But you already knew your marriage was not strong, she is having an affair. Your marriage is a wreck. If your marriage is to make it, she will have to wait to have kids until you are enthusiastic about it. That is part of the recovery program. She can't make unilateral decisions at your expense. If she refuses to consider your feelings in such decisions, then your marriage is not in recovery. But that is something this program would teach you both.

I agree with others... no kids... unless you want the OW and WW to be able to play house without you. Your able to give WW something that the OW is biologically unable to.

Is it just me or have I seen this scenario before on MB?

p.s. if she gets a divorce, it is very likely she would be waiting much longer than 5 years to have children anyway. It would take her one to four years to find a sperm donor,[aka husband] a year to court said sperm donor and then a year or two to get pregnant.

No, not unless she has been homosexual or had has had h/s feelings as a single person. Its worth checking in a poly if you want to make sure. The nature of affairs is such that people choose affair partners based on their unsuitability rather than on things they actually want.

When an EN is met in the right way, they become addicted to the EN being met and dont bother to assess the whole person. I have heard vets explain the nature of 'affairing down' means that it 'could have been a goat' so long as it was an affectionate-or-whatever-EN is needed goat.



I had all the same fears as you. They were groundless. I exposed nuclear style (in the UK) and people remained caring about him (asked him to work on his marriage and STOP the 'friendship') and supportive of me.

I had two out of 50 people tell me it was 'personal' and i shoudnt air 'dirty laundry'. They were both people who knew about the A and felt guilty for not telling me. I am glad they are gone.

You will discover who are true friends. I got a tonne of support. People were worried about me!

It will help if you stop thinking of exposure as vengenace or shame

You are asking for support. You are also asking your WW to be more honest and upright in her dealings with people.

She needs to be v honest in her reaction to the exposure. She needs to say yes it was awful, yes you are right I need to work on the M, yes we do need everyones support.

She wont, but she has the option to be.

Plus on a practical level, you need people to know about the rift from this so-called friend. What if the girls plan another holiday? If OW visits and they throw her a party? They wouldnt do that if they were supporting recovery.

That may have been true at one time, but her affair voided any previous agreements the two of you may have had. You have to rebuild your marriage now. That's going to take time.

I am sorry that you are finding it difficult to empathise with my distress, confusion and personal values.

Dude, we know your distress is what brought you here, and my note is the one that pointed out your very evident confusion.

Now, tell us about your personal values, because that seems to be where the difference between our beliefs resides.

Choose A or B in each case:

A - You want to get over this, put it behind you and move forward on the same vector you two were on before her affair.
B - You want to cause your WW to end her affair, and the two of you start working on your union according to the MB practices.

A - The thought of conflict, even in a worthwhile cause, scares you, as WW might not agree to see it through.
B - You can accept that getting through the affair damage might involve hard work and disagreeable interactions between you two, especially at the start.

If your answers are "A", okay, good, but you're not likely to find assistance here with that mindset.

If the answers are "B", you may have to accept that we know damn well what you're going through, have gone through various forms of the nightmare ourselves, and want you to come out of this process with a marriage of the same quality as we have.

Ok Lighting,

Let's sort of start this over. I think a recap is needed here.

First, exposure is to seek help from friends and family in saving your marriage. It also helps end the affair as it is now out in the light and secret affairs don't do well in the light.

Hence if you are to expose, which you should do, then the approach is crucial. It is seek help from friends and family in obtaining support and strength for BOTH OF YOU, in order to save this marriage.

This brings me to the status of things. Does your W want to save the marriage? If so, what is she doing to save the marriage? Is her approach working for you? If not why not?

Apart from contact, which should end now, has she done other things you have requested from her?

I'll stop at these, but I think you see where I am going.

God Bless,

JL

As for deciding, you wont really know until you have exposed and laid out your conditions for recovery.

If she takes everything asked of her on the chin and does everything you require of her, you may feel differently. Or you may not.

Personally I judge a person by who they are today - and what they DO today. Not their past. So lets see how much effort she can put in.

Regardless, I would work the plans because they will either lead ot recovery or get you out with less pain.

Less pain because you tried, put your boundaries to her clearly and gave her a chance to win back your trust.

I think it is roughly six months before the emotions of a BS has settled enough to make a decision. Just work the plans in the meantime. Less drama that way.

Thank you for all the advice you have kindly given me so far. After a couple of weeks I thought I should post back with an update and to clarify existing questions and ask new ones.

I contacted my wife's friends and family and told them what had happened asking for their support to help our marriage. As expected she was very angry and upset that I did this. I also contacted the OW's fiance as well so that should hopefully make contact from the OW more difficult (yes just to clarify for people new to the post it was another WOMAN). I have no evidence that their is any contact with the OW now - although I shall continue to check.

I feel my wife has been in denial and, I think that she has been transferring the blame to me.

I originally asked her to move out and was starting to cope OK living on my own. Since moving back in we are polite and civil with each other but still very distant. There have been no angry outbursts. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a willingness on either part to make the marriage work at the moment.

From my view point I think that I am coming out of a quite long period of denial and entering a stage of deep sadness. When I look at her I don't see the person I married any more and find it very difficult to imagine spending the rest of my life with her.

Questions
Here are some of my original questions and some new ones that I have. Any advice shall be gratefully received.

1.
2.
What do I need to do to make her want to save our marriage?
3. What do I need to do to make me want to save our marriage?

4. If I am trying to meet her EN should I worry about the fact that these actions are hollow and without genuine feeling/meaning? I have always struggled when I am not being genuine/true my feelings. She already feels badly let down that she has lived the last year thinking that I was happy with our relationship when I clearly had problems. I don't want to perpetuate a lie about my feelings.



ME: BS
DH: WS
Married: 2007
D-Day 13/01/2012

Then what the heck is she doing, living back in the house?? You just let her move back in, without her agreement to get MB counseling, work on the marriage, or anything?

Yes counselling, work on the marriage were the conditions.

Lighting, good job on exposure! I would go to her next and propose a plan of recovery. Having no plan is a plan to fail. If you use the program in its entirety, it will restore the romantic love in your marriage. Right now there is a huge vacuum in the place of her affair and that can be replaced with a great marriage or it can be replaced with something equally as destructive for her. That hole will fill with resentment for you.

So, I would get to work on a PLAN. There are several ways to do this and Dr Harley outlines them in this webpage. My H and I went through the MB seminar and it was an amazing course. There are much cheaper, albeit not as effective, ways to use the program, though. http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi9000_courses.html

Go there and review the various MB programs and come back and lets discuss. Once you have a plan in place, we will help you propose it to your wife.

MelodyLane,

Thank you for replying. I know I am going to struggle making a plan if neither of us actually want things to work.

Are you able to help me any of the four questions I just posted, as these are important for me to get a handle on before I can move on to the next stage.

Thanks

Lighting,

How did the OW fiance feel about this? Did he thank you for helping him avoid a marriage disaster?

God Bless
Gamma

Gamma,

The OW's fianc� thanked me for telling her. Said that they would rather know than not know.

Are you able to help me the unresolved questions I have, they are proving a real stumbling block for me?

Lightning,

I guess a fundamental question is does she prefer men or women.

Was she lukewarm in her attraction to you throughout the years?

God Bless
Gamma

As I said before, I believe this was a one off and she was attracted to the person because they met her emotional needs, rather than the fact that she has suddenly become gay.

The OW is gay by the way, engaged to another woman, and was the instigator.

Her attraction for me has been good through out the years we have been together.

Lighting, did you read my post? I did give you next steps. None of those issues you posted can be answered or are relevant from my perspective.

Let me explain why they are not relevant questions. They are all based on FEELINGS. And those are not relevant right now.

What is relevant is a PLAN OF ACTION. Feelings follow actions so the goal here is to commit to a PLAN and put all your focus on that for now. Your feelings NOW are not relevant. They will change once your actions change.

Feelings follow actions, feelings follow actions. So go to her with a PLAN and give her an opportunity to earn your forgiveness.

The fact that she had a gay affair is absolutely irrelevant, btw. An affair is an affair.