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You know those great suggestions your therapist makes that you could totally do if you were such a better person. Mine has been telling me that if we want to move forward I need to drop the rule that my husband has to let me know when the OP enters his work space. This could happen if she choose to schedule an appointment on a day she knows he is in that particular office location or because she chooses to take on a client that she already knows is already working with my husband. That is her latest move. It was frustrating but my husband taped his conversation with the client where he told the client he was not comfortable working with the AP because of the unprofessional was she does things. (Which was actually true, but mostly because stalking is unprofessional). Now the poor client has to choose between the two of them. He can’t have both. What a mess. Why does she willingly put herself into these situations. She knows there will be blowback but she does them anyway. I guess I should not care. I know my husband will not speak directly to her but he will have to do so through intermediaries and that still bothers me. I want to live in an AP free space. Is that too much to ask?

Simple solution. Your H needs to get another job.

Period.

Not negotiable.

Ends the problem both now and in the future.

Your therapist is wrong. This isn’t a "you" problem. You will never feel safe as long as AP is in the picture. Like wouldn’t it be awesome if you could just get over it and be ok with him working with her, and trusting? It would be amazing, but it won’t happen, and denying it only hurts you more.

If you want to move forward either AP or your WH finds a new job.

What you are doing is basically putting a bandage over a wound, but the blood keeps coming and all that you are doing is putting another bandage. The wound can’t heal if AP is involved.

Also, I do recommend stop trying to decode the AP. She’s in her own world where she is the main character and everyone else are NPCs, nothing she will do will make sense.

Your H may need a new job, but I agree that your therapist is wrong.

An ap is an addictive substance. Informing you when she's in your H's area is like calling a spnsor in AA - it helps your WS stay away from the drug.

If that's too much for your WS to do, perhaps R is too much for your WS to do, too. Too many 'oo's in that sentence, but the sentence is OK neverthe less.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:28 PM, Saturday, July 6th]

So what is the therapist’s rationale for this advice?

And to echo the others, if your relationship is going to have even a fighting chance of working your husband needs to get a new job.

So the therapist’s argument: if we are not going to move away then occasionally this person is going to turn up in his space and if I am going to get upset and micro-manage the whole situation (which I have a tendency to do) then maybe he shouldn’t tell me.

First I have to clarify something about the job thing but it is difficult to describe without describing the actual profession, but i am gonna try to describe the main idea of the job situation with a similar job situ

So if we assume my husband were a neurologist. He’s not but its something like that.

So the AP used to work for him but she was sent away with severance from his office after the cheating. She then tried to rejoin by signing on with a company they had a partnership with but when he found out he got her sent away again. Now she works at a different place. So basically she’s been fired twice from his business and she works independently.

But, if you imagine my WH is a neurologist (again he’s not but its something like that) and he had a patient and they needed botox injections for migraines for example. And lets say the AP was a technician who did botox injections. So if my husband referred the patient for botox injections to the AP then he would be working together with her collaborating on the patient. My husband refers lots of patients for something like botox injections but NEVER refers to the AP. Unfortunately one of his patients did not like the person my husband referred him to and so this patient went and found his own « botox injection person » and that sadly was the AP. So my WH tells me when he finds out and I am like no way do I agree to that. This is collaboration and will go on for several months and absolutely NO. So he agrees but now he has to go tell this poor innocent patient who does not at all deserve to be caught up in this mess that he can’t work with the AP. He basically says that she did something unprofessional so he wont work with her. He taped himself telling the person for me to hear, which is not something either of us felt good about. But part of me did not believe it was a coincidence. My rational self knew that if he wanted to cheat then this would be like the dumbest way to accomplish it, not to mention the fact that my WH is the one who came and told me the situation had arisen. But another part of me needed the proof.

Anyway, the net net is this stuff is awkward. And there are certain ethical boundaries that come up (like it is not fair to do this to a patient). Now, admittedly it was my WH and the AP who created this horrible situation but anyway it just sucks.

Also, continuing with calling him a « neurologist » for some reason the AP like to take herself and her mother to this very same neurologist office. Which you would think would be humiliating because she has been fired twice. But apparently not to her. She doesn’t come to see my husband but other « neurologists » in the office. And you can’t bar someone from getting healthcare. So again there I have to put up with these possible interactions. It is causing a lot of angst and strife. Maybe we should move. But our families and our whole lives are here. Ugh

[This message edited by Stillconfused2022 at 3:55 AM, Monday, July 8th]

One thing your H can do is come clean with his partners and ask that they refer ap & mom to another practice.

Has he already come clean? Have they refused to ban ap & mom?

I still do not see how your wanting to be informed of ap's presence is a problem. Yes, it looks like you may have to put up with breaks in NC. Yes, informing you still looks like a Good Thing.

My H never stopped working at the same company as the AP. They never worked closely together, thank god.

I required that my H tell me about all attempts at contact, which he took to mean personal contact. As far as I know, and I believe that he's telling me the truth, he did tell me every time she tried to strike up non-work related conversations, but after everything had died down, he didn't think that he needed to tell me about professional contact. I found out about five years in that he had to talk with her once every couple of months about work stuff. I was upset, but after much consternation, I agreed that the boundary should be that I be told of anything that wasn't work-related. If she said "Merry Christmas" while passing in the hallway, I wanted to know about it. If it was 100% work stuff, no need to relay that to me.

Can you set a boundary like that? Are you comfortable with that?

If AP was already fired from this place of business because of the affair and your WH thwarted her attempt to get rehired, then he dodged a bullet in terms of not getting fired or sued himself. I think that trying to get AP's mother banned from getting care at his place of business would be pushing his luck too far.

Also, your WH recording his conversation with a patient and sharing it with you without the patient's knowledge or consent isn't just in poor taste and unfair to the patient... it's a HIPAA violation.

So based on this information, Stillconfused2022, if you still want your husband to tell you about his interactions with AP, then you're going to take a hands-off approach and not micromanage the situation. If you can't do that, then your only other options are to remove this requirement or tell your husband that him changing jobs and/or moving is a requisite for reconciliation.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 8:56 PM, Monday, July 8th]

Bluer than Blue,
Yes this was my concern myself. So now looking at a hands off approach I guess I just have to see if I can handle the situations that arise. If I can’t my WH and I may have to go our separate ways. Or we may have to move. Those feel like the only options.