As I’ve read through more than a hundred stories of confronting the other person, a theme begins to emerge. A high number confront the other person to establish some type of control or power in their situation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes the confrontation is a disaster.
Of course, this follows my theory that affairs are different and it takes different strategies for different types of affairs to insure a successful intervention.
The person below realized that his confrontation involved his need to be “macho.”
But, it had a powerful impact. My guess: she was involved in a “I fell out of love…and just love being in love type of affair. She was playing and got caught.
Side note: the confrontation enables this man to free himself from the infidelity and blame.
One final thought that this confrontation teaches: You must NOT bluff when you walk out.
Interesting story:
1. What was your purpose for confronting the OP and what did you say/do?
Some of it was a macho thing to be honest. Most of it was partial closure for me.
2. What happened? What was the outcome?
I’d gotten to the point where it was decision time for me, and I called him to tell him that he could have her and I wanted nothing more to do with her. I told my wife of the call what I told him. The blood drained from her face when I showed call details showing that I called the guy she’d been seeing. I tossed the phone on the bed and walked to get my suitcase as I’d decided to leave then & there. My wife stayed in the room while I calmly packed and listened to her tell me how much she loved me, how little the OP means to her, and how this was all the worst mistake of her life, etc. he OP ended up hearing things like, “He means nothing to me. Please don’t pack. You can’t leave.” More things about how unimportant he really was to her and so on. A short time later I was in the basement getting other things to take. The house phone rang and it was the OP calling my wife. I was downstairs and didn’t hear the phone. A couple of minutes later my wife came down and told me of the call, and that he’d heard everything we were saying upstairs. He didn’t answer the call and it filled his voice mail with several minutes of her rantings & crying of how little the OP meant to her, etc. The call he made to her on the house phone basically told her to end all contact and things were over. The following day the OP called my cell while I was at work. When I had called him the previous evening, I blocked my cell number, and the accidental on was also blocked as it was a re-dial. I asked him how he had my number and he admitted to taking it and many others from my wife’s cell phone months earlier. He then asked if I had intentionally called him & left the line open. When I explained the accident he could see how it happened with flinging the phone. I was able to get quite a bit of information regarding the questions I’d had for some time. I was even able to find out that the OP had been on outings with my wife and she even brought our our eight year old son with them. It turned out that a couple we knew went double-dating with them on more than one occasion. In simple terms there were apparently no limits as far as my wife’s conduct was concerned.
3. If you were to do it again, would you do it differently? What did you learn?
While some of the information stung quite a bit, it was good to know and I realize that I needed it. It cleared up many mysteries surrounding the previous months and allowed me to stop wrestling with my own destructive guilt & shame. I was able properly see that there was no way for me to anticipate or counter what she did. There were no warnings that tipped me off and no horns of alarm. Of course, having gone through this experience, I now see things quite differently. I see that while there were no warnings horns, there were things that I was missed in our relationship. Things that may have had a difference, no matter how small. But the bottom line is that I was able to stop torturing myself for bad decisions that she decided to make regarding her lack of commitment to our children and me.