Thanks. So, assuming I can go for 6 months, does that mean going for that long even if she keeps refusing to leave work?

in Surviving an Affair, Dr. Harley mentions a one month deadline to leave the job. You could always email him and ask for specific advice.

From Dr Harley's book, Surviving an Affair - pg 71,

"While I unhesitatingly recommend exposing the affair to friends, family, clergy, children and the lover's spouse, I'm not so quick to suggest exposing it to an employer. That's because such exposure could have unintended legal and economic consequences. For example, the affair might constitute grounds for a sexual harassment claim by the unfaithful spouse's lover. Or it might trigger the outright firing of the spouse, making it far more difficult for them to find another job. So in those cases I usually advise the betrayed spouse to warn the unfaithful spouse he or she will expose the affair to the employer in a month if the unfaithful spouse is still working there, giving him or her time to make a graceful exit from the job to another. Even if a new job cannot be found in a month, I recommend waiting no longer to inform the employer, unless the unfaithful spouse has already resigned."

Apples, the one month deadline only applies to EXPOSURE. The BS can tell the WS that he will give her one month to leave the job and if she has not left at that time, he will expose it. But that is only afforded to WS's who have AGREED to leave the job.

But it sounds as if she is agreeing to leave but wants time to find a new job. I'm uncertain how Dr. Harley would answer as far as the timeliness in which this WW should leave her job.

The problem though is he started posting 5 days ago and didn't do things in the order recommended in Surviving An Affair. He also seems to have only mentioned her leaving her job on Thursday. Maybe he did it earlier but didn't mention it. Since he went out of order, I would recommend he ask Dr. Harley. [quote]

Ask him what?? I am confused about] what you mean.

[quote]Although, the VAR is proof of contact so Dr. Harley may recommend a more urgent need to leave the job. But I've also heard him recommend a gentle insistence for men in Plan A.

He could ask Dr. Harley what time line to give her to quit her job.

She needs to leave the job-This is not in question.

Sorry but quoting wikipedia about what a general counsel is is just silly. The general counsel is a very senior position

Sorry for bombarding the thread. So as I said I suspected the affair was continuing, and so I continued the snooping. I thought that the exposure would cause contact and so put a VAR in the car. And yes, it caused lots of contact.

The exposure did have an effect. I have told her why I am doing it ie it is no longer secret, but I have not gone any further than that. Their discussion focussed a lot on this ie they think it is bulls**t. But equally they could not come up with any other explanation other than I must be lashing out. In particular, whilst I know the trickle effect is frowned on here, it impacted their conversation because there were comments such as at least he didn't disclose to X (as an aside I cannot quite hear who X was but will try some audio software to remove car noise). But the next day when work was exposed, it did cause much more of a reaction. She was out of the office and it seems he spent the day running around talking to people about it. One possible downside is that he thinks it is a good thing it is now out in the open, although that may be him trying to counter the actual intention.

Anyway the main purpose of this post is to address the main issue from the recording.

He said he has been trying to convince her to call it a day with me for 2 months now, and she has not even got close to doing so. As part of trying to meet her needs, we went out for a day on Saturday without kids. We went shopping, had drinks and dinner and we reminisced about when things were good between us and why we fell in love in the first place. It was a good day. I believe her when she says she also enjoyed it. She said it had helped in moving me from the "like box" back to the"love box".

The day before, according to the recording, she had met her parents following my exposure to them. It seems that the outcome of that was she needs to just make a decision and tell me. They also do not agree with the idea of leaving her work without a job to go to as they had issues in their marriage about her mother giving up her career for the kids and her dad's job. It appeared that the likely outcome was that she would opt to tell me that it is over - the exposure being blamed as the trigger because "that is not like me".

She did not tell me. On Sunday, after our day out we had another chat about what our options are. I said there are 3: she leaves him (and that means her job), we become one of those couples where I turn a blind eye but we do not separate or we call it a day. I immediately discounted the second one because I am not going to do that. So it leaves 2 options. She said she does not want a divorce - the idea makes her sad. She also said that she thinks a trial separation would not work because she thinks we would run back to each other in no time at all. But she refuses to leave work immediately - she gave the same reasons mentioned before and tried to buy some time until she has a new job. So we are in a vicious circle.

It seems to me there is something there to salvage from this mess, but she will not do what I require to exorcise the affair. So:

- I will tell my children. We all know why I don't want to tell them. I think they are too young to understand especially the younger one (4yrs 9months). And I think there is a risk that I am blamed by them for telling them. But deep down the reason I have not told them is that I worry/expect it may trigger her to make a decision to leave.

- should I confront her about the recording?

- is this a position from which we can even move to Plan A or should I test her response above (ie she would run back to me quickly) by moving out and cutting direct contact? It makes me so sad to even consider writing that, but I acknowledge that this may be the only possible solution from here

The actual conversation went. Mummy loves someone from her work called X. She is having what is called an affair. Affairs cause lots of pain and suffering etc.

On the wife front, she came home again last night and she said all the people she has now spoken to tell her she needs to make a decision to put both of us out of this misery. She nearly did but couldn't do it. She talked about a separation where she would sleep in another bed. As I walked away I told her I love her and that I am there for her if she meets my condition of not seeing him. Se tried the other bed but after 20 minutes she came back and gave me a huge hug and kiss.

It seems we are moving to the stage where she will make a "decision" in the next day or so. Assuming the worst, what do I do then? Should I accept the idea of living in the same house but different beds on the basis that I can still use that time to work on Plan A, or is that the end for Plan A?

Also, do I tell my wife that I told the kids before she finds out herself tonight? I did take a video so she could see/hear what I said, but the iphone lost the audio.