EA - How to Deal with OW's "fishing" phone calls

[StrugglingtoDeal]

I apologize for how long this is, but I would love to hear suggestions of how to handle this situation, or if anyone has been there/done that and where they are now. I’ve read several threads throughout this site over the past four months and it seems as if some real encouraging help has been dispensed....

 

August 05 during vacation I found out my husband had gone to dinner with a girl he used to work with ... who was fired from his company and began working for a supply company that he has to order from. Initially, they had lunch which I knew about but thought that it was just fine because she was trying to get/keep their business, so I thought it was a business lunch. When my H told me he paid because he wasn’t going to have her pay I was a bit thrown back, but still did not think anything. What I have gathered is that during the course of this lunch, one of them suggested that since I was out of town that they go to dinner. The next day, she called him at work and asked if he was serious about going to dinner and they went to dinner that night. He picked her up from her house and met her son. Then at the end of the night when he dropped her off at her house she just got out of the truck. The next day he called her and asked her if she had wanted more, she said yes. He said he did too. The next morning he left to join me on vacation.

 

Some history here. Two years ago we had our first child (I have two older ones from a previous marriage). At the same time, we found out my husband has a degenerative autoimmune disease. The baby was very high maintenance and my H was taking pills that would basically knock him out at night, very early in the night (6:00 - 6:30 p.m.). Throughout the two years he was on a variety of medications for anything and everything to include depression. Side effects of some of them were to say the least, pretty bad for him. Heavy muscle relaxers really don’t help your sex life, so I don’t think I need to say anymore there. Some of the side effects of one actually increased his depression and he was having suicidal thoughts. Through all this I did not have his support in raising our baby, and because I was doing everything for the baby and he was always in bed within ½ hour after I got home at night, he didn’t have the support he felt he needed from me. Although I never said anything bad and I always told him I loved him and showed it with affection, my actions, etc., he was completely unhappy with anything and everything I did. I really believe it was because he was unhappy with himself and his health, which he had yet to accept ... and still has trouble dealing with today. So, when he was working with this girl, she always flirted with him and made him feel good. Of course, she knew he was married, but figured that he was unhappy in his marriage because he was always unhappy. So, of course, it had to be because of his marriage. So, she kept on calling him because she promised him, and had him promise her that they would always be friends, no matter what.

 

Skip forward to July 05. He started calling her at her work everyday to talk to her. She made him laugh and made him feel good about himself. He never told her anything personal about himself, me, or us. As a matter of fact, he never told her he was sick, or has chronic depression and has thoughts of suicide since he was 12 and the depression and thoughts were only made worse by his disease and the medications. He never told her about his gun collection, or that he has certain licenses to carry, or that he enjoys motorcycle riding, four-wheeling, camping. He was very tight about any information on him. Information that he shared was general things like daily activities, what our kids were during, her kids, etc. Since she had worked for his company they were able to talk about the same people. Since she knew his line of work he was able to talk to her about those things that he would have to explain to me. She did most of the talking and personal information. They had a middle school in common and she knew some of the people he knew from school, he thought that was pretty cool at the time. She had a son at 19, married a different guy when she was 24, had a daughter with him, and then he left her for another woman when her daughter was two. NOTE here: She told my H that she was divorced and has been alone for eight years, but public records show that she stayed married to her H for six more years before she divorced him. She told my H that all the good men are married, or gay. When he had called her and asked her if she wanted more, she told him that it bothers her that he is married, but she cared enough for him to overlook it. Nice of her, huh?

 

Needless to say, we came back early from our vacation. Back and forth over a two week period if he was going to stay with me or move in with her ... yes, she invited him to live with her because she didn’t want him to have to stay in a motel or anything like that when he was trying to decide what he was going to do/what he wanted. Of course, she had told him that he couldn’t stay with me because I would only try to influence him to stay and I would say and do this and that and she just wanted to prepare him for what I would do, so that he could fight it/me.

 

End result of it all is that we have worked through it all and we are together. He never slept with her, which I honestly believe if he had I wouldn’t have worked it out with him. But, because that didn’t happen, thankfully I didn’t have to test my feelings there. However, he did kiss her. The night we got back from vacation he had to go talk to her in person to let her know that we were going to work things out. What he told her was that he wanted to be with her, but because of our son really needed to work it out with me. He then kissed her. I have a huge issue with that, but I can’t change it, it happened. The next two week were up and down with him going back and forth in his decision. One day I told him I was done, I didn’t want this and that was it, I was done. Then he decided that he wanted to work it out with me, etc., etc. All the things that everyone here has gone through, all the fights, the words, the emotions, we both went through. I went to her work and met with her. He made the choice to be with me. Of course, she tried all the usual things, trying to make him feel guilty, playing the I need help trick, the I’m sick trick, the I’m going out to bars to try to make him feel guilty trick. All of that she has tried.

 

Funny thing is that she is nothing that he would have ever even brought home to Mom and Dad. She, with him telling me this when he first meet her via work, and even to this day, although he says he wouldn’t never say that to her, it would be too mean, looks rode hard and put away wet. She definitely spent too much time in the sun and looks about 10 years older than she really is. She smokes, when he is adamant against ... yet she would have stopped for him which is what she told him. She has an earring in her nose, which he doesn’t like, and little did she know, but he said that would have came out. He was already thinking of ways to change who she was because she was nothing that he liked, except for the talking and making him feel good part.

 

Anyway - skip to where I need some good advice .... Now he admits he f***** up, he doesn’t understand how he did it, how he said some of the things he said, he was a complete a**hole and all the other things. All he wants is us, if I didn’t work it out with him and forgive him, he still wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with her, he was crazy, he doesn’t know what he was thinking, etc., etc. I understand that we will never be able to make any kind of sense out of it because you just can’t make sense out of these kinds of things. But here is what is going on now:

 

He never calls her except for when he has to for work. Each time she always asks him to call her on another day to just talk, he always tells her he isn’t going to. At first he used the excuse that she’ll get fired, then he just started saying o.k., but then wouldn’t call her. She would follow-up with him a week later and ask why, he would respond with because I’ve been busy. She tries to make the conversations longer than necessary by trying to get personal each time. He keeps it short and does not go into what he believes is personal stuff ... he tries to stay with general information. She still calls him from time to time to see “how everything is” which she is just fishing for information on us. That is the problem. She is using the fact that she has to call him for work ... she is his supplier, so she does have to call from time to time to find out if he needs anything, etc. I work also, and know that this is a fact and something that can’t be changed. And, no, him working for a different company is not an option, nor is him ordering from a different company. However, when she calls to see how everything is, she is really asking him how he is doing for her. While he says that she never gets the answer she wants and never will, it still bothers the piss out of me. He says when I make a big deal out of it I act as if they are talking everyday and talking forever and that they have this huge secret going on. He lets me know when she calls and what they talk about, so it isn’t a secret. He will not tell her point blank as I have asked him to that he will not call her except for work and all the stuff that needs to go with that. He feels that she did nothing wrong and doesn’t deserve to be treated like crap just because he was the one who brought her into us. Some personal traits about my H: he would never have approached her if she hadn’t made sure he knew in no uncertain terms that the door was open; although he says what he wants when he wants and doesn’t bow to anyone ... he avoids any type of confrontation when it is uncomfortable for him, i.e., a friend who has several problems that we’ve helped him out of, he avoids his calls, when he was mad at his mother for something, he avoided her calls for one year. He will avoid personal confrontation when it involves feelings at all costs, additionally, since he feels he is the one that crossed the line (which I don’t disagree with) he feels that she didn’t do anything, she was just being his friend and letting him know that she would do anything for him and there was nothing wrong with that.

 

So, how do I handle these calls from her? No, they are not every week. Sometimes it can be three weeks before he has to call her for supplies, or she calls him to check on everything. I would dearly love to rub her face in crap believe me. I have thought of all kinds of wicked things I could do, but believe in Karma, so am afraid to do anything. Besides, that isn’t the type of person I am. So, since everything is going great with my h and I, better now as the communication that we both lacked with each during those two years is back, (how we both got to where he couldn’t tell me how he was feeling emotionally and I couldn’t tell him I needed more help from him I don’t know), but how do I handle this calls that just get under my skin because I know she is just trying to stay in the background, waiting for her chance to pounce? Because I am at work, I will view the posts/replies frequently. I have never posted on a board before either, but really would love to here some replies and get some support on how to deal with this. Thank you to all.

[Guest2]

If they kissed, chances are they probably screwed too. You can deny it all you want, but just wishful thinking.

[Guest 3]

yeah, they screwed. You seem to know alot about the relationship, the woman and your husbands personality, I suggest you go to her directly since you H doesn't have the balls. Also, depending on what company he and she work for... go to their boss and report her as harrassing your family(most corps. look down on these types of relationships). It seems like youre dealing with it awfully well, but if it gets too bad for you call the police and report her as harrasing. If she still doesn't quit take your police report and file charges. After you take her to court she'll leave you alone.