Talking to the dreaded OW?

[brainchange]

Hi - to cut a long story mercifully short, it has been a few months since I discovered my 'd'H had an affair at work. She's since moved on to another location and they are certainly not in contact. I kicked him out then let him back once he'd sorted out that he really did want to make a go of it (there's no way I would have wanted him back if his heart wasn't in it).

We have sorted out the basics of what happened and why it did (midlife crisis, addiction to texts and emails, yadah yadah, he read the usual manual - there was nothing wrong with us but it felt like exciting first love again and he didn't know what came over him... and soon was ignoring the signs she was a bit weird and needy because he got caught up in hormone madness and was telling her he'd never loved me etc etc, now doesn't know what came over him... God it's so boring, don't we all read this all the time here?!)

Anyway, I have a very hard job trusting people - he was the only person I've ever really trusted because of my family background. So now, in order to check out his story and know he's been honest I have a burning urge to contact the OW. It's something I never did at the time because I knew it was him I had to be angry with as he not she was the one who'd let me down...

I really need to know if he only came back because she said she wouldn't leave her husband, and I also need to know what happened when they met up - he has told me a bit of an outline but some of the timing doesn't make sense and he has changed his story, hence the fact I find it hard to trust him.

I just really need to make sense of it all and he won't talk anymore - to be honest we both find it upsetting so I'm not surprised and don't want to talk to him again about it either, we just need to draw a line and move on - if I need to know more I can do it myself. I know he'll have downplayed things and I just want to get her POV about it all... Am I a nutter in wanting to do this - I have met her once and she is a bit wet so it would probably go 'well' as in she would talk and not yell like a fishwife / start spouting lies to deliberately stir things up? I don't care what the verdict is, be harsh and say what you want, I just need to know! Thanks.

By speaking to her -what could you gain? she may tell you the honest truth she may tell you a bag of lies if her story and your dhs dont add up entirely you will be consumed with yet more questions- in asking her you re giving her power over you - eclaim your power draw a line under it and move on - left to fester it will slowly eat away at your relationship.

I don't think you are a nutter at all. Ask her.

Don't do it unless you want to stir things up again. It's bound to be painful and if their (OW and DH's) stories aren't exactly the same, who are you going to believe?

You need to start again if you're giving it another go. Perhaps go to couples counselling (Relate?) instead?

I don't see the point

She will either say whatever she thinks is best to protect him or she will lie to hurt him, depending on their current feelings for each other

If she has a different story to your dh, then who would you believe?

Personally I wouldn't (and I am in your situation). If I didn't believe my h then I certainly wouldn't believe a word the ow said.

You more than likely will not get the answers you want - if she tells you the truth and it does not match your dp - then what? go back and confront him (and he will say she is lying). Or she tells you a load of lies knowing it will upset you as you have only asked as you dont trust your dp and so he will say she is lying.

Trust is a very fagile thing and there are many levels of trust. I know everyone says it is important to trust but i am not so sure.

I can trust my h to look after the dc totally. I trust that he will work hard to provide for us.
But i cant trust him to stick to a shopping list or put on a load of washing.
It may seem trivial but we have worked out where our levels of trust are.

You do not trust him with your heart - and he should not expect that either. You will over time learn to trust yourself.

Why will he not talk about it? My h was like that a lot at first - but when he knew it was consuming me and i would not be able to move on without more of the details he was willing to go for more counselling for us to be able to talk about it and how it still bothered me. Also hearing him talk to other people about his 'madness' makes me feel he is for real.

You you still not believe that he came back for the 'right' reasons? Think about what it would take for you to believe him a bit more. Maybe you need more time alone, or for him to be more romantic.

I know you want him to tell you his heart but forcing him to say things that he probably cant explain to himself may not be the right way.

Please dont ask the ow as it will not solve anything, find the answers you need between you and you will be stronger for it.

There's no guarantee that she will feel obligedto tell you the truth. If your husband ditched her, she could have an axe to grind and want to sauce up the whole story. Try to find other ways to move on.

Im in the middle of all this still now. When I first found out I didnt talk to her as H told me there was no point. We was 'trying' to make a go of things and then I found out he was still seeing her.

This time I rang her straight away to get her side of the story and find out what had been going on-before speaking to my H. I have confronted him with what she told me and he hasnt denied it. She even forwarded texts that he had sent her (yes very painful to read but at least I know what was being said). I spoke to her over a few days at great length. Ive learned a lot that had been going on. None of it great to hear let me tell you. My h has had somewhat of a panic over us talking and it has come out that he has lied to us both, being with me and telling her he at work and vice versa.

If we was working through it I wouldnt seek her out to contact her at all. As other posters have said you have already both decided to save your marriage do you really want to hear things that will probally only cause you more hurt? They will be painful to hear. I would really try to move on from it now and take your husbands word, by going to her for her side at this point will not help.

For the record though I do fully understand the reason you feel the need to 'check' his story with hers. I would feel the same, but it just wont help to act on it at this stage in my opinion.

If you are certain they no longer see each other then no good can come of speaking to her.

Your DH will almost certainly have downplayed the details of the affair to you, and you will almost certainly be confronted with a whole new can of worms upon hearing her version of the truth.

I can't think of anything she might have to say that could help you to move on. You can only do that yourself and with DH.

I see your points. I think what I really want him to do is face the truth himself about what he did, as he is keen to put it behind him and move on. I even think he believes his version of events as he hasn't even spoken about details to his best mate.

He didn't want me to tell anyone about it when it happened but I told my four closest friends (some of whom went to college with him and introduced him to me) so word is around to a few people we know and I am glad as he can't push the whole thing under the rug, therefore - he has to explain it to other people, too. That's not about punishing him, just about making him think again about what he did... That's why I want the unsanitised version - nothing can hurt me more than what has already gone on. I just want it all out in one go so there are no more surprises. Thanks all...

I can understand where you're coming from brainchange. I'm the kind of person who needs to know everything - warts and all. Only then can I draw a line under it. I rang the OW the day after I made the gruesome discovery - to check out his story. In fact, in that call to her she lied and said they hadn't slept together in ages (not that sleeping is the right word )when in fact after the phone call dh had a sudden conscience (albeit rather late) and told me the truth - that it was the previous week Still, it is hard if you don't trust your h to tell you the truth. I can't advise as I don't know the ow but I just wanted to say I understand where you're at.

Oh and I told some of our friends for the exact reason you told yours.

I think the person who you need to hear the truth from is your Husband.

He should be prepared to tell you anything you need to know if he wants to save his marriage. But the time for ultimatums like that seems to have passed.

Have you told him that you are going to call her. Even if you decide not to, maybe telling him that you are going to will give you the answers you seek?

I understand where you are coming from completely too. I in fact said the same as you to my h about wanting to know everything so there are no surprises. Hopefully your h has learned his lesson that the truth always outs and is being nothing but truthful with you.

Im sure the only reason my speaking to the ow has hurt so much is that im seeing what he said in his own words. In the form of the texts he sent her which she has sent onto me. That has been very painful.

At the end of the day its your call and what I have said is based solely on my experience. Would you tell your h that you was planning on speaking to her and would you then tell him what she said?

I wouldn't tell him I was speaking to her - he thinks it should all be left well alone now. However, I'm the sort of suspicious person who thinks 'he never wanted me to speak with her because he doesn't want me to know things', even if he is being very good to me now. He always asks if I am okay (though if I say 'no' and try and say what's on my mind he gets agitated.. hmm, not so good at dealing with the consequences of what he did, is he?).

If anything really outlandish came out then I might bring it up with him - I have friends in the area she now lives in and it's not unimaginable that one day I might run into her (hence the need to get any surprises out of the way rather than have it all opened up later again if we did run into each other. I'm not convinced I'd be able to resist talking to her face to face). So I'd just invent an excuse to go over there then say I bumped into her... He says he doesn't want to hear from her again and when we thought she had a while ago his mate said he was really angry about it - though it turned out to be her husband 'testing' him. God, i wish there was an easy way to get over it all and that I could make that leap of faith but this has all just reinforced my thought that really the only person you should ever trust is yourself...

You need to get to a place where she really does not matter to you anymore - you will one day.
It is hard not knowing all the details and i do really understand that - BUT it has to be your husbands version as she could just tell you a load of lies and if she thinks you feel this way she could come back in the future and tell you some more.

You will never really know all the details will you.

At the moment you mind is trying to piece together the jigsaw - and that is perfectly normal and natural.

I still have doubts sometimes and i have learned to just think 'i am not going to waste anymore of my time thinking about this'

With regards to speaking to the ow in the futrue if you bump into her - just think that in time she will not matter at all to you.

If it helps my h now says he hates ow (which i find hard after all the texts and emails i rread where the word love was very much there).
But he has done a lot of work on himself and he is a bit like a 'born again' monogomist and says anyone who activly wanted to pull him away from his family is someone he does not want to know ever again.

Of course he doesnt want you to tell others too much - it means he does not have to face up to what he has really done.

Can you have some counselling to help you get over this yourself and maybe find a way of talking things over with your h to help put your mind at rest?

Just to agree with all the others- she will only tell you what you want to hear- not necessarily the truth.

If she WERE to come up with another version of what happened- andit is worse than what you already beleive- then what would you do?

As hard as it is, the only way forward is to put the OW and the affair to the back of your mind and focus on rebuilding your relationship with your DH.

I may get flamed for this, but I have been the OW- twice- once unknowingly- he lied. When I met his wife, face to face, she was NICE to me- and she told HIM to go! Not the reaction I expected.

With the other man, his DW phoned me once and demanded to know why my number was on her phone bills...

I told her to ask her DH, not me. I totally stonewalled her. She was drunk and undignified. They later divorced, BTW, nothing to do with me and him at all.

So, from my experiences, I cannot advice you to get it off your chest or seek some kind of closure that way, as it amy well backfire.

I do not want to "blame" you or your DH for his affair,or make excuses for him, but if it helps at all, I was feeling unappreciated when I had my "fling" and he was an old friend, whom I had known for years. The other one was when I was single and he was separated- and he was feeling unloved and confused.

Put all your effort into your relationship now- not the OW- she's the past.

Well, I have been very dignified so far and that would not change at all. Any hint of her kicking off and I would walk out / let her know I believed none of it. She also doesn't know how much I know so it would be relatively easy to see if she was making stuff up. It might also do her some good to get an idea of how much he lied to her though - her husband sometimes still contacts me to see whether I think they are in touch (and tell me things that supposedly happened) as she is acting oddly (not possible - I am now a super sleuth and h is a bad liar so any signs would be cracked down on in seconds). Basically, both erh H and mine have lied and said stuff to get info / manipulate us into certain positions and I do wonder if it is time for us to straighten things out so I can know what's what?

Sort of PS is that I think I'm fed up of having to take things on other people's word and my own judgement is all i trust now.

Not necessarily MP...I was always very honest when asked. Not that that makes up for having stuff to be honest about

There was plenty enough to land him in it without lying.

Now that you added that you and the OW's DH talk at times, I am feeling is really is time for you to let go of this, and stop being a super sleuth. Why do it?

You are spending a huge amount of emotional energy raking over dead coals- when you should/could be putting that energy into your marriage- or not, if you feel the trust has gone for good. Findng out the whys and wherefores won't really help-you need to take a leap of faith and live for the present, imo.

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that you should attend to your instincts. If you don't follow those you may always regret not doing so and might not ever shake off that niggly inner voice. As a caveat though, I would advise you to use some reason as well. Think carefully about what your heart is telling you to do and what you may gain/risk from following it through. I had several instincts which I dismissed after giving it more thought, others I just knew I had to follow through. Sorry, sounds cryptic I know. Do what you think is best. You have to live with your decision whatever that may be.

Leave well alone

Thanks all. Ladylush - yes, I guess this is my one and only chance either way so I will give it a week or so (like stopping and counting to 10) then see how I feel. BTW, OW's H is poisonous. I'm raking because it's not my nature to take other peoples' word - I need evidence that can show me what to watch for in the future, and speaking with her might tell me more about this, both good and bad...

You do maybe want to find out more so that you feel you can justify leaving h? I ask because i can understand that.
It is hard trusting again and a part of you needs to know that you have the strength to throw him out if he is not truthful ever again.

I know that gut feeling that something just doesnt add up and the wanting to know that you are right.
But at the end of the day it IS more important to be happy.

Try having another talk with your h - there is no time limit on how long it will take you to 'get over it' and move on.