As far as close friends, it will have to be your best guess.

Should I send a different letter to those who I know she has "forewarned" (since I threatened to tell people back in February, before I found this site)? She has also been claiming that I'm abusive with them (and I've been doing some lovebusting, so she has grounds for those claims).

I was thinking of something along the lines of:

"In order to hide the affair, my wife has been making accusations that I've been controlling, manipulative and emotionally abusive to distract attention. I do not claim to be perfect, and I'm working on my issues. However, we cannot repair, restore and rebuild our relationship as long as the affair continues. Please use your influence to encourage my wife to end the affair with the other woman and focus on rebuilding and restoring our relationship and marriage."

You know, I wouldn't put that in there. The reason is because if your wife uses that as an excuse for her affair, people will recognize that she is making excuses. I would stick to your original letter and keep it as simple as possible.

The proof that I have is a facebook download (which amounts to a text file) and some emails that they both sent me when the affair began and at various times during the affair. Posting that kind of stuff on a website isn't going to be "proof" in people's eyes because it could've been written by me. However, I could forward the emails - which means they come from the email server (a public one) that I can't control.

I also have a few items written in my wife's hand that talk about how fearful she is of the verse "be sure your sins will find you out" in reference to their relationship.

I'm thinking of avoiding the website idea and just forwarding emails if people want to see them.

Lastly, I know she has at least three people in her "corner" - a friend who sent her a message that "no matter what proof he could offer, I'll never believe him" and has been encouraging her to stand up for herself against me, to draw boundaries, to deceive me (even pointing out that Rahab deceived to keep the spies safe and was blessed for it) and she's the one who encouraged my wife to visit a lawyer. This is the "bad friend" who I plan to mention by name in my exposure letter. She is also the one who is encouraging my wife and the other woman to talk by having 3-way phone conversations with them - yet claims she is against same-sex relationships and extra-marital affairs. Her husband is also in politics and is about to run again - which gives me some leverage with her.

The other friend is ... psychotic. Not only is she unhinged, but her ex-husband was hitting on my wife a couple weeks ago and my wife said she "didn't care" if the friend gave her phone number to him.

And the third friend is her "abuse counselor" who has actively encouraged my wife to leave me - and who my wife is seeing without admitting it to me (I've found her call logs to her and she tells the kids she's going to see the counselor when she leaves). The counselor is using a book called "Why does he do that?" by Lundy Bancroft - that basically says that only men can abuse and women can't abuse men. His book is poison to marriages. It's all his opinion. He mentions "studies" - but cites none of them and I've spoken to several counselors and psychologists who say that his conclusions are unsupported by anyone else in the field. He also has a huge drive to sell books, to sell his counseling program and to sell his way of doing things.

I suspect her dad, mom and siblings will back her - simply because her dad doesn't like me, her mom must stand with her daughter (and she had an affair that broke up their marriage), her brother is pagan and currently in an open / triad relationship and her sister - though very religious - will disbelieve that her sister could be involved in anything like this (even with proof).

I suspect her boss will back her - because she's been telling my wife that I'm bipolar and not to be trusted.

As for the rest? I really don't know. I think there will be some who, having already been coached by my wife that I'm "jealous and abusive" will just automatically side with her.

The same-sex attraction thing will impact the other woman's family, however. Especially since some of them already know about it through an admission she made a year or two ago.

I'm not anticipating a lot of support toward me, to be honest. And I'm fully expecting my wife to leave me when I expose.

But, as a dear friend said, "If you risk what you have now, you're risking very little. It's not like you're risking a great marriage. And if it works, you might get your great marriage back."

A big part of the reason these people don't support you is because they do not know the truth. They have been brainwashed with lies about you. This is why you need to upload your evidence to a website. You can take screen shots of the emails and everything else. Even a court of law accepts copies of emails VERSUS a forwarded email. [when I was an IM I was asked to fax direct copies to the lawyer - he could not accept a forwarded email]

You really need to do this because most people will not go to the trouble of asking for evidence if they have already been persuaded that you are satan incarnate/delusional. They are just not going to bother.

HOWEVER, if you post the evidence, some will click on it and report the veracity to others who have been brainwashed against you. They can be your advocates.

These 2 women have been lying about their relationship for a long time and you need to pull out all the stops to convince others of the truth because you need their support. You will not get support from all, not even many people. But you must make every effort to bring people to the side of your marriage.


I agree with everything except that your wife will leave you. If she leaves, I expect her to be back within a few days. She will leave to try and punish you and put you in your place. When it doesn't work, she will come back because she will miss her home.

I expect in lieu of "leaving" she'll choose to sleep in the guest room and give me the silent treatment. She has been withholding affection for over 4 months since I confronted her about the affair last time - and I threatened to leave her if she didn't end the relationship. Before that she was begging me to stay and even said, "I can have you both! She's just a friend! Love me unconditionally!" But after I saw the lawyer, she refused to be affectionate toward me.

Occasionally she would hold my hand, snuggle - we even had one kissing session. However, once she read that book by Lundy Bancroft and started seeing the abuse counselor, all of that was shut down - and she even started rejecting my overtures of affection.

I'll need to get a website setup. Can you give me the link you mentioned before?

I'm going to scan the hand-written stuff I have from her.

How much of the evidence should I show? Just the "nasty" stuff? or the whole conversation and how it evolved over time?

She refuses to rank her emotional needs. However, based on the things she's asked for recently - some of it while she's mad and complaining at me, I put together this list.

Family Commitment (She has chided me for isolating myself from the kids and her - even though she said she feels like I follow her around the house and "guard" her.)

Financial Support (She's been harping on our debt and our budget and complaining to others about my spending.)

Honesty and Openness (This is here simply because she is demanding that I be completely honest about everything - even though she gets mad at me when she hears something she doesn't like.)

Sexual Fulfillment (If things were "normal" between us, this would be lower, but she's been very demanding of sexual activity - even though there is no emotion during sex.)

Affection (Her love language is touch and the only reason this is so low is due to her more vocal complaints about the other needs - and her claiming that I'm "manipulating [her] through touch" because I was being romantic and affectionate.

Admiration (She has always thrived on compliments and anything that even hints at negativity hurts her deeply.)

Conversation (I really wanted to put this higher, because she's always talking to me about everything mundane - but with her more strident and vocal complaints, I moved it lower.)

Domestic Support (She has been commenting that she appreciates that I help out around the house more - and had previously complained about me not doing much around the house - it's only so low because she hasn't vocalized complaints recently.)

Recreational Companionship (She has been pushing me away and wanting to have more independence and more freedom from me. She's been avoiding me. Although it's recently getting better, it is currently a low priority with her - the whole reason things started is because she said I "wasn't there for her" - but now she doesn't want me there.)

Physical Attractiveness (She has told me - and it really hurts to know this - that she doesn't find me physically attractive. I'm not the body type, facial type or hair color that appeals to her - but that she loves me because of the "chemistry" she feels with me. I can't tell you how much it hurts to know my wife doesn't find me attractive and that there's nothing I can do to change that - but she says it doesn't matter because it's not my looks that she cares about.)

Go find rainysweets post on my exposure thread. She give instructions on how to set up a free website.

Show enough evidence to get the message across but be sure and post photos of the recent phone call logs to show the affair still continues. Don't post the evolution. They need to be able to get the idea at a glance.

Is it vindictive of me that I really want to shut off her phone? Or put a block against the other woman's phone number?

Don't worry about her emotional needs for now. If you get an opportunity after killing the affair you will only be focussing on the top 4 intimate emotional needs anyway. And she will find you physically attractive when she is in love with you.

I wouldn't do that for a couple of reasons. It won't stop her from talking to the OW and it will just fan the already fanned flames. It doesn't help you strategically at a time when you are trying to appear to be a safe, attractive alternative when her affair crumbles.

I found the post. I'll start building the page. It'll take a little time. But, I can't get the other woman's friends list till this weekend anyway...

Hosea,

One other advantage of exposure is that it removes the burden the betrayed spouse has of keeping their wayward spouses secret.

It also equalizes the reverse punishment where the betrayed spouse suffers alone and in silence, while the wayward appears to go on with their life. I've seen that so many times in my life.

You referred to a prior affair OW had does OWH or the prior affair OWH know about that one?

God Bless
Gamma

Hosea,

Another point is that exposure will create conflict between OW and your WW, in the same way that criminals rat each other out at the police station. At first they might go to each other for support, but will feel watched and ashamed.

God Bless
Gamma

Some history...

My wife and I considered the possibility of including another woman in our relationship for several years. We had one relationship that lasted a few months back in 2002. There was another relationship in 2009. When her friendship with the other woman kicked off in 2011, she revealed that information to the other woman. That's when the other woman revealed that she and her husband had experienced something similar.

They had a woman from another country come and live with them because she had a bad breakup. The other woman and this foreign woman developed a deeply intimate relationship that included kissing, showering together, intimate caresses and sucking on nipples - but claimed nothing went beyond that. In fact, there was a huge curiosity expressed in the private messages between my wife and the other woman when the other woman discovered that my wife had more experience.

At some point, the other woman's husband also initiated a relationship with the foreign woman and confessed his love for her. He came home one night to find the two of them in bed and inviting him to join them - but he backed out and resentment built up in him over the situation.

This other woman is now back in her home country and I only know her first name.

In June of last year, the other woman's husband attempted an exposure by telling some common friends about his wife's relationship with my wife - but it was not a "full exposure". The other woman subsequently wrote a letter to the 3 friends he exposed it to and my wife sent me a copy. Here is an excerpt:


(I replaced names with [Other Woman] and [My Wife] and [Me] and [Other Woman's Husband].)

You've had two "swinging" relationships in your marriage?

If you've had two swinging events in your marriage, that changes the history that we've understood here, and possibly the advice we would have given you. Did your wife's relationship with this current woman start through swinging? Did you condone the relationship when it started?

What appears to have happened is that you were happy for your wife to have sex with other women in the past, as long as this was a threesome, fulfilling sexual needs and fantasies for you. However, either with or without your consent, your wife got involved with this current OW. Unfortunately for you, she became emotionally entangled and excluded you from the relationship. That might be when you "refused to show any affection to her for 7 weeks unless she ended her relationship with the other woman. She looked at it as a divorce situation. I confronted her after the 7 weeks and said I was leaving - but by then, she didn't care."

Your first post spoke of your wife "continually struggling with a desire for a relationship with" this woman and her husband, suggesting that she wanted to enter a threesome with them. It does not appear that she wanted you to be part of that.

It seems to me that your own decision to defile your marriage resulted in a gigantic mess, with your wife falling for OW (which often happens in these situations) and now you cannot stop the train wreck.

It seems we should have looked into her claims of your being "emotionally abusive" more seriously.

"25 years of a life together" is rather underselling it, don't you think?

Didn't you think the swinging was pertinent information that we should have had from the start?

Here's a good clip. The BH let his WW swing and now their marriage is destroyed.
Radio clip on Swinging
Segment #2

Another one.
Radio Clip on Swinging

Tell us what you think.