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I’m a wayward spouse, and my husband and I are a little over three years into reconciliation.

A few weeks ago, my husband reached out to my affair partner’s wife. She didn’t respond at first, but after a few days she messaged him back. Since then, they’ve been in fairly regular contact.

He shows me all the messages . Most of their conversations have centered around the affairs and healing. My affair partner is apparently still denying that the affairs happened, which has left his wife struggling and questioning things. My husband has encouraged her to seek therapy and support, and I believe he genuinely wants to help her.

One additional detail is that my affair partner does not know they are corresponding. As far as we know, those conversations are only between my husband and his wife.

I don’t have a problem with them talking, and I don’t believe anything inappropriate is happening. At the same time, this is a situation I never imagined we’d be in, and I’m trying to understand whether it’s common or healthy in the long run.

Has anyone else experienced this? If you were the betrayed spouse, did talking with the other betrayed spouse help your healing, or did it make it harder to move forward? If you were the wayward spouse, how did you navigate your feelings about it?

I am simply curious whether others have been through something similar and what the outcome was.

I reached out to the OBS to inform her about what happened between our spouses (a ONS-fling at a trade-show and a few text messages after). We exchanged a few emails over the course of several weeks. A couple of years later she emailed me to let me know she divorced and ask me how I was doing. That was the extent of it.

I generally encourage BSs to inform OBSs and share information. Just the facts!

Anything beyond simple inform sharing becomes precarious for plenty of reasons. The most critical reason to keep any interactions between BSs to a minimum is that it can, however vicariously, maintain the connection between the WSs.

I think it is perfectly reasonable for you to ask your hubby to keep his interactions with her to that bare minimum. It is not his job to help her heal. A healthy boundary needs to be established here.

I think unhinged reply is excellent.

Ashamed, when there’s another betrayed partner is only fair to give them the chance to reclaim their stolen agency and decide if the want to live with infidelity or they want out.

I don’t know if your husband has additional goals other than justice and fairness, maybe he’s taking revenge on the Affair Partner who destroyed his life in part, which is correct to say he is irrelevant and worthless, as he has no power over his life besides the power your affair gave him temporarily.

Now he’s harmless to your husband, and his informing OBS is just, if he gets some satisfaction over the AP for what he did it’s also kinda fair, h deserves it.

He might feel a bit better about it and he also might feel some vindication in showing you the AP "lying POS" side, that he denies your existence because you never really mattered to him, you were just free validation in his eyes.

That said, I think the reasons above not to keep contact too close between BSes is very valid.

They can exchange notes and confront the lies between waywards (speculation: if he thinks you didn’t fully come clean and are trickle truing, their exchange of notes may help him to know and save himself from trickle truths, that are as devastating as the affair). They can maybe set a checkpoint in the future.

But they should not be in constant contact. Your boundary here is really making sense. Maybe try to explain to him if he can make it so they do exchange information but it doesn’t become a "relationship " in the sense of colleagues, not romantic. They should heal each other separately and when needed they know they can email each other for help.

No friendship though. They are both still with their waywards, and you might be tempted to contact the AP (or him to contact you) to work out a common story to tell (gentle name for lies, don’t follow it even if tempted, lies will always fall. You risk to sabotage any R if that’s your goal).

You all need space and clarity to heal and find yourself again.
This is fair and may help bs, but it can be a double edged sword and source of triggers if not minimized and very controlled (and their emotional state ain’t the best right now most likely).