I'm new here, but I've read articles and posts before. Now, though, I find myself reaching out for support in what is the most difficult time of my life.

Yesterday, I confront my wife about her affair...again. Yes, she had "ended it" before, but really just kept it going in secret. I told family and friends this time (had only told her parents, previously, and told no one else). This time it was exposed, which was necessary to have her stop and actually look at herself. She left.

Tonight was even more difficult than when she left. Our son went to his church program tonight and she had left a voicemail that she wanted to see him afterwards. So we met at a nearby DQ. When we were leaving, she wanted to come back to the house and bathe him before bed. I said no because, as I had told her, that is not what being separated means. She cried as she said goodbye to him. It broke my heart and I cried on the way home (in fact, I've started crying again as I write this). I've had to explain to our son that she would not be staying with us for awhile.

This is really tearing me apart. I love my wife dearly and don't want our family destroyed. I certainly don't want our son to suffer. I'd like nothing more than for her to come home tonight and say she wanted to work on the marriage. But...I don't know if she ever will.

I'm even more lonely tonight than yesterday because of what happened. I don't really have any questions, but I guess I just wanted to express it somewhere with others who would understand. Thanks for reading.

Hi Sheeyah, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that brought you here. Can you give me some more information?

1. are you married?

2. if so, how long

3. how many children and their ages?

4. who is the OM? What do you know about him? Is he married?

5. how long has the affair been going on?

1. Yes.
2. Over 11 years.
3. 1 son, age 6 (will be 7 this October)
4. The OM is a coworker. I know he's over 12k in debt and has been letting my wife pay his bills. He is not married, but was quite some time ago.
5. The affair started over a year ago.

Do you have the book Surviving an Affair?

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain.

Have you read this?
Start Here First-Welcome Aboard

This needs to be exposed to her job.
Please read the Exposure thread and come back and tell us your exposure list.

It doesn't sound like you exposed to your son?

Forgive me if I'm wrong. However if you have not he is the most important exposure target of all.

Not only because of her reaction, but because this is more his business than anybody elses.

If he's as smart as my nephew of the same age he will be trying to figure this out and can't do so without accurate information. That is confusing.

Tell him you both love mum, that mums and dads don't have boyfriends and girlfriends.

Tell him you have asked mum to give up her boyfriend because it is very painful for you. If you tell your son you are fighting for the marriage he will have an ally instead of being alone.

He also needs to be warned about the likelihood of being introduced to a POSOM potential stepfather as a 'friend'. We've seen that happen a lot and it is massively confusing to kids.

It also sounds like he betrayed his wife at the start of this A?

She also needs to know and his parents (and children?) Need to know your wife broke up his family and that they should not accept her.

Do her friends and family know she is paying his bills? Do they support you?

Workplace exposure is a must. Once their employer is involved this entire house of cards affair is in danger of toppling. Since he's using her for money losing her employment would probably see him lose interest.

Dr H says you should also let the affairees face all consequences. Since she has behaved badly at work, she should face the natural consequences of that.

Let me try to respond to everyone.

To Jedi_Knight: No, I have not read that book yet. But I have been seeing a counselor since the beginning and reading online information since I found out the second time. I'm sure it is something I will want to read.

To BrainHurts:
Parents of all concerned - Her parents, definitely. I don't know his, but I send a letter about it to any relatives I could find on Facebook. One might be his mother.
Family - Her sister and bro-in-law. I don't have contact info for anyone else. His family, again, what I could find on Facebook.
Close friends - Childhood friends, friends from work/school/Facebook that I had contact info for. I even targeted a couple of his close friends from Facebook, too.
Children of the BS - Now, yes, but not initially.
Workplace - He has since left that job, to my knowledge. Also, she has terrible bosses that may use that as an excuse to fire her. I don't want her fired. In fact, she makes 2-3 times as much as me, so we'd be in serious trouble financially.
Pastor - We go to a larger church, but I did tell both our Bible Study class leader and our Growth Group coordinator.
Facebook friends of affair partner - Mutual friends of both.

To indiegirl:

1) I hadn't exposed my son, until I read your post. I was trying not to pit him against his mother. But you were right, the guy is pretty smart. He even went straight away and prayed for mommy not to have a boyfriend and to come home.

2) He was divorced before my wife even knew him, actually.

3) So far, I know of a few people who have actually responded to me (aside from the Christian friends who immediately responded as you'd expect). One of his friends (best friend, so he says) wanted proof of the affair first, then promised to help me out. Haven't heard from him since. One of her friends posted that I was "psycho" on her Facebook wall, so she will be of no help. Another friend who "liked" that post then emailed me about proof later. I also pointed out why I did what I did and that I was not psycho. Her family is very supportive, of course. She is actually staying with her parents right now.

Sheeh,

Have you read the actual link (that Brainhurts posted?) Not what you have read, but that exact artical? It will help you understand the advice an guidance you will get here, and also understand why the questions will be asked. READ. Welcome.

Is her family supportive of the affair or your marriage? Have they spoken to her about her affair?

Sheeyah, get that book and read it start to finish as soon as possible. Many counselors don't know how to help a couple recover from an affair, but Dr. Harley has been specializing in infidelity for decades.

You can buy the ebook version from Amazon and read it on your computer:

http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-an-...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

Get the latest edition, because Dr. Harley has incorporated a lot of updates to the original edition.

What a smart, sensitive little man . If nothing else, you have each other to get through this now.

I wondered this too. Are they backing you up? Have they told her to end her A? Will they tell the OM to get lost and they will never accept him?

The majority of people ARE supportive in exposure. The ones who are not are usually..interesting. The friend who responded 'psycho' has obligingly revealed her own disrespect for marriage and very probably wayward tendencies of her own.

I would not be surprised if she has been your wife's confidante and affair cheerleader. Even if she were not I would insist on her being cut out of your lives as one of your 'return to the marriage' conditions further down the line.

Sorry, had a lot of things going on. But now I have a bigger problem.

My wife came home today. She wants to be here for our son, but says she is done with our marriage and doesn't want to work on things. She added stuff about her right to see her son, etc. But, that won't work. How can I live with someone who doesn't want to work on anything? I had to stop the conversation because I was in jeopardy of exploding at her. Not good with your child at home.

I can't do it, not unless she's willing to work on things. Do I tough it out until my meting with a lawyer next week (to protect my legal rights for my son)? Or do I tell her to leave and deal with the immediate consequences?

What does your son think?

Is she still in contact with OM?

Did you ever expose to her job?

I'm not sure yet. He'll probably be confused. She picked him after school today to spend some time with him (which I had told her was OK). I was home before them and found her things moved back in. At first, I thought she wanted to come back and work things out.

I have no idea about the OM. They both deactivated their Facebook accounts - probably after being bombarded following exposure. I know she had a 3 hour conversation with him the night after she left. I haven't seen his number on our phone bill since, but he could have changed it.

Did you expose to her job?

I'm hesitant to do that due to the financial consequences. She actually makes quite a bit more than me as an RN. (I had lost a job a few years ago and eventually had to make a career change.)

I'm thinking I may explain the situation to the lawyer next week and get everything drawn up to protect my rights to my son and financially. Then force her out until she's willing to reconcile...if she is at all.

If she is an RN, she can easily get a job somewhere else. Exposure at work may be the one thing that could save your marriage. She has to leave the job anyway if your marriage is ever to recover. That job is not worth sacrificing your marriage.


I think you have better options right now. If you expose the affair properly, there is a good chance she will lose that job and have to find one where the OM doesn't work. That will give your marriage a much better chance of recovery.

Not exposing at her workplace is a serious strategic mistake. You won't have the benefit of that job anyway when you are divorced. And you are more likely to get divorced if you don't expose at the workplace.

Is the coworker OM a doctor, a tech, another nurse?



Expose.

I've been reading 'Surviving An Affair' which Dr. Harley was even hesitant to recommend doing that. I guess I'm seeing some inconsistency there.

The coworker is an aide. The fact that she was working nights and was away from me so much made it worse.

Still, I'll at least give her the chance to leave on her own for another position first. And as I said, I think he may have left that job anyway, in which case her leaving wouldn't help separate them. I could try to find out from their human resources.

There is no inconsistency at all. Dr Harley said to give the WS one month to leave and if she doesn't leave in ONE MONTH, then you should expose.


Give her one month if he is still there.

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."

The (OM) is an aide.

Right now she's not sure how serious you are about blowing up her affair-enabling life. Expose to their workplace and remove all doubts from her mind.

Proper exposure will force the management to address this issue. From a practical perspective, do you think they would be more inclined to take action forcing them to find a replacement for an RN, or some bed-pan attendant?

Even if they can both of them, how interested is OM going to be to continue the relationship that got him fired?

Please stop worrying about financial issues when the viability of your child's parents' marriage is at stake.

1) Dr. Harley says to let the WS know it will be exposed in a month before doing so.
2) Is there any point in doing so anyway if the OM doesn't work there anymore?

You have told her this, right?

I don't think you're seeing inconsistency. I think you're seeing that in some cases some people might have circumstances that would recommend against it. You don't have those; if you did, MelodyLane would be all over point it out. She knows Dr. Harley's recommendations well, right down to variances he makes for different circumstances.

She doesn't work there anymore?

How do you know?

I meant he (OM) doesn't work there any more?

So, I will be exposing this to her workplace even though it appears he has left the job. The environment has been toxic to our relationship, and she has a coworker that supports the divorce/affair.

But what about my wife being in the house but still continuing the affair? What do I need to do? Tough it out until I speak to my lawyer this week? Demand she leave? I don't want to leave myself because it would be so painful to leaves son, and I don't think it's really fair to sacrifice my relationship with him.

It was really hard after coming back home tonight after dropping off my son for church. I really wanted to tell her off. Instead, I emailed her parents that the affair was still ongoing, since she has probably told them it's stopped and is lying about...practically everything. Unfortunately, this may be one of those affairs that has to die a natural death.

Sheeyah, I am so sorry to hear this. I would expose to your family and friends again and ask them to speak to your wife. Also, do your best to get ahold of the OM's parents and family members. Cause as much havoc as possible in the affair. The more trouble you create, the faster it will die.

Let your son know she is still having an affair and how much it hurts you.

I would also encourage you to consult an attorney and find out what rights you have. You may be facing separation sooner rather than later since she is so blatant about her affair. That is extremely hard to endure mentally. You will also need to protect your finances since you posted earlier that she is giving money to the OM.

I would certainly NOT leave without your son. You are all he has!! If you feel you have to leave, take him WITH YOU. ARe you in a fault state? How is adultery considered in divorce actions in your state?

Do you plan on using the best practices and template from my exposure thread?

Sheeyah, you haven't done anything wrong. SHE has. If someone has to leave it needs to be HER. And she doesn't take your son with her. Right now she is a negligent mother who is totally destroying your son's family and home. She should not be the primary caregiver for him. That needs to be YOU. Let her know that your son does NOT go with her when she leaves.

I told my son it was still going on and how it made me feel. He seems to be her anchor to the family, so maybe he will be able to show her how much pain she's causing.

I used all your templates for previous exposure, Melody, so this will be no different.

So I woke up this morning to an email from the OM. He was pissed off because I exposed the affair, threatened a lawsuit for slander and defamation of character, and insulted me for not being a real man and confronting him face-to-face. He also said I can't abuse him like I do my wife (so either he's making stuff up or my wife has lied to him.). He said he would talk to me about things at any time.

How do I respond to this? What do I do with this information?

How do I respond to this? What do I do with this information?

Do nothing except a private "happy dance" that you hit him where it obviously hurts!

His threats are par for the course.

Ignore them.

Do not respond.

Yes, you hit bullseye.

Here's a thread to look at >>>> Dr. Harley encourages H to confront OM

Listen to the radio link in the first post. The first situation is one where Dr. Harley is coaching a betrayed husband in what to do about his wife in an affair.

I would pay him a little visit. OM are abject cowards so he will probably cry and run. Do you have a friend you can take with you? Let him know that you will be fighting for your wife. Tell him there is no future for him with your wife because he will be eternally hated by your inlaws and your son because of his part in breaking up your family.

And the threats about slander and "defamation of character" are laughable. The TRUTH is a defense to those charges. It is not in his best interest to pursue that route because his affair would dragged out in the public square!! Wayward cowards threaten this all the time, but they never follow through for that reason.

He "defamed" his character all on his own by having an affair with a married woman, good grief..

See, most OM are cowards who are just looking for a little side action. They don't want any trouble. So if you give him some trouble, he is more likely to crawl back under his rock and pursue someone else's wife.

Where does he work now? You might want to consider exposing the affair at his new place of business so they are forewarned he is a loose cannon.

Why did he leave the job with your wife? Was he fired over the affair?

So sez the cockroach who snuck around and had a secret affair with your wife. He sure didn't face you like a man when he was doing your wife.

Confront him in person.
Bring a friend with you so you don't loose your temper or things don't get out of hand.
Its ridiculous for him to insult your manhood. In some countries he would be killed

Keep a VAR with you at all times if she is going to pull the abuse card.

How do you know he doesn't work there and he's divorced? That is awfully convenient. I'm sure it was just said to keep you from exposing. Good job.

OK, things have changed a bit because of everything that's going on. Unfortunately, it's Texas, so there is no legal separation. It's divorce or nothing. Since WS has already sought some kind of legal counsel (which is why my lawyer said she came back at all, so it would look good for custody, and I saw a text message between WS and her friend saying just that), and that an abuse allegation is plausible, she recommended I file for divorce to protect my rights to my son and finances. If WS were to file first and claim I had been abusive, it would be a very difficult climb to try to counter that. Plus, custody might be given to WS in the interim. And so, with great reluctance, I agreed to file.

If it weren't for the abuse comment from the OM, I may have waited, so if nothing else OM made things worse for her. OM is being insulting and threatening, while BS asking him to stop and telling him I love my wife. OM doesn't look so good right now.

So at this point, do you still think I should confront OM, or just ignore him? I hate that it's come to this, but I'm not going to risk losing my child. If we divorce, he's all I have left.

I would confront him but I would also file for divorce and have your atty introduce the adultery. Even though Texas is a no fault state they do take adultery into account when it comes to custody and property division. You can have that POS rat subponaed to give sworn testimony about his affair. And when you speak to him, tell him this is your plan. He will also have to turn over his emails and cell phone records in discovery.

Ahhh. I remember when my OW threatened this. She was scared witless and talking nonsense. Good times.

They all threaten this but NEVER do it because a lawyer's first question would be 'Well, did you do what he said you did?' - and the answer would be 'Uh Yeah'. Telling the truth is not against the law.

In reality an adulterer would rather die than face a packed courtroom and spread out the evidence regarding their phone calls and emails. That's why he is contacting you - to bury the truth, not reveal it to a court room. Call his bluff.

As Melody Lane has advised, go see him.

Since he's raised the issue of legalities assure him that a courtroom WILL be informed of all the facts and his adultery proven beyond doubt in the course of the divorce. Tell him the court will also hear how he has stolen marital funds from you.

Assure him also that the costs of all this court/lawyer time will also be billed to him as the man who destroyed your marriage. THAT will scare the attitude right out of the nasty little freeloader.

Take a witness/VAR so he cant dream up allegations against you.

Always file for a D if a lawyer tells you too as you cant trust an active wayward. You can still Plan A/delay the D/remarry later.

There's something about this guy which makes me feel he has done this before.

The usual OM who freeloads money trick goes as follows:

Seduces a married woman with access to funds.
Gives a sob story about the need for funds,
Freeloads
Encourages wife to D husband on cooked-up charges, to ensure she gets custody and to maximise her settlement
Lives off the WW's settlement

This all hinges on the BH being a doormat and going quietly off into the sunset without his due. Simply calling his bluff and fighting back will topple his house of cards.

This too. Either she is doing the old WW sympathy trick or he is encouraging her to pursue the abuse card. Get a recording on the go 24/7 to protect yourself from false claims.

You got nothing to worry about here. I exposed my wifes mothers affair to her church in their small town via facebook (after they stood up in front of entire congrrgation) and my wifes moms affair partner threatened to sue me because it sent his automotive business out of business. But because I did not slander or libel him but only said the truth, there was nothing for him to stand on. They left that town, got married and the lawsuit never happened. Why? Because it was the truth. The only time you can get into trouble for slander or libel is if your doing it on purpose with false allegations to harm them financially or their reputation. The fact remained... They ruined their own characters themselves...

So don't worry about the lawsuit threats.... They are just threats to strike fear into you to shut you down on your exposures. You did well and they are on course. Good job making OM ugly in your wifes eyes. Keep reinforcing that your the better option.

MNG

I haven't even responded to OM, and he's already backed down. Now OM suddenly realizes that I'm going through a tough time and he should have said things a little better. Oh, and OM had to clarify that abuse doesn't mean abuse, but that he thought the abuse was my "ranting" about them on the Internet (exposing the truth, but only through private messages, not posted on my FaceBook wall for the world to see). Now OM doesn't want it to get any worse and it's between BH and WW.

Yeah, OK. Someone probably pointed out how stupid it was to send that to me. He still forced my hand to file.

And I do think OM is taking advantage of her. WW is on anti-depressants and they got together not long after we were having fertility problems. But WW won't have much money left to spend if we were to divorce. My lawyer says I have the best case for custody and that we could even try for spousal support. All OM is doing is making things worse for WW.

I wonder how OM would feel if he knew WW talked about trying to have more children again while he was out of the country for 3 weeks.

Since you're going that route, then definitely go ahead. File for spousal support, child support, the whole works to give her a picture of what divorce will REALLY look like.

I am disheartened when, after finally getting a response from one of WW's childhood friends, she questions the exposure. If she's listening to people that are telling her how awful that was, then...

In your experiences, is this common?

This is very common and something someone who has no idea how to fight infidelity would say.

Did this person say it to you or WW?

VERY COMMON! You will get support from places you never expected and condemnation from other places. Don't let it bother you one bit. Many people know nothing about adultery and tend to have lots of "opinions." Its real easy to be cavalier and opinionated when it is not your ox being gored. Just thank them for their opinion and move on.

She emailed it to me, personally. Of course, she may have said as much to WW. And WW could have misrepresented what I did. "He told everyone on FaceBook!"

At least WW's mother appears to be supportive of me. She had come by today and, while we were alone, said I would always be a part of her family no matter what happens.

I'm also guessing WW probably doesn't respond to anyone who questions what she's doing.

Like Mel said, just thank her for her opinion and move on. There are alot of ignorant people out there and don't let it get to you.

Sheeyah I hope you have support of MIL but please keep in mind many ILS whilst they appear to support your M often find it difficult to stand against the A or show support for the M. Until your MIL's actions match her words be careful of what you confide in her, by all means be honest about the A, allow WW to feel the consequences, but be careful of any information you may share.

I told WW about filing for divorce tonight. I told her why I did it, but that my feelings haven't changed. She didn't say much.

So I guess we'll see where it goes from here.

When are you filing?

My attorney had already filed last Wednesday afternoon.

WW was served divorce papers today, and that got us to talk. She was threatened with having to move out and not see her son very much. It was a very long, heart-wrenching talk. In the end, I agreed to ask my lawyer to have the part restraining her from living here modified if WW agreed to go to counseling. As long as we were both completely honest about everything, that is.

I know there is no guarantee that our marriage will be saved, but it is the best thing I could have hoped for at this point.

So has she agreed to end her affair? Is that why you've agreed to this? Are you counseling with the Harleys? You're pretty much sunk without this agreement from your wife - you know that, right? Do you understand that waywards will play you like a fiddle in order to get what they want?

Agreeing to what counseling? Individual for her (bad idea). Marital with a counselor in your local (bad idea).

Paying for MB phone counseling might work or following MB steps without variation might work.

You are letting your impulses and emotions run your show. You need to plan clearly and precisely here to get any where good.

Sheeyah,
Ya gave in and caved, you show weakness at the very point you needed to remain strong.
Giving in allows her time to formulate other plans.
She just learned that she can manipulate you easily.
Did she agree to end affair, no contact letter, etc?
You are like so many that come here(including me), thinking the wayward is the person they knew once. SHE IS NOT.

My XH did this EXACT thing the morning of our divorce hearing to finalize our settlement agreement. I told my XH fine and called my lawyer. That very same afternoon he purchased an airline ticket to move permanently to his country of origin which was also the country where OW lived. I discovered it the next day and was in court the following day.

Sheyah now is the PERFECT time to get Steve Harley on the phone.

He will tell you what to say to your wife to get her on the call. He's very persuasive with reluctant waywards.

If she's living with you, you can Plan A her more effectively but you need to try and get her locked into MB conditions.

It ain't slander if it is true. At this point, I would not talk to OM. Keep your temper. Protect your money. Spend time with your son and document how much time you spend with him and the activities, and how much time she does.

Agreeing with wannabophim. Document everything you do and everything your WW does, and you have a better chance of getting custody.

Please read.
DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT