They do not work at the same company. I have no idea where he works now.
He was a co-worker, not a boss.
I have started to write a list of questions. I have not found out yet how it all works as far as a polygraph, how questions are phrased, what can be asked, and how many question for what price.
As mentioned we had attempted to contact him but he did not want to. He stopped answering email and she attempted to call him on the phone, he gave her the number on email, but he would never answer.
I know the exposure issue is a valid one. I guess I do not have the stomach for threatening children and adult children, mine and his, with the filth of my wife and the OM behavior. I desperately want to have a better relationship with my wife. Having experienced all the pain of this, having went through it all with my own parents, I am acutely aware that once the genie is out of the bottle that the pain I would inflict on innocent others has to be a factor. I know people will disagree and I am open to hear otherwise. I know the people that have taken their time to respond to my posts have direct experience with all of this, some for years, and their input is greatly appreciated.

On the issue of contact for us, and this would support I think the full exposure at the beginning anyway, my wife's stories did change up a bit when she knew there was a chance things would be confirmed or other details would come out. I have always thought it odd that he would talk on email then not on the phone. I really think there was a conversation between them but it does seem he got afraid. He has no idea but all this did come very close to a very tragic end, another reason why full exposure did not take place as there were children that needed to be raised.

This is a past affair so I would not contact his children. There is no point in that. Dr Harley would recommend that you inform his wife, close family members and your children.

I wrote out a long post this morning and I don't know if you read it. I spent about 45 minutes reading through your posts, thinking and writing out the response.

Yes, and you hurt his children by keeping the affair a secret. There was probably some hope of recovery early on and that did not happen because it was kept secret. That hurts the children the MOST.

Keeping an affair secret hurts EVERYONE. EVERYONE. It is like putting a Band-Aid on cancer. The wound just grows and festers.

You are not helping or protecting children you are lying to them. Deceiving your children will teach them its ok to be dishonest, it will not clarify your marital problems (they may think some of the blame for your marital issues is because of them) and it can lead to trust issues if/when they do find out (chances are they will find out one day).

Exposure to your children shows them you care and won't lie to them, it lets them know they are not the cause of your marital issues and it teaches them honesty and accountability is important.

I am getting more familiar with the Forum Discussion site and how it works on replies etc. I have just been posting at the end of my thread so I am not sure how many people see the replies I post depends on how the thread works on a search I am guessing.. I know I can click on a posters screen name and see all they have posted and I have in fact read all posts.
I know where the other man lives, I know his phone number and email. I know he is divorced unless he remarried in the last year. I know his wife's first name. I have no idea if she is remarried. I have no idea where she may live. I have no idea of the circumstances of their divorce or if she ever had any idea of the affair between her then husband and my wife.
The OM does not work with my wife now. He does live about 10 miles away. I know what church he attends. I know of a pub he hands out at.
I doubt there is an ongoing affair but with that said my wife still lies. I have access to all known email and phone records of my wife. I at least know where her phone is most always.
To contact an ex wife seems pointless now unless I just wanting to inflict pain. Yes I feel she deserves to know even under the current circumstances.
I have found out about all I can without talking to the other parties involved. My wife had painfully gave me details for years at my insistence. That was never meant to be a Love Buster as it is but I had and still have a deep belief that I must know the truth to move on. It has gotten worse and worse over the years and quite frankly I am nauseated at my tolerance of it all. I have gave up many values I once held dear. If I had known how this all would have turned out I would have done full exposure. I regret terribly not having done so now. I simply did not know, had no knowledge of Marriage Builders
I have offered many times to my wife if she would just tell the whole truth that I would be more than glad to stop talking of it in the hopes that in time we could be what ever we can be in our relationship. I have told her of the Marriage Builder site and my desire to have a good relationship. She will not look at it much at all and does not like to talk of it much. She promises she will at least look at the site telling her it would make our lives better. But she promises and never really comes through. This week end was very tense as I have the book and read it twice while looking at the website. She has resentment for it all because I just will not let it go. Then asking a question about her state of mind during the affair she lied and lied again. Yeah "fog mind" thing again. I should never have asked.
I am currently researching the polygraph option.
As for the Marriage Builders programs, the money is just a drop in the bucket compared to what I have spent on marriage counseling and therapists for us and her. How can a price be placed on all the pain and suffering.

On exposure if I am going to it may as well be everyone. Why save his kids the pain of it and dump on mine? So he can still look like a good guy and father while my daughter and grand kids will never see her Mom Grandmother in the same light.

Another comment about no exposure. My wife promised to tell the OM that I knew, that I expected them both the quit the job, that the *&^% would hit the fan if it did not happen. My wife always said he was looking as was she. We needed her to work the job desperately and quite frankly I felt he should quit in exchange to keep it from his wife and kids and not lose his marriage. I found out she never really told him because I had to pick her up from work one day and he was there at a door and talked to her briefly. I knew then she had not told him because if he had been told I think he would have quit out of fear. And fear he should have. I almost ruined everyone's lives that day. He probably still has no idea how close he came to meeting his Maker that day. Exposure may have saved a life or perhaps in the case of a violent spouse perhaps exposure would cause it to happen. Who really knows? I find it difficult to be able to just tell people online to do this or do that when there is no accountability for the actions it may set in action. I can only go by Dr. Harleys experience on such things. I would find it a difficult burden to bare if advice I had given contributed to the loss of a life.

Once again I thank those that read and comment on this thread and take time out of their lives to help others. Perhaps prayer is needed as always.

The mistake you're making CB is using your judgment and following your gut feelings. As much as we follow that intuition and believe in it being the right course of action it actually leads you in the wrong direction when dealing with infidelity.

They advice you've been given on this site is directly from Dr. Harley's plan and it is not based on feeling or emotion like you base your decisions. It is based on research and quantitative analysis. Dr. Harley has counseled thousands of couples and he has evidence of what works and what doesn't work. He has the data and his plan is designed by the proven data. He doesn't believe or have emotion tied to his plan, he has data and evidence to back it up.

The choice is ultimately up to you but I'll provide you one last thought. If your feelings, intuition, foresight are the correct way to handle your situation then why are you here?

(Your way hasn't worked, you still have the resentment and its probably worse than ever. It appears that your W is dishonest with you, doesn't respect you and runs over you in your relationship. Is this really the Marriage you want?)

CB, I am puzzled why you view exposure as "dumping pain on..." someone. Children are upset to hear it, sure. But the point of exposure is to a) alert the victims and b) to help the cheater, her spouse and their family. Exposure is therapeutic. It is not this negative act that you have portrayed. Moss does not grow well in the sunlight and the more people who know, the more people to hold your wife accountable and support your marriage. That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

Please don't view exposure in such a bad light just because it might be "embarrassing" to the cheater. Since she is years past the affair, a recovered wayward will not view it that way. Keeping it a secret hurts everyone.


A very puzzling comment. You don't have the power to "inflict pain" on this woman. It is the act of adultery that did that. Telling her the truth about her life will help her understand what happened to her marriage. This is information about her life that was wrongfully and cruelly withheld from her. That is not an act of kindness, it is an act of cruelty and manipulation.

And you helped hurt her by keeping their secret.

Please RETHINK your position on secrecy. If your neighbor's bookkeeper was embezzling her money, would you use the excuse of "don't want to inflict any pain" as an explanation of why you wouldn't alert her? Would you accept that lame excuse from someone who knew YOU were being robbed? Well, adultery is a much more devastating crime than embezzlement yet you wouldn't warn this woman?

I don't sense that you are a mean person. I have to conclude that you just haven't thought it all the way through.

CobaltBlue,

It is not your telling the truth which will hurt your and the other family, the damage has already been done by the affair partners. It's sad but many victims of infidelity accept that they should suffer all the pain alone and hidden.

Provide the OMexW with the closure she deserves, infidelity does not destroy most marriages immediately, but damages them for years and years, with the betrayed spouse rarely getting an apology or confession.

God Bless
Gamma

CB, I am so sorry this has distressed you so. You should tell your daughter on your own and tell your wife afterwards. My father was a serial cheater and what hurt me the most was my parents not telling me the truth. I KNEW something was wrong for a very long time and it confused me terribly. KI was left to guess and figure it out for myself. Kids usually sense something is wrong and usually conclude the problem is THEM.

Your daughter is a grown woman and she will be fine. You need to give her more credit than that. Don't put her in a position to have to find out when you or your wife dies like my father did to me. I did not appreciate finding out that his "friend" was really his "mistress for 35 years." Not telling your daughter leaves the door wide open for the OM to attend your funeral and pursue your wife after you die. Lies and illusions help no one, my friend.


I would not contact him at all. And your wife should NEVER contact him. EVER. In fact, I would put a keylogger on her computer to make sure they do not contact each other.

CB, please don't be so dismal about this. Adult children fully understand and accept their parents are human. My father was a very corrupt individual and it did not doom me or plague my life. His choices had nothing to do with the path I took in my life. I was raised in bars and the horse tracks and I managed to overcome my upbringing. Your daughter, from the sound of it, had a great upbringing, so hearing some unpleasant truths about her mother will not ruin her life. It will disappoint her, but children are not made happy by lies and illusions.

Just posting to say I have not left the thread. I have not acted on any of the advice as of yet. Have read the book for the fourth time. It seems I may be the only person taht cares about any of this. I suppose what I really want is to be able to truely forgive my wife, to feel like I once did about her, to admire her. There has been so much that had happened that has not been mentioned on this site. I feel bad my love for her has turned to feeling sorry for her. I guess she never got what she wanted and stayed with me for reason I guess I still wonder about. I just do not feel love from her as I once did aand she has just finally after all these years starting to be honest about her true feeling. The resentment I feel at times is just too great. When I look at her now she just seems to be the look alike woman that killed my wife and took her place.

I'm wondering, if you are asking the same question I came here with? When to give up?

See my thread for background.

I just wanted to say how helpful I found it to have my e mail query dealt with by Dr Harley and it may be worth dropping an e mail.

Regards

The _TP

Let us know when you follow the advice so we can move onto next steps. The next steps would be to restore the romantic love in your marriage. We know your wife has checked out of the marriage, you did not need to tell us that. Our plan is to help her check BACK IN.

When you complete the steps outlined above, let us know and we can go to next steps.

CobaltBlue,

I have similar questions, you can read on my thread.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2744283#Post2744283

God Bless
Gamma

I agree with Mel's comments above. You laid the foundations for your daughter with a good "upbringing". Yes your daughter will be disappointed but the truth will enable her to move forward with her life. Often from the face of trauma important coping strategies and life lessons are learned that can help our children in the future. Yes it's sad they have had to face the trauma to learn these skills, but they are skills that may help them later in life.

I have been over and over the book but perhaps I am blinded by it all and I am missing something obvious.

Considering all the discussion and Plan A & Plan B, As mentioned the affair was years ago. My wife claims it was over years ago with that person and she claims she has not done anything since. Unfortunately she has for years only seen and affair as physical intercourse a.k.a. Clinton style. It was sometime getting through the withdrawal evidenced by her saying his name quite sometime after while having sexual relations with me twice and once while angry in a disagreement. I feel she probably was still involved with him as she never broke it off and exposed it as we had agreed to but lied about for years. The emotional behavior of the withdrawal, the depression I suppose has never changed. She just will not discuss anything on her own. She has over the years told things and answered questions but only under extreme questioning from me. It is Big Time Love Busting having to ask as it does get ugly but I have attempted everything I know, I have went for very long periods of time being as good a person as I can, to address any needs she may have. I have come to the conclusion she simply does not love me enough to act on anything. She had promised me months ago to look at the Marriage Builder website, but she will not, always says she wants to but never finds the time. She will not do anything the therapist asks (several over the years) always say she wants to and understands she needs to. Our Love Bank accounts are both empty. I feel I have made my needs well known and other than "silly attention", her words, she cannot speak. I feel I cannot make any Love Bank deposits in her account as it is closed. Her refusing to engage in conversation, not committing to following through with promises, and just plain lying about most anything kills me. She will not look at the information, to look at the lists of emotional needs, to fill out any questionnaires of EN or LB. Any agreement form she will not look at and I am so jaded by it all I do not thing she would keep any of the commitments. Getting her to do the Extraordinary Precautions is only forced by me, not agreed to mostly. Although she claims to not be having and affair or would ever do it again, any reasons I feel that she did are still there and have increased over time. Actually I am very vulnerable to it all. I have so many unmet needs now I fear meeting people. I so desperately want to have a healthy relationship and all that goes with it I am ready to throw in the towel.

I have to go to the therapist tonight by myself as the wife is now too sick to go. I have no idea if she is sick or not. He is familiar with the work of Dr. Harley but is focused on the wife's thought processes her family with alcohol.

Cobalt blue, bringing everything out into the open will motivate your wife to take the necessary steps for recovery. Keeping her affair secret has helped it thrive and grow for many years. Even if she isn't in direct contact today, the fantasy still thrives and grows in her mind and she probably remains open to a resumption. Very likely he has kept her on the back burner for years as the occasional option. This would explain why she is so secretive about it. She has a vested interest in keeping it secret so she will be free to resume it if/when he is available.

This is why I suggested you contact the ex wife. She may know all about the affair and could share some insight.

As long as your children don't know about the affair, the OM is free to move in when you are gone. At my dads funeral, his "girlfriend" turned out to be his "35 year long mistress." If I would have known that, I would not have had her around. My point is that your kids need to know the truth. They will be hurt by the lies.