Reading SAA currently and almost done with it.

I was deployed for a year, went to a school for 6 months and then got stationed overseas while the Army denied my family travel because my W and oldest daughter are seeing counselors for depression on a weekly basis. We've now been married for almost 12 years and have 4 kids.

Things seemed to get better until my W started getting more and more involved with the local volunteer theater where she lives in the states. She finds happiness in doing theater so I thought it was an okay thing to support. Minus the huge babysitting bills. So we do argue about money. I've been working on getting the family travel approved and setting up things overseas.
In the past two months or so she's had an EA with someone from the theater and about three weeks ago it became a PA and she said she doesn't want to come overseas anymore and now wants a divorce.
I don't want a divorce. I think her mind is clouded by the OM. She says he meets her EN which I obviously can't very well from overseas.
I'm fairly helpless over here but I'm going home for Christmas.

I would like to implement Plan A, but there is really no way for me to check on her. She said that she would 'take a step back from OM' a week ago but I found out she just had lunch with him the other day. She backed off her demand for divorce because of financial reasons.
She has mentioned that she wants a divorce and I can try to impress her by being a good dad to the kids so maybe she'll like me again and we could get remarried.

What am I to do? Can I save this? What am I to do while home?
How do I expose the affair to the public? Try to contact the OM's ex-wife maybe?

I would try to make a telephone appointment with the Harley's ASAP. This is tough...I want to say that you should call up her family and tell them what is going on and that you need their support. Also you should figure out how you could meet your wife's ENs as best as you can...clearly you are not in an ideal situation. Can you email your kids daily? Set up Skype? Send flowers via the internet? Talk about your future together?

Also, did you POJA your working away from the family? That is, did you and your wife discuss your career and agree to you working in another country? Because if she didn't even want you to be in the military w/ the possibility of being overseas, then it will be hard. One reason you get married is to share a life together...nobody to share with when you are away for so long.

Yes, we did POJA for the one year deployment and follow on 6 month school.
We also did POJA for the follow on assignment to Germany, however, the army messed up the family travel, so I had to get here alone. I've been here for about 9 months by myself trying to get everything squared away. I was making headway too, but now she found someone else and won't complete the necessary forms stateside to get the approval for travel. She loved Germany on my first assignment here and still says she would love to come to Germany again. However, now there is the OM and her other excuse is that she doesn't want to move the kids.

Time difference makes it hard to talk to the kids daily but I do get them on the weekends on skype w/ video. I try to call home daily, but now she just asks what I want to argue about. A lot of times she won't say anything.

How can I work on exposure from here?

Update:

I talked to WW's counselor and her sister about the affair and once she found out she was EXTREMELY pissed off. Telling me I had no right going behind her back and telling them and to stop.

When I called home, my daughter tells me that she saw the OM again for lunch. So I decide to tell her best friend. She gets pissed off again and denies having seen him for lunch.
She threatened to go have sex with the OM for me contacting her friend. I told her I'm contacting people to stop the affair. If she's not seeing him or talking to him then there's no reason for me to contact anyone.

She said when I come home for leave I'll need to find somewhere other than the house to stay because she won't let me in. Hopefully she'll change her mind on that.

What? Are you a pansy? You stay in your own d@mn house. She can leave if she wants. You need to sack up and be a man in this situation. Command some respect. Don't show fear. Don't slowly trickle out exposure. Expose to EVERYONE at the same time. Make a list of potential exposure targets and expose. Find out more about OM. Get background on him. Expose to all his family and friends. Expose to the theater group. Your a military guy, so you should understand the idea of a precise tactical attack. That is what you are doing. You do a quick hit on all the most vital targets all at once. Don't give the enemy time to circle the wagons. Stop operating out of a position of fear. Don't show weakness. Operate out of a position of strength. Don't put up with a cheating wife. Do everything in your power to end her affair. Your WW doesn't want a divorce. She wants the perks of marriage with none of the responsibility. She has brought up divorce for 2 reasons: 1) as an excuse for her behavior. She will argue that she is entitled to see other people now that she told your she's wants a divorce. She doesn't currently have any plans to move forward. She's just figuring since she "broke up" with you, she can start dating already without consequence. 2) She's using divorce to manipulate and control you. She wants you to back off her side relationship. So, if you try and interfere, she'll throw the D-word around as a threat to get you to back off. You can't back off. Otherwise, she'll keep you in this limbo forever, you paying her bills while she bangs the OM. It's better to risk divorce than accept the status quo continuing indefinitely. You stand up and make her respect you. Get a list of potential exposure targets, and start planning to expose. Exposure targets should include all her family, friends, theater people, and OM's family. Most of the time it's easier to put the heat on the OM and get him to back off your WW. A lot of OM (especially theater guys I'm sure) are wusses who are afraid of the husband. A lot of times the threat doesn't seem real until there is an actual confrontation with the husband. Put the fear of God in this wussie OM.

rpg, can you get a leave of absence to come home? That would be the best solution.

In the meantime, I would make up a list of exposure targets and expose the hell out of this affair. Expose to her family, your family, close friends, pastor, and most especially, the OM's friends and family. Does he have a facebook page?

Tell your kids the truth.

Do this strategically by doing it all on the same day in order to create a tsunami effect. Like Jim said, trickle exposure is about like bringing a pea shooter to a gun fight. You will just get your [censored] shot off for no benefit. If you are going to infuriate your wife, at least get your money's worth.

When you call/email family and friends, tell them about your wife's affair, say you are trying to save your marriage and ask them all to use their influence to persuade her to end her affair.

Send out a private message to select people on OM's facebook page. Space them out a minute apart so fb doesn't shut you down for flooding.

Here are some sample letters:

Facebook exposure letters

Dear friend of Joe Scumbag,

It grieves me to write this letter but I believe all of his friends should know the kind of person he really is. Joe is having an affair with my wife while I am deployed in the US Army and serving my country in Germany. My wife, Sally Smith, and I have been married for 12 years and have 4 very heartbroken children. I would be happy to provide the evidence to anyone who asks.

I am asking you to use your influence to persuade JoeScumbag to leave my wife and family alone. My deployment has been hard enough on my family without his interference in my marriage.

I would appreciate it if someone would notify his parents and ask them to call me at xxx-www-xxxx.

Thank you, BH

rpg, I would also suggest you get the kids together on SKYPE and tell them that their mom is having an adulterous affair with this man and that you are doing what you can to save the marriage. Tell them you will be home soon and that they are to tell you whenever her adultery partner tries to enter their home.

I would make it clear to your WW that this loser is not to be in the family home around your children.

On a side note, Dr Harley believes that anyone who has an affair with the spouse of a deployed soldier should get 10 years in prison. I happen to agree with him.

Thanks for the point blank advice. Much appreciated.

I told her I'm staying in the house. (Didn't say this part, but I'll call the cops to let me in if necessary.)
I was approved for two weeks of leave over christmas to go home and already have tickets in hand. The thing that sucks about that is that after two weeks of seeing the kids and trying to insert myself in her life as much as possible I'll just leave again

Yes, I'm in the military, but deep inside I'm a softy.
I would like for her to tell me she's done with him so I could not go public to the entire town. But she is in a show with him that runs through January. Regardless if the affair is done or not she would see him during the show. I asked her to account for her time other than the show and she said that she won't because I wouldn't believe her anyway.
She tells me that the affair is not the issue. The issue is my emontional detachment, not enough intimacy and not enough words of affection. I agree with the latter sentence because of my absence I can't provide those anywhere near enough, but that doesn't justify an affair.

I asked her if the affair is stopped or not. She wouldn't answer the question and after a 20 minute conversation posted as her FB status "I'm a whore and a terrible wife!"
On my brother's FB she posted "BS wants to let everyone know I had an affair"
I thought I was sure of who the OM is, but after the conversation I'm in the dark again. She never did share the name of the OM, so I'm not sure if I figured out the right person.
Exposure won't really work unless I have the OM's name, right?

I hate having to put my kids through this. WW yelled through the house to leave her alone because we're talking about divorce.

-crushed

rpg, the best way to save your marriage is to expose the affair. So find out who the OM is and take it from there. Here is what Dr Harley says about it and he is right:

here

WHY did she say this, rpg? Did you tell her you were going to expose her afffair? If so, I would stop giving her your battle plan unless you want to be disarmed.

Why not just ask her straight out who the OM is? Do your kids know?

Why do I want OM's parents to contact me, btw?

Find out who OM is before you do anything else. Can you talk to your brother? It sounds like he knows something, or she wouldn't have posted that on his FB. Maybe you can get him to come out with a name.

If you can get this A exposed and get WW on board with NC she won't be seeing him during the show because she'll have to quit the show.



She's blame-shifting. rpg, there are a lot of enlisted men with wives waiting for them at home, and those wives aren't running around on them. Disregard her garbage-talk.

I asked her straight up and she wouldn't say. I asked her the name I was suspecting and she wouldn't confirm or deny.

I didn't tell her the battle plan, she kept asking what I plan on doing. I just told her I want the affair to stop.

I just confirmed the OM. So I'm sending FB messages and emails.
Will also call her mom later.

My brother doesn't know, he happened to msg me while I was talking to her so she went to his FB page as well.

Supposedly the kids don't know of the affair. Just that mom keeps mentioning divorce on the phone.

I'm sure they suspect something, my youngest is uncomfortable mentioning his name to me already.
I haven't talked to them about it yet. I was hoping to go home on leave and sit them all down together on the couch and talk to them. Over the phone sucks.

after 10 minutes of sending FB messages, I got this msg: "Wow you just ruined any chance of saving our marrage. Plus you pointed the finger at the wrong person"

You want to ask them to influence their son to leave your wife alone.

She will be angry about the exposure and will try and throw you off balance, so don't let her slow you down. As far as "ruining any chance of saving" the marriage, didn't she tell you wanted a divorce anyway?

They ALL say you "ruined your chance" when you expose so don't let that bother you a bit. The madder she is the harder you hit the target.

Did you say they were in a theatre group together? If so, i would email the director of the theatre group and ask him to let one of them go due to the affair. Ask him if he would folks to know that the wife of a deployed soldier is having an affair within his group.

Ignore this. She has been exposed. Expect this sort of response from her. She'll be spouting all kinds of [censored] right now. Did you see The Exorcist? She'll behave like the possessed kid, with her head spinning around on her neck.Let her know one thing: "I will do whatever it takes to save my marriage." Excellent, rpg.

"They ALL say you "ruined your chance" when you expose so don't let that bother you a bit. The madder she is the harder you hit the target."

I think you got the right OM.

"Did you say they were in a theatre group together? If so, i would email the director of the theatre group and ask him to let one of them go due to the affair. Ask him if he would folks to know that the wife of a deployed soldier is having an affair within his group."

I would expose the whole theater group. Even if WW was the star she can leave the show now. Shows have understudies.