Sometimes I hear from wives who are extremely frustrated that their husband tells them he wants to save their marriage and is done with the affair, yet they find clear and distinct evidence that he is in phone contact with the other woman.
So, understandably, the wife will want to find a way to put an end to this once and for all. Since the husband definitely hasn’t gained her trust back, she doesn’t want to give him any wiggle room so he can keep in touch with the other woman. And she wants reassurance that he couldn’t contact her even if she wanted to. One way she could try this is to block the other woman’s phone number.
You might hear a comment like, “My husband promised he would break up with the other woman. I really wanted to believe he was telling me the truth, but I had my doubts. I’ve read his emails and text messages. And I know he was claiming to be in love with her. I also know there was a lot of cheating in the relationship. So frankly, I don’t care much what he says. And that’s why I went and looked at the call history on his cell phone and on our home phone. And guess what I found? His phone number. At this point, I’m thinking of contacting both the home phone and the cell phone companies and blocking his phone number. Will this prevent him from getting in touch? contact with her?”
I wish I could give you a definite yes. I wish I could tell them that if they took this simple step, they would never be in touch again, she would stay out of her life and they would only have to worry about saving her marriage. I wish I could tell you that, but he wouldn’t be being honest with you if he did.
That’s not to say that a man who really wants to comply with his wife’s request won’t be more motivated to do so when he knows the other woman can’t communicate with him easily. I’m not telling you that taking this step won’t be a dig because I think it might be.
But I also have to say that if a man wants to continue cheating and wants to communicate with the other woman, he can definitely do so without much trouble. He could go somewhere and call her. He could call her from work. (After all, it’s her number that’s blocked, not his.) He could email you from work. They could get in touch through social networks. They could chat on his computers. Or he could just go see her if they cut off his phone contact. Sure, he may have to work a little harder with these options. But, if he really wants to get in touch with her, you can bet he’ll find it the same way he did before.
So where does that leave you? Well, as someone who’s been there, and someone who’s seen how difficult it is to figure this out without another person in the picture, I can tell you that it’s in your best interest to let him legitimately choose to stay away from her. . If you push him, threaten him, or follow him, he’ll just try to avoid you or resent you, at least most of the time.
You may be wondering how you get him to make this decision on his own. It’s not always easy. Deep down, he has to want. But you can do a couple of things to cheer him up. The next time you see the phone number, you can say something like, “I see you’ve gotten back in touch with her. He told me he wouldn’t. So you’re not telling the truth. I thought we hung out.” to save our marriage. But to do that, the adventure has to end. That means we won’t be able to work on our marriage right now. I can’t participate in this with you. So you’re going to have to let me know when it’s really over because you’re obviously not at that point right now. I am going to spend my time healing and working on myself. I can’t spend my time healing this marriage until it’s a legitimate marriage with only two people in it. I trust you will let me know when the affair is truly over and she is truly out of our lives.”
Another thing you can do is let him know that you will follow up on every claim he makes to you. In other words, if it’s not where it says it should be, the question is why. You don’t want to turn a blind eye when something doesn’t make sense to you. I am by no means telling you to be combative or pick a fight, but your husband should know that you are watching him closely and will catch him when he tries to lie to you.
But to answer the question posed, unfortunately, I don’t think blocking her number will make you cut off contact with her if that’s not legitimately what you want to do. The key then is to encourage him to make the decision that avoiding him and cutting off contact with him is legitimately her intention and what he is going to do.
