One year ago today

One year ago today was the last time my husband saw the other woman “V”. Although, to be honest, I still have my doubts that it was the last time. All I know is that this same day last year was one of the two times they met. H on the other hand, doesn’t seem to remember the exact dates they saw one another, which doesn’t help matters much. I will never know the other time they met. Then again, I will never know if they met more then twice.

One week prior to this same time last year, H took off for a weekend. He had a business meeting to attend on Saturday but would return the same evening. We had set up an appointment to talk on the phone on Sunday. However, he never did return home and by Sunday, I was not able to contact him via cell, home or business phone the entire day. I grew worried and thought that something had happened to him on the long road home. I had no numbers with me to contact family, so I basically had to ride it out until I heard from him. Well, I didn’t hear from him until Monday, and boy was I upset to hear what he had been up to and why he never returned home that same night.

After the meeting on Saturday, H met with “S” and her husband. H was invited to their home for dinner. That evening, “S” husband wanted H to accompany him to a strip club and he went. After they got their fill and being that it was so late, they returned to “S” home where H stayed the night. The next day, when H was heading home, he received a call from another forum member who was visiting the city and wanted to meet him for a drink, so he went. Now you can see why I was so upset. I was worried, going out of my mind while thinking that something had happened to H on the road. He never cared to call me out of courtesy to let me know he would be staying the night, nor did he call me the entire next day.

Once H contacted me on Monday, he could not understand why I was so upset. Being 8,000 miles away like I was, he should have understood why I was so worried. He began to get very defensive thinking that I was only giving him a hard time because he went to a strip club. Honestly, it did bother me and I told him so. However, the main point I had difficulty in getting across to him, was that I went an entire weekend without hearing from him. That is something he never should have put me through. He knew what I had already been going through, while taking care of my sick mother. I later found out that the other woman “V”, was giving him a hard time about going to the strip club. Due to our huge time difference, H had been talking with “V” and when my turn came, he had had enough bitching from her already. Its no wonder why he got pushed out of shape when I brought up how worried I was. All he could hear from me, was probably the echo of “V”, telling him off for going to the strip club.

The week that followed, H started acting completely different. Nothing he said made any sense and he would grow upset for no apparent reason. I questioned him about his behavior, especially after he told me off one day on the phone and then hung up on me. The first thing that entered my mind was that we had been apart for way too long and it was taking its toll on him. But then, shortly after that, I starting thinking that he may have went out on me. Some of the signs reflected in his behavior over the phone. When I asked him if he had, he said no and then grew quite angry at me for even thinking it. That is when he sent me an email stating that he had only been hanging out with married couples since I’d been gone, and even though there were so many temptations out there of women throwing themselves at him, he had been nothing but loyal.

At one point, he told me to come home and when I offered to jump on the next plane out, he quickly changed his mind saying that my mother needed me. I didn’t know it at the time, but he had already planned to meet with the other women only a few days later.

The week after this same day last year, H wrote emails to me telling me that once I returned home, we would start over again. Looking back now, I know why that was. He had ended what he thought was a short fling, got it out of his system and now was ready to have a better life with me, that is, without me knowing. I doubt he ever thought I would find out as he was confident when I would speak with him. Maybe in the back of his mind, he was trying to bury it like he does with everything else that seems to be a problem he might face in the future. If you were to ask him, he would clearly admit that he was never going to tell me.

The only reason I know this is a day they met, is due to an email I read that H had sent “V” the day after. In the email, he says its a good day and the guilt is not as bad as he thought it would be. I always believed that this email showed that it must have been their first meeting. Because if it had been their second, why would he write about guilt?

To this day, I can’t help but wonder, what if I would have came back that one week when I was out of the country and not stayed the three additional weeks. I know that would have prevented him from seeing “V” that next time, but would it have changed anything? I guess I will never know. The damage had ready been done, so what difference would it have made?

I guess it would have made it more difficult for H having to deal with “V”, as she would have been quite upset that their meeting would have been canceled. I still don’t believe that on this day, they didn’t actually make plans to meet. H claims that he called her when he was away from the city on business, five hours before. If that is true then why did he tell me not to return home and to continue staying in the states?

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Next: I’m not going to let this go!

The bidding war

I sure wish I had stayed in bed today. Either that, or stayed off line. I was so upset after checking out face book only to find that yesterday, H purchased “A” again. Is he really doing this on purpose to upset me knowing that I am checking on him continuously? What does he hope to gain by upsetting me so much? I have asked him repeatedly to have no contact with “A” and he continues to do so. I have begun to hear myself sound like a broken record, which is very annoying, even to myself. Maybe its the screeching sound of that record that has impaired his hearing.

I emailed H to tell him how upset I was, but I did not tell him why. However, I did write on the bottom of the email that he is not doing a good job on regaining my trust. If I bring up anything these days, he says I’m blasting him. Comforting him with anything regarding “us” or how I feel, puts him on the spot, which causes him to come up with all types of off the wall answers or comments. Some are so ridiculous, I don’t even feel like dignifying what he says, with any type of response. For a man who has tried hiding something from me for months, he still has not mastered the art of thinking fast on his feet.

I believe I have finally come to a point where I’d rather just email then confront. Dealing with him has drained me completely and now I’m starting to back off. Since finding out about his affair, I have used all the strength within myself to point out what was wrong – every time he would pour more salt in the wound. The wound is healing slowly and the salt that is being added on it from time to time, no longer causes it to hurt as much as it once did.

When H arrived home from work, he was being a sweetheart. Normally, when this happens, its usually due to an email I have sent him explaining what is bothering me (its always related to something he has done on line that is inappropriate). This then causes him to go into a lets-avoid-the-problem mode. If we don’t acknowledge it, then there is no problem.

I couldn’t really hide the fact that I was upset, even though I tried very hard. I guess it was obvious enough for H to notice that something was wrong. I was just getting ready to walk out the door when he said, “I know that face. What is wrong?” I replied, “Nothing is wrong.” He then asked, “You’re going to blast me later, aren’t you?” I told him, “No, don’t worry about it. Nothing is wrong.”

I figured that during the time I was gone, he would have read my email since he is always on line. However, when I returned, I knew by the way he was acting, that he had not read it. When he heard I had sent him an email, he wanted to know how bad it was and to rate it from one to ten. I guess he wanted to prepare himself for the worst. I told him I was not going to rate it, the email is only about four lines and its just letting him know how upset I was earlier. I told him he could always read it tomorrow.

By this point, he became very curious about the email and went and read it.

He later returned and asked me to explain the email, while taking me by the hand and sitting down with me. At this point I thought, this is how he should have been from day one. If only he had cared enough about the way I felt since all this began, we would be on the road to recover by now.

I started in about “A” explaining the situation to him. “Two days ago, when the conversation came to her, you no longer wanted to talk about it. I never mentioned that you purchased her that day. I then go on face book today and noticed that you purchased her again. What part of “no contact” do you not understand?”

His explanation, “Well, I went into a bidding war over “A” with her brother.”

At this point, I wondered if he even heard himself speak when telling me this. I don’t think he realized just how bad that looked. This tells me that she is important enough to him to bid against someone else to win her. I sure wish he would bid for my love or for me for that matter.

I then said, “I am tired of “A” being part of our lives. You have kept her in this marriage for way too long. How would you feel if I had lead you to believe that I had an affair with a man, and even though you had asked me to break off all contact with him, I would not do so, even knowing how much this person was causing problems between the two of us?”

His reply, “I would not like it. I will take care of it.”

I left it at that, hoping that he finally understands that this has been going on way too long and the contact needs to stop. Taking me by the hand and giving me his full undivided attention to let me tell him how I felt, was a huge milestone after all these months. Now lets see if things finally start to change where his way of thinking is concerned.

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Next: He is not ready to work on our marriage

Is she another “other woman”?

Yesterday when I wrote “his version of the story from beginning to end”, I thought that the story got pretty complicated for anyone to follow once “A” started becoming part of it. Its one thing having to deal with the “other woman” and quite another to have another women mixed up in the mess as well. In reality the run down on “A” is worse then that of “V” (the actual woman he had the affair with). Prior to and after H affair came to light, “A” has been involved in our lives adding fuel to the fire. H has never wanted to let her go at any cost and still today, he has not done so. I have never known a man to have such a strong bond with a woman friend like this, all the while putting his wife aside, as though she didn’t matter much at all. Over the last nine months, “A” has been part of almost ever trigger I have had, even when it came to the other woman. Funny how she has always been involved somehow. This in itself, has always lead me to believe H had something going with her as well.

Looking back, I think that one of the most obvious times was after I found out about the affair my H had. The first words out of his mouth, besides “yes I did”, was “I cannot believe how I used “A” to get rid of that bitch!” You would think the first thing he would have done was apologized to me, but that was not the case. He should have felt like his world was over as he knew it, especially since, he did not even know at the time, if he would lose his family as a result. But all he could think of was how he used “A”. You can imagine how that made me feel. Still today, I feel much lower then “A” in the eyes of my H. He has caused me to feel this way by choosing her over me on several occasions.

Another time, which was even more obvious, was after “A” found out about the affair H had with “V”. She took the news worse then I did, which told me there had to be more there between the two of them. “A” first sent H a private message to tell him she knew about the affair. H then tells “A” to meet him in chat as she is very upset. When I asked H what was discussed, he told me she was upset for him using her and her not knowing the real reason why. She told him she wanted nothing more to do with him and to stay away from her. Then, she tried exposing H affair on a forum by attacking the other woman. The following day, she contacts H meeting him back in chat and then started a personal attack on H on the forum. To make matters worse, H knowing he is not suppose to delete anything, deletes the private message and his chat log so I don’t find out what was actually discussed. When I asked H, he told me he was cleaning out his private message in box that day, so her private message was deleted. However, there were other messages that were not deleted that day and were much older then hers. As far as his chat log, he claimed he didn’t have her on his chat list and didn’t have his chat log on save mode.

Besides the two obvious times above, there is so much more.

“A” and H had been members of the same forum for years but they only started communicating more on the forum summer of last year. It all started when H had a chat with “A” and another member. They were goofing off and H uploaded the chat session on the forum for the other members to read. It was at that point when “A” started to feel more comfortable with H and they became close. So close in the fact, that around September they were posting on the forum together and if I didn’t know better, I would have thought they were a couple. It wasn’t flirtation, but rather a sense of ownership they presented towards one another. When I confronted H about it, he told me that all the women act that way towards him. As far as I could see, there were no other women acting as though H was theirs like she was.

Then came October. This was birthday month for me and every year H gets me a cake to celebrate. This time he didn’t. His excuse was that he was so busy at work that he never left the building at all that day. A couple of weeks later, I find a postal receipt showing that he mailed “A” a CD and USB stick on my birthday. I was very upset to say that least and confronted only for H to not have an answer as to why he lied. Then there were the regular text messages and phone calls made between the two of them all hours of the day and night, not to mention forum posts and private messages.

I guess the biggest or most obvious time happened in November when H decided to attend a forum meeting. For the first time since we’ve been together, H was very firm on saying I could not attend the meeting with him. He first used the excuse that only members could attend. That is when I remind him that I was also a member, although not an active one. He then said that spouses were not invited. At this point, I knew that was not true and he was just determined to go alone. I have to admit, I was rather shocked at this new found attitude of his. It felt as though he wanted to get away very badly. I gave in and we both agreed that he would go for the day but had to return that evening. There would be no spending the night.

He called me when he arrived and told me he would call me again around 11 PM to let me know when he would get on the road to head home (it is a three and a half hour drive one way). I began feeling quite suspicious about the entire situation and decided to call him around 7 PM just to see how the meeting was going. He never answered his cell and I continued calling every 15 minutes or so and still no answer. I quit calling after awhile since he did tell me he would be calling at 11 PM. Well 11 came and went and he never called me. I began to get worried as this was totally out of his character. In the past, he would always call me when he said he was going to. He finally called me at 12:30 AM. I asked him if he had seen all the missed calls on his cell phone, as one usually does when they pick up their phone to make a call. He said he didn’t see any. Instead of him asking me if something was wrong here at home, he went right into telling me that he and his friends were on their way to a bar for some drinks. He went on to say that he got a hotel and would be staying the night. When I tried to remind him that we agreed he would return home and not stay the night, he said he had already had too much to drink and couldn’t drive home. He then started yelling at me saying “I got a hotel room and whether you like it or not, I’m staying!” He then hung up on me. I was in shock and couldn’t sleep that night wondering if H was possibly doing something he shouldn’t.

H never called me the entire next day. I figured I would leave him alone and I didn’t call him either. Around 7 PM, I decided to call him to find out if everything was okay. When he answered, he acted as though nothing had happened the previous day. He was already on his way home. Once he got home, a few words were exchanged but I kept my cool. H slept on the couch that night.

The following day, while going through the pictures that were uploaded on the forum of the meeting, we run across a picture of H and “A” with her arms around him. They looked like couple. I blew a gasket! I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. To make matters worse, H claimed he didn’t even remember taking the picture and just kept looking at it as though he were trying to figure out when it was taken. I then told H to contact the picture person of the forum immediately to have it removed. Once he did that, the picture was removed after only a few minutes. I went into detailed with H on how his behavior was unacceptable and how the picture was very disrespectful to me as his wife, since everyone on the forum knows he is married. I asked him if anything had went on that weekend with “A” and he said no.

A couple of days after the pictures showed up on the forum, a call comes through on H cell phone after 10 PM. From the way he was talking on the phone, I figured H was just talking to one of his friends, although they never call him that late. He then got up and walked over to give me the phone saying it was for me. I looked up at him and asked who it was. That is when he said it was “A”. I was very upset at that point but surprisingly I remained calm. I told him I didn’t know her and had nothing to say to her. I then got up and he started following me around telling me to take the phone and speak to her. He was very persistent while telling me not to make him look bad and to just speak with her. I told him I was not going to talk to someone I did not even know. That continued for a while until I left outside.

A few minutes later, he came to me very upset saying that I should have spoken to her because she was only trying to apologize for the picture. A few minutes later, a text message comes over on H cell phone addressed to me. I told H I didn’t want to hear what she had to say, but he read it to me anyway. In the message, she gave her real name and said she just met my husband that weekend for the first time and there was nothing going on between the two of them. She goes on to say that H had helped her with a problem she had with co-worker and that was all. She apologized but then said she did nothing wrong.

Two days later, I read a private message that “A” sent to H. This is what it said: Good morning my love. When you have time contact me. I love you and always will (even when you are old). When I confronted H about this, he was speechless and turned beet red as though he were busted. He was very cold in the way he acted and lead me to believe he actually had something going on with “A”.

Things start dying down in December or at least I think. This was a bad month for me . I had just found out about H affair the end of November and I wasn’t in my right start of mind. However, I do remember one phone call H made to “A” regarding his car insurance as she works for an insurance company. In the end, he never did switch insurances. H is asked to stay away from “A” and break off all communication with her and he agrees.

When January rolls around, H is up late like always on the forum but so is “A”. They post back and forth on threads just like in the past. I get upset and confront H reminding him of “no contact” with “A”. The only thing he can think of to say is “she started it”. Then he tells me he can go back and delete all his posts that are on the same threads as hers. At that point, I tell him to just stop posting on the same threads she is. I remind him of “no contact” with “A”.

Then “A” finds out about the affair that H had with “V”. This is noted above. You can read the full story by clicking on that link.

During February, “A” takes a break from the forum. At first I thought she was just upset at H but later I found out that she no longer had Internet access at work and didn’t have a computer at home. This is what H told me, so right there I knew he had some form of contact with her.

Once March rolled around, both H and “A” start back up with late night postings on the forum. While checking out the threads, it looked like H was going behind “A” and posting after her. I confront H again and tell him that I thought she wanted nothing to do with him because she was so mad at him. Once again, he doesn’t know what to say and just says he can delete the posts he has made. I tell him not to because it will look as though she is talking to herself on the threads and people who read will not know what is going on. I go over with H how he agreed that he would no longer have contact with her and explain that this was a form of contact. Then he tries to give me the excuse that she was the one who was posting after him.

In April, she calls him on his cell at 10 in the evening to tell him about what has been posted on the blog of that one person who writes about a few members of the forum H moderators. He talks to her as if all is okay and does so while I’m standing right there. When he gets off the phone and I ask who it was, he tells me it was “A”. I was very upset for him breaking contact yet again. I had a long conversation with him about “A” while being quite upset and he doesn’t say anything only, “she called me”.

Now fast forward to this morning. You can imagine how upset I was when I found out that H had not only requested “A” as a friend on face book and added her, but he also bought her. For those of you who don’t know what that means, you can actually buy your friends on face book with the amount of money you obtain from filling out questionnaires, playing games, etc. He had purchased a couple of other friends in the past but as soon as “A” gave approval for her to be added to his list of friends, he bought her immediately.

I told H that he needs to take her off his friends list on face book and have no more contact with her. He said he could not remove her because they have mutual friends and everyone will know. I tell him when there are three people in a marriage, it will not work.

Is this his way of breaking off all contact with her? I think not!

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Next: The bidding war

The story of the other woman

Me and my husband have not been going out for the last two months because I had been rather sick. So today, we went out for a long lunch down by the lake. Prior to going out, I had emailed an article for him to read. I thought this would help him understand what needs to be done in order to really work on this marriage. We had agreed to discuss the article over lunch or later today.

Once we arrived to the restaurant, neither of us felt like discussing the article since the atmosphere was so relaxing. We just wanted to enjoy some quiet time together, so we had a laid back conversation instead. The topic of the conversation he started was about friends. We talked for a while about a couple of his on line friends and when I found an opening in the conversation, I jumped right in..

“Talking about friends, who is your new friend you’ve added on your face book list?” I actually already knew it was “A”. This morning, I had noticed that he had added her to his friends list but I was not planning on telling him at all. I figured I would just watch to see if anything developed. But due to the topic of conversation, it just came out.

He smiled and said, “You know who it is.”

I grew very upset at this point because he sent “A” an invite to be friends, it was not the other way around. In the past, he would always say it was her who initiated communication with him.

I said, “You promised me that you would break off all contact with her and this shows me that you don’t care about how I feel or about this marriage.”

He then gave me an I-am-busted look, but he didn’t look like he felt bad at all.

At that point, I lost my appetite and did not eat much as a result. We were rather quiet the rest of the time we were there and only spoke very little to calm down the atmosphere. I was so upset and he felt very uncomfortable. I was ready to explode but held back. I had to remember that I needed to remain calm for the long conversation ahead.

When we were ready to leave, he asked me if I wanted to take a long walk. He said it was best to stay away from home for as long as possible. He believed that things would accelerate and taking a long walk would calm me down. We didn’t talk about anything on that long walk home. Once we arrived, I asked him if he wanted to talk. I was calm by this point. The walk had done me good.

He told me he didn’t feel like talking but he knew I have a lot of questions for him. So that was my Q to begin.

Now that I had his attention, I decided to not bring up the article I had sent him earlier today. Instead I told him that I wanted to know the entire relationship he had with the other woman from first meeting her on line and how their relationship developed, to what took place after the fact. He pretty much ran it all down for me and here is what he said. Keep in mind that I had to ask questions while he was telling me the story because the answers were not detailed enough.

To help you keep track of the people in the story here is a little info:

H is my husband

V is the other woman

A is the woman friend who helped get rid of V and the one who H lead me to believe he was having an affair with for three long weeks. She has been tangled up in this mess way before I even found out about the affair

It all began when “V” became a member of the forum that he moderates. She entered a contest he put on with the winners receiving a free Linux CD. The first few people who sent him a private message were the winners. “V” won one and he mailed it to her. At first, she didn’t want to give him her mailing address, so she gave him an address of who she claimed was a relative. He later found out it was her husband’s name and their address.

The first contact “V” had with H was a “Thank you” email for the CD that he had sent her. That is when it lead to chat. She is a computer teacher and they discussed putting Linux on the computers in the computer lab. His chat program was always open and she would always start up chats with him. He never did tell me how often they chatted though. Most of the chatting was done on her part. She would freely tell him about her life and family, how she wasn’t happy in her marriage and was only with her husband (even though he was 15 years older) for financial security. She told him how many lovers she had been with and then asked him how many lovers he had been with. He told her he had been married twice, and for her to do the math in between the two marriages. She asked him how I was in bed but he never told her. He did tell her how his first wife was in bed though.

If someone would have been speaking to me this freely, especially mentioning how unhappy they were in their marriage, I would know at that point what this person was looking for. I don’t buy the fact that he never told her about me. I doubt he would even remembered how his first wife was in bed since that was over a decade ago. I’m sure he told the other woman about me and used his first wife as a cover up. If I know anything about my husband, this I know. ??

The chats lead to “V” wanting to meet H for coffee. He told her he never traveled to her city (300 miles one way) on business. That is when he asked if she only wanted to meet for coffee since she was acting like she wanted more. She told him she would meet him in his hotel room if he ever went to her city. He asked her if she was making a pass at him and went on to tell her how venerable he was due to the fact that I had been out of the country so long.

If he shared this much with her, then she knew the cat was in the bag and it would only be a matter of time before he would meet with her. This told me he gave her way too much information.

As time went on, “V” continued offering herself to him and making all kinds of promises. H finally gave in. He went to see “V” the first time because he felt his world was closing in on him and he needed an escape. An escape from his failing business and trying to be there for me to discuss my mother’s health issues. They discussed their first get together one day prior to and it was clear that it would only be for sex. His reason was that I was out of the country and her reason was that she wasn’t getting any at home. On his way back from that first meeting he was thinking, “what have I done”. Once he got home, he found quite a few private messages in his in box (on the forum) from “V”. She was telling him about the wonderful time she had and that he was a good lover. At that point, he knew she had fallen for him.

Just because she continued offering herself to him, doesn’t mean he had to accept the offer. It took me a while to get the answer as to what he was thinking after that first meeting. He first told he was enjoying the long ride home, then he said he was thinking about having to return to work the next day, then he said the above. I told him I could understand how he felt at the time but even so, I would have done things differently. He didn’t want to open up to me at all. I told him to lay it all out on the table but that never happened either. He knew from the start that she had fallen for him. If there was a time to end it, it would have been at this point.

After their first meeting, H tried keeping his distance from “V” but she kept on sending him messages and calling him. She kept on offering herself to him. One day while traveling out of the city on business, he called “V” to tell her he was on his way. His reason for seeing her the second time was the thrill of the chase. After this second time, he told her I was coming home as he already knew my return date. “V” left him alone 24 hours before my return but started up contact two days later. She continued telling him how wonderful their time was together and wanted to know when he would return to see her again. He ignored her and that is when he reminded me of an email I read from her, which stated she hadn’t heard from him in three weeks.

Notice how in his story he continues saying that she was offering herself to him, she was contacting him and basically saying she wouldn’t leave him alone. I told him he should have just re-directed her emails to trash, not opened her private messages, changed his cell number and not answered his business phone if her number showed up on the caller ID. Of course, this is only for someone who no longer wanted contact with a certain person, but that did not apply in his case.

Three weeks later, communication started back up on his part. At one point, H thought “V” was going to expose him on the forum by the way she was talking in private messages and emails and he didn’t know what to do. She had threatened him once about telling me but he returned that threat by saying he would tell her husband. Then trying to be nice, he sent her a gift. It was a documentary of a favorite artist of hers he had downloaded some time before. Out of guilt he also sent her husband a bottle of special alcohol that is only made in this part of the country.

When I asked why he started communication back up with “V”, he didn’t have an answer for me. He just continued putting all the blame on her saying she kept on bothering him with emails, phone calls and private messages. Common sense tells you that sending gifts to a person you are trying to get rid of, leads them on more. When I asked him why he sent the gifts, he said he didn’t know what to do in this type of situation and it was due to lack of experience. He tired to ignore, be mean and then be nice but for him nothing worked. The only reason I knew about the gifts he sent her was due to an email I had read from him to her talking about other members on the forum. Apparently, there have been quite a few members that have gotten together and he was telling her they were the last ones. He goes on to say he would be sending her a gift.

As time went on, “V” contacted H with information regarding a person that the forum members were trying to gather information on. This person had started a blog about a few members on the forum and “V” claimed she knew who this person was. “V” would contact H with a little information regularly and on the bottom of her emails and private messages, she would bring up the relationship they had and how things could have been. Later he realized she didn’t even know who the person was and then he confronted her about it. That is when she got very upset and things started getting ugly.

She was not the only one who had information about this particular person they were searching for. He should have known by the way she was adding information about their relationship on the bottom on her emails and private messages that this was far from over. Apparently, their communication never stopped prior to her contacting him with this information.

Around September, “V” started bothering “A” on the forum by sending her private messages accusing her of sleeping with H. “V” had noticed how well H and “A” were getting along by the threads they posted on and this bothered her a great deal. “V” also started sending private messages to H accusing him of sleeping with “A”. He told her he had not, and had never even met her before. She didn’t buy it and continued on and on about it. “A” then contacted H to tell him about the accusations that “V” was making and wanted to know what her problem was. H told “A” that “V” just probably had a secret crush on him.

I tried to clarify what was going on back in September by reading through the threads on the forum. It sure did look like H and “A” were a couple by the way they interacted on the threads on the forum. No wonder “V” didn’t buy it. I know I sure didn’t. When I asked H how him and “A” became friends, he said it was due to a chat he had with her and another member where they were playing around. He uploaded the chat on a thread on the forum and everyone got a good laugh out it. “A” then became comfortable with him and they started interacting more on the forum. He said that lead to “A” visiting his blog, which lead to the forum meeting in November where they met face to face for the first time.

V” kept on and on accusing H of sleeping with “A”. By this point, H had no idea how he was going to get rid of “V”. In early November, H learned of a forum meeting that would take place in another city where most of the members reside and he decided to attend. He knew that “V” would not be there but “A” would. H and “A” never agreed to be a couple while at the meeting. They had only planned to act over friendly towards one another because they knew that another member would tell “V” if something was actually going on between the two of them. They ended up convincing just about everyone there and the toper was that a picture showed up on the forum after the meeting. The picture showed “A” hugging H. When “V” saw this she was furious and after telling him off, she finally gave up.

When I asked H why he decided to go to the forum meeting, he would not give me an answer. He then said this was the only way to get rid of “V”. I still don’t know how far they had to go to convince everyone that something was going on. H told me they never done anything. They just acted friendly towards one another. I don’t buy it. A picture is worth a thousand words and the picture they took together really looked like they were a couple. The first time that H told me that “V” said goodbye to him was a couple of days after the forum meeting but this time, that changed to two weeks later.

In mid December, “V” tries to start a chat up with H but he never responded. Probably because I was sitting right there at the time.

In late January, “V” sends husband a private message on the forum saying that he is making it too obvious by not replying to her posts. He doesn’t reply to her. She gets upset and starts shit back up with “A”. “V” posts on a thread that “A” started on the forum telling “A” and her friends off for no apparent reason. Then “V” started sending private messages to “A” again. “A” then puts two and two together and realizes that H had an affair with “V”. She was very upset by this finding.

When I asked H why “A” took the new of the affair worse then me, he said she probably has a secret crush on him. Wait a minute, isn’t that what he told “A” about “V”? “A” was so hurt over the fact that she was used by H to get rid of “V” that she then started shit on the forum about “V” and H but didn’t reveal any names. That is when H had to contact the owner of the site to let him know what had happened. All the while, he was worried about having his moderator status taken away from him which never happened. “A”, told H that she no longer wanted anything to do with him, not to contact him and to leave her alone. Well this didn’t last for long.

In March, “V” sent H an email basically telling him off and how she felt used. Then she kept asking why. She claimed that she had told her husband about the affair they had and he had forgiven her. H never replied to her.

In April, “V” sent H a chat Authorization request which he denied.

We haven’t heard from “V” since April but I know that this is far from over. She has taken time off the forum since the end of January because she thought that other members had found out about the affair she had with H. However, as of this month, she has returned back to the forum. It is now confirmed that her husband does not know about the affair she had. If he did, he would never allow her to participate in the forum as he not only checks in on it regularly, but he also knows who H is. So I’m just waiting around for her next attempt to contact H and see if he tells me. One more contact of any kind and I’m going straight to her husband. I’ve had enough!

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Next: Is she another “other woman”?

Questions about the other woman

For those of you who have been following my story. No, we have not yet discussed the situation of our marriage. I don’t know if he has finally come to the point of taking full responsibility for what he has done or if he has decided to start working on the marriage. It doesn’t seem to be the right time so I’m waiting for a window of opportunity to appear, before climbing through.

Last night, I approached husband to ask him a few questions about the other woman. He had answered questions about her in the past but those answers we not detailed enough. Those answers formed even more questions that I needed answers to. It took me two days to plan my approach since it is difficult to talk to him about anything these days. I approached him as if I would a child who had great fear of me. I had to make sure not to startle him in any way. I reassured him before I asked any questions that this conversation would not carry over into another, and that these were questions I just needed answers to. Since this was not going to be a conversation and it would only be a form of questions for him to answer, I couldn’t add more questions to the answers he would give me. I had to be very careful not to scare him to the point where he would emotionally shut down.

At first he was very apprehensive and then started calming down when he noticed that I was calm myself. I set a calm environment by being very relaxed and that in turn, relaxed him as well.

My first question to him was one that I had asked him in the past and just wanted to see if the answer was the same. I asked him if there was a mutual agreement between the two of them that their meetings were only for sex. He replied that they both had agreed but he didn’t give me much more of an answer then that. To me, this is still questionable and it will have to be address some time in the future to clarify.

My second question to him was how did he know she was a psycho (as he put it). He said he didn’t know it in the beginning but began noticing the way she was writing her emails to him after the fact. It came to light some time later when she confided in him saying that she was taking medication for multiple personalities and she had even been institutionalized at one point. She told him that during the time she was seeing him, she stopped taking her medication so she could feel free.

My third question was regarding a “thank you” email she wrote him thanking him for helping her out with her son. I asked him how he helped her and he said it had something to do the relationship her teenage son had with his father. Due to the large age gap they did not get along. He didn’t quite remember what he told her.

My fourth question I asked was if she ever threatened him in any way and he said no. I then asked if she had threatened to tell me and he said she did once. In the past he told me she threatened him twice. This is the burning question because even though the physical part of the affair ended May of last year, I still don’t have an answer as to why he continued contact with her even though she initiated every time. Normally, in cases like this, where the women is obsessive, the man is afraid the other women will tell his wife.

I have to admit that once I was done asking the questions, the answers that were given caused even more questions. I realized that getting into a conversation at this point was not wise. So I didn’t ask any further. I know there will come a time very soon when we will have a lengthy conversation and that is when I will present the questions.

In the end, I thanked him for the answers he gave which helped me to clear a few things up. I explained to him I did understand what he went through with the other women after he tried to break it off with her. I also understand the difficulty he was having trying to balance out both me and her. On top of that, trying to keep a secret that he had no idea when or if it would ever come to light. He thanked me for my understanding and I saw a sense of relief come over him. He was very appreciative and thanked me for my understanding. I sense that this may be a turning point for him now that he sees I have changed towards the situation. As a result, he may become comfortable enough to begin discussing the truth about the affair and that in turn, can help us begin healing our marriage. I guess only time will tell.

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Next: If only we could fast forward time

Pictures of the other woman

As far as I had known, the pictures he had of the other woman was deleted off our home computer a couple of days after I found out about his affair. He deleted them right in front of me saying that he wanted to put this all behind us. Keep in mind, this was five months ago. I had no idea he still had some pictures floating around of her.

My husband carries a USB stick every where he goes due to the fact that it has all his business backups on it. I hadn’t checked it in about three months and after he fell asleep with his laptop on, I decided to check out the contents just for the hell of it. As I was going through the folders, I came across two pictures. One was a picture I had recognized of the other woman that he had shown me a couple days after I found out about the affair. The other picture was one I had never seen of her until now. I was furious to say the least but stopped dead in my tracks to really think this through. Now how on earth did the pictures show up on his USB stick two months after they had been deleted from our home computer? He did not have his USB stick with him at the time so there was no way he could have copied them over. I then started thinking that perhaps he had pictures of her on other systems as well. That had to be it.

I decided to play it cool and not make a big deal out of it. I deleted the pictures off his stick. Luckily at least one of the pictures ended up in his trash bin where it was still visible. Once he woke up, I told him, “I cannot believe what you have saved on your stick!”

He asked, “What?”

“Pictures of the other woman!”, I said. “You are sick! Do you carry them around with you so you can view them to remember the times you spent together?”

He was speechless for about five minutes not knowing what to say. During which time I tell him, “Try and come up with a good one this time”.

After a while he came up with, “You had me to talk to while you were away taking care of your mother and I had no one”.

At that moment, I started thinking what does this have to do with saving the pictures and I tell him so.

He then comes up with, “I had the pictures for evidence just in case her husband contacts me at a later time.”

“Evidence?,” I say. “How is this evidence when it is not a nude picture of her and her husband is in one of the pictures as well? He knew that you both were friends and would probably just think that the two of you exchanged pictures with one another. So you knew the pictures were there then?”

He said, “Yes, I had them as evidence.” <—- This was his story now and he was sticking to it.

I then tell him, ”The emails she sent you, now that would have been evidence due to what she wrote, not pictures.”

That is when he came up with, “The pictures were probably together with emails saved in the same folder and when I deleted the emails, the pictures stayed behind.”

After a while, he finally realized the pictures would have done no good as evidence. He was trying to be nice and sweet especially after I asked him how he would feel if the situation were reversed and I had pictures. At that moment, he knew exactly how I felt and then while grabbing his cell phone and asking me to watch, he deletes her cell number he had been keeping in case she were to contact him. What does this really prove? Nothing.

I guess you can say that all this caused me to become numb. Numb in the sense that I decided that I’ve had too much drama in my life to let a couple of pictures get to me. Its not the pictures themselves that caused an uproar, but rather the fact that five months down the road they surface again. To make matters worth, over the last few months, she has tried contacting him three times. I should have nipped it in the bud from the beginning, but didn’t. That was mainly due to the fact that my husband would tell me that is not how things are done in this country. Of course, after today, I have told him that next time, I am going against the beliefs here and there will be hell to pay. I just know she will try to contact him this month as it is anniversary month from when they first met face to face. How can one heal and move on when constant reminders continue coming up?

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Next: Can a marriage survive without that special kind of love?

What I know about the other woman

I have never spoken to the other woman, but I know enough about her to know what kind of person she is. I’ve seen how she interacts with others on “that forum” as I have read her posts and replies there. I have read emails she has written to H and can read between the lines as to how she felt and what kind of person she really is. Putting all this together, along with what H has told me and I know more about her then she thinks.

She is married, is one year older then me and has a teenage son. She is a very unhappy woman and is only with her husband for financial security. She doesn’t like to see anyone having any type of fun and puts down anything that doesn’t appeal to her, which also includes people. She doesn’t have many friends and is the type of person who will do everything she can to make herself look good. She speaks very highly of herself and puts down Americans like there’s no tomorrow. She is a communist and proud to be.

In a couple of emails I read of hers, she was actually keeping score on the two of us, while referring to me as “the American”. In one email I read, she told H that she is more of a woman then me. Actually according to H, she has said that on more then one occasion. He claimed he corrected her and one email I read does prove that he told her that I am more of a woman that she could ever be. Actually it stated something like I eat ***** women for lunch (the asterisks meaning the nationality of this country). If it weren’t for that email, I wouldn’t have believed him at all.

She is a rather large woman and is not a pleasant looking one at that. I am not just saying this because she is the other woman, it is actually true. When my husband first showed me a picture of her, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This particular picture she sent H was four years old. He said when he saw her in person, she was a whole lot bigger then in the picture he had seen. He didn’t like that much, but felt he had to move forward with it. I couldn’t believe he would ever go with someone that large. After all, during all the months up to my finding the proof, he would show me pictures of beautiful woman on the Internet and would say, “If I ever went out on you, it would be with someone like this”. Little did I realize at the time, it was with someone who was the complete opposite in appearance. I guess it was just a case of the-more-the-cushion-the better-the pushin’.

She is a computer teacher or so she says. I find that hard to believe though. While seeing her interact on “that forum” regarding computer related issues, she doesn’t seem to know much at all. Put it this way, I know more about computers then she does, but then again, while teaching in this country, you don’t really have to know much about the subject matter.

She is very unstable in her personality and vision of how things are in reality. That could be due to the fact that she has mental problems that she takes medication for. When she is off her medication, it blinds her to how things really are and causes her to lost control.

Being this unhappy, its no wonder why she looks for others outside her marriage to fill the void if only temporarily. Unfortunately, one day, she will get busted by her husband and when she does, there goes her financial security. Nothing has to be done on my part in order for that to occur. Some day it will bite her in the ass when she least expects it. For as they say, what goes around, comes around.

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Next: The interaction between him and his employee

The other women sends a chat authorization request

This afternoon, my husband tells me that when he went to work this morning, he found an authorization request waiting for him in his chat program. It was from the other woman. Usually when he gets chat requests, he authorizes them because most are members from the forum he moderates, that are always wanting to be added in case they need computer advice or just want to chat. When he went to authorize her, he recognized her email address and quickly denied her. He was relieved saying that was a close one. If he hadn’t been paying attention, she would have been added. That is not to say that she wouldn’t be able to contact him where ever she wanted to. Which brings me to this. Why did she send a request to be added when she could have just sent him a message? Maybe she was trying to see if he wanted to start up regular contact again? With her strange way of thinking, it seems like she would have followed up with a message asking why he didn’t add her on his list. But according to husband, that never happened.

I took the opportunity to warn him that since the anniversary of them first getting together is next month, I’m sure she will try and contact him. I explained that when she does, he will need to tell me so I can finally put a stop to all this by contacting her husband. I think this is getting ridiculous. For the first time, he agreed. Now that he knows this, let’s see if he tells me when the next contact attempt is made.

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Next: What I know about the other woman

His affair exposed on a forum

I went into the office to check to see what H was doing and found him in chat. When I asked who it was, he told me it was “A” (one of the two women he is to not have any contact with). I was very upset to say the least. I asked him what was going on since I knew something was up over the last three days. He tells me that he hadn’t heard from “A” in a long time and he made it a point to say, she contacted him. “A” told him that she was going to go on the swearing forum and upload something that he was not going to like, but she would do so anyway. When I asked what that had to do with him, he told me the post would be about him. He then mentioned that “A” was upset with “V”. While he was telling me all this, he was looking up one of the threads to read what “V” had told “A” that upset her so much. “A” also claimed in her chat that she put two and two together and figured out that H had an affair with “V”. Apparently, H didn’t admit or deny anything to her.

I then asked, “What do you mean she put two and two together, how is that possible? It has been two and a half months and she’s barely figuring it all out now? That doesn’t make any sense.”

H went on to say. “A” is saying that “V” is out of control on the forum by the way she told off her and her friends. “A” is upset at the fact that I used her. She told me to stay away from her. She wants nothing more to do with me and told me not contact her.” At this point, I thought this sounds too good to be true. She acted more upset then just any normal friend would be.

I then tell him, “What I think happened is that “V” actually contacted “A” and told her about the affair and that’s how “A” found out. Normally, when a woman helps a male friend get rid of an obsessive woman whose bothering him, there is always a reason behind it. Especially in this case where “V” was sending private messages to “A”, accusing her of sleeping with you. I would have known something was going on if it were me.”

H just ignored me and kept on reading the forum.

I then left the room very upset and went to calm down. I was thinking, this is way to much drama brought into our lives by an on line forum. People really need to get a life! To make matter worse, H was acting as though nothing was wrong by breaking “no contact” with “A” once again.

A little while later, H comes to tell me that “A” posted on the forum. The post read something like this:

Just because you fucked her, does that mean we have to pay?!!

Just because you found a hole, does that mean we have to tolerate her?!!

Put her in her place!! We are tired of hearing her!!

Just because we are your friends, does that mean we have to keep quiet and not reply to her, when she has an opinion about everything?!!

Who has a right to enter a company (forum) and put down the other members?!!

After reading the post, H tells me that “A” wants the thread to stay on the first page so that “V” can see it when she logs in. H was very nervous and for a while there, I thought he was going to piss his pants. Even though there were no names mentioned on the post, he had no idea what kind of problems this would create after “V” would read it. He was thinking that she might expose him on the forum and then everyone would find out his dirty little secret. H kept posting all evening just to keep the post on the first page. He kept watch to see if “V” would log in and even though she did, she was too quick to be noticed.

Knowing how upset I was about the entire situation, H comes to me and says “If things get out of hand on the forum, you can call “V” husband.” I thought to myself, he must think so highly of himself to grant me permission to contact her husband after all this time. In the past, he would tell me that is not how things are done here in this country.

Feeling so disgusted over what he had just said, I tell him, “Just get me the numbers”. He never did have “V” home number but had looked up “V” husband’s name a while back and got five phone numbers with the same name. Once he gave me the numbers I told him, “I will be calling on Monday. If things do get out of hand, I will post on the forum in English and give “V” name. The only thing that the owner can do at that point is delete me.”

H then told me, “Don’t do it. I want to tell the forum owner myself. Now that “A” knows and is really upset that I used her, I need to let the owner know what’s going on. Now he has a reason to let me go. If he can remove moderator status from another moderator just for making advances towards another member and I’ve actually done something, he will have to let me go too.” At that point, he left to write a detailed private message to the owner.

Two hours went by before the owner of the forum got on line and when he did, it was only for a few minutes. H said he must have had a heart attack with what he had read. I then told H to call the owner on the phone, instead of being so worried about the outcome. I had never seen H this humble in over two years. I was actually hoping that the owner would remove his moderator status. This way H would realize just how much of a mistake he made, not leaving the forum, when I found out about the affair.

In the end, H didn’t have to call the owner. The owner called him. They spoke for about an hour and H told him the whole story. The response of the owner was, “You are not the first and you will not be last. I’ve heard worse.” He went on to say that he had already sent two warnings to “V” recently about her behavior towards other members on the forum. One more warning and he will delete her account. He also reassured H by telling him if “V” gives any real names of members on the forum, he will delete her account immediately.

H was basically in the clear and moderator status was not taken away from him. He began walking around with such a massive ego saying that he will remain on the forum and that “V” will eventually be deleted. I was so upset because it seemed like he was being rewarded for having an affair with “V” and to top it off, having two women fight over him for all to see. He was so sure of himself. He really believed that this would take care of everything.

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Next: Mourning