I don't remember reading this in the book, but I think the idea is that you shouldn't replicate your spouses bad behavior by doing things behind their back without their knowledge. I understand your feelings, but I think the purpose of the book is to emphasize that if you are trying to rebuild your marriage you should be working together as a team and communicating, and not doing the one sided things like your spouse did when they had the affair.

I am still trying to understand where she is seeing this. If anyone else knows, please tell me. It has been several months since I read the book. I still have it on my computer and tried to find what she is talking about.

My memory (which I will stipulate is lousy on a good day) is that there is to be NO CONTACT whatsoever by the CS to the OP. IF there is a final contact required to tell the OP a FINAL goodbye and ask them not to contact them anymore..the CS can write a final letter or email and the BS is to approve this before it goes to insure transparency.

But there may be a part in there that I am not remembering.

Peace... I suppose this is possible. That would be the only reason I can imagine it to be in there. If the BS is sending a letter/email to the OP requesting they not contact THEM anymore.

I am pretty sure that I dont know any BS's that wouldnt send a letter to the OP or amend it because the CS didnt approve of the contents. Keeping it open would be best to stop the OW from being able to blindside the CS telling them "Your BS said this or that" to them. This way they are aware of everything as you are of their comings/goings/communications. I have a real clear picture of my h telling me what I could or couldnt say to the OW (I hope you know sarcasm when you read it).

In the end it is up to the cheating spouse to cut off all contact with the other person.

Can you imagine contacting the other person and then you find out that your spouse is still cheating with them?

It unfortunately just makes the betrayed spouse look stupid and desperate and could feed into the other person wanting to continue to cheat with your spouse.

Nana, I think it might be in the section about creating a unified front. Both spouses need to be on the same page once they are both committed to rebuilding the marriage.

Write Letters:
You can write a letter to your partner or AP without monitoring your words. Just let the feelings flow out of you onto the paper. Then put the letter for a day or two and read it to yourself. Do not send it immediately. You can edit the damaging or nasty parts out of it before you decide whether or not to send it. Your partner can read the letter without being effected by tone or impulse to interrupt you.

Is this the part you are talking about???

I agree with the unified front completely. It is a must. There are VERY few situations that would make the BS having any contact with the OW/OM a positive thing. There is one situation on the board now where the OW has been contacting the BS. In that ONE situation it has been helpful ONLY because the OW actually NOW wants to end it and the CS isnt being cooperative. But that is a VERY rare instance.

But if you are rebuilding the unified is the only way.

Yes nana it is. Right under that part it says "Caution don't send anything to the affair partner without the support and input of your spouse". If I were to send a letter to the OW why in the world would I tell my H? I just wouldn't. Blindside you made a point that I hadn't thought of but my sister mentioned to me. What if the OW said things that I really don't want to hear? And they would remain in my memory forever. In my case the OW is married now, but my curiosity is fueling me. I have mentioned before that I have never seen her and she lives in the next town where I go alot to shop and so on. It would be possible for me to be standing right beside her and not even know it! That does drive me crazy I must admit. And in my own mind it is just another secret that my H can know and I cannot. I may not do anything but I am trying to track her down. To see where she lives and maybe get a peek at her. Might be bad for me, might satisfy my "need to know". I don't think in these situations we really know what is good for us and what isn't.

I went nuts....I sent her a FB msg with in three days of dday. she did not respond and block me. I wrote her a letter and mailed it to her house-she did not respond. I emailed her at her job the other day and was very nice-just to see where that would get me and guess what she did! She called my H at work! She got hung up when he answered. I guess she got scared. i freaked out when i found out she called him. I got so mad and it made me realize she will always be in my life if I stay with my H. She will not talk to me or my H at all. she refuses. Her dad did talke me though! He said she will never talk-he was very nice and aplogized for her.

wow, my typing is b ad when I am mad.! hopefully I make sense

Writing letters or sending messages or throwing on your fuzzy slippers to run her over, as I did. Does it matter?

yeah, I did it but I would not advise anyone to do it. I would, however, tell them to handle this thier own way. I figured that my EX was the one who brought this whole shit my way, so I am fine with dealing with it according to my own judgment. And? If she wants to be running around in my world, let the b look me in the face already.

All in fuzzy slippers.

No apologies. I didn't care what my EX had to say.

That's just me tho...L~

I wonder if you wrote it together and signed it together...that may be something I would consider. Not so much permission...more of a common understanding that can't be penetrated by the OW/OM.

Cuz boy, when those cheaters get an opening to keep on seeing or communicating with your spouse, they JUMP in! They get emotional and physical relief from your partner and when it's gone they miss it!

Yeah! A united front sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I did however confront her on my own terms. Telling her how I felt and what I thought of her felt wonderful! But she immediately called my husbands and any friends of ours that she could to tell them how horrible I was for verbally brutalizing her. Most of them had to change their numbers and block her from facebook, but she's an extra crazy case.

Anyways. I see both sides on this one. I was too angry to listen to my husband chew next to me at the dinner table, so asking for him to help me with words wouldn't have happened until now, and he's terrified that he's gonna find that she boiled a rabbit on our stove as it is. So it's over! LOL!

I contacted the OW a couple of times and wish now I hadn't. When I called all cool-headed and collected, she said my calling her was disrespectful and I flipped my lid. She definitely got the better of me with that one statement. How dare the woman who screwed my H in her van say my phone call was disrespectful??? The other time was by text where I basically awarded her a blue ribbon for being a white trash whore. I didn't get a response to that one, but she told my H. I'm 99% sure he apologized for it and that just pisses me off even more...

Yeah.. it is absolutely a case by case basis. In my case it was the OW that dropped the bomb on dday for me. The last thing we will do is communicate with her. In some cases the OW/OM is a bit obsessed and not taking the rejection well at all. They are looking for any excuse or reason to contact the CS. The OW used every trick in the book. We had to change my h's cell number. Because she is the mom of our son's gf, we couldnt even allow our son to have that number.

The best way is NO CONTACT. I have only seen a handful of cases where having any communication with the OW/OM turns out to be a positive thing.