He has joint custody of his four children. They are grade school age.

Wow...thanks for the 411. Who knew?!!!

Where's the puke smiley??

b_r
That is in response to a different thread which you started. I was reading it earlier. I should have mentioned that.

LC, if you are being honest with us, then how do you explain telling us you "cannot" be honest with your H? Can't or won't?

As in this quote here:


What is that supposed to mean?

I won't tell him today, if that's what you're asking.
I can't tell him b/c he has made it clear not to.
I am being told by all of you that it is imperative, so I'm looking into it. If I talk to him about the MB principles, I can ask him about whether radical honesty is something he wants to embrace. I've always been told that telling the BS is selfish, that telling them is only to make the WS feel better (get it off their chest), and that the BS can't ever fully get past it ... that it's better to forgive oneself and move on. Be patient with my investigation here. I've only begun this search.

"I cannot emotionally handle radical honesty right now"

That means I might have an emotional breakdown and drive my car off a bridge. That sort of I cannot handle it. Be patient with me.

Be PATIENT? How can we be patient!

It is not YOUR job to decide whether or not he can handle it! TELL HIM!

Let HIM decide if he wants to be with someone who thinks it is FUN to cheat!

I was talking about myself.
Exactly, Karmasrose, he needs to decide. He has told me not to tell him. Please read a few posts up.

Ok. Enough defense for one day. I think my time will be best spent this evening reading my assignments and loving my H.

sorry, dear, I have no patience with excuses and rationalizations. You aren't "searching," you are delaying, rationalizing and manufacturing weasely excuses to avoid telling your victim the truth.

Ask your H if he would want to know that his wife is having an affair. That would be more honest that asking him bullcrap weasel questions like "do you want to embrace radical honesty?"

And you already know the answer because you told us. He told you he would not want to be married if you cheated. So basically you are tricking him into staying married to you. You are denying him the right to make an informed choice about his own life.

So you know how he feels and this is all a pack of bullcrap served up to justify the continued deciet and fraud of your husband.


And this is more bullcrap. And you know that. It is the weak rationalization of a wayward who wants to keep her affair options open while she continues to deceive her husband.

LC,

You husband may already know, and while he might be able to suppress that knowledge perhaps even for years, it will not be healthy for him to live with doubt.

I had a dream last night about OM from my wifes EA 20 some years ago, was it really just an EA, I still wonder? Will you really be able to live with your husband for the next 30 years without remembering what you did every day?

At the very least you should tell him before he has children with you.

NJ

Here is what you told us your husband "embraces":


He made it clear, according to you, that he would not choose to continue the marriage if you had an affair. To know this and not tell him is cruel, manipulative and DANGEROUS. You don't need to do a "search" of MB principles, you already know what to do and just delaying the inevitable.

All of the MB concepts in the world cannot compensate for such flagrant trickery and dishonesty. There is nothing to research, nothing to "search," nothing to read that will support your dishonesty and trickery of your husband.

He has to be told the truth, LC. PERIOD.

Love Committment;

You sure got more than you bargained for with this group! You got some straight talking!

The overwhelming majority of posts, say "tell your husband". Why do they say this? Do they know the situation better than you? Are they mind readers? NO!

But we are all, without question, removed from the situation, and you are not. In fact whether you can understand it or not, you are fogged out, and it's as if you have a bandanna on your eyes. Thus, we can see more about your situation than you can even from the little bit you have shared with us.

It's your choice, not ours, whether you tell your husband. It's your choice to keep hubby in the background and in the dark about this, and go ahead with more contact with the OM, We are powerless onlookers, but we do care.

We are here to try to help you. We know, even if you don't, that there is no way for you to Marrige Build while this situation remains hidden. By keeping it hidden even if you don't do more affairing, it's still making the situation worse because secrecy and darkness make an old musty towel smell even worse. Sorry to say, you aren't yet a Marriage Builder if you permanently refuse to tell your husband. That's not what Marriage Builders do.

SAFETY FIRST!!
While it can seem natural to hide this ugly truth from hubby, I ask this Question: do you need to be concerned about your physical safety when you tell him? DON'T RUSH INTO TELLING HIM just because we say so, and then get yourself into an unsafe or dangerous situation. That's important. Also, do you have a place to stay if things go bad and you need to get out of there (a domestic violence shelter?)

OK, You are "Commmitted to Love" but, on the other hand you may not be committed to this marriage. If you're not, then just keep it a secret and don't tell him. Things will take a natural course of further decay and you can expect to be done with this marriage soon. On the other hand, if you take the unnatural course and try to stop the decay, and intervene and stop the marriage destruction, then you can't say for sure what will happen.

If it ends up ending, then OK, at least it's ending on a straightforward, honorable note. You would have been doing the right thing for the right reasons. If you do the right thing (tell him) and he does the wrong thing (divorces you), then it's you that retain having done the last right thing.

Sure, you have done wrongs to him in the affair and he has done wrong to you in his pervasive and painful neglect, causing you to whither and crisp like a plant that has been refused to be watered. But Now you have the way to water, and now you can set things appropriately in motion going forward.

You can't predict for sure what your husband will do, but if you tell him and the marriage is NOT over, then you will retain your status as a Marriage Builder, just like us. In fact you are already a Marriage Builder if you do Marriage building things. (i.e., stop all contact with OM, conduct business with his company through someone else somehow - you're creative and can think of ways.)

Next if you choose to tell your husband, tell him everything but preface it all by saying you want to save your marriage and want to be a marriage builder. In the recent past, you admit that you have worked against that goal, but now you're setting things right and actively building and that's why he must now hear some painful news. Tell him your marriage building support Team have unanimously agreed (enthusiastically agreed!) with your decision to tell your husband and that doing so (and stopping all contact with OM) makes you a Marriage Builder. Now at this point he will likley be frothing at the mouth by now and shouting "tell me what? TELL ME WHAT???"

Then... tell him what you did, had an affair, and that the affair is now over and you are telling him because this is the next step in the building process.

Then wait... just wait.... allow silence to settle in... allow him to think about what you just said.... wait another minute..... don't say anything.......

Then when he talks, you can respond to whatever he says, and you can be mature and open about it. Because at that point, you are a new, fresh Marriage Builder with full status and rights as an honorable person who has done the right thing! (You are still a good person even if you chose to do selfish and hurtful behaviors). And no one will take your "doing the right thing" status away from you, it's yours permanently.

There will be no need to guilt yourself or say demeaning self-statements. We do say demeaning things here about affairs and about people's false fantasies, and also about OM's and OW's who are predators and marriage demolishers.

But read through these posts and you will see that while your behavior has been criticized, you yourself have not been.

So... make the situation safe, then tell him and let us know what he said!!

-Learning to Love (L2L)

This poster is a waste of time and is not serious.

Hi Mel.

LOVEc,

Been here a long time. The search functions don't work very well, but if you click right click on my name you can see options that include view posts. If you click on that some of my posts will show up. Within my posts you can do a search. I recommend you search for the user name "Jill". It is back many years now, so go back to 99 and go forward about 5 years in span.

Jill had an affair and did not tell her H for about a year and a half. She was posting here and being encouraged to tell her H but she refused because she was certain it would end her marriage. Does this sound familiar?

One of the things I and others hammered on her about was that this secret would destroy her marriage and gradually that was what was happening, so she told her H, and guess what? He was destroyed, and it took a very long time to recover because she had lied to him not only during the affair, but for year and a half while he had tried to restart the marriage and she was making happy sounds as well. He viewed that worse that her affair.

The reason we are telling you to tell your H are many but here are a few for you to consider perhaps including a few that you have not thought about yet.

1. He should be able to decide if he wants to remain in a marriage with a partner that has betrayed him, it really should be his choice.

2. He should be warned about STD's and get tested as should you.

3. He is defenseless against the OM as OM has free reign to use the ammunition you gave about your H against your H and H doesn't know he exists this is just fighting shadows as you tell H of all of his failings and how he needs to change to make this a good marriage. He is fighting blind and you blinded him.

4. Here is one that most WS's don't think of and is what finally convinced Jill to tell her H. In order for you to keep this secret you are going to have to build walls around your heart. You must to protect your lie. That means that will never tell your H in a spontaneous moment what you are thinking or feeling. You will be careful how you treat him in bed. You will be careful and watch every word because you could betray your affair with an ill considered word.

In short it means you have to wall off part of who you are to maintain your lie, and while your H will not know of your lie he will feel the wall as he bumps into it. And he will bump into it the closer you two get, the more he changes and tries the more you are going to have to work to protect your lie and keep him away. As he reattaches emotionally to you, he will become more sensitive, more aware, and more in tune with you and he will KNOW, that something is wrong. Something is being withheld.

Protecting your secret will eventually guarentee that your marriage will NEVER become what it could become, especially if the two of you work on it.

5. Lies and affairs have weird ways of coming to light, and if yours does after a lot of effort on your H's part to change and become the man you want and need in your life, it will be far worse because of the lies. It is the lies that kill the marriages far more than the physical act. He will deeply resent jumping through hoops to rebuild this marriage while you are still in contact with OM, thinking about OM, and presumably (you won't be able to prove otherwise) still loving OM after all of his effort.

I know you cannot see all of this now, but you had better believe the folks here and certainly the folks that have been on this site for years KNOW these outcomes are very common. I would strongly encourage you to seek counseling and discuss the best way to tell your H this terrible news. Perhaps in a counselors presence. Perhaps you could use your clergy to do this. Your H is going to need help and support of that there is not doubt.

Just remember he cannot fight what he cannot see, and you are the one that are blinding him.

Oh and just for the record. Your OM is a piece of trash. No real man especially one that has been cheated on himself has an affair with a married woman. Seriously, what are you thinking? Heck don't answer that, we know what you are thinking.

But, please consider what I have said. YOu do have a window of opportunity, but it will close.

God Bless,

JL

When do you think you will be stronger? Do you think you could manage it tomorrow? Next week? In six months?

Never?

What's going to change?


TA

LC all the honesty in the world on this board will not help. Its along the lines of saying sorry to your radio for running a red light. The people hear (for the most part) believe in the principles of the person who created this site and will continue to encourage you to be honest with your husband. They know that the infidelity does not end with you not having sex with the OM. Or not talking to him. The infidelity IS the lies you continue to tell. Do you understand. Your husband has the right to know. You not telling him is just as selfish as your affair. Do not look at this like an attack. Its not. We all have an investment in each others marriages.

Which poster... me, L2L? Or Love Committment? Are you making a broad statement about the personalites of the people and making... may I ask... "disrespectful judgements"?

I think this is a great service board but I stand against people making statements about people's overall character. I need you. I need to post some of my own problems for your sage and wise feedback. But come on, this could be getting a little out of hand. I wouldn't mind as much if you criticize the post itself as stupid, or if you could somehow depersonalize your statements. But whether addressed to L2L or LC, I think you should cease and desist from making imflammatory judgements (if you are) and/or statements (which you appear to have done). You don't know who is serious and who is not, and you don't need to share your hurtful opinion about what is or is not a "waste of time".

-L2L (I'd be happy to e-mail you privately back and forth if that would be a more private and/or appropriate manner to handle this.

Also I've watched your posts get more and more intense with this LC, not sure if you agree but this is what I am seeing.

-L2L