I am sorry that I assumed your intention was to make me feel like an idiot when you were simply trying to be helpful by calling attention to my na�vet� with this issue. I appreciate your advice and insight and understand that you speak with passion because you yourself have experienced this dread.

I truly apologize.

My belief is that the best program to recover from an affair is the MB program. Sign up for the on-line program once you are certain the you have busted up the affair, i.e. follow ALL the recommended steps previously outlined.

AM

April, you need to get 'WE' out of your vocabulary in this part of your discovery. And understand you are not in recovery and I'm sure your body is telling you that already. 'YOU' need to expose to your child, family, close friends, the OW spouse or family, and his manager. 'YOU' need to get him to agree to extraordinary precautions before you begin to consider recovery.

There is just no way to skip this step and expect to recover. When your are not able to force you body to accept you recovery it will betray you and he will feel like he is justified to get someone else to meet his emotional need that you can't meet. White knuckling it will not do the job.

You need to set aside what you think you should do and follow the advice you are getting here because only then will you have a chance of recovering from this. Since this is the 2nd time and I'm sure you did it your way the 1st time, what we are saying more then likely already happened to you.

Over come your fears and fight for a marriage you deserve and family your son deserves.

April, I just listened to your email being read on the radio show today. Please listen to the rebroadcast before the next show tomorrow. Dr Harley emphasized exposure and the need to eliminate his secret second life.

Dr. Harley also mentioned that "forgiveness" is very inappropriate. Here is his article about that subject: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5042_qa.html

There are some good clips about forgiveness in here, please read.
What is Just Compensation?

Here are some clips on this also.
Beware of Bad Counselors

I was quite puzzled by this post and thought that 'I want to ruin her life' was just a random and really rather understandable thought. Then later I realised you might actually be talking about exposure. That you think exposure would 'ruin her life'. Do you actually think that? Do you think a woman who is clinging like a desperate leech to a married man, (except for when she is in the self harm ward after a jilting) has a life that can be ruined?

Her life is already ruined - all you are doing is making sure the runaway car that is her life doesn't plough through your home and ruin your life at the same time.

Telling her friends and family can do no harm to her whatsoever. If she has nice, moral people around her, it might even help her as exposure so often does. She is in control of her life - only she can ruin it. If she wants people to think well of her, she is actually going to have to change. Life is a long thing with many opportunities to be redeemed. Our reputations are capable of going up and down all the time - we are fully in control of that process.

I find this 'it will ruin lives' a really rather baffling attitude to exposure. How can telling people the truth in a polite and responsible way, possibly ruin anyone or anything? Most people, though shocked and horrified, only want to see the affair partners do better and to stop hurting people. There will be some consequences like job losses etc - but the affairees knew about that risk when they did it. People are generally good and have reasonable, caring reactions. They don't let people off scot free, because that would be wrong, but no one is persecuted or ruined. No wonder you don't want to expose your H - you seem to think the villagers with torches will come round and set fire to him.

Not even your sister is allowed to offer her very eager support, which I think is dreadfully sad.

This is what former WH Gloveoil just posted on someone's thread about exposure:

Here's your show.
Radio Clip of April78's Show

bump

@indiegirl

What I meant by wishing the OW could be "ruined" like myself is that it feels so unfair that I should be the only one to carry the emotional burden. I feel like I will forever have that seed of doubt in my life. That I will spend my life wondering why and never have a real answer. That I will never have the confidence in my husband, myself, or our marriage again. Meanwhile, she will go on with her life and forget all but the good times she had with him. She doesn't suffer the life-long consequences. Of course, wishing it is moot. She knew he was married and didn't care. She did all she could to convince him to be with her knowing full well he had a family. She had nothing to risk. Like I said, its not really worth the time wishing it; it really was just a venting statement.

As far as exposure, yes, I felt like it'd turn into a witch hunt. Especially for certain apple in my family. It's just they way they are; I have seen there reaction first hand to this situation with another family member. That said, Dr Harley illustrated the emotional process he might undergo when learning such news his radio and it was helpful.

Lastly, my sister has been a wonderful support front the very first day and continues to be.

Stick around. You will see the OP never gets off scot free. Time and time again they head into a very remarkable pattern of destruction. Self caused of course.

Not the same as your pain.


We HAVE all been here you know. Pre exposure I thought one member of my family was going to be violent. Could NOT have been more wrong. He ended up being my biggest supporter. I thought I could count on my female friends 100 per cent. Turned out they had known about the affair all along and were supporting the affairees. I also thought my H's family were going to take the 'blood is thicker than water' approach against me. Actually, they called an emergency family meeting, flying in from different countries to take my H to task because they didn't want to lose me.

If you try and guess what people's reaction will be - you will be wrong. Only a few things are certain:

1) No one will be more shocked, hurt or betrayed than you - you ARE the betrayed spouse. If you can handle it, anyone can.
2) The people who criticise exposure will DEFINITELY have a guilty conscience. They are highly likely to have had their own affair. Or they knew and were covering up for your H.
3) The people who come down like a tonne of bricks on your H and are shocked, appalled and disgusted will be your greatest strength.

People who are against affairs are good people. Give them a try. Exclude the others.

Exposure is also a test of whether you will go through this again. If your H cannot handle the openness and the reaction, he plans on continuing to live a secretive life.

There are lots of former waywards here who handled the reaction admirably. I could not admire them more and I know they are (now) highly respected in their own families.

@SuzieQ

Thank you for the two threads you bumped for me. They were helpful in improving my understanding. I do appreciate it.

@Melodylane and Brainhurts

(I apologize if this is a duplicate; I wrote once before but it didn't show up)

Thank you for the links and referencing the radio show. Talking to Dr Harley and Joyce was very helpful and reassuring. If I had had all if their wisdom before we were married!

Hello all. I haven't been on here much for the last couple of weeks for a few reasons. One is that reading and writing about this makes me sad ;(. The other is that we've been very busy. H and I have been spending as much time together as possible while still managing work and family. Our son's birthday, the 4th of July and some family vacation time for our son's bday has kept us on our toes.

Every day is a little better. My H seems eager to show me that he means what he says. Yesterday he offered to be rid of his Internet based cell phone bc the Internet is where much of the affair occurred.

He seems to have no interest in her and through talking to him, I believe this relationship was becoming more trouble than it was worth for him which contributed to his ease in giving it up.

I don't feel particularly concerned that he's trying to contact her (though that little voice in the back of my head keeps me monitoring his activities) as much as I want to limit the avenues in which he could get entangled in such a relationship in the future. He feels its a matter of following the MB rules of no contact w exes, no opposite-sex friendships, and no "innocent" flirtation. He has complied with my requests to be rid of avenues that could make these things possible and frequently asked me what else he can do.

Anywho. Overall feel things are moving forward.

April, this is great news and it certainly sounds like you are on the right track. You did say one thing that really alarms me. More on that below.


This is very good and should certainly be a part of your extraordinary precautions. All methods of communication with the OW should be eliminated. That is not even negotiable.


Be assured that interest can be re-sparked in about 2 seconds if the OW is allowed to contact him. This is why it is so important to remove any openings. If he is interested in her you will be the LAST person to know about it, I assure you. He is not going to ACT interested around you. The fact that he "seems" to have no interest should give you NO reassurance because it means nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I'm extremely concerned that the first step, exposure has been half done and glossed over. Nothing can be added until that is done right and your H treated like a big boy who can take it.

Hopefully it will be - I'll chime in when it is.

Here are the segments for just your show, in case others don't have time to listen to the whole show.

Radio Clip of April78's show
Segment 2

@ melody lane (I can't figure out how to add the short quotes? Maybe I can't from the phone...)

I want to reassure you that I am not fully reassured by his "lack of interest" in her. I have told him myself that I will not sit back and just take his word for it. I need non stop proof, transparency, etc. and that I will be monitoring him. My thought is, it was easy before--what's really different now?? I've asked him--so, what happens the next time you're in a funk? You don't know you won't fall into this situation again with her or anyone else. I am actively working on doing what I can to prevent access to her or ANY other woman while trying to fulfill his needs. Every day I check our phone and text logs via the phone company. He does not know this. I also scour his phone and require him to delete any app that makes me uncomfortable.

Sometimes I wonder though, when does it end? I hate being the suspicious wife!