Confronting the other Man: Seeing the End of the Marriage

December 2, 2008 by Leave a Comment

When confronting the other man, when is enough enough?

1. What was your purpose for confronting the OP and what did you say/do?

My purpose for confronting the other married man my wife was having an affair with was to approach him as a man to man fighting for the marriage. I told him that he was causing our marriage to fall apart and asked that he back off and allow my wife and I the chance to reconcile for the sake of the kids and our families… plus I still loved her as sad as that may sound.

2. What happened? What was the outcome?

At first he threatened me over the phone that if I let anything out about his relationship with my wife to his wife that his family would have ways to deal with me and that I didn’t know what I was messing with. He basically threatened my life. Oh, he also denied that he had done anything wrong by being involved with my wife even thought it was kept a secret from his wife and my wife tried to keep it secret from me and even took extreme measures to hide it i.e. adding him to her mobile to mobile group so she wouldn’t rack up huge cell bills and having the billing address changed to a secret P.O. Box. Anyway, the outcome was that he promised to back out of our lives and would respect my request that we be allowed to try and save our marriage. I in turned agreed not to tell his wife of his secret. (I basically just wanted the bastard to go away) In the end, things continued but even more secret, they tried to be more careful not to leave evidence but I had installed a PC spy program, voice recorder on out home phone etc… I knew the truth even though it was denied over and over again. In the end, my wife divorced me, she now dates this slime and has involved our 2 daughters ages 13 & 15 into the affair, he buys them visa gift cards and takes them out to dinner etc… all still behind his wifes back. I ended up with over $40,000 in attorney fees from allowing it to drag on for over 2 1/2 years trying to reason some sense into my ex-wifes head… it didn’t work unfortunately.

3. If you were to do it again, would you do it differently? What did you learn?

If I were to do it again, I would have filed for divorce immediately, got all the evidence of the affair in order to present to his wife once I had moved out with my children. Instead, I let my emotions rule my better judgment and I allowed myself to be further victimized by the affair.

Coach’s Comments:

A common but difficult question: When does the writing on the wall say… no more. This is and never will work?

In this case study the man in hindsight should have pulled the plug on the relationship earlier, before spending $40,000 and countless sleepless nights.
And yet, if you’ve been there, that is easier said than done, is it not?

How was he to know? What were the markers along the way that said the relationship was beyond repair?

Well, the other man’s threats were red flag number one. Threats are primitive. Threats indicate an unhealthy person with little flexibility, insight and sensitivity to others.

The continued secrets and lies, after the alleged agreement, were another red flag that he was headed for trouble. No honor.

It is also problematic to set up an agreement with a triangle (you the OP and your spouse) with the hope that it will remain intact and honored. After all, isn’t an affair a blatant disregard for marriage vows? How can one expect someone who easily and consistently break those vows to honor other agreements?

A telling statement of this man is his “feelings or emotions ruled.” His time and energy would have been more effectively spent disengaging himself from those feelings (remaining calm in the face of infidelity and the pain, hurt, loss, anger) so that other strategies for different types of affairs could be used to alter his relationship with his wife.

Filed Under: Confronting the Other Person Tagged With: , ,

Coping with Infidelity: Not Alone in Tolerations

November 11, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Not sure whether to stay or go?

Not sure how much you can tolerate, but find yourself putting up with much?

Feel weird, strange, like you are a little crazy for being where you are?

Fear not. You are not alone.

Because of your investment in your family and relationship, you most likely will tolerate more than you thought.

Note this list of what others coping with infidelity tolerate:

1. My husband lies to me constantly about phones calls, money, cell phone messages, his relationships with other women. I can’t trust him anymore. 2. Poor money management, he doesn’t pay his fair share of the financial responsibilities and he makes more money than I do. Is it because he is giving money to the other women>? 3. When I find out about yet another indiscretion, he try make me feel like it is my fault, like I did something wrong. 4. My husband doesn’t any show remorse. 5. He doesn’t recognize how his choices have impacted our life.

1) Text messages and the giggles that follow. 2) coming home late. 3) The voice in the background especially when she is alone in her car. 4) hostility. 5) The fact that she knows that she is taking advantage of me but does not care.

Spouse continuing with the affair. Talking/messaging on cell phone and admitting that he is doing it. Sending presents every month. Anger, when I raise the issue of him moving out. Constant rejection in that fact that he sleeps in the other bedroom.

privately talking on cellphones deleted text message and call history always out everyday sometimes very late no time for home and unaware of it

1. Denying that he is having an affair. 2. Having 2 cellphones. One I know about and the other one I’m not suppose to know about. 3. When I call him on his cell phone, he takes a while to answer. His excuse is his phone was charging. 4. He will not admit that he is cheating. 5. He had a number of blocked numbers on his cell phone bill. I found out the numbers but he never admitted that he was cheating. 5. He uses the pay phone to call hi women.

Filed Under: Infidelity and Tolerations Tagged With: , ,

Coping with Infidelity: When to “Let Go”

October 21, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Should I stay or should I go? And, when will I know when to go? Can this marriage be saved? When will I know it’s salvageable?

These are pressing and legitimately powerful questions when coping with infidelity.

Part of the task is identifying the markers along the way that tell you when the relationship is beyond repair.

Read this case study:

My wifes father died of cancer 30 days following diagnosis. She spent these days renewing a past friendship with her step brother, that eventually turned to a relationship where she came to me 6 months later to acknowledge she loves him. My immediate response was to close the door, that this was not repairable with her family and all. She begged me to hang in there and give her time to sort these feelings out. I decided to do this based on some understanding I had from your book. I did everything I could to “backoff” and give her the space she needed to sort herself out for 8 weeks. Following that I was getting very tired of the roller coaster weeks and knowing that every step forward she would make toward us, she would take two steps backward for him. I’ve felt like I am the only person actually trying to work on this. I made a decision then to allow her some additional time to allow us the opportunity to sort our finances in the even of a divorce and with that we talked allot better. She told me she was planning to fly and see him (he lives 1500 miles away) and I told her this was unacceptable and too painful for me to even comprehend. She went in spite of my feelings and following the weekend, I determined it needed to end. My closure has come from the question I asked her “will you ever be able to end this with him?” – she could not answer this question. I honestly believe I have done everything I could within my will to try and save what I felt was a great marriage with some issues. We are getting ready to meet for a final “get on the same page” meeting, and all I can still think about is ways to save this marriage. I cant help but feel this relationship originated for wrong reasons based on her love for him as a brother, but know now that her decision to fly and see him in spite of my knowing and hurt is bigger than a case of misguided feelings through the course of grieving a father. I know this has little to do with your question, but I felt like telling the story. Thanks for your help.

Filed Under: Infidelity Help Tagged With: , , , ,