I recently received an email from a wife who was on the edge of her wits with her husband’s ex-lover. The husband insisted that he was now committed to the wife and the marriage and they were working very hard to save the marriage. However, the mistress did not seem willing to let her husband go. He would stop by the house, keep calling the wife and husband, and hang up, send emails, and send messages on their Facebook accounts.
They wanted to get rid of this woman once and for all, but she didn’t seem to get the message. The wife wanted my advice on how to get the mistress back so she could get her life back and get to work saving her marriage. She just wanted to be left alone. I’ll tell you what I told him in the following article.
Tell the lady clearly to walk away and then do not answer her again: This is not always the case, but sometimes the lover endures because the husband has not been very clear. Of course, he will tell the wife that he has been very direct. But, the lover might see things a little differently. She can take little nuggets of what her husband says and turn it over to say exactly what she wants him to say.
In this case, it is better to make sure that the husband is very clear in one last message. I often advise that the wife listen to the phone call, which should be very brief. Basically, I felt that the husband should answer the next time the lover called and tell her not to contact, follow up, drive or attempt to engage in conversation with him or his wife. If the mistress tried to interrupt, the husband would only have to respond that if she continued, they would have to take legal action and that this was the last time the two would communicate. So the husband should hang up and not commit to her no matter what.
Once the message has been delivered, refuse to commit to the lover: Sometimes this firm message won’t be enough to make the lover back off. You will often try to test this to see if the husband really meant what he said. But here’s the thing, the more you relate to her and the more she makes you angry and frustrated, the more she thinks she has won. Her whole goal is to make you and your husband focus on her and not on the other. Don’t let her do this.
Block their number and their text messages on your phone. Block their email. Tell your provider that it is spam. Ignore her completely if you can. Pretend she doesn’t exist. Every time you respond to her and involve her, she makes this process take much longer than it should. Over time, she will get the message that you have moved on and that you have left no room for her in your life. Usually it will eventually turn its attention elsewhere, as it no longer receives the reward it feeds on.
Leave the necessary actions to the professionals: Never fight with the lover. Never allow her to cause you an altercation. I have had readers who have had no choice but to send the lady a registered letter and tell her that if she continues, they will get a restraining order. (You want this in writing so you have a paper trail that you have done nothing wrong and have tried to fix it.)
Whatever you do, don’t lower yourself to their level. Don’t let her win. If it just doesn’t stop, you may have to get the authorities involved. That is your job. Let them do it. But the more you allow it to go on like this, the more it feeds on the process. Her biggest fear is that the two of you will move on together and no longer have a place for her in your life. Your “don’t back down” is your attempt to sneak out of your way back.
But you have control over how you react to it. The best course of action is often to make her position (and her husband’s) clear and then walk away from the game knowing that she will eventually get the message. If you don’t, leave it to the professionals. Don’t try to take care of it yourself. The less you let her into your life, the better off you will be.
