Welcome to the
Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum

This is a community where people come in search of marriage related support, answers, or encouragement. Also, information about the Marriage Builders principles can be found in the books available for sale in the Marriage Builders® Bookstore.
If you would like to join our guidance forum, please read the Announcement Forum for instructions, rules, & guidelines.
The members of this community are peers and not professionals. Professional coaching is available by clicking on the link titled Coaching Center at the top of this page.
We trust that you will find the Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum to be a helpful resource for you. We look forward to your participation.
Once you have reviewed all the FAQ, tech support and announcement information, if you still have problems that are not addressed, please e-mail the administrators at mbrestored@gmail.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 2 of 4 1 2 3 4
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 20,433
Likes: 4
B
Member
Offline
Member
B
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 20,433
Likes: 4
Have you listened to the clips in here?
Beware of Bad Counselors


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
Originally Posted by NebDane
First, you might want to ask yourself if you want to stay married to a serial adulterer. She has quite a history, that keeps growing. I guarantee you still don't know the full extent, depth and probably more partners.

For Exposure-
You uncover all the intelligence you need, including names, addresses, phone numbers of OM(s), OM(s) wife, parents, Facebook friends, your family, her family clergy, work place HR dept and company executives.
You massively tell everyone on that list that your wife is in an affair and you want to save the marriage. There is a template on what to say. You expose in one fell swoop. You do not tell your wife you are going to do it.
You expose it at the workplace, since this is a workplace affair(s).
Then you brace for the rage and protect yourself.
I guarantee she has not told her parents, her friends or anyone that matters.

You want to get tested for STD's, you might want to consider paternity testing.

I've been contemplating that the deeper the rabbit hole gets.

We agrees that I'd keep the phone through tomorrow cause I don't know what else to do. I plan on sending out exposure letter/emails to all of her close friends and family. As well as an email to her coworkers

Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
Originally Posted by SugarCane
Originally Posted by MichLove4
She agreed to start couples counceling.
Do you see that all the nice behaviours towards you recently were all designed to throw you off the scent of the affairs? The hugs? The sex with you, and the promise of conjugal visits later?

What is the point of couples' counselling, for you?

Don't you see that her agreement to go to this is again designed to make you think that she is trying, when really, she won't be trying at all?

If you have read anything on here, you must be aware of how dangerous our posters have found marital counselling to be. The counsellor will encourage you to "communicate" with each other, which will mean your listening while your wife tells you how unhappy you have made her and why she must fly free. The counsellor will then encourage your wife to do what makes her happy, and encourage you to accept that you cannot keep her in an unhappy marriage. The counsellor will have NO strategy to end the affair, and create romantic love in your marriage. Marital counselling has a greater chance of ENDING your marriage than rebuilding it.

I would like her to understand that her actions have been the reasons our marriage hasn't been happy and fulfilling. She's been sabotaging it from year 3

That Is exactly what her therapist has been feeding her the last month. That we're incompatible and she just needs to follow her heart and move on

Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
Should the exposure to friends/family include past affairs or just current ones?

Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 577
N
Member
Offline
Member
N
Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 577
You are not listening, you are not doing exposure correct. You want to go to counseling, therapist? Wow, recipe for disaster and yes you will end up divorced for sure.

So good luck as you keep contemplating

Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
What about a faith based marriage counseling?

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 15,818
Likes: 7
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 15,818
Likes: 7
Originally Posted by MichLove4
What about a faith based marriage counseling?

That would be great if most faith based marriage counselors knew how to save marriages.

Don't look for a mere "pro-marriage" counselor

Most faith based marriage counselors I know take the approach of trying to teach you to accept the end of the feeling of romantic love. And it only gets worse from there.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 15,818
Likes: 7
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 15,818
Likes: 7
Originally Posted by BrainHurts
Have you listened to the clips in here?
Beware of Bad Counselors

Stop right now and go listen to this.


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 9,527
Likes: 9
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 9,527
Likes: 9
Originally Posted by MichLove4
What about a faith based marriage counseling?
We have not had any better reports from this than with other kinds. Indeed, most of our posters are Christian, and of those that went to counselling, most specifically sought out Christian counselling. Some went for counselling with their own pastor.

The problem is that counsellors do not have the goal, nor do they have a proven strategy, to build romantic love within a marriage. Christian counselling will certainly have the goal of supporting the marriage and avoiding divorce, but without a set of objectives that are tried, tested and proven to create and maintain romantic love, the unhappiness within the marriage will not be resolved, and the couple will not be happier, and in love. A couple that is in love will not divorce. A couple that has learned to "communicate" their grievances (the focus of most counselling) can still be unhappy and can still divorce.

If an affair is ongoing, Christian and other counsellors do not use Dr Harley's methods to end the affair permanently - moving house, changing jobs, changing career altogether if the career facilitates affairs (such as airline work and mixed hospital environments). Such extraordinary measures are considered far too extreme for mot counsellors, who prefer to rely on "trust".

For most people having an affair, it is the specific affair partner that is the attraction. The unfaithful spouse did not go out looking for sex on the side; they breached certain boundaries, and formed friendships with someone from work, or re-established contact with an old boyfriend or girlfriend. Therefore although the couple needs to take extraordinary measures to avoid that affair partner for life, such as moving house or changing jobs, and they need to create a transparent, integrated life so that neither could have an affair without the other knowing (accessing each other's phones and emails, for example), the "extraordinary precautions" that Dr Harley recommends are really no more than the precautions that everyone should take from the day they get married. We should always have had integrated lives, where we do not socialise in mixed company without our spouse, and where secrets are not possible. However, in the case of the routine affair, the unfaithful spouse does not have to avoid the opposite sex altogether. They can still go out to work, and they can still go shopping and walk the kids to school. They can still use the Internet.

However, with an unfaithful spouse who has had several affairs, who is either very susceptible to the slightest attention, or who actively trolls for affairs, a normal lifestyle is no longer possible if the marriage is to be rebuilt. The couple will need to be together at all times, so that lone contact with the opposite sex is not possible. They would need to work together, perhaps by starting a business.

Dr and Mrs Harley, who have never had affairs, work together and are in each other's company for most of the day. They don't socialise with friends without each other. They don't go to the gym without each other. Mrs Harley attends a women-only Bible study class, not a mixed one and so on. Their lives are structured so that, not only is lone, opposite-sex contact almost impossible, but each would know instantly if an affair were developing - online, or face-to-face. That is the kind of marriage and lifestyle that you would need to create if your marriage to an attention seeking, flighty, promiscuous, confused, "finding herself", serially cheating wife were to be successful. Would she agree to that lifestyle? If not, forget trying to recover with her.

Does your Christian counsellor know all the above? Does he or she have proven, successful programme for rebuilding a marriage where a serially-cheating spouse is involved? I suspect not; I suspect that he or she will focus very much on rebuilding Christianity within the marriage as a means of creating faithfulness, but not on practical strategies to meet emotional needs only inside the marriage, and never outside it.

If you want counselling, you should first, write to Dr Harley at the radio show, telling him your marital history and asking for his advice, which will be free of charge. He will invite you to discuss the problem on the radio show, which means you and your wife (if she will cooperate) could talk to him for up to an hour. If you don't want to be on the radio show, he will address your email on the air.

After that, you should use the Marriage Builders telephone coaching service, which is run by Dr Harley's children, Steven Harley and Dr Jennifer Chalmers (Jennifer is co-author of the book Surviving an Affair - which you should have read by now. I don't know if it has been recommended to you yet, but if not, get it now, in print or download, from Amazon.) The coaching service is not "counselling"; it does not encourage you to spend weeks, months and sometimes years looking into personal and emotional history, and working out what is within the unfaithful spouse that needs resolving before they can move forward. The coaching service uses Dr Harley's MB programme to change the conditions of today and the future: to end the affair, prevent any more affairs developing, and create a loving, romantic marriage. Steve and Jennifer are both excellent at getting reluctant, unhappy, unfaithful spouses on board with Marriage Builders, and they do not allow the conflicts of the past to be dragged into sessions, which, when it is done, leaves both spouses feeling angrier than before the session started, and does not create love.

Send an email to Dr Harley today, right now, and then click "coaching centre" in the red area at the top of every page on this site. Since your wife has agreed to do counselling, she can be persuaded to agree to Harley coaching, and to cooperate with an email to Dr Harley directly at the radio show, instead.


BW
Married 1989
His PA 2003-2006
2 kids.
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
How can I contact Dr Harley?

office@marriagebuilders.com

Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 15,818
Likes: 7
M
Member
Offline
Member
M
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 15,818
Likes: 7
No, use this one:

mbradio@marriagebuilders.com


If you are serious about saving your marriage, you can't get it all on this forum. You've got to listen to the Marriage Builders Radio show, every day. Install the app!

Married to my radiant trophy wife, Prisca, 19 years. Father of 8.
Attended Marriage Builders weekend in May 2010

If your wife is not on board with MB, some of my posts to other men might help you.
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,448
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,448
Originally Posted by MichLove4
Should the exposure to friends/family include past affairs or just current ones?

All her affairs.

Just FYI, that I really doubt that she has told you the entire truth of what she has been up to all these years in her SSL (secret second life). The only way to know for sure is to have a poly.


Ddays 2007 and 2011
Plan B 6/21/11
Divorced July 2012
2 kids
How to Plan B Correctly
Parallel Parenting in Plan B
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 6,108
B
Member
Offline
Member
B
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 6,108
Quote
We had a separation where she was unhappy and left for about a 9mo period roughly 5yrs ago. She eventually returned and we had our first child shortly after that.

You may want to be sure your daughter is in fact yours given this timeline and WW's serial cheating. Sorry but I would not attempt recovery with a serial cheater. Your WW is not remorseful as your title states either...tears mean nothing. If you do want to attempt to recovery the marriage, you will literally have to babysit your WW for life. Are you honestly prepared for that? That her affairs are workplace affairs...her job has to go.

Welcome to MB


BW - me
exWH - serial cheater
2 awesome kids
Divorced 12/2011




Many a good man has failed because he had a wishbone where his backbone should have been.

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.
--------Eleanor Roosevelt
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,448
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,448
Originally Posted by MichLove4
How can I contact Dr Harley?

office@marriagebuilders.com

Along the lines of what SC said, no counseling, coaching or any of the other recovery steps are going to work unless your WW drastically changes her lifestyle to make cheating impossible.

You have a serial cheater on your hands, so not only does she like having her needs met outside of marriage, but she is so used to living a SSL that it becomes a bad habit - a habit that is extremely hard to break.

Is she willing to give up all her IB? That means GNOs are done, recreational time away from you, travel -- anything like that needs to go bye bye.

Is she willing to give you complete transparency? All passwords to all social medial, email, etc? You will also need spy ware on all of her devices and you will need to watch her closely for a very long time to make sure she has truly given up her SSL.

That's just a start. You need to look closely at her lifestyle and what has enabled her to pursue all of these affairs undetected and eliminate them.

I would have that discussion with her BEFORE you talk to Dr Harley. That way you don't have to waste an email and phone call.



Ddays 2007 and 2011
Plan B 6/21/11
Divorced July 2012
2 kids
How to Plan B Correctly
Parallel Parenting in Plan B
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 6,108
B
Member
Offline
Member
B
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 6,108
Originally Posted by MichLove4
The coworker (3rd guy) I told him no contact or I'll get in touch with their HR

crazy

That was a bad move. You don't threaten. You expose and nuke the affair.

Girls trips to Party Town Big Easy?!

Look if you aren't prepared to have your wife quit her job, stop going on girl trips, etc then save yourself a lot of additional headache and heartache and just get divorced because none of this can go on in the future. You will be trying to bandaid a sucking chest wound. Your lifestyle will have to DRAMATICALLY change to recover from any affair but even more so with a serial cheater.


BW - me
exWH - serial cheater
2 awesome kids
Divorced 12/2011




Many a good man has failed because he had a wishbone where his backbone should have been.

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot.
--------Eleanor Roosevelt
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
Thank you everyone. The serial cheating is weighing heavily on my mind right now.

I dont care to have a paternity test. Whether the kids are biologically mine or not I love them to death and will do anything for them.

Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,448
S
Member
Offline
Member
S
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 7,448
Originally Posted by MichLove4
Thank you everyone. The serial cheating is weighing heavily on my mind right now.

Totally understandable.

But regardless of whether you want to pursue recovery or not - you should still expose and you should approach her about making lifestyle changes (eliminating all IB) and becoming 100% transparent.

It will only help you make your decision. And even if she agreed, you don't have to pursue recovery.

In other words, there is no reason to put off having that conversation with her.


Ddays 2007 and 2011
Plan B 6/21/11
Divorced July 2012
2 kids
How to Plan B Correctly
Parallel Parenting in Plan B
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
I have finished the exposure and so far going really well. The messages to his Facebook friends must have been really damaging. He actually sent me an email apologizing and asking me to stop.

Also my wife found out about the email I sent to some of the supervisors at their work because she sent me a txt telling me she found out.

I sent txt and email to both of her parents and I dont think that one has come back around to bite her yet.


I think I'm going to let some time past and the dust to settle before I do much of anything else.

Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 577
N
Member
Offline
Member
N
Joined: Mar 2012
Posts: 577
Did you hit all the OM, and the OM wives, OM parents?

You need to send the email to the HR department and her supervisor, the OM supervisor and a company executive.
All her FB friends?
The children?

If you havent exposed to the above, you are not finished.

Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
M
Junior Member
OP Offline
Junior Member
M
Joined: Nov 2015
Posts: 24
I am finished regardless. I reuse to cause any more damage. If she refuses to acknowledge her addiction at this point I am going to go dormant for awhile. I've been fighting as hard as I can and have no more fight left right now.

I may ask her to compose an email to her close friends tonight. But I'm not going to push it.

Page 2 of 4 1 2 3 4

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Search
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 1,079 guests, and 45 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
Mike69, petercgeelan, Zorya, Reyna98, Nofoguy
71,829 Registered Users
Building Marriages That Last A Lifetime
Copyright © 1995-2019, Marriage Builders®. All Rights Reserved.
Site Navigation
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5