Hi. I have been reading some of the Marriage Builder's material online and found this forum. I am a 44 yr old man with 4 kids. My wife has been cheating on me since at least October. It has been physical for about 2 months. My wife claims to have stopped the relationship with the other man, but I know otherwise. Currently, we are in therapy. She claims to have fallen out of love with me, and that may be true, but we have a family, and I still do love her and don�t want the marriage to end.

I know that I should expose the affair based on the MB advice, and I plan to do that. I understand that I should have done it a long time ago. However, I feel like I should protect myself first (lawyer, etc.). When she finds out I expose her, she will go ballistic. My guess is that she will try to kick me out of the house (not happening) or try to leave herself (with or without the kids). I don�t want to be caught off guard.

Tonight, she says she is planning to go out with a friend. I�m fairly sure that she plans to go out with OM instead. I may have prevented this because OM�s facebook page says that he is going to a concert and told my wife that I knew this. I think she was planning to go with him, but now I think I may have blew her cover. If she goes out, this is when I plan to expose the affair.

Right now, I�m just looking for some advice and support. I will check back this evening.

Weekends are kind of slow, so be patient. You will be hearing from some folks who are great at this.

The first thing you should do is to hold off talking about it for now and gather your evidence. Download emails or texts or whatever kind of proof you can get that will PROVE she is having an affair before exposing.

Meanwhile, make a list of everyone you will expose to. You should expose to your family, including to any children over the age of four. Expose to your friends, asking them for help in ending the affair. Sample exposure letters Here

Expose all at once and without warning.

You already know that your wife is going to be extremely angry at your exposure of her bad behavior. Keep your cool and be pleasant (Plan A.)

Is the OM (Other Man) married? His wife needs to know of the assault on her marriage.

Therapy isn't going to help. It's more likely to hurt and give your wife excuses to continue her adultery while saying she "did all she could to save the marriage." It would be better to get coaching through the Harley's. Most therapy doesn't address the conditions of the adultery, how to end it, how to prevent future affairs or how to teach a couple to be in love with each other. Marriage Builders, on the other hand, is expert in all of this.

Wayward lie like crazy so do not believe anything she says right now. Keep reading.

Welcome to Marriage Builders Joe.
Sorry for your pain & suffering.

Plan A Reader's Digest version <~~~ LINK




Far & wide.

Is OM married?

Do not skip exposing to the kids in age appropriate ways.

I strongly urge you to put a GPS on the vehicle she drives.

Hi averagejoe, welcome to Marriage Builders. Sorry you are here. A lawyer will tell you not to expose because their goal is entirely different from yours. Your goal is to save your marriage; a lawyers goal is to never rock the boat at any and all cost. There is nothing illegal about exposing an affair so you don't need legal protection. It is not illegal to tell the truth in America.

I would suggest you read the thread that is linked in my signature. Then come back here with a list of exposure targets and we will help you develop the most effective strategy.

Therapy is destructive to marriages where there is an affair. Marriage counselors don't understand the fogged out mentality of a wayward and only serve to validate marriage wrecking tactics. Waywards use "therapy" as a get out of marriage free card, as in "I did everything I could!!"

Marriage therapy during an ongoing affair = trying to repair the flooring while the house is on fire.

Plus, waywards LIE during marriage therapy. Every time they open their mouth.

Why waste the $$$?

It's $$$ far better spent on a good GPS for her vehicle !

Welcome to MB averagejoe. Sorry you have to be here but, at the same time, there is no better place for you to be when you are going through what you are...the support here is amazing!

I cannot give you advice as I am currently going through rather the same thing you are so I am here looking for help myself, I do not yet have enough experience to offer it. However, I would like to tell you to do your best to stay strong and keep your chin up because help is surely on the way.

I hope that the fog your WW is in lifts sooner than later.

Big hugs and all the best to you!

I am so sorry you are going through this. We have been there. You already have some of the best experts on this site posting, so listen.

I highly recommend Melody lane's Exposure thread. Remember not to use it vengefully - you are asking key people to support your marriage. It is like an intervention for an alcoholic. And it isn't even remotely illegal!

Oh and copy all the OMs FB contacts into a word doc so you can still expose to them if he gets suspicious and blocks you.

Joe, sorry you are here.

It�s been an eternity since I�ve been on these boards, but I was lurking here a bit today and felt compelled to offer you my 2 cents worth of help. Dec. 2008 I became a single father after 13 years of what I thought was a good, happy, loving marriage. My ExWW, my name for her now is �The Fool�; decided she needed more excitement in life, and boy did she ever find it! Fortunately for you, at a very early stage of your nightmare, you have found undeniably the best forum on the net for attempting to salvage your marriage. Please read up as much as you can, as quickly as you can, follow the MB plan, and the valuable advice of the members. Be the best Father & Husband you can, but absolutely do not show weakness to her! You need to prove to your wife you are the best man, husband, and father there is. No whining, crying or begging. Save that for this forum if you need to.

Now, with that said, cover you A$$, my brother. You said your wife will go ballistic when you expose the affair. Mine came unglued. I discovered the A on a Monday and by Friday I almost had no choice but file for D. I had nails in my tires on Tuesday, and slashed on Thursday. Valuables started to disappear and be broken, and the kids were being told the worst lies you could imagine. The Friday after I filed for D, she reported me for Domestic Battery. I live in a state where a woman only has to cry DV and the man goes to jail. I spent the weekend in jail, and she spent it moving out. In my D petition I asked for the house & kids, and for her to vacate in 7 days. Fortunately for me the charges were dismissed, and it didn�t cost me my job, security clearance, or reputation. It could have been MUCH worse.

I haven�t seen it said to you yet, but you very much need to have a voice activated recorder (VAR). After 3 years, I still record our conversations. Personal Security! Keep this jewel secret, and with you any time your wife in present. Take a video camera or still shots of all valuables NOW. Send the pic�s to a friend or family member. Take a good inventory of all of your assets. Try to do your best to save your M, but be prepared for the worst.

The advice you have received about attorneys & counseling is absolutely on target. Counseling at this point is a waste of time & money, and will spell almost certain doom to your M. I would advise you to consult an attorney to be on the safe side. You can put on hold the filing of the petition, but you also MUST know your rights and necessary procedures. IF the time comes, you MUST request the marital home, Primary Custody, and a No-Contact Order with any Paramour (POSOM). Above all DO NOT MOVE OUT OF YOUR HOME!!!

Stay strong my brother
Army Strong

Get a lawyer for the legal stuff, Dr H for the marriage stuff and friends to keep you going when you want to give up. (We can help there too)

Welcome to Marriage Builders, Joe. I'm sorry your circumstances have caused you to have to find your way here, but you've come to the right place for help.

I second what you've read so far. And I would like to add: Do NOT tell your WW about this site. We have tools on this site for destroying affairs. It would be a terrible idea for her to see that right now. You may need to do some of these things to kill this affair. Do NOT show her the articles. Do NOT ask her to take the Emotional Needs Questionnaire. Do NOT try to educate your WW. She is wayward. You can't educate a wayward in an affair. She is not going to see the light until the affair has been killed. And you have the knowledge for how that is to be done - exposure. It works. If she gets angry, so much the better. You'll know the exposure is working.

How did she meet this dirtbag? Do they work together?

Thank you everyone for your advice and support. Just to give you a quick update: it looks like I may have spooked my wife with the knowledge of where the OM was planning to go tonight. It does not look like she will be going out after all. She looks very stressed about not going out and that I called her on it. I was nice about it, but she didn�t seem terribly impressed. I even offered to take her out myself, but she refused. Therefore, I don�t think the exposure will take place tonight. Plus, I don�t really have the evidence I need yet.

To answer some of your questions about the affair�..
1. the OM is not married, so there is no wife to tell. He really has nothing to lose. He doesn�t even have a job.
2. So far, nobody of any interest know about the affair (family, close friends) because I have been too embarrassed. However, I�m changing that train of thought. I know that keeping it a secret will not help get my wife back.
3. I have 3 kids that are of age that will understand that there is something wrong. I hate like hell telling them because I know it will crush them.
4. I discovered it as a fact just after Christmas. I was suspicious for a couple of weeks prior because of phone records and she changed passwords to e-mail, etc. I really didn�t have any solid proof it was an affair, but one morning when WW was in the shower, he sent a half naked pic of himself to her phone. I saw it and found out who it was by matching the picture to his facebook account. Still not enough evidence to accuse, so I went snooping. Later, I found a box sent via fedex and a card (not filled out). Using the shipping label on the box, I was able to figure out that the box contained a watch and some fishing lures. Now she bought me a new watch last Christmas and I don�t fish, but his facebook page shows pictures of him fishing. The message in the card was about �how much she was in love and she wasn�t sure what the future holds but she was excited to find out� or some crap like that. Certainly not something she would send a husband of 13 years. I called her out and she confessed about the affair.
5. I also caught her lying that she was going to see her Grandmother in the nursing home. I called the nursing home on a hunch and she was not there. I drove to his apt. and found her car outside. I called her out and first she denied it, but then she admitted it.

I need some support, so I think I will talk to some family members. Just to let you know, I�m not that strong with her. I sometimes let her off the hook too easily. I will have to change that. Thank again for all your replies.

If you need her to relax just keep right along acting unsuspiscious until she does.

I am not sure what you need her to relax for though? Your snooping has turned up a lot, enough to expose I would say.

Why do you need her to go out to expose?

What is it you are trying to achieve by letting her go out with him?

She's not relaxed and I'm not trying to make her relaxed...just trying to keep them apart for now.

I will expose, but I need some support from friends/family first. I'm working on that.

KILL THIS AFFAIR.

OM has a FB, good. Go to his FB page, and copy his friends list into a word document.

Have you checked out MelodyLane's exposure thread?

Make sure you put MOVE the family finances where they cannot be used to finance this adultery.