Does OM's wife know you and her husband share a child?

No; my H and I meet with an attny. this week before that occurs so that we are sure we don't have legal issues over the OC

Do you think MM and his wife have a "right to know" this child ... after all HE is the father and SHE is the child's step-mother, is she not?

There will be legal issues
There will be moral issues
There will be heartache

... and it ALL was born of secrecy

which is why we like to shine a very BRIGHT light on adultery ... because if your affair had not been secret for so long ... perhaps there would not be an innocent lovely child caught in the middle of adult's bad choices

....

now that the affair has been partially exposed to the wounded ... it ought to be exposed to OM's wife so she can be a part of the decision-making

Really, sfjaj, I applaud your partial coming out of your secret .... That must have been heartwrenching. And, it was a brave step out of the shadows. GOOD FOR YOU !!!

However, you have a long track record of secrecy and distrust of radical honesty...

You have a long term history of living in the shadows of lies ...

Now you express an opinion that certain others don't need to know .... when, clearly, you witheld life-altering information from thoses who DID need to know ... for years and years ... and still the step-mother of your child is unaware.

It might cross your mind that perhaps you are not actually a very good judge of "who needs to know".

Pepperband, you gave me cause to think with your last post. You are very correct in your assessment of the pain and damage I've caused in my M. The OMW does deserve to know...but my H and I plan on raising the OC as ours,without interference from the OM and OMW. Your last line regarding my judgment is a valid point. So, at the risk of sounding harsh, the OC is not to be involved with the OM and his family

For your sake as well as the child's sake ... I hope that plan works out for you. I actually think a child needs less chaos not more ... and being thrown between 2 unhappy sets of parents is definitely MORE chaos. I sincerely hope and pray that MM and his BW do NOT seek visitation rights.

I beg of you ... please refrain from advising others on this board right now ... please believe me .... in 8 months or so ... your perspective will be dramatically altered and your advice will be much sought after ... but

truthfully

YOUR marriage is NOT yet recovered ... and your current advice to others reflects that yours is still a very early bud of recovery, not nearly close to fully bloomed.

You need assistance yourself ... ask more questions from other recovering WW ... one of my favorites is FaithfulFollower ... plus she is also dealing with an OC ...

Ask for HELP ... because that is your reality right now ... you know much less about recovery than you think you know ... It takes a long time to get over the emotions and you are taking early baby steps ... so don't try running.

Take care.

i understand. i guess i should have stopped posting much earlier and continued on my own. as I said on an earlier thread, several have been so very helpful, and it's with their encouragement I confessed. I'm not sure what the magical arbitrary amount of time in recovery is before one's posts are deemed "worthy" of consideration, but I don't think I will ever hit the mark in anyone's eyes. I realize I've made huge mistakes , but I've never felt so unwelcome anywhere before

If a person enters an AA meeting and has been sober just a few weeks ... that person cannot offer insight to another newbie as to what it takes to remain sober for 10 years ... What I am saying to you has nothing to do with "being worthy" but I am noticing that you are very inexperienced at Marriage Builders concepts... and it shows.

Your worth is completely in your own hands. How you choose to live your life will determine that.

Please, take care

Greetings and Salutations everyone. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

WAT asked me to come over and describe what I had gone through as it relates to exposure, the associated fear, procrastination... Basically, the whole ball of wax, so, here goes.

As indicated in my signature, I found out on 3-29-06 that my wife was having an affair. For two days I surfed the web, internalizing pain and anger, etc, until I discovered this web site. It took me another fea days to sift through the printed material until I really found a board I could post on. Once I did, things started happening quickly.

I learned a lot of things in a very short amount of time. Betrayed spouses will internalize. What I was doing, saying, feeling and experiencing was normal! It was classic! And along came someone who said, "Expose if you want to save your marriage." I thought, "Expose? You're friggin nutz. I go around telling the world and my wife is going to drop me like a hot potato."

Guess what? That is normal for a betrayed spouse to think and feel too! What's going on here? I had this inner arguement. I couldn't see how loving my wife and my marriage meant hurting her by telling people that were in a position to put pressure on her. What I didn't realize was that while I was fence sitting about exposure, I was only enabling what I didn't want to happen in the first place.

We had been going to marriage counseling, doing our homework, having good weeks, having bad weeks, not really making any progress. Why? Why weren't we moving toward something that could be attainable with some work? I'll tell you why! On Mother's Day, I found out she was still in contact with the other man after she said she wasn't! I hadn't exposed and it cost me 6 weeks. Six weeks!

I had thought that by threatening exposure, I had done enough. Didn't want to mess up her job, thought my situation was unique. Sound familiar? "Oh, but I'm special and I don't fall into the normal category so I don't have to follow the normal rules." Tell me you didn't say that to yourself and I'll buy you ice cream.

Now then, in order to expose properly, there is one thing for certain that you absolutely must do. You have to pull your head out of your [censored]. Yup, I said it. You're a betrayed spouse and your head is so far up your [censored] you playing ostrich. A little trivia about that bird. It doesn't actually bury it's head. It puts its head low to the ground because it thinks it can't be seen, no knowing the REST of him is still standing up!

If you don't expose the affair, you're asking to be blindsided. You're putting yourself in a position that has no control. "Sure, honey, you can go bang the neighbor. I'll stay here and watch the kids for you." You're enabling your wayward spouse to blindside you at will.

Absolutely nothing will work if you don't expose. Plan A is useless if you don't expose. Your wayward spouse will think, "Ohhh, isn't that cute. I'm having an affair and my spouse is so happy for me. S/he is doing all this wonderful stuff for me and I don't have to do a thing." That's called cake eating, BUT, in this instance, you're spoon feeding your wayward spouse.

After I discovered the contact again on Mother's Day, I exposed to my wife's boss on Monday. Now, my situation is a little different because we have a military association. Sweet mother of pearl was my wife mad at me! But guess what? The other man is history. I have made more progress in the last week than I had in the previous 6! Why, you ask? Because I was in competition!

It's easy to win when there's no competition. If you give the other person competition, they start to rethink things. They didn't bargain for the additional stress of exposure. People finding out wasn't part of their little plan.

IT IS VITAL to expose. Will it be scary? Yes. Will it hurt some? You bet. Will your wayward spouse be angry? Oh, heck yeah. Will it give your marriage a much better chance at surviving an affair? Absolutely. So, if you're still sitting on the fence about whether you should expose... if you've heard everyone and their dog tell you to expose and still can't decide, think about this...

Your marriage has a disease. It's called infidelity. It's a cancer, eating away at your marriage. The only way to get rid of it is to operate (expose) and follow that with some chemo (Plan A). The chemo by itself won't have the desired effect. You have to cut out the diseased part first. Will you get it all the first time around? Hopefully. Sometimes not and sometimes you have to go back in and do it again. If you allow the cancer to grow and give it a safe harbor in your marriage, believe me, it will thrive.

So, get your instruments in order. 1) a list of who is in a position to put pressure on the adulterers and their phone numbers. 2) proof. 3) uninterrupted time to sit down and nuke the affair. 4) courage to stand up to your wayward spouse and not apologize for exposure. Your marriage can't survive an affair without exposure.

Best wishes. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Is there a point of no return? How long is too long?

I think the point of no return is when you decide that you've absolutely had enough. Only you can decide that. I can say that the longer you know about the affair and don't expose, the less respect your wayward spouse will probably have for you. Nobody wants to be with a doormat. Typically, nobody wants to be a doormat.

If I remember correctly, your wife and the OM work together at a school and there was some talk about her transfering? It's awesome if she's going to transfer. I think the school administration should still know about it. The more water you let under the bridge, the more you have to mop up later.

Best wishes. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

This link is for people who want to see an example of exposure working.

The OM was in town last week and a friend of mine called him up just before he was to get off work and go to his motel. My friend asked to speak to my wife (who wasn't actually there yet).

Apparently this caused them to call off their meeting, because my wife came home shortly after that madder than heck.

In a previous phone conversation two weeks earlier with the OM, I calmly told him that I would be helping his wife in any way I could with evidence of his affair for the purposes of their divorce so that she could obtain the best settlement possible. The OM is the majority owner in a small business which isn't doing well enough to support him (he works a construction job during the week). He understands now that he has put his ownership in this business at risk with the affair. He is also aware that I know a great deal more about the affair than he suspected, so I think he is not quite sure whether I've hired a PI or not.

When my friend called the OM Thursday and asked for Mrs. Hiker just before my wife was to meet with him, he probably suspected that we knew of the meeting and decided the risk of being caught was too great. Perhaps the same thought was in his mind for the weekend near his home. Remember, he is the one dictating when and where they meet, so obviously there are factors that have caused him to curtail the frequency of the meetings. I think these phone calls played the major role, but there may be other things at work here of which I am unaware.

Recall that after my first phone contact with the OM, my wife came to me furious because she said the OM was stressing out and "he's got enough to worry about."

Very thoughtful of her, don't you think?

^bumping for new arrivals^

Bump for newbies...

Very helpful thread

i can't get to any of the links on the first message, can someone help me out? it says page not found

definitely bumpin' this one up for the newcomers!

Drexell,
My husband had a very short-lived affair while we were separated this past summer. When we got our crap straightened out and started to work on our M, he ended the affair. There has been NC by him. She called him one week into NC, and he told me immediately. The problem I have is that I never told anyone except my best friend. This OW had a man waiting in the wings. She moved on to him less than three days after my H called it off with her. Do I tell the OW's new man? Or do I let him find out for himself what kind of "woman" she is, to use the term loosely? By the way, I know the man in question. I have known him for a long time, and he is a very nice guy.
Studentmomof3

For the newcomers.

I know exposure can be scary and may anger the adulterers.

It wasn't until the end of my 25 year marriage to a serial adulterer that I started doing exposure of his adulteries.

ALL the adulteries eventually ended on their own, but exposure helped end them sooner and also had some other added benefits such as sending a clear signal to my WH that I would no longer silently put up with his cheating.

Also, IMHO when their is a pattern of serial adultery THAT fact should also be exposed to others - not merely the current adultery, as if each adultery is an isolated incident. Actually the serial adultery just proves that it is not the marriage/BS that is at fault, AND it is not that the OP is somehow better than the BS, it's the serial adultery problem of the WS that is the problem and MUST be dealt with.

Even if/when the current adultery ends, the current OP is out of the picture, the serial adultery still needs tobe addressed or it will just happen again.

I exposed my ww's affair to the om's w. We live 1000 miles away and my ww drove several times for trysts with her "soul mate". When confronted by om's w's team (she told several people and they were so bold other people noticed), my ww came home MAD. She threw her clothes in a suitcase and moved out (after telling me I'm lower than snake-spit and should just hang myself). That was two weeks ago. Today she sent a text message to my phone saying she needs money for an apartment and furnishings. She also wants to move some more of her belongings and I need to be gone when she does...and she needs "help" to get movers...

Am I sorry I exposed? I was until reading this thread. Would I expose again. Yes! Thank God for this site and this thread...and thanks to the ws who post here...I appreciate your input...