SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I keep digging my hole deeper and deeper. I spent the past two months ensuring, promising, repeating, everything, that I would not lie to my wife any more. One of the main points was the OW that works with me (I'm in Illinois, she's in PHX). I was to tell my BS each/every time the OW contacted me. I did, but not nearly as much as I should have. I told my wife that the emails from her were to a group of people, which is partly true. However, there were emails back and forth between us (still business in nature), that I did not fully disclose. That in turn nullifies what I was telling her, completely. I even went so far as to move those emails to the trashcan, which I told my wife i do not do. There was one email in which I fixed a file, but worded the email to the OW as if I did it specifically for her. I would also get response emails from OW saying I was “awesome” or whatnot, based on the work I did. I didn’t respond back to those, but my wife saw them nonetheless. Therefore it looks as if I am maintaining a friendly relationship with the OW, and when I hear that from my wife, I agree with her….it just doesn’t look good. This specific OW is the worst of all of them...the absolute worst. Out of all the incidents, this OW hurts my wife the most.

My wife told me I needed to write a NC email to her, which I did. We went over it together, as I read quite a few examples on here and wanted to make it blunt, short, and to the point. I did write the letter and had my wife read it. Since the only email address I have for the OW is work, and I do NOT want her to have my personal email account, I sent it via work email. My wife and I sat together and saw it get sent to her. I should have initiated that email. I should have done it on my own accord. Since then, there have been 2 emails from OW, and all have been to the group. I did tell my wife about the first one immediately, and I will keep that up.

Now, each day when I get a message from her, regardless if it's to me or to the group, I am going to message my wife immediately. My responses will need to be direct and to the point, with no possible way of any interpretation beyond business. What I did absolutely looks like I am trying to maintain a relationship w/ this woman. It does, and I know that (and knew that), but still did it. I was trying to maintain only a business relationship (OW serves a function in the business process for my customer, and I cannot get around that). Also, when I get home, I’ll be booting up my laptop so she can take a look and see what’s going on as well. I was to do that because I need to have that transparency…now more than ever. Part of the R agreement was looking for a new job, of which I have a VERY good opportunity that could come to fruition next week. If so, there would be zero contact with the OW, absolutely none. However, I will continue to give full access to my wife regarding work contact at the new job.

When all this went down (DDay(s)), we went through and deleted all my email accounts, and my Linkedin. Now, I have only one personal email, and a new Linkedin (one of the OW was on my original Linkedin, and would show up on the “People who viewed this profile also viewed” list, so my wife had a constant reminder). My wife has access to both. It came up that I could easily have another email account. Because I had FireFox and Chrome on my laptop, the reasoning was I could use incognito windows to hide any other email account. We both have iPads and mine stays unlocked; she has access to my phone and phone records, and we share a personal laptop, though I very rarely use it (she uses it predominately for school). I have actively chosen to uninstall both FF and Chrome from my work laptop (we still run Windows XP, and I cannot update IE, and the version I have does not have incognito windows). I am doing this so that option is not there in order to work towards ensuring her that I only have the one account.

Basically, I hear the words and I understand what they mean, and in my heart I need and WANT to make these changes. I am just doing a piss-poor job on the execution. Boundaries are a topic we’ve talked about, and it is a HUGE importance to the R. I understand what they are (regarding work, friends, family outside the marriage etc…). I hear them, I understand them, but I execute worth crap. My question is, how do you set those boundaries, and how do you maintain them? How do you develop those good habits…those habits that help you BS love you again, trust you again? I know how badly the lies hurt my wife….I can see it in her eyes when we’re not even talking ….just how they glaze over and stare into nothing. I have lied for so long (long before I met my wife) to make people feel better about themselves, about a situation, about me. Now, those kinds of lies can hurt more than ANYTHING. How do you make the change cut/dry, flip the switch, turn the corner, change? I know I want to….I can feel it every single day that I don’t want that anymore. Last night, I told my wife that I NEED to stop thinking of myself and truly start thinking about every action/decision/choice I make and think of my wife, my family, and how that choice will affect them. I know that if I make my family happy, I will make myself happy….that is the path I need to take.

All these words mean nothing if I can’t act on them….truly act on them, and that’s the reason for my ask for advice. I’m no longer on thin ice….I’m on a slushie that I’m sinking through, and I need advice. I don’t want to lose my wife, daughters, family. I am filled with regret, but remorse in my actions is what I must do, need to do, want to do. Please, any advice would be helpful, no matter how minuscule it is. I love my family, and when I read the responses she gets on here and other places, it tears me up more and more, cause I know I am the cause of it. The A’s were the biggest mistake I have EVER made in my life. Thank you for any response, good or bad.

My question is, how do you set those boundaries, and how do you maintain them? How do you develop those good habits

What have you done to learn what healthy boundaries are?

Deleting accounts and allowing BS to view accounts is really just compliance.

If you are using Outlook you can set-up auto email rules that will automatically forward any email sent from the OW to your wife's email.

All these words mean nothing if I can’t act on them….truly act on them, and that’s the reason for my ask for advice.

Why not? If you are able to say/know what's right, what do you use for a reason for choosing another course of action? It is a choice after all.

Most of it has been though communication with my wife. One of the big things was me siding with family over situations (not going into details), but we spent time talking about those situations, and how there needs to be a boundary between my family and "my family". In the beginning, I would talk to my parents about what was going on and all it did was make the situation worse. Now, I limit my conversations with them to be more general in nature, and not about what my wife and I are going through. My mom especially is very good at prying for information...constantly. However, since my wife and I had that boundary discussion, I've been able to limit those conversations to what my wife would feel is acceptable.

On the friend side, since I do currently have a friend that isn't a friend of the marriage. My wife and I have discussed and agreed that I need to cease communication with him. At first, I was hesitant, as he was of few friends I had. But as we talked about it, and as I continued to think about it, I realized in the long run, he wasn't that great of a friend, and not worth losing my family over. We are going to communicate that to him, but there is a timing issue (both me and my wife agree on that). We need friends of the marriage, and I do believe that will help in setting healthy boundaries (we have much to work on before that, but it is something we've talked about).

Many of the mistakes I've made were under the influence of alcohol. As such, we've set up a boundary there (no drinking or very limited drinking at family gatherings), and rarely drink outside of that. I have been able to handle that quite easily with perhaps 3-4 beers total since DDay two months ago.

It's sounding more and more like this new job will happen, and prior to starting, I want to ensure that I have strong boundaries there as well. Basically, there are boundaries between the families, friends, and work.

@ReunitePangea

I had actually offered that up, but my wife doesn't want any of her information. SO what I do is when I get the message, I let my wife know who she sent it to, what it was about, and what my response was. I will also be letting her look at my email when I get home.

@5454real

I spent so much of my life lying to people to make them feel better, eevn knowing that the lie was the wrong choice, I'd still do it. That learned habit, I want to break it...kill it. That crap worked in the past....but it cannot be in my future, cause it does absolutely no good.

The boundaries you need to work on are the boundaries with other women.

Putting walls up around our relationship and windows up between you and I. Or you'll just as easily fall into a new affair at a new job.

Set outlook up to forward me the mails.

I don't get the worry about your personal email account.

you can set up a google email for free in about 5 minutes. you send the NC letter through that, then delete the web mail account.

I agree with the poster who said pretty much this is about what you are CHOOSING to do.

You either do it or you don't. your choice.

stop waffling around.

"You either do it or you don't. your choice.

stop waffling around."

Yep

This I find kind of disturbing and maybe insightful:

"On the friend side, since I do currently have a friend that isn't a friend of the marriage. My wife and I have discussed and agreed that I need to cease communication with him. At first, I was hesitant, as he was of few friends I had. But as we talked about it, and as I continued to think about it, I realized in the long run, he wasn't that great of a friend, and not worth losing my family over."

Your decision to break off with this friend wasn't based on your wife's request or on the knowledge that he wasn't a friend of the family.

Your resisted those reasons at first because you put yourself before your wife and your family. You thought about your loss of this friendship and how it would affect YOU and you resisted. Until you realized that for you the impact would not be so bad as he was not really that great of a friend and not worth losing your family over. Because he wasn't that great of a friend. So...your thinking is that if he was that great of a friend he would be worth losing the family over? To me this is all ME FIRST thinking and perhaps that is the issue. Can you not put yourself first in your thinking, your actions, your thought? Can you step outside of YOU and make some decision based on the ones you love even if they aren't great for you? Can you put yourself second, be selfless ever?

And when you say you spent so much of your life lying to people to make them feel better....was that really so that they would like you and you could feel good and not about them?

What have you done to learn what healthy boundaries are?

"And when you say you spent so much of your life lying to people to make them feel better....was that really so that they would like you and you could feel good and not about them?"

He wants everyone to like him, even if it's for the wrong reasons, and he lies to accomplish that.

Hey N3v3r,

I have to say, when I read your post almost everything about it reminds me of my FWH. The way he kept slipping, as well as his confusion at his own behavior seems to resonate here.

If the two of you are indeed as similar as you sound, I can give you some advice on how to proceed.

The A’s were the biggest mistake I have EVER made in my life

Try to rephrase this in your mind. "The A's were the worst CHOICES I have ever made in my life." Part of the trick to having a new outlook is systematically examining and reversing old behaviors. Part of what may have allowed you to cheat in the first place was that you gave yourself micro-absolutions to do little things until they became bigger and bigger and you had to keep re-writing reality to fit your indulgences. This way you could look at is as if you got swept up in something out of your control, which is not true. You always have control. You have control over everything you say and everything you do. You are in control of every email you write, and every subtle nuance therein.

You are making choices every time you communicate with your BW.

This line of thinking was hard for my FWH to adopt at first, not because it was complicated but because of the heavy responsibility of ownership for his actions. Fortunately for both of us he works at it as much as he can, and the results are that he is more accountable, more MATURE than he has ever been in his life.

He still kneejerk-fibs about stupid little things, "Did you break that?" "No!" "I saw you break that" "Well yeah, it FELL out of my hands but I didn't mean to break it...." and that is a big struggle for us today. In his mind those are small things that he doesn't want to "get in trouble" for. Fortunately though, when it comes to things regarding our family or relationship, he has totally programmed himself to take ownership. If there's a slip-up with boundaries at work, he owns it and we talk about it. When it comes to our daughter, he will tell me the truth about something even if he thinks it will upset me. In turn, I try to remain even keel and grateful when he comes to me with distressing news.

That's how it works for us.

Like I told him last night, "I get more nervous about good news from you than bad news. Bad news at least means you're being honest."

Build up that foundation of trust with good choices and complete truths. Everything else will rest comfortably upon that good foundation.

[This message edited by Jrazz at 11:50 AM, June 28th (Friday)]

@Mainly:

Your decision to break off with this friend wasn't based on your wife's request or on the knowledge that he wasn't a friend of the family.Your resisted those reasons at first because you put yourself before your wife and your family. You thought about your loss of this friendship and how it would affect YOU and you resisted. Until you realized that for you the impact would not be so bad as he was not really that great of a friend and not worth losing your family over. Because he wasn't that great of a friend. So...your thinking is that if he was that great of a friend he would be worth losing the family over? To me this is all ME FIRST thinking and perhaps that is the issue. Can you not put yourself first in your thinking, your actions, your thought? Can you step outside of YOU and make some decision based on the ones you love even if they aren't great for you? Can you put yourself second, be selfless ever?

Very helpful words for me to read. Very.

Going to try to respond to everyone here....and also, thank you for the posts.

@Kalliopeia

The NC was already sent, so it's not so mucha concern anymore. Plus, I don't want any other email accounts existing, even for a moment.

@mainlyinpain

The "putting family/wife before me" was something I had posted in my OP. I absolutely should have worded that post you replied to in a way that reenforced the OP. I do absolutely see what you are saying though. For the longest time, he was my best friend as well, so I think that's what made it harder initially.

@hardlessons

Aside from the post I made earlier, not much. That's why I am asking for advice on what other people have done. Some of them seem to be very common sense, but reading what others have done is extremely beneficial. The boundaries w/ other women is a big one, obviously. So, I ask, what have others put into place in regards to that issue (I am sure that is the biggest for all on this board).

@Jrazz

Thank you for the comparison...definitely makes sense, everything you posted. You are right about using the word choice (I haev assumed that decision = choice, but choice does have more of an "ownership" connotation to it). If I could ask, what did your husband do in the way of boundaries? How did you two work together to develop them?

i can't tell whether you are sincere or not because i'm not that sharp. i guess that's why it's better to have WS's advise you.

but maybe i can give you insight about what your wife is thinking.

a problem i have is that i just don't understand the difficulties. i don't understand why you can't stop lying. just stop.

it doesn't compute for me. Your wife may see things this way also. Either you stop lying or you don't.

There is no "try."

Mike7, I ask him the same thing comstantly.

Why would you keep lying to me when you know what's at stake?

Why do you keep hurting me?

He's read my posts on here, and i've posted about this particular OW before. We even talked about her in MC, but he still lied to me about her.

He brings up the other stuff he's done to try to 'fix' things, but i tell him that none of that matters if he can't be honest with me. Not lying anymore is the most important step, and the first step he must take before any of those other things will matter.

He never comes clean of his own volition, either. I found emails in his deleted folder, they were all between him and the OW. It wasn't until i found it that he admitted that he lied, and then he admitted a few other lies as well.

He never comes clean, he just admits to what i find. I hate it,

I don't know how to say this gently.

People generally are able to do what they want to do.

If you can't do it, what is holding you back? How do you feel when you think of informing your BW of the emails? Ashamed? Frightened? Indignant? There must be some feeling associated with it, otherwise your response would be, "ugh. I wish OW wouldn't send emails like this. Better let twodoves know" and then just do it.

He never comes clean, he just admits to what i find. I hate it,

Very very very concerning. This happened to me on December and I wish I would have kicked him out. Good luck.

OP- if you don't change, you will lose your family....

I'm glad you see the problem. I came from a family where that was the norm. The lie was easy, everyone felt better(at least until the problem got so big it could no longer be denied). I fell into that trap also for a while.

In order to break it I had to change my speaking patterns for a while. Never respond instantly. Think about your response first. Even if people wonder why there isn't an instant answer, take the time to give an authentic one.

Trust is hard to build when there are constant lies. Even of omission.