do?
I was not sure that she knew he was actively married and interacting as a husband and family AND carrying on with her in another town.
2. What happened? What was the outcome?
I made copies of our recent family photos/activities and mailed them along with copies of her love letters stating “he was her other half “and she loved him “without consequences” and wrote on the pictures…”the other half and the consequences.” I also mailed to her family members who were probably unaware of his family situation. I searched her for phone number and address and then researched her billing of phone and po box to get other family members addresses- sent complete copies of love letters to all recipients.
3. If you were to do it again, would you do it differently? What did you learn?
No- i would have done it sooner- it blew up the romance- she was livid and humiliated- her family got a reality check and as you describe the secrecy was ruined so the thrill was gone.
Coach’s Comments:
The thrill was gone probably means that this was an “I Fell Out of Love…and just love being in love” affair.
Most of these affairs, from my experience, tend to be a remake of adolescence. In other words, the typical falling in and out of “love” a number of times during adolescence did not take place.
And, so a person may develop an affair of being “in love” to redo what was missed.
This “offended’ spouse above got out the big hammer and.. wham! It was over.
The question remains, did the OP and the spouse learn from this experience. Were they able to move beyond their adolescent perspective to more mature and deeper form of love? (I wonder what was left after everything went splat?)
I wish I had her resources. I have always wanted to contact her family. Just in terms of balance.
I have always felt that my family shouldn’t be the only ones dealing with the fallout from the affair.
Wow!! You go, girl!! I think it is brilliant that you sent it all to her family!! Even if nothing comes of it you at least had revenge when YOU humiliated HER!! It is a year since my discovery of husband’s affair and I still yearn for revenge – to humiliate her to the greatest extent. I do not have love letters but I do have video footage of them spending a weekend in our home (I went to my daughter’s graduation in another city). I think I must hunt down her adult children who also live in another town and send them a ‘lucky-packet’…
I have been dreaming of somehow letting the O/P friends know what type of person she really is..and yes..revenge..I’m still dealing with the after affects of the affair, and she just gets to walk away, no one in her immediate family (daughter) or friends know..I do have an joke email that she sent my husband that has her co-workers and possible friends email addresses on it..hummm.. you have given me some ideas..You have brought a smile to my face.
I did a bit of what the wife in this situation did. I let her late husband’s family know what is going on and the proof that I have. I was so supportive of her and her children after the death of her husband and she payed me back by trying to take my husband and home from me. Well, it was part revenge…but the biggest thing was that I wanted these people to know what kind of woman she truly is! Come to find out, her marriage to her husband was full of problems and suspicions of other affairs. I guess it is truly the desire to be validated…I wanted her family to know that I am not the one causing the problems in my marriage and I am NOT CRAZY!!!