SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Dan90254, you haven't stated what you intend to do. Are you still considering things? What are you doing to help/protect yourself?

Dan,

The guy is a psychiatrist

Not a very good one for sure.

Any professional psychiatrist would recommend to any of their patients not to get involved with a married person or someone in another romantic relationship.

Is he still practicing?

Do they have a board of ethics in France that monitors and license these people?

Dan my brother

She is gone. She can move out now. Get tested for STDs as her AP could be Also banging his patients. Seek legal advice for your location. Expose her ways to all that she is willing to travel to help her ailing mother and re establish a long term relationship with her AP. You don’t need her permission for this

Cancel all shared accounts and check your financials as you shouldn’t be finding her extra activities. All joint accounts need to be checked.

You love her but this isn’t a two way street here.

Listen to the well learned folks here take what you need but listen to all. You have to respect yourself, can you or do you think it would be good to watch her go on her dates ?

One day at a time.

[This message edited by Buffer at 6:54 PM, December 3rd (Thursday)]

Yes he is a psychiatrist and still practises in a hispital in Cannes. He also has a private practise in Vence. He is 69-70 and divorced from his wife a few ago after....guess what...being caught in an another affair. She threw him out.

Dan – what do you plan on doing?

Dan, I would explore making a complaint to his professional association. It might not matter if your WW wasn't a patient of his but it might. It might be a morality/integrity issue. He may have had other complaints filed and this would be the straw.

I was the President of my professional association. Professional associations here have disciplinary committees. I'm unaware of any action coming before ours involving a complaint of adultery. However, the complaints are kept confidential to protect the innocent. We've applied various levels of discipline including expulsion.

I know a lawyer who had his professional designation pulled for three months. Since it is a right to practice profession he couldn't work for those months. Some lawyers have been disbarred. I know a professional accountant who lost his professional designation.

Disciplinary action is a real threat in the professions. It is for a reason and there to protect the public. The discipline is not advertised but is communicated to the complainant.

Make sure the kids know what she has done.

Don’t let her rewrite history and make you the bad guy.

Finally, with telling her beforehand,

Go see a lawyer and have her served.

And just remember, as we get older, the ratio of available females to males gets MUCH better!!!

Don’t let fear hold you back

NEVER allow yourself to be disrespected like this!!!

Dan

IMHO your next steps should be controlled by what you want them to be.

What you want should be controlled by what you can get and/or what you are offered.

I’m assuming that an ongoing affair is a dealbreaker for you.

I’m also assuming you are in the US and your wife was visiting France. The advice might differ if you are all three in France and reside there.

What if your wife ends the affair and wants to reconcile? Open for that?

If she’s actively in her affair and won’t end it AND if that is (hopefully) a deal-breaker for you then your focus should be on getting the quickest and best divorce settlement possible. Based on a 43 year marriage and the age of OM I’m guessing you two are close to retirement or retired so the focus should be on keeping as much of your 401 or pension or savings as possible.

IMHO focusing on the OM and shaming him is not likely to get any result. France? The country where former president Mitterand’s mistress and his son with her walked a few paces behind his widow and their children at the official state funeral? Think they will be bothered about an aging psychiatrist and his dating-life? Doubt it. All that would do is create and cement a common enemy for your wife and OM to unite against. Namely you.

I have an appointment later today with an attorney. She had a business and was doing very well before Covid. We are going to split every thing in the middle which I think is fair. Our son is 39 and on his own.

She said that she wants to 1-take care of her 89 year old mother and 2-live in France away from the life she was living here...meaning me. She came with her family in 1963. I was the summer boyfriend . We got married in 1977 and moved to LA area in 1980. She had not seen that guy for 48 years when they re connected. She mentioned him maybe once during all the years we shared.

Their affair probably started in March 2019. Innocently at first but became hot in Sept 19.

DDay was election day, 11/03. She came back on the 24 th and I knew right away that I was a thing of the past. I had hoped to win her back.

I am 66 and retired. She is 67 and attempting to salvage her business which was decimated .

Mitterand had a daughter, Mazarine, not a son. But i got your point . The french people I talked don’t see anything unethical about his behavior. The Americans do.

While we all do it, try hard not to do the “pick me” dance.

Show her what a true man does.... be decisive!!!

File and have her served ASAP!!!

Let her run off to LaLaLand, France and enjoy her fantasy world of rainbows and unicorns until it comes crashing down around her. And it will.

Good luck and stay strong!

I’m all for fair.

Divorce is a mathematical enigma where somehow having 50 to yourself seems less than owning half of 100.

Just make sure fair IS fair. I strongly advice against doing this yourself using some online self-help guide or what you presume is fair. This can give you leeway in getting a fair settlement that can still lean in your favor.

Does she know you are heading toward divorce?

When she came she said she didnt want to make rash decisions but at the same time she made it clear that she was going back and didnt want to stay with me. I told her divorce was then inevitable. She seemed surprised and shocked when I threw all her stuff out of the balcony. She knew then that I was serious about divorcing.

Dan90254,

Wow,do we have similar stories! I found out in March of 2019, after 40 years of marriage, that my husband was having an affair with a woman he met on Facebook. She is a practicing psychologist and also does couples counseling. Many people suggested that I report her professionally but since he was not her client, I don't believe there would be any repercussions. This was a long distance affair also. Not different countries, but very far apart in the U.S.

I was completely blindsided and devastated when I found out. I couldn't eat or sleep and yes, I really didn't feel like living anymore. I think a lot of people feel that way after Dday.

My husband was planning to leave me after four decades of marriage. Most of their involvement consisted of texts and phone calls but there were also a few trips to the east coast to be with her physically. When I discovered the affair and things became more real, he was torn between the two of us. I hated the thought of losing him but I hated more, being part of a love triangle. I pushed him away and I filed for divorce. He moved all of his stuff into her house when I filed, but that arrangement lasted exactly one week! She apparently forgot to mention that she was OCD.

We have been in R for about a year now but I don't know what the future holds. I do believe the affair is over but I don't feel the same about my husband now.

I do believe that the AP spotted my husband's vulnerabilities and exploited them. She exploited my faults and the holes in our relationship. She was an expert at manipulation. I would guess that all affair partners do those things but as a psychologist, she may have been more adept.

Yes our stories are freakinly similar.

I thought about reporting that guy to the “Conseil de l’ordre des medecins”. In my view and I could be wrong a psychiatrist has a moral responsibility towards all humans, patients or not. He knew that by having an affair with a married woman he was going to cause pain and suffering to a husband. He does not remember me but we met some 50 years ago. He willingly and knowingly engage in activities nefarious to a human being. As a psychiatrist he was trained to use his talents to seduce and manipulate. After all thats what he does for a living. Talk people into doing ir stop doing something.

I believe thats highly unethical .

Our stories are similar but my wife does not want to end her affair. She keeps saying that she does not want to come back to the life we had ( her words) which I understand as....she doesnt want to come back to live with me.

Hello Dan90254,

I'm so sorry you are here. A 43 year relationship thrown on the rocks for an affair. Incredible. My advice is to focus on you. A high-value man, even one his age, is probably not going to want to commit to a woman of her age. She may be very attractive for her age. Many women are, but if he's a psychiatrist and probably makes a lot of money, why not be with a woman who is in her 40's or even younger?

He could have been pining for her all these years, but most likely they connected on social media and your wife made herself available for the affair without having to bring all the baggage of her life with her. It could all be free and fun. They can both be on their best behavior for the limited time they are together.

The best course of action for you, I feel, is to pull all your support from her. She is doing what we call 'cake eating'. She has him for romance and you for logistics and lifestyle. Withdraw your support and let her see what life would be like without you. I can almost gaurantee OM doesn't want her full time. He'll make that plain as soon as the affair starts costing him anything.

When she sees that she'll probably come back to reconcile. If she does, and you're open to that, DO NOT make it so easy for her to come back. Make her earn her way back. She has to value you and what you offer, and she won't if you allow her to treat your marriage like a revolving door. Good luck.

Dan and NT, if reporting these two stellar examples of their profession to an ethics committee or licensing board really isn’t an option (and you should check to verify whether it is or not) do they practice in a partnership? The partners might not be thrilled.

If nothing else, you might consider some online reviews. That might sound ineffective, but the internet is often the go to when engaging in a new service and for something as involved as therapy people tend to dig down and research a little more carefully than for ex. a plumber.

[This message edited by asc1226 at 11:20 AM, December 3rd (Thursday)]

Dan,

Years from now when she contacts you again...you are a ghost, a memory to her. You have no reason to ever be in her life again.

She is a practicing psychologist and also does couples counseling.

Priceless. Gold. The more I learn about the therapeutic sector in our economy the more skeptical I’ve become.

Recent research suggests talk therapy is barely effective for most problems, and the soft sciences are in the midst of what is being called the “replicability crisis” (they can’t even replicate most studies and find the same results).

Add to this a toxic stew of false equivalencies, an amoral stance on most issues and an increasing bent toward blameshifting and justifying infidelity and you’d be hard pressed to find very many counselors who can cut through the white noise of our infidelity-soaked culture.

Dan, the one type of counselor for you I would recommend is a betrayal trauma specialist. They seem to be the only ones around not interested in bullshitting or sugarcoating infidelity.