Wife's birthday coming up -- if her ex-affair partner contacts her I am going to lose it

[Anonymous]

Wife and I are fighting back from her infidelity -- DDay was last August. Her birthday is coming up and I am terrified that her AP will reach out to her. Gift at work? Call? Card? I will lose it if he gets in touch with her.

[Anonymous]

First of all, you can't control other people. Second of all, ask yourself why you are so anxious about this.

[Anonymous]

Yeah that would piss me off too.

[Anonymous]

Do you trust her to stop it immediately? She is the real problem, not him.

[Anonymous]

You need a plan.

My H had an affair, and we are divorcing, but we are amicable... but with that comes rules. OW is done... no contact.

We have mutual friends and my H had to go to a work event and she could possibly be there. So we had a plan. If she shows up he leaves, no hi, no glance, just leave. When her friends started to show up, he left.

So you can't control him but your W has to tell you and you have to remain calm or she will stop telling you things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a plan.

My H had an affair, and we are divorcing, but we are amicable... but with that comes rules. OW is done... no contact.

We have mutual friends and my H had to go to a work event and she could possibly be there. So we had a plan. If she shows up he leaves, no hi, no glance, just leave. When her friends started to show up, he left.

So you can't control him but your W has to tell you and you have to remain calm or she will stop telling you things.

So you're divorcing him, but he's still not allow to talk to her? Was she over the top insane or something?

[Anonymous]

I guess I'm anxious because I haven't fully built back the trust yet. It takes a long time to rebuild that.

On the one hand, I don't even want to mention him. On the other hand, I feel like I should say to her, "If he reaches out to you, I want to know," and then I need to trust that she'll tell me. If he reaches out, she doesn't tell me and I find out, then all our reconciliation efforts are out the window and I have to assume the worst. I was trickle-truthed for months about him and I can't handle much more of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I'm anxious because I haven't fully built back the trust yet. It takes a long time to rebuild that.

On the one hand, I don't even want to mention him. On the other hand, I feel like I should say to her, "If he reaches out to you, I want to know," and then I need to trust that she'll tell me. If he reaches out, she doesn't tell me and I find out, then all our reconciliation efforts are out the window and I have to assume the worst. I was trickle-truthed for months about him and I can't handle much more of it.

Are you in therapy? You should discuss what you typed above in therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a plan.

My H had an affair, and we are divorcing, but we are amicable... but with that comes rules. OW is done... no contact.

We have mutual friends and my H had to go to a work event and she could possibly be there. So we had a plan. If she shows up he leaves, no hi, no glance, just leave. When her friends started to show up, he left.

So you can't control him but your W has to tell you and you have to remain calm or she will stop telling you things.

How do you get to dictate that as a term to a man that you are divorcing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need a plan.

My H had an affair, and we are divorcing, but we are amicable... but with that comes rules. OW is done... no contact.

We have mutual friends and my H had to go to a work event and she could possibly be there. So we had a plan. If she shows up he leaves, no hi, no glance, just leave. When her friends started to show up, he left.

So you can't control him but your W has to tell you and you have to remain calm or she will stop telling you things.

How do you get to dictate that as a term to a man that you are divorcing?

I imagine because her husband wants the split to be amicable.

[Anonymous]

I feel for you. If your wife is trying to work on this marriage, I think she should set things up so it's difficult for him to contact her-- she should change her phone number, for example. I also think you should discuss this in therapy: perhaps you could agree that she will tell you and she agrees not to offer any response and to give away any flowers or throw away any card that arrives.

Meanwhile, plan a special birthday for her to celebrate your love. I know the affair is a lot to work through but she is choosing to be with you-- you won-- and you have to realize that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I'm anxious because I haven't fully built back the trust yet. It takes a long time to rebuild that.

On the one hand, I don't even want to mention him. On the other hand, I feel like I should say to her, "If he reaches out to you, I want to know," and then I need to trust that she'll tell me. If he reaches out, she doesn't tell me and I find out, then all our reconciliation efforts are out the window and I have to assume the worst. I was trickle-truthed for months about him and I can't handle much more of it.

I think this is a reasonable request. Like someone else said, you can't control the ex-AP but she can control how she handles any attempts to contact. It wouldn't be fair to hold it against her if he reaches out to her. But you can hold it against her if she does anything other than ignore it. I say this because I am in a committed relationship of over 2 years, and an ex boyfriend occasionally out of the blue will contact me and send me pictures of his daughter in an attempt to connect again under the guise of "friendship." I completely ignore him. I can't change my number because it would be a huge pain in the butt with work. But my current fiancé understand how my ex is and knows I ignore him and trusts me to do the right thing. Some exes just don't get it. But as long as SHE gets it, that's what matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You need a plan.

My H had an affair, and we are divorcing, but we are amicable... but with that comes rules. OW is done... no contact.

We have mutual friends and my H had to go to a work event and she could possibly be there. So we had a plan. If she shows up he leaves, no hi, no glance, just leave. When her friends started to show up, he left.

So you can't control him but your W has to tell you and you have to remain calm or she will stop telling you things.



How do you get to dictate that as a term to a man that you are divorcing?



I imagine because her husband wants the split to be amicable.

Not PP, but I can imagine several scenarios in which this is possible. For example, my husband had an emotional affair - we are working through it, but if things don't work out, we will divorce. I prefer an amicable divorce, but I do need him to cut off 100% of ties to OW. Since she's his subordinate, all it would take is one phone call from me to have him fired. He's since moved to a different department, but still. He has reasons to comply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need a plan.

My H had an affair, and we are divorcing, but we are amicable... but with that comes rules. OW is done... no contact.

We have mutual friends and my H had to go to a work event and she could possibly be there. So we had a plan. If she shows up he leaves, no hi, no glance, just leave. When her friends started to show up, he left.

So you can't control him but your W has to tell you and you have to remain calm or she will stop telling you things.

I don't know how many couples recover if your DW has an affair. I would say the odds are not in your favor. Regardless, if they want to stay in the marriage they have to go above and beyond to regain trust. You will have accept you can't control the AP. It's a big ask of you to recover from this.

[Anonymous]

Your wife has to be transparent about her affair partner, disclosing every time he may try to make contact with her and a clear explanation of how she handles it. It's a basic part of rebuilding trust and your healing. You have every right to tell her this, and it should be a condition of your remaining with her. If she won't do it, you won't be able to move forward and you're wasting your time.