You can't base your decisions on ANYTHING that a wayward says. Nothing. Your husband is spouting stuff just to keep you in your little box so that you won't interrupt AffairLand.

He stopped paying the bills because he could, and because he is in the Fog of his affair.

YOU did the right thing by confronting the other woman. It caused trouble between them obviously, and so he lashed out at you. This is a good thing! (except that we need to get you to the point where you don't buy into the FogSpeak)

When you expose, you won't be "harassing his friends", will you? You won't argue with them at all. You will be calm as a cucumber and will just state that you love your husband and that you wish for them to stop enabling the affair.

Until we can get you into Plan B, we can call you in Plan A, okay? If he happens to contact you again, be polite and upbeat. Do NOT talk about your relationship, and make it short and sweet.

More in a bit. We just got home and need to let doggies out here.

Exposure is really one of the Steps toward recovery that Dr. Harley states in his "narrow" plan for recovery after an affair.

Exposure really is separate from Plan A and Plan B and it should be done in ANY case after an affair (so that we can be certain that the affair is killed dead, or in the case of a continuing affair so that we have the best chance of killing it).

I believe that the 30 day reprieve from work exposure is for when the spouse is willing to end the affair and recover the marriage.

This is NOT a reason to wait for the rest of your exposure though. Have you compiled all of your names? Have you typed out your exposure letters (one for your and his family/friends, and one for the OWs family and friends)?

We will deal with the repercussions. HOPEFULLY he will be angry and we will help you through that. btw, you do know not to let him know anything about Marriage Builders yet, right? Keep this site your safe zone for now.

You are in Plan A. No you don't need to give him messages or letters. We are probably going to want you to go to Plan B asap, so we will focus on that right after exposure, okay?

BOY you sure have been studying! Great job!

When people reply in a less than marriage friendly way, then tell them that you are sorry that they feel that way. End of story. Those folks aren't going to be on your Christmas Card List anyway. Seriously, whether your marriage can recover or not, are you ever going to wish to speak with those people again?

The purpose for exposure is to kill the affair and get support for you. I promise you that you will find support in places that you least expect it. And you will also be surprised at certain folk's lack of support. But in any case, the strategy is to fight for your marriage and force the affair to have to become "self sustaining" in the light of day (which it can't, because affairs are built on lies).

PS - No, you should not write a version of the Plan B letter for Plan A

No, you should not give up. Remember we ALL made mistakes before we found this site. And we ALL made mistakes after we found Marriage Builders too.

I will reply to this post tomorrow, but I wanted to say that I totally remember the soul-tired all encompassing exhaustion that I felt when I was going through similar.

Can you drink a glass of water or milk now, and try to sleep?

Hi BlindSighted, thank you for all your help. I was asleep when you returned. (I'm an early to bed, early to rise person, up between 4:30-5:30 am most days).

I am still working on compiling the friends lists. Currently, I'm working on hers. Will work on his next.

I am terrified that if I do this, he will punish the kids for it. He's still calling them now, but refuses to see them and he keeps blaming his job, says he's working 16 hours a day every day... tells them he has no time or money to pick them up. How can you be working 16 hours a day and not have any money?

He told me he has this Thursday off though... I didn't tell the boys he said that.

He told them, "Maybe in a month"...

And when I asked why it was going to take 9 months to get divorced, he said "Because I'm still pissed"...

It's like there are little 'clues' that he's not sure what he wants right now, and I'm terrified of doing something that's going to drive him over the edge. Like I said, I think he'll just up and leave to go to South Dakota to be with his mommy, and then there will be no hope.

He's already started admitting to people now that there is another woman. He told my cousin on the phone, "I'll be honest with you, there is another woman but it's not who she thinks it is." Like that makes it ok?

Unfortunately, I have the worst support network in the world. Rather than tell my husband he should come home, my cousin and anyone else who said they would talk to him (and there were very few who were willing)'asked' him stuff like 'well what about the kids?' and then reported back to me "You just need to accept that your marriage is over."

I have two allies right now, his younger brother and sister (the twins)and my best friend who lives 400 miles away. But I haven't had them speak to him at all yet, because I don't want them to say the wrong things. And since everyone else has said and done the wrong things, I'm terrified that they will too.

And as I said, he claims I am mentally and verbally abusive... what if I am?

I have felt all alone through this. I have almost no support network, and of them, most of them have refused to assist when I asked them to, or botched it completely and bought his crap and then told me "I think you just need to accept that your marriage is over."

And because he's not the kids bio father, I can't even get the courts to force him to go to counseling...

And this exposure seems like it's rooted in logic and reason, but it also makes me feel like people are going to look at me like I'm desperate woman and then, won't blame my husband for leaving me for another woman.

All WH's. Your WH is lying all the time. This is why the OW went ape manure on him. Telling her you were separated and other kinds of things to keep her in the affair. You confronting her burst her bubble.

Stop dragging your feet and get exposure done today. Do not warn, tell, or threaten your WH that he is going to expose. You do not want your WH exposing against you with his lies. People always tend to believe who they hear from first.

You need your WH out of that job any way ASAP. Git'er done today. Today is the day that you are going to burst Wh's bubble.

TheRoad,
I hear you... and I'm working on the lists, it's taking a long time. It will probably be a few days before I have it all together, with both of their friends lists and then writing up the Google Doc where I can give people the link to the proof.

Then writing the exposure letters and returning here first to have the forum check them out.

There are some other things that are weighing on my mind right now...

My husband swore up and down for a year and a half that there was nothing going on between the two of them, and myself and everyone else believed him. Up until last summer when I discovered he was still having 'inappropriate' messages with her, the man adored me.

I was however, depressed, because of his job. I was trapped in this house, day and night, like a rat in a cage. Nothing to do but read Facebook all day. And it really got under my skin. I started lashing out at people and sometimes was just downright mean to them because something they said pissed me off. One of those people was his best friend's mother.

Then on top of that, I had to deal with HIS mother and her ignorance. My husband was supposed to go back to school and we had planned to use some of the student loan disbursement money to buy a car. She told him that we were 'idiots' for that... blamed me for not having a regular job and working 70 hours a week like he did (then who is raising the kids?)

This woman left her children with an abusive father, he put them in foster care, they were there for 2 years, then his grandparents adopted them, and eventually gave them back to her, she has been married three times, divorced twice and split with the 3rd in early 2010. My husband's sisters three kids were taken from her and given to my MIL by the state of KY, and my mother in law gets a check for 2 out of 3 of them. She moved to TN when she left current husband, was there for a year or two, then gave the one kid she doesn't get a check for back to his mother, and took the other two and moved to SD with them, and in her 50's decided to go to school to become a 'doctor', and elected not to work, but to live off the $980 a month she got from the kids money... and this woman is telling ME how to manage MY finances? (The student loan would have been taken regardless, because he was going to school, using some of that money on the possible lowest interest rate loan you can get, makes the MOST sense...)

*** I did work, I did freelance work and I actually made more than my husband did, hourly. But because I was stuck home with the kids, I couldn't commit to a lot of deadlines, so I did just enough to cover what he couldn't cover. With his schedule, two kids and one car, me having any job was a logistical impossibility. I kept waiting for him to fulfill his promises to get a different/better job, get into school, get us a 2nd car... so I could get out and work more... but he never did. I had two kids, the bills, and my own work to do.

I was the one always juggling the bills, chained to my computer looking for or doing freelance work, worried sick if we were going to make the electric bill that month.

I was a nervous wreck. All the time. I slipped into a deep, dark abyss of depression. I stopped taking care of myself. I'd go days without taking a shower or changing my clothes. I put on a lot of weight and started to suffer the physical issues of it, extreme sciatic nerve pain (couldn't stand up for 5 minutes, so I couldn't cook, clean, go to the grocery store...) At the end, when he said he wanted out, he told me that I was co-dependent and that he made me that way, that he didn't want to touch me anymore, that he didn't like 'who I was'.... And the first time I found out about her, I threatened to commit suicide... and then the second time I found out about her, I threatened to commit suicide.

He has used my depression and suicidal thoughts and me not taking care of myself as his excuse for his affair, and one thing is clear, there quite a few people that support his decision to 'leave that crazy, psycho b**ch'...

I feel as if I start exposing him, I end up exposing myself to him telling these people these things, and then they back him up for leaving me, and the exposure will have the reverse effect of what it's intended to have.

I feel like our counselor should have been the one to tell him, and me, to our faces, that I should have and still should, expose the affair.

He has told me and apparently 'the aunt', that he doesn't want the of taking care of me and the kids anymore... no doubt because OW is a 'psych student' right now and is psychoanalyzing me to him, and telling him that I'm 'broken' and he needs to leave me. They work in a group home for people with behavioral disorders so they think they are shrinks. And her studying psych in school, makes him think she's just so wonderful...

And she knew we weren't separated yet. All she knew was 'he had such an unhappy home life,' yet, never saw herself as being any cause of it at all because she 'told me, woman to woman a year and a half ago that she would not help him leave me and I should have believed her'.... so again, someone please tell me why MY husband was running HER 'personal' errand to pick her aunt up from the hospital? His excuse? They are 'friends'. My response- your history with her, the continued inappropriate messages and texts, now you're working with her 12-16 hours a day and now she's having you run her personal errands?

What woman wouldn't have accused you of having an affair? How uncommon would it be for a wife to have suicidal thoughts when she was already dealing with depression, all your lying and disappearing acts... more lying, staying out all night...

And not one single person in my 'support network' said to him, "Of course she thinks you're having an affair! ANY woman would think that with the things you're doing!"

No one said, "Well, her depression is understandable. She was trapped in the house, you were flirting with another woman over text, her home was falling apart around her and she did all she could do. She worked for over a year when you didn't, and went to school. She encouraged you to go to school when you weren't working and for the next 5 years, you wouldn't get the paperwork done. She had no car, no money, a house falling apart around here, and was too embarrassed by it's condition to invite anyone over so she had no friends! She was completely isolated. Of course she got depressed. And then you turn around and FINALLY get a promotion that means enough money that you'll be ok, and she has to STRUGGLE with the fact that you need the money, you aren't taking an even better job that you have 'in the bag' if you'd just go fill out the paperwork, but every day, you make an excuse not to go, you take this promotion, knowing how insecure it's going to make her, and then you start abusing her with the coming home late, telling her you want to go out at night with friends, staying out all night, ... and within a month of working with the other woman, you're telling your wife the marriage was over for you 2.5 years ago, that you just 'hadn't accepted it yet'.... do you really think there is ANYONE who wouldn't think you were having an affair? There isn't Except maybe your mother who clearly refuses to see the forest because there are too many trees in the way. And the OW who is the one that started feeding him the idea that he had an unhappy home life a year and a half ago.

On the one hand I feel like the 'hints' he's dropped (like 9 months to get divorced because he's still pissed) indicate a chance for recovery and if I do something like exposing him, I'll blow that chance.

On the other hand, I feel like he's ADAMANT that we ARE getting divorced so what do I have to lose?

Most of me doesn't want to open my private life up to strangers on the Internet... I just want to expose both of them to their job, let them both face being told, finally, by someone, that their actions were inappropriate, since as of yet, they both believe it was a 'mild flirtation'... Not to anyone I've discussed this with. To anyone I've discussed this with, flirting with a married man and telling him how 'everyone' says what an unhappy home life he has... is manipulation "Your wife is awful. You should leave her. Look at me, I'm flirting with you, you should come be with me."

But she says it was a 'mild flirtation' and she was a single woman, she enjoyed the attention...

Our marriage counselor agreed that her threatening his promotion was textbook sexual harassment, but she glossed over it, and moved on quickly, and my husband insisted on protecting her from it.

Ugh... I am in a state of emotional distress and I already did a million things wrong because of that state, I don't want to screw it up even worse, again.

I am 100% for protecting my kids. And they love and adore him and I do not want to kill any chance that they will have to keep him in their lives. If I do this and he moves to SD with Mommy, they'll never hear from him or see him again, because mommy condones his not having anything to do with the kids because her husband's don't call the grandchildren she has custody of.

And my mother is pretty much exactly like his mother. Low class and trashy. Both are abusive, but he is 'mommy's favorite'... it was the twins who dealt with her abuse.

Anyway, sorry to ramble. I just need to think through every possible outcome of this before deciding to go through with it... I am a big believer in do unto others... I was blindsided by his assertion that the marriage was over for him 2.5 years ago... I don't want to blindside him.

I feel like every move I make is a combative move, or will be seen as one...

You can't base your decisions on ANYTHING that a wayward says. Nothing. Your husband is spouting stuff just to keep you in your little box so that you won't interrupt AffairLand.

See me note above.

See my note above.

More of the same.

FL2, your husband is following the normal wayward script. There is nothing unique about this situation, sorry to say. We've ALL been through it to a certain degree.

Afterwards, former waywards report here that they don't even remember the bulk of the insanity that they spewed.

As a BS, you really must find the switch to TURN IT OFF in your mind for now. When we stew about things that plainly do not make any sense, it causes us to react emotionally rather than calm and logically. Do you see?

And THAT causes us to tire out and spend time worrying rather than proactively fighting the affair.

You are wasting valuable time. Time that needs to be spent attacking the affair.

Hi BlindSighted... Good morning.

I know I can't believe anything he says. I know he's being controlling too... right now he is loving the fact that he doesn't have to answer to me...

But I am concerned.

My main concern is that I don't feel that *I* am 'worth' this fight.

He said I was mentally and verbally abusive. Said I was co-dependent. Said I stopped taking care of myself. Said he didn't want to touch me. Even said he was disgusted by me. Said he doesn't like who I am. Doesn't like the way I feel about cops and the military. Doesn't like the way I handle money. Doesn't like the way I parent.

Add to that the our marriage counselor told him that me calling him at work all the time and blogging about his company was 'crossing boundaries'...

And I'm wondering, am I just a completely broken person that even the most pro-marriage of marriage counselors would say is 'unhealthy' for him, or anyone, to be married to?

Would say that his affairs were 'justified'... or worse, that he should have left 2.5 years ago...

FL2, most all of us were less than stellar spouses before we found MB. That is why we are here.

I used to lace nearly every conversation with selfish demands and disrespectful judgments as a norm.

I didn't realize this before working the MB program. Most all of us were in a horrible spot prior to finding this website.

BUT your previous words and actions are not the "reason" for your husband's affair. Your husband is in an affair because HE did not protect the marriage, and he allowed someone else to meet his emotional needs.

If you can kill the affair dead, then we will help the both of you to affair-proof your marriage, get rid of the lovebusters, and go on to make a passionate marriage together.

We can't get to square one though until the affair is over. (expose)

Again normal script here. Most BS feel the same way.

The wayward's gaslighting puts us on this wild goose chase to deflect all of their actions so that we spend our time falling all over ourselves to fix all of OUR "problems". That way we don't focus on what THEY are doing. Do you see?

Are you ready to get off of the crazy train yet? (expose)

NO FL2, you can't afford for this to take a few days. This needed to be done yesterday. We've all done it and so we know how long it takes.

Make a list now of key people on your side, your husband's side, the OWs side, the HR department and other key people at his work. That will take an hour tops.

Compose the letters, make your google doc. An hour or two.

Come here and post the letters for us to critique. Make them SHORT. Three paragraphs or so. That's it.

Then 2-3 hours on exposure.

You can get this done today.

TheRoad said everything. Please print this out and read it every single time that you doubt yourself.

Also, consider call a women's shelter. Him sending these people to harrass you is a real beat down.

Also, South Dakota takes adultery into consideration when making settlements. So don't be afraid of him moving there, necessarily. It will also take him away from his AP which could allow his mind to clear.

BlindSighted, I'm working today, and they both have a TON of people on their friends list. It's going to take time and it's not going to all get done today. I have kids, a home and work... I have to keep my priorities straight.

For one thing, I've already reached out to many of our mutual friends for help and as I said, they have all declined or botched the job.

For another, I still don't have clarification on whether or not to give him the 30 day notice regarding exposing him to his job... that's not something I want to put in writing, and if I start exposing him to friends and family I won't have any opportunity to say that to him face to face...

Plan A calls for me to give him 30 days to find a new job, make a graceful exit from his job and commit to working on the marriage.

Well he's moved out, refuses to work on the marriage at all and at this point, will see the 30 days notice as a threat.

So it seems to me that I either...

Move directly into Plan B, and without any notice, expose him to the job

OR

Modify Plan A to give him 30 days notice to quit the job, find a new one, move out of her house, and commit to working on the marriage.

Which he is not going to do. He 'might' quit the job. But that's about it.

But if he doesn't do anything, then they both get fired, that will just bring both of them closer together for one thing, plus, then I will have NO IDEA where he is working.

Do not give him 30 days. Expose to work today. 30 days is ONLY for spouse 100% willing to reconcile according the SAA checklist. He is actively carried on despite your protests for 1.5 years. His 30 days passed over a year ago. His work needs to know that this woman has opened them to severe liability by having an affair with a subordinate.

It will cause problems in the affair which is what you want. They should both lose their jobs. Plus that can only cause more trouble as they won't have as much money to play with, especially once you file for support.

I've been advised that I probably won't get any spousal support and the kids are not even his, so I won't get CS either.

I know the company should know about her, what a manipulator she is, how she sexually harassed my husband, threatening his promotion, making him feel like *I* was the one putting his job in jeopardy, instead of THEM putting their own jobs in jeopardy.

There is nothing I want more than to someone that is an 'authority' to them, to tell them, "No, you flirted with a married man and opined to him about how bad you felt for him because he had such an unhappy home life"... and then you allowed him to behave inappropriately with you via FB and text messages, and when the wife confronted you and told you that as his BOSS, you needed to tell him to stop because it opens the company up to a sexual harassment lawsuit, instead of telling him to stop, you threatened his 'future' promotion, putting the company at risk of a sexual harassment suit yourself and this is you and him, and ONLY you and him, jeopardized your jobs. She had every right to demand that it stop, and to threaten to report it to us if it didn't, and to report it to us once she found him living in your home."

But I don't think anyone is going to say that, and even if they do, I don't think it will ever sink in.

I'm investing so much time into trying to save my marriage that the rest of my life is falling apart. People are telling me that I'm obsessed and I need to let it go...

And I come from a very abusive mother, and I do believe that I was mentally and verbally abusive to some degree and that any counselor would suggest that I am indeed a toxic person and that he is right to get away from me, and that this 'exposure' is just out of vindictiveness and will only serve to build the case that I am abusive and will never change.

I want to be sure that I take a good, long hard look at myself, and figure out if maybe he isn't better off without me and my 'issues', before I do something that just builds his case to make me look 'crazy.'

I do not want to go to Plan B. I do not want to file for divorce. I cannot file for divorce, with an attorney, on the basis that it's going to be a long separation... attorney's are not going to agree to that. They want to get paid and get paid quickly, and I'm a single mother with no job and no assets to speak of.