Hello all,
I posted here almost 10 years ago during the end of my first marriage 2001. As I look back, I did nothing right. My plan A was flawed and to be honest I didn't want the marriage to work. Fast forward to today, my 2nd marriage is in trouble. My wife of 6 years, together for 8 years, emotionally left our marriage a few months ago. She is 38, I'm 41. We have a blended family that proved to be more difficult to make work than I ever thought. My 15 year old daughter and wife can not co-exist under the same roof. Unfortunately I did not accept this fact until only a few months ago. The relationship between my wife and daughter breaks my heart. They want nothing to do with each other. During the last few years, I would drink to escape the pain I felt over the situation, not all the time but enough to be a problem. My wife was trying to tell me she was building walls to protect her heart, but communication is not our strong point. She would make demands and judgmental statements and I would withdraw and continue to look for a solution that did not exist.

Early April my wife went into complete withdrawal. As is the case most of the time, this was my wake up call. I started to realize all the pain I had been causing my wife...by "hoping" for a solution to her and my daughters relationship, I was not "listening" to her. I remembered Marriage Builders at this time and immediately started to eliminate my love busters. I quit drinking completely, changed my parenting location with my daughter to outside of our home and started my plan A. Our marriage was good 90% of the time and we have a strong base to rebuild from, but my wife is very scared to be hurt by me again. In addition my wife developed and emotional attachment to a male friend from Facebook. I saw the signs a month ago and finally got proof 2 weeks ago. Thousands of text messages and phone calls. She admitted to being attached to him emotionally and said if he was closer they would of probably met up, he lives across the state. I am 99% sure it is not a PA yet. I have asked for no-contact between them but as of this writing they're contact is stronger than ever. I am doing very well with my plan A so far. The stress levels in our home are almost non-existent. We are getting along very well,but there is still an emotional distance on her part. Since this is my second affair I am dealing with, I like to think I am battle tested.

My wife and I have improved our communication over the past few weeks and are following the radical honesty policy. She doesn't hide the affair anymore, but she doesn't want to give him up either at this time. We have started marriage counseling, but at this time I am in limbo, waiting for my wife to commit physically and emotionally to rebuilding our marriage. I love her with all my heart and want to spend the rest of my life with her. We did everything together and I consider her my best friend.

Sorry for the ramble, but I was hoping for some emotional support and advice from the forum.

Have you exposed the affaor to anyone? Do you know anything about the carrot and stick of Plan A? If you click on the newly BS link in my siggy, you will find a thread that helps guide you through this site. I don't know how much of it you remember, or how much has changed but it might help you and when you know what we are advising you to do.

Wlcome back. And I am sorry that you find yourself here once again


Were you divorced from your first wife when your current wife and you got together?

Sorry you are here. You definitely have to expose. Make a list of everyone you know, she knows, the OM knows and expose to everyone.

CV

Scotty, Yes I was divorced from my first wife for 2 years before I met my current wife. Thank you for the links. the carrot and stick thread is a classic. My plan A is based of it.

Celtic, I guess exposure is what brought me back here. Don't know much about the other man, just his FB page and business.

Raysofhope,

You can expose him on facebook. Expose to all his friends there. If you aren't friends with him, here's an idea...

Create a FB page under a female name. Request him as a friend. Most of these types of guys will add a girl to their friends list I think. Once he adds you as a friend, expose through that.

Ray, the biggest problem I see here is that you are essentially enabling the affair. The affair is very unlikely to end unless you start taking some steps to break it up. You say you are in Plan A but I see no sign of that at all. Plan A does not involve enabling. Your complacence only looks like you don't care very much.

So, if you are interested in saving your marriage, you should kill the affair. Start by demanding that she end it along with exposing the affair to everyone. Expose to her family, yours, the OM's. Confront the OM, cancel your internet. Do whatever you have to do to bust up this affair. But the worst thing you can do is sit by idly and do nothing. That just looks like you don't care.

Is this loser married? Who is the OM?

The stress levels are low because you are enabling her affair while the Titanic sinks. While she gets closer and the OM and her affair becomes more and more entrenched, your marriage grows further apart.

Your 15 year old daughter is outside your home, but your openly cheating wife is allowed to remain?

You threw a 15 year old out, and are keeping an unfaithful wife?

How is your daughter doing?
She must feel pretty rejected by her father.
Poor girl.
Your messed up marriage, and your drinking, is somehow the fault of your 15 year old?
Really?

I'm sort of amazed that you say this:


..... and not one word from you about how this is messing with your 15 year old.


Does your adulterous, unfaithful, cheating wife have her children living under your roof?

Your thread title:

Sorry, I just cannot.

Here is what you have taught your vulnerable 15 year old:

You will tolerate an IN YOUR FACE ADULTERY in your own home, but will not support your own struggling-to-fit-in teenage daughter.

You threw your child under the bus to appease an adulteress.

Word!

What Pepperband said.

Did you meet your current wife while still married to the 15-yo's mother? Is that why your daughter despises your current wife?

What Pepperband said ALSO.

YOUR KIDS ARE FOREVER DUDE.

The only one who might should be "out" is the wayward wife.

And yes, answer the question. DOES YOUR DAUGHTER hate your current W because SHE WAS THE OW? Did you meet the wayward wifey when you were married?

You cannot enable any affair. But throwing out a 15 year old CHILD is beyond words to me. I cannot think of it as the mom of an almost 13 year old. My commitment to be a good parent to my child is one of my top two committments.

Having dealt with a wayward myself, I'd say that the kid ALWAYS stays, wayward can go if they wish.

Get your priorities STRAIGHT NOW.

Thank you all or the honest replies.

I need to clarify the assumption that I threw my daughter under the bus and blame her for the condition of my marriage. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I met my current wife after my divorce. There was no other women. My daughter started to have issues with my wife on our wedding day. She felt that my wife was taking her Dad from her. My wife went above and beyond to establish a solid relationship with my daughter. My wife withstood countless disrespectful actions from my daughter until she finally quit trying and shut my daughter out. We went to counseling...still are...tried different parenting tactics but nothing worked. The atmosphere in our home became toxic for everyone involved. My wife believes my ex was sabotaging her relationship with my daughter the entire time. To be honest, I wouldn't put past my ex. I have kept my current parenting schedule of 2 days a week and every other weekend with my kids, but I spend it outside the home. I do this to protect my daughter from my wife's anger and to protect my wife from the pain she has been subjected to from my daughter. I had to stop the destructive cycle we were in..period. My daughter at first felt like I was blaming her for my marriage, but after many talks she realized she was outside our home because of her actions, not my marriage. We are slowly adjusting to the new parenting time and looking for ways to improve it. Hopefully in time we can start working our way back to where we should be, but for now everyone needs to quit hurting each other and breathe.

My drinking was my fault and my fault only. I drank to cover up the pain of losing my "dream" of having a whole family. I felt like I was being forced to choose between my wife and daughter. For those who say kids are forever, I disagree. You raise kids to be independent and live a life of there own. Your spouse is the one who is going to grow old with you.

I have told my parents about my wife's EA, but she doesn't know about it. I have been very clear with her that if we are ever going to rebuild our marriage that she MUST have no-contact with him. Exposure at this time would without a doubt make her leave for good. She has a lot of anger towards me right now, much of it justified. She has noticed the changes for the positive I have made, but always says she is waiting for everything to go back the way they were. She has told me that she still loves me and wants to work on the marriage, but she is afraid of being hurt again. She put up with a lot from me, I feel I owe her some time to see the changes for herself. We have a get away trip planned at the beginning of July that she seems very excited about. I was going to use this trip as a sort of D day for exposure. If she is still in contact with him during our trip, I am pulling out the big guns and will expose her affair. Like I said, that WAS my plan. I have a voice in my head saying do it now. We have made progress. We communicate our feelings and emotions better than we ever have. We spend most of our time together and enjoy each others company, but he is always there either texting or calling. I know his name and his cell number and from what I can tell he is a very successful business man. He is going through a divorce, which gave the something in common.


I have accepted responsibility for my contributions to the state of marriage and eliminated the habits and behaviors that were causing her pain.I feel good as a person and for the first time in a long time I feel like I am heading in the right direction.

I look forward to your replies.

Without exposure, things will go back to the way they were. Actually, they may get even worse. EXPOSE.

In other words, you can only keep her around if you enable the affair by keeping it a secret? You have already lost her if that is the case. Your lack of action has led to the demise of your marriage and you are headed to divorce now. Your marriage can survive her temporary anger over exposure but it can't survive an affair. The longer this is allowed to go on, the more entrenched it becomes and the less likely you will be able to save it.

Your complacence reflects a lack of caring, Ray. It says to your wife that you really don't care very much. That is sure how it appears to me.

By keeping her affair a secret, you are fueling the affair because affairs thrive on secrecy. Dr Harley, the founder of Marriage Builders, would call you an "enabler" and explain that is very hard to save a marriage when you become an enabler. Your complacence is the most likely to end in divorce.

Your strategy is the most likely to lead to divorce, when exposure could have easily saved your marriage. Below are some other betrayed husbands who called Dr Harley for advice. They are now getting divorced because they took a complacent, I don't give a damn approach like you are doing.

Here are some of those radio clips: This caller's wife has been in a 2 year affair and the man never exposed. He has kept it a secret the whole time and she is now leaving him for the OM.

Part 11 - "It's very difficult to overcome an affair when you become an enabler."


Dr Harley telling BTintrouble to "expose the heck out of this affair" and do not offer forgiveness. here

Interesting call from a BH who did nothing to save his marriage and has greatly diminished his chances of recovery:
Part 1
Part 11

here

Why?

Because I don't believe I have made enough love bank deposits yet.

WHAT???? You think YOU have to accomplish a goal??

Ray, if she is in an affair, you won't be able to make love bank deposits until the affair is killed. This is why Dr Harley recommends exposure and not tolerating the OM. All the lovebank deposits in the world will avail you nothing until you have killed the affair.

The message you are sending right now by your complacence is that you don't care very much. She needs to see you fight for your marriage. That is what it will take to save your marriage. Enabling will destroy your marriage.

If you want to save this, you will need to expose the affair and run off the OM.

I am a bit confused. I thought exposure was used in plan B after a period of plan A?