I think you'll find closure when you feel that your life is impermeable by the AP. Until then she's taking up too much of your head space for you to get past this.

" if I was to simply gloss over the affair and make little mention of it that would enrage her even more"

Who cares? I'm not being flippant - but why do you care and why does your H care? As long as you do them she's a 3rd party in your marriage. Once you stop caring about OW and her feelings and reactions you'll be free. It's a long process.

((hugs))

What lisalisa said: yeah, it's easier said than done, but the opposite of love isn't hate, it's apathy. When you can get to the point where what the other person thinks/says/does doesn't make a lick of difference to you, you will have reached an important milestone in healing. (I'll letcha know when/if I get there. Heh.)

As far as writing about the affair in your memoirs... that gets tricky. My inclination (for whatever it's worth... probably not much) is to write whatever the heck you want. But WRITE it - don't necessarily PUBLISH it. Writing what you want won't enrage anyone (except maybe yourself) but putting it out into the world may not only enrage someone, but may trigger all kinds of fun like lawsuits, etc. Even if nothing comes of it, is that something you want to wrestle with?

With that in mind, that doesn't mean you can't write about it AND publish it, it just means you'll need to be especially careful on how you approach it. Lots of people have, for example, written about ex-spouses in facts, leaving out their own commentary and editorial, and it comes across as very fair and impartial, while still telling the story. Of course, that's sort of boring to read, isn't it?

As for unblocking the AP - I wouldn't. Just keep her entirely out of your life as best as possible. She will forever be a trigger for you. Marriage Builders has a big, "NO CONTACT" rule as far as the unfaithful spouse being in contact with the AP - but my husband pointed out once when I was obsessing over the OW that perhaps the rule should also apply to betrayed spouses. And he's abso-freaking-lutely right. Since I have committed to stalking the OW, I am happier, I am healthier, and I am far less heart sick. It's not so much that I'm to the point where I don't care what happens to her, it's that it has created a positive cycle that I make a point of not checking up on her, thus I think of her less, thus I check up on her less, thus I think of her less... and on forever.

Anyway... just my buck fifty. :) The further you stay away from her the easier time you'll have of getting to the "eh, whatever" stage when you think of her.

Thank you both and you are both absolutely right. As long as we are constantly including her in our fears, plans, and what if's then she is still taking up place in our lives and we will not allow that. I have forever been terrified of running into her in public because I just don't want to deal with the drama and scene but even that constant fear is taking up way too much space in my head at all times.
I will continue on with the absolutely no contact from our end which we have done since day 1 and to write or not to write will be an ongoing question that only I can answer. I'm hoping to write it because truly the affair only plays a small part of the dysfunction i've had since I was born and even if I only ever write it for myself it is still something I want desperately to do because writing has always been my outlet. Before the affair I had a very popular blog and I miss it so, but we came to find out that from the blog is where her obsession with my husband began, so again all these mixed emotions about opening up all my stuff for all the world to see once again....somethings telling me all of our progress in saving this marriage might not be able to withstand a tell all book? Ugh, so confused, but thanks again both of you because truly you made me realize the power I'm still to this day allowing her to have and I refuse to allow it to continue.

I have not ever talked to the OM since finding out about the A. I pray to the lord lots about how I hope I never see him I might do something I would regret. I hope that he just stays out of our lives for all of eternity. I do not think I will ever get (or it feels like I won't) to the point of him not being a trigger.
I did unblock and send him a very to the point message, after he contacted my wife when we were on a marriage building vacation. Basically I said leave my *&#&^$* family alone you piece of *#*$(# . Then messaged his best friends and told her that she needed to tell him to leave us alone. My wife said she told him to leave her alone on that trip. That was about 6 months ago and since I have only unblocked him once and that was a very bad idea. No Contact is definatly best. I don't think the OM would ever respond to me if I did try to reach him. I hope that we never get near each other again.

I have not ever talked to the OM since finding out about the A. I pray to the lord lots about how I hope I never see him I might do something I would regret. I hope that he just stays out of our lives for all of eternity. I do not think I will ever get (or it feels like I won't) to the point of him not being a trigger.
I did unblock and send him a very to the point message, after he contacted my wife when we were on a marriage building vacation. Basically I said leave my *&#&^$* family alone you piece of *#*$(# . Then messaged his best friends and told her that she needed to tell him to leave us alone. My wife said she told him to leave her alone on that trip. That was about 6 months ago and since I have only unblocked him once and that was a very bad idea. No Contact is definatly best. I don't think the OM would ever respond to me if I did try to reach him. I hope that we never get near each other again.

Sorry for the double post.

Thanks Jason and I did the same as far as contacting one of her good friends to beg her to please make the OW stop contacting us. (OW sent an 18 page document detailing all my husbands love letters to her and their emails, texts, etc...to 11 of my closest friends) If there had been any blanks my spouse had not filled in at that point...she did as well as make it public knowledge to my inner circle of friends, but still I was able to not react and give her the attention she so desired. No one on the face of the earth knows more about their spouses affair than I do I believe and it is gut wrenching to see all of that in print, but even then I have never contacted her and hope I never do. I just keep thinking that if I finally had my say with her it may bring me some kind of closure or something but I know it won't because all she does is spew lies and this is work my hubby and I have to do and closure or hope of will never truly involve her and is always OUR work to tackle, just grateful you all got me in check and cleared my head about it. Thank you again!

I didn't get closure per se but I have spoke with her. When I first found out I called her and told her that she is to only speak to my husband about work issues. If it does not involve work she is to mind her business and he will do the same. My husband was sitting there and he agreed and she agreed. She yes ma'am me the entire time (she was over 10 years younger than my husband but still over 30, so she knows better and married). I got the feeling when I talked to her that she didn't give a f@&! about me and she didn't because then afterward she told my husband she was scared of me. Mind you I didn't curse or yell, I just said the above. My idiot husband gave her all of my contact info because she said she couldn't work because she was scared I would harass her there or call her boss. I looked at him like he was stupid. I said that you all realize that that could have pissed me off more and I could have just showed up at her job right? How do you explain why xxxxxx"s wife is on the job of a place that he rarely has to visit? He said I didn't think about it I was just in repair mode and I was trying to keep her calm and keep you calm and we didn't want to lose our jobs, etc. Real stupid. I mean they really were not thinking at all. I told him I could have called her boss, he is not looking out for my number.

After that I really didn't care about her. I know she didn't care about what she was doing because she felt safe. It was all on him, my husband. Even now I don't care about her. But email her (because I had her work email address) and tell her that I knew they were still taking and I gave her a time limit to tell her husband and she did. After it was not longer fun for her she slow down and stop trying to talk with him. But even today I don't think they have totally stopped talking. They have to for work but I think besides that they have a hey, how ya doing conversation when they see each other. My husband says no but I'm not going to blindly believe that. If I found out they were talking like that again, I would tell her husband myself, in a heartbeat and then divorce my husband. Him for they lying and cheating, her because even after all this she was still hugging and flirting with other men. I told my husband, yeah...you picked a winner.

I say if you want to publish it you can give yourself another name as the author. Change your husband and her name and go for it. Trust me your story is going to sound familiar to a lot of people. If you don't give out some specific identifying information, people won't know it's you unless you tell them. Sure your close friends may know but...they already know everything. And you don't even have to tell them you wrote the book. I'm sure you all talk about it enough anyway.

If you contact her you are right, she is going to run to your husband. So just let her be. If she approaches you, I would secretly record the conversation so when she wants to lie you can whip out the recording. Probably like this one did to me even though he was sitting right there. He knows I didn't threaten her nor was I mean. I still can't believe he fell for the old "I'm scared" tactic.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like the OW is a project that you and your H are working on together - its giving you solidarity and he's protecting you to a point. It feels good to have an "us against the world" situation.

My unsolicited advice is that you need to find something else to work towards together because this will eventually fizzle and you'll be back where you were. You guys need something positive to think and dream about together other than worrying about the OW.

Yes, she's crazy (most of the single ones are). Yes, she's trying to be important in your marriage and family. But if you keep ignoring her then she'll lose interest and move on to the next situation. The more you fret over her with your H, the more she's in his life. And that's not a good thing.

I never contacted the OW. I was tempted a couple of times, but never acted on it. I blocked her on FB on both my account and my H and in the first few weeks I did a background check on her, but don't give her any thought now except when we are in MC and she is brought up in the course of discussion.

Like I said to my H's first awful counselor who tried to "get him off" and make excuses to dismiss my feelings. I said, "listen buster, the OW could have been an Avatar for all I care, SHE was not the issue HE is the issue, him and his behavior and if you had not gotten your degree from Walmart, you might know that." We switched counselors immediately. My guess is the jerk had an affair and was trying to manipulate me into thinking it was no big deal.

Thanks ladies I truly appreciate all the incite and clarity that you all bring to the table. We have moved past her and she is never really brought up until I started writing the memoir. It was like I needed to get those chapters out of the way first because his affair went hand in hand with the time frame of my mother being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and then dying in my home on hospice 4 months later. So originally I was blogging about my mom's journey everyday with all this other shit going on behind the scenes but I'm also two years out from the pain so when writing the memoir I am no longer in that bad place of anger and hatred that I was back then and I was struggling to tap into those raw emotions that I once had. So of course I pulled up the 18 page letter from her that I swore I'd never read again and all my journal entries to my husband that I was writing but never sending to him because it was therapeutic for me to get it all out in some way since I couldn't go public with it at the time, but now here we are two years out, doing really really good and I want it to be a book of help and hope for those that may be struggling through all that I've been through, infidelity, incest victim, mother of autistic child, etc.... so I guess maybe that is the spin and part I need to focus on is that I don't have to go all the way back to the daily gut wrenching drama but instead tell it from my perspective as a survivor, it's MY STORY and I so do not want it to be about her! Yayyyy, I think we've made headway people!!!! Celebratory drinks for all my friends!

I did not have a closure. I wish I did. I feel I need it. Its one of the things that hinders my recovery. I think I really need the closure with just one of OW. The one I call main. The rest was pitiful and I don't care anymore. I am over them (and its on my H), but this one was bad. Really bad. In many ways.
I don't even know what the closure would have to be?
Me talking to her and finding out that she is genuinely sorry for the pain she caused, that the affair hurt her deeply as well and in fact 3 years after she is still a mess, hear real "I am so very sorry, please forgive me if you can" and also to discover that she is actually a nice person which all together would allow me to FORGIVE her so that I could heal!!!!!
Do I hear you all saying in unison that i am daydreaming here? Yeah, I thought so.

And sometimes I dream of writing a book that would reveal all that I know, including her real name. And I know I am not going to do that as this would hurt me more at the end. Sigh.

we all feel your pain jayalexander but I think believing that the third party could actually be sincerely sorry is something dreams are made of because usually, or at least in my experience, both of my husbands AP's were as unstable as they come :( Not that I'm excusing his behavior in it but boy oh boy can he pick em' and yes he chose me as well soooooo I'll just assume I am the bar for normal and he decided to take a walk or ride on the bipolar express for a short time, ughhhh.
Sorry but you know what I mean right? Whatever they would say would never be enough to fill the whole they put in our hearts :(

I miss my blog. I shut it down when I found out the OW was stalking it and getting info to try to get my husband to talk to her and/or get him in trouble at work. I reopened it for awhile, but I don't think I will ever write so freely again.

One more thing the affair took from me.