Please expound upon how this will 'complicate the whole picture'.



This is uninitiated thinking. You have to understand that exposure will benefit YOU. OMW will help ensure NC. NC will help repair your relationship. See?




Then we don't need to warn you about the likelihood of the A resuming, since you're keeping their little secret safe and they still see each other.


What a pity she was willing to throw that away for the indulgence of an A.


How about her secret phone? Her secret email addresses?



She managed to have an A. She's not stupid. At least not in being able to deceive you.

Cap, we're not here to throw your WW under the bus. She did that to herself. But there is a great deal of collective wisdom here that will tell you the same thing:
1. They can have NO CONTACT.
2. They cannot WORK TOGETHER.
3. The OMW NEEDS TO KNOW.
4. Your WW is not protecting her OM - I'll agree with you on that one. She's protecting her own [censored]. She's had her time with an unsuspecting woman's husband and doesn't want to feel the fallout. That's pretty normal for a wayward.

These are foreign concepts to you right now because they appear to go against the grain of common sense. Read everything you can on this site, especially Dr. H's articles. It's truly an eye-opener.

Cap,


Your WIFE could actually do the exposing - and thereby actually ELIMINATE the possibility that the OMW will "approach" her. IF your wife were actually in the least bit remorseful for her behavior, and had ANY empathy or sympathy for her behavior, she should feel that she owes the OMW an apology.

And she SHOULD apologize to the OMW.

And this would include exposure. The OMW would be illogical to come after your wife - she would look for her husband, not your wife. IF your wife's apology was meaningful and sincere.

YOU even say the possibility of being approached is "slight". Your wife's fear is OWNING THE AFFAIR, facing up to what she has done, and facing her shame in the light of day. That is the REAL risk, Cap. Know it.

There are many ways to expose, and if you do this with empathy, support, and caring, the betrayed usually do not respond in the way you describe.


The additional factor in your marital recovery is that you believe your wife does not lie.


She lied to you for five months and got away with it. She PROTECTED HIM FOR FIVE MONTHS. Your wife likely LIED TO THE OM about YOU.

Affairs are successful because the people in them lie to one another, lie to their spouses in order to cover them up, and then LIE about the events afterward in order to attempt to maintain their sense of self dignity.

The only way you will EVER BEGIN to recover your marriage in a way that will prevent future affairs, and will rebuild your marriage on a foundation that will give the both of you a better marriage than the one you had before

is to start with the concept of RADICAL HONESTY.

You cannot do that unless you realize that your wife LIES.



You also face this other logistical problem:
How can you control for the time and whereabouts of the other man?

You can't.

IF his wife were in the loop, she could at least be on that side watching him.


You are here for advice from people who have been there, who understand affairs, who have walked this path ahead of you.


The fact is very hard to accept, but it is there. If exposure of the affair is not complete, the recurrence of affairs is more possible. Another fact is that without exposure, affair partners often pretend that the affair is over, only to just go further underground and more secretive in their affair.

It is often the case that the betrayed spouse has MORE THAN ONE d-day, because they trusted the wayward spouse. They trusted that they did not have to expose. They trusted that the wayward would stop the affair, was not lying, and would be able to return to the marriage and everything would just "move on".


Your wife lied to you for five months. The case with most affairs is that the truth does NOT come out on d-day, but trickles out over time. You tend to get more and more details of the affair as the recovery is forged.

You are ONE month from your d-day.

You have much to learn.

Learn exposure first. It is a most powerful tool, and it will greatly help your marriage and to protect your union from this OM, who WILL BE BACK.

That is fact. NOT fear-mongering.

After I exposed to OM's family, my WW apologized to OM!!!

She never apologized to me for OM bonking her. She never apologized to our kids. She was protecting her OM just like YOUR WW IS PROTECTING HER OM, probably so they can resume the affair at a later date.

His wife needs to know. Would you like to still be in the dark about this affair? You have the right to know if you're being cheated on.

I can understand this kind of foggy, irrational thinking coming from a WAYWARD, but you have no excuse, Sir. Lets reason through what you have just said. Lets say that your neighbor's bookkeeper was embezzling money from him and he didn't know it. Would you neglect warning him with the rationalization that 'why ruin someone elses life like I have ruined yours?' Wouldnt' that be a ludicrous thing to say? Wouldn't it be immoral to not warn your neighbor?

What has harmed the OM's wife is this affair. What will help her is giving her the truth about her own life that has wrongfully and cruelly been withheld from her. She cannot protect herself and her children from her sleazy husband and your wife unless she knows the THREAT. She deserves the same chance you have at saving her marriage. You are doing nothing more here than enabling your wife to hide her crime from her victim. That impedes her recovery.

To NOT tell her is cruel, callous and manipulative. No one benefits from your secrecy, no one. Not your wife, not you, not the OM, no one. To not tell her is to ENABLE the affair at the expense of your own marriage. Affairs thrive on secrecy so keeping your wife's dirty little secret from her victim protects the AFFAIR and prevents your wife from facing the consequences of her crime.


What is wrong with this? What is the issue here? How is this an excuse to not tell her victim? Your W had no qualms about approaching her husband. Don't help your wife behave like a coward and run from the consequences of her actions. If she did that to my H, she would get a visit. She has one coming, wouldn't you agree?


You are done. You can kiss your marriage good bye. Without complete no contact, there will be no recovery. I don't know of a single recovery where the adulterers still worked together. But I DO know of NUMEROUS on again, off again, affairs that went on for YEARS.

Cap,

For me:
D-Day EA 7/07 (I didn't expose)
D-Day PA 11/27/09 (I didn't expose)
D-Day #2 12/09/09 (I didn't expose)
D-Day #3 12/19/09 (I didn't expose)
D-Day #4 01/05/10

Exposed 01/06/10... no contact since!

I came here on 12/16/09. The good folks here told me to expose and I wouldn't. My gut told me it wasn't the right thing to do. I trusted that my WW was done with OM. I didn't want to drive WW away, etc, etc. But I should have trusted these people.

EXPOSURE WORKS!!!

If you want to save your marriage in the short term - do what you are doing. It will last a while longer and then it will be worse.

If you want to save it in the short term - expose to the other WW.

Your wife was not acting like a responsible adult. She needs to - it is part of the recovery, it is taking action to repair what she did. That means if the other BS wants to talk to her, ask her questions, tell her she is slime, she needs to listen, answer and agree with the slime description. Everyone will be better off in the end.

The other BS is an innocent person, and your wife had no problem ruining her life. The other BS deserves to know - the dignity in being able to make decisions about her own marriage, and her own health. Your wife helped take that from her - she needs to give it back.

It's the least she can do.

We are not trying to pick on you - you are going through a lousy time right now. We are trying to help you save your marriage, long term.

Cap,

Marriage Builders has the best record for recovering marriages.

The plan to recovery includes exposing the affair.

That is not fear-mongering. It is part of the full plan for stopping affairs in their tracks.

It is a reasonable method, and it WORKS.


You can choose to use the Cap method, of course. Your method, OTOH, has a track record that has no proven record of success.

When d-day #2 comes back to haunt you, and you find out that your wife and her OM are still talking (she will say they are "just friends" and she "couldn't really 'not talk to him', after all, they work together), let us know. We will still be here to help.


Better yet, instead of asking us, call the toll-free number and talk to the real expert, Dr. Harley.

Your wife, of course, will still want to protect the OM, no matter what.




You still need to do some other steps, since you are against exposing the affair. Get in action on the following:

1. Ask her to write a letter of NO CONTACT to the other man, and you will send it yourself to him.

2. Get passwords to all email accounts, cellphones, etc. You should be able to access any and every account she has online, including social networking accounts. There are no more secrets in the marriage, and this means FULL ACCESS to everything. You check it whenever you want. She should relinquish this willingly, no balking.

3. She should offer you a list of any methods by which she contacted this OM, including his phone numbers, email accounts, etc., so you can track back and verify things for yourself.

4. You should be looking at your checking and credit card accounts to verify her story.

5. She should be openly confessing the whole story to you, and answering every question you have regarding this affair.

6. She should be offering you a list of concrete steps she is taking to prevent the possibility of another affair - with this man or others. These are called "extraordinary precautions". You cannot possibly continue being with her all hours that she isn't working, and she must be able to self-regulate. The EP's must begin to go into place so she learns to do this.

7. The two of you should be reading and working on the issues that were in the marriage prior to the affair. This affair occurred because there WERE PROBLEMS. What were they? Have the two of you discussed them? How are they being addressed? Have you worked any portion of the MB program - such as Emotional Needs, Radical Honesty, POJA, etc?
Get these things into the works, because there are chips in the armor of your marriage, and if you blindly look the other way, your marriage will suffer another affair, or she will just simply walk away from you. And you will not understand what happened. She will say, "I love you but I'm not in love with you" and you will lose the marriage.



You have work to do.


We have been there before.


At some point, you should trust the advice. And take at least SOME OF IT.

Because it does work.

Caphnands,

If you know as much as the folks here why are you here? If you read the articles by Dr. Harley who has counseled 1000's of couples dealing with affairs, you will see the same advice.

1. Contact often leads to renewal of the affair, No Contact is a must.

2. Wayward Spouses lie. They lie to "protect" the betrayed spouse (read, protect themselves), the lie so that they don't lose a marriage that they value as a fall back position, they lie because they are so used to lying during the affair, that they have a hard time facing the truth. You may not realize this but your W was lying to you alot, but she was lying to herself even more. WS, lie to protect their lies.

3. The folks here are not fear mongering, they have been there done that. What they know is that there are very few if any unique affairs. I have been here for over a decade and have probably read 100,000 posts or more, and you know what? The words are word for word, the actions are like they are all in the same play, and the behavior is soooo disgustingly common it is almost comical.

The folks here know where the risk factors are...you don't

Finally, let's talk about the other man's W for a moment. You don't know OM, you don't know how many women he is/was/will sleep with. Eventually he will infect his W and perhaps even the kids with an STD if she is nursing. This STD could be fatal or it could be curable. She is defenseless without knowledge just as you were. You have the knowledge she needs to protect herself, her children, and perhaps even her life.

If you think your W will leave you, if you do the right thing by telling OM's W, then you don't have the marriage you seem to think you do. If you think OM's W is mental and might attack someone, then send the note anonmously, but let this woman know so she can protect herself.

Exposure as strongly espoused on this site and by the founder of this site is not about revenge. It is about protection and help. People cannot help if they don't know, people cannot protect themselves if they don't know.

Please do some reading of the articles here before you start to label the folks here. You will find they are giving you good advice because they want to see your marriage work.

Think about it.

JL

Cap, read these things and implement them. I hope they will be of some help. I'll add one thing: you should get a keylogger for computers she has access to. Waywards are notorious for setting up secret email accounts when their resolve to end the A weakens.

Remember, though - if you do not expose this crime against both of your families, your M will remain vulnerable to the resumption of the A.

The other thing you'll need to accept is that others know about the A. You have no control over anyone else. Anyone could out this A to OMW - disgruntled or jealous co-workers, friends who fall out, anyone, at any time between now and forever. Do you really want to live under that possibility? That's one more hazard of keeping this dirty little secret.

You should be thankful that this possibility has been forcefully brought home to you. Many, many of us have been where you are, cap. When so many posters stress the same thing to you, you would be wise to absorb the information and act upon it.

The only fear I'm sensing is coming from you.

Forgive me for saying this but your entire thread just smacks of gullibility. You trust your wife? You trust your wife's judgment? How can you do that when her "judgment" led her to having an affair? Your wife is so concerned with recovering your marriage that she is still trying to protect her AP and you are just playing right along with it.


You've got to be kidding me! WOW!!

I agree with the above and here is my time line.

11/23/2007 Didn't expose
06/06/2008 Didn't expose
08/18/2008 Didn't expose
09/16/2008 (Our 8th Anniversary) Didn't expose the right way but got closer.
01/28/2009 Expose to everyone we know and told my wife I was done.

02/22/2009 She decided she wanted to come clean and work on our marriage.

Expose now and don't trust what she is telling you. You can listen to her but verify everything. If they still work together you are in for a long ride of D-day's. I even asked my wife like you did what she would do if she saw him and she said the same thing that she would say "hi".

Please don't go down my road it is pure he77. Do it right and end the A today. Let the OMW know. Wouldn't you have wanted to know before you found out?

I have finally made it to where I have my wife back but it took way too long because I didn't listen to the advice I got here.

Listen to these people that have all been in your shoes before.

Caphnands,

This is from the person who was exactly in the same situation as you are now.

The most useless move was to contact OM.

Because the feedback from him was infuriating (he tried to give me marriage advice) and did not help to improve the situation one bit.

The worst mistake was to believe my WW that they can keep their communication under control (OM located even in different country!!!).

Because this mistake led to false recovery that lasted 9 months.

The most useful move was to contact OMW.

Because of countless reasons already posted above from previous posters. The exposure ended the affair and gave us a real chance for recovery.

Thank you all for the advice. It really is hitting home and you've convineced me about exposing. I just got to figure out how, I'm not into a phone call. I was thinking some how getting a letter to her without him knowing it came from me. I know where they live, I just wish I new where they work. Shame, cause I know everything about him (did background check, even know his SSN). I really don't see my wife contacting and apoligizing her, that is an interesting angle I never thought of. That sure would be wonderful if she did and would prove her commitment to R. I'll have to ponder that one.

Just one other thing, she did send an email in conjunction with a 15 minute phone call ending everything. Here is the email....

'name of OM',

I wanted to follow up our conversation from this morning with one in writing. I need you to know that the relationship we had is completely and forever more finished. I need to repair the damage that has been done to my marriage and begin the healing process with 'my name'. I have hurt him terribly and that is unforgivable. I love him and have loved him forever and will love him forever.

You need to stop any and all communications with me. It is necessary for me and 'my name' to move forward. You need to focus your energies on fixing what�s wrong in your life and marriage and sever all ties with me.

I have lost 'my name�s' trust and I need to do everything in my power to restore his faith in me. This email is the first step in restoring it. I don�t deserve to have a husband who is willing to give me another chance and I�m not going to ruin a second chance to make a lasting life with him.

I need to say once more, do not contact me in any way from this point forward. I will not respond � I need to move forward in my life with 'my name'.

Did she lie in this email? It is hard for me to think their is a single ounce of a lie in it, but after reading everyones thoughts...I guess I should look deeper. It is so damn hard to try and love and trust again the person you now hate.

Oh, and I asked my W to call a local marriage counseling service and she agreed. I trust everyones judgement here and I am curious what a counseler would say as far as the E issue.

Thank you. I have a long [censored] walk ahead of me.

This e-mail sounds a lot like a NC letter which is a good start. But, it wouldn't hurt to read the usual NC letter format. Also, the NC letter is recommended to be written on paper and then mailed by you (the BS). Keep verifying everything. If she is still seeing him, you can find out. It is unusual for waywards to act upon guilt. But it could be that she is pulling away from him and would divulge a lot of info if you probe for it. My Dday #2 started with my H asking me if I had seen OM the previous night (something that he would not have been able to verify) and I was so freaked out by him asking that I puked everything that happened since Dday 1. Ask lots of questions. If she truly wants to R, she will answer and do whatever it takes to make amends to you. She needs to work the MB principles for R just as hard if not harder than you.

When I first arrived, I was advised to make a written plan for R. I found that pretty helpful. Write a list of things you feel need to happen for R to begin and to ensure that the A is over and that NC will remain in place. We refer to things that prevent an A from restarrting and NC from being broken as "EP's - Extraordinary Precautions." She should list her EP's for you.

Oh yea, and I agree 100% with recon6mo.

Just make the call to OMW. Make it today. It will be a simple, 10 minute exercise that will work wonders. Seriously.

Is this the same woman you claim has no street smarts and can't lie?

And she managed to hide the fact she was boinking OM from you for 5 months?

If I were you, I'd want the OMW's keeping tabs on OM from her end. Make the phone call.

i'm sorta in the same boat. what if you want to reach the ophusband but op picks up the phone. also, my number is long distance there and may set her off that i am trying to contact her husband. how do i not tip her off so she stops me. all i have is a number. i do not know her husbands name. i know her name.

If you are worried that OP will pick up the phone and not allow you to speak to OPS, then use your WS's kowledge of their work habits to pick a time when you think OPS will be home without OP. Otherwise, if OP picks up, just call back repeatedly. Eventually OPS will say: who keeps calling! and then they may pick the phone up themselves.