No prolonged eye contact. If you have to hand her an item, like paperwork, set it on a desk so there is no chance of your hands touching. Face a different direction while working. No personal conversation. Lunch on your own. Call your wife as you are exiting and leave the parking lot before the OW.

I will be following this advice myself very soon.

Great advice!! I hope you both are able to have success with this. :-)

Mike, how did it go today?

Teacher - So/so. I did end up leaving around noon, saying I wasn't feeling well. Which, I guess, was partly true. But I feel weak for running from my issue, and I'm back here today, and not going home early. I talked to my W, and she thinks its best if I go to work as well...she doesn't want me to look bad to the bosses. I was weak yesterday, but today I can do this. Thanks for checking in

Yes, you can do this. You feel weak because of your fear but you aren't a slave to that fear or to your sexual desire.

I'm talking out of my ass, though, because I planned on going to my classroom today to set up early but instead I will be staying home and taking a nap. I keep postponing the inevitable.

I am glad that you are hanging in there Mike. Just a few hours to go!
You, IMHO are not running from your issue, you are going NC.
The issue is saving your marriage and healing your wife's heart.

Teacher, I completely understand putting something like this off. Had I been Mike, I probably would not have gone in for those couple of days. All of this is so hard.

I wish you both the best.

Mike and Teach:

I think that a big thing that you each have going for you is this site and the people here (maybe not so much me, but definitely the others :) ). Remember, this site is called "Cheaters Anonymous". Sort of like the original Alcoholic Anonymous. Like AA the people here can be your "sponsors" . Just check in daily and let us know how it went. If needed, we can also give you a hard time.

A while back I posted on my journal the famous 12-steps upon which AA was founded and wondered out load about how the they apply to us here. Since I don't think either of you saw that journal post, let me bore you with the 12-steps now. Just keep them in mind as face the temptations of the exAP:

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a higher power as we understood it.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to a higher power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have this higher power remove all these defects of character.
7 Humbly asked this higher power to remove our shortcomings.
8 Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9 Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through reflection and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a higher power as we understood it, asking only for knowledge of this power's will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Thanks, Sedg. I'm not a "God" guy, but I have been getting into Zen meditation recently and trying to find some strength through that, as well as other means (counseling, talking to friends, reading). These steps are powerful

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to update this and say I got through yesterday just fine...the AP and I participated in a work outing with several coworkers, and we were professional and cordial, though we didn't really talk that much. Afterward, I went home, and texted my W that I will never see my AP again (I am hell-bent on getting a new job before we could possibly see each other again, next spring).

Saying "I will never see AP in person again" felt good...it felt like closure. I don't know if my W will ultimately be able to forgive me, but I'm glad that this chapter is behind me. My W is out of town this weekend, but we have plans to get together on Monday, and hopefully we continue to rebuild then.

Good for you. Your heart is in the right place, and your wife will see that. It will take time for her to get over the hurt, but it sounds like you are making progress.

Sarah - Thanks, and I hope so. At the very least, this was something I was dreading, and although I struggled (going home early on Wednesday), I'm proud that I regained myself and made it through. I didn't make any attempt to go see the OW after hours. She left a note on my desk at work, saying she hoped I was OK and wanted to still be friends with me...a nice gesture, I guess, but after reading it, I simply threw it away. And made no effort to reply at all. She left and we hardly spoke at all this week. I'm proud of my strength. It might not be enough to save my marriage, but I know today that I do have the strength to resist temptation...I just didn't have it a few months ago

Mike - I'm very happy to hear that your second day with the AP went well. It gives me hope for myself! I know that I will see him next week but I am going to through myself into my work. I am a great teacher and last year I dropped the ball big time with my class. It's time for me to get back to my old self, even if he is there. I have been communicating with my husband daiky despite our seoaration and I have agreed that he is welcome on my campus. I don't want him to think that I am keeping secrets anymore so that is one step I can take. I am considering confiding in a friend on campus so that she can keep me accountable but I am fearful that she will tell. I need to think about it more before I tell her, if I tell her.

Teacher - I'm glad that I could give you some hope, and I know you are capable of doing this!

Re: confiding in someone, I'd say only do that with people you know well and trust. Not everyone needs to know everything about us

I am glad that you guys are both doing so well. I am proud of you Mike for throwing that note away.

Teacher, perhaps you should encourage your husband to come have lunch with you occasionally at school--perhaps that will help. Just a thought. Be careful who you share any information with. Be sure it is someone you can really trust, or thing could blow up in your face. Perhaps you have a friend away from school that you can confide in and call periodically during the day to check in with as an accountability partner. That might work better.