I just have a feeling that she is scared your contacting the OM will ruin her affair or she wouldn't be so terrified about that.

ITA. The OM is going to start looking at her as a liability and an unnecessary hassle.

Zelmo (and others):

My position on many aspects of marital therapy has been admittedly controversial when first expressed. His Needs, Her Needs was ripped by many therapists in 1986 when it was first published because they didn't believe that men and women's emotional needs were different. Today, there are very few that believe that anymore.

My position on conflict management (Policy of Joint Agreement) was also roundly criticized by some feminists as giving away women's right to independence. Of course, most of these critics were not in favor of marriage in the first place. But today, the idea of finding mutually adventageous solutions to problems in marriage is main-stream.

And, my position on radical honesty and transparency in marriage, which was definitely not in the tool box of most counselors when I first brought it up, is now becoming much more accepted by therapists working in the trenches.

At first, whenever I came up with a new idea, I'd try it out on the couples I counseled. My goal was always to "do no harm" in my effort to help. I was very concerned about unintended consequences. But as I created methods that were logical outcomes of my basic theory, I found that these methods worked amazingly well every time they were implemented. That's why I can speak with such confidence today. I've personally witnessed thousands of successful outcomes when couples learn to meet each other's emotional needs, learn to make decisions with mutual enthusiastic agreement, and learn to be radically honest with each other.

The same can be said about telling children about an affair. My experience with the positive outcomes of hundreds of families where an affair has been exposed to children has led me to encourage a betrayed spouse not to fear such exposure. In fact, to mislead children, giving other false explanations as to why their parents are not getting along, causes children to be very confused. When they finally discover the truth, it sets an example to children that dishonesty is sometimes acceptable, making them the judge of when that might occur.

An affair is an attack on children as well as the betrayed spouse. And it's true that children are deeply affected by this form of irresponsible behavior. But it's the act of infidelity that causes children to suffer, not the exposure of it. Facts point us toward solutions. Illusion leads us astray. That's true for children as well as adults. Best wishes,
Dr. Harley

Come on mfoss, the kids need to know. You can do this.

Exposure is amazing.