I've been on here recently, but a few new things have come up. My wife confessed back in October and did the " I love you, but I'm not in love with you". Says she loves the other guy who is married (she found out too), now he (not she) wants a divorce. He was quick to suggest this. Anyways, I've been trying to meet my wife's biggest need (communication), and I've been ok at best. She still chats with the OM, and went to visit him during New Years. Now she's playing the blame game and told me during our conseling session that many of my behaviors have built up stress for her over the years which is why she's been depressed. Now this OM is the cure (how about drug?). I am trying to work on Plan A, meeting her needs and not trying to stress her out with my behaviors. But she said she can't last any longer and wants a time out so she can recharge. thjat means one of us moving out for awhile. It sucks because I feel like I haven't used Plan A to the fullest and I'm not ready to go tpo plan B in fear of her thinking the time out or separation was a good idea. What should I do?

Have you exposed? Get yourself a can of Expose. Open it up and let the consequences of her affair hit her.

Her family knows. The OM is now living with his parents and even though he hasn't told them, they are very suspicious. It's only a matter of time. So yes, those close to us know.

I dont trust OM saying he wants a divorce. All OM say this, but its not true. These things seem more like fog babble in order to stay together.

Sure your WW will say, "Everyone knows", but really? No one really knows.

She will also rewrite history and try to blame you for her affair. It is all false lies, and don't buy into them. Just work your plan A, you are in control and decide when to go to plan B even when she does leave you can still try a plan A.

Right now your WW is telling you what your bad behaviours are, and you can't really trust her judgement right now. She is a liar trying to keep her affair alive through any means possible. You need to find out what bad behaviours you have and correct them, don't trust what your wife says.

SW, this is like your 3rd or 4th separate thread. Stay with the same thread. Have you not been following the advice on your original thread. It's very confusing and most won't follow all these diffrent posts.

To re-iderate my original response to you...DO NOT MOVE OUT!!!! And have you exposed??? Make that happen first.

Get all your threads either combined?

You need to take charge on saving your marriage.

Let me tell you, you don't want @Melody to bring the scattergun.

This:

Remove all doubts for them. Expose to them. Make the OM life utter hell when having anything to do with your WS. You also need to expose to OMW. Two sets of eyes and pressure from her side can help.

You need to expose this nasty, dirty secret to anyone who can put pressure to break it up.

You need to give some info:

How long married?
How many children?
Are you living in the same home.
How did she meet OM?

Exposure is part of the Stick of Plan A. Meeting ENs of WS is the Carrot of Plan A. If using only Carrot of Plan A, you are actually in Plan Doormat.

Look up @PepperBand sig line. Read Up.

stillwater, I would strongly suggest you expose the affair. I predict you could kill the affair pretty quickly if you do this now but you are nearing a point of no return. If your wife moves out to be with her lover, you are headed for holy hell.

You have it in your hands to kill this if it can be killed. You simply have to act and expose this affair. Stop messing around, Sir.

Expose this affair wide and far in one day. You need to do this in one day so that you maximize the impact.

Expose to:

1. her parents, your parents, THE OM'S PARENTS

2. your family and close friends

3. the OM's facebook friends

4. children

5. pastor, if any

These people should be contacted BY YOU directly. Contact the family members and ask them all to use their persuasion to influence the affairees to stop. Send a private message to all of the OM's facebook friends. [we have a letter]

This is your best weapon against the affair.

And I would not agree to any separation schemes. If she wants "space" be a gentleman and clear out a corner of the garage for her. Whatever you do, don't move out.

Shes right you can kill this with the right tool. I am almost a month post exposure.

Another missed opportunity. We have had affairs KILLED dead when a WS's parent was told. Why would you not pick up the phone and call them, stillwater?

The problem with affairs is that if you enable them, they are not likely to go away any time soon!!

Here's the latest update. The last two weeks I've been in contact with the OM's wife. We have had good discussions on keeping each other positive, (empathy helps)and what we could do to help our spouses. I learned that her husband finally wants to work on his marriage. He contacted my wife to tell her this. A week leading up to this, she had been asking for a temporary "time-out".I had been refusing and then she was hit with the news. She told our counselor she's devastated. I decided to honor her request to have a time-out but that I wasn't leaving at all. This made her angry because she was going to be away from the kids and thought that if it ever went to divorce court, her being out of the house would make her look bad. Anyways, we agreed on a 50/50 time spent at the house and kids. Part of the week I'm home, she's staying with a friend, the other part it's flipped. She stated in a journal that she feels the marriage is over and she's lost her husband, family, house, etc. All she'll have is the kids left and she hopes we can somehow be friends for the kids sake. She looks very depressed and getting "dumped" by the OM surely had an effect on her depressive symptoms. Anyway, not sure if I'm doing the right thing. Just being patient and waiting for the fog to lift.

The fog is not likely to lift if you are ENABLING the fog. For example, if someone wants to destroy my house and I hand them the hammer, my house is more likely to be destroyed. So, the solution is not to hand them a hammer, but to STOP the destruction of my house.

In other words, cooperating with someone whose goal is the destruction of your marriage is likely to lead to a destroyed marriage. So, that is the first step. Stop cooperating wtih the destruction of your marriage and start standing UP for your marriage.

By sleeping out of your home in her fogged out crazy "separation" scheme, you are contributing to her fog and making it much easier for her to pursue the OM. I cannot even fathom how you imagine that this would help your marriage. Appeasing someone whose goal is the destruction of your marriage will result in a ............destroyed marriage.

You have no valid reason WHATSOEVER to leave your home. So I would stop that foolishness NOW.

Go home and tell her you won't cooperate with any separation schemes and have no reason to sleep one night outside of your home. If she wants a separation then don't let the door hit you in the [censored]. Tell her if she leaves, she is not taking the kids or a stick of furniture and if it leads to divorce, you will be filing on grounds of adultery.

Next, set her down and tell her you won't live in a loveless marriage. If she is not here to work on the marriage, then she needs to start making arrangments to live elsewhere, because this will lead to divorce if you aren't both actively working on the marriage.

DON'T LEAVE THE HOME!

She chose the affair. She want's a time-out.

She can leave. You are not forcing her to leave. Let her choose.

DON'T BE A DOORMAT!

You should not ever leave the house she had the affair she either moves back home full time as part of the marriage or out until she agrees to return back home on marriage terms. Her missing access to the children is her problem she never thought of them when she was playing with the OM. Change the rules and do not feel guilty about changing your mind, if she whines shrug your shoulder and say this is a family home , she decided to leave the home when she started the affair.

Also, I would change the locks and file for divorce if she keeps staying with this friend. See, she wants to be free to pursue her affair but wants you to protect her from the consequences by cooperating with her Plan Abandonment. She knows if she does this without you doing it, it will be perceived as abandonment by the court. Tell her you will use this against her if she sleeps away again.

You can easily put a stop to this.

Find his parents and expose to them at the same time you expose to his W(unless you spoke to her directly you don't know for sure that she knows, WS's lie about this all the time).

Expose to both of their workplaces, your family, your WW's family, friends and especially mutual friends if they have any. Do all of this in one fell swoop.

My H's affair died the day I did this. The longer you wait to do this the worse your chances for saving the M. Get this list together and do it TODAY.

Here is a sample exposure letter:

"Dear__________,

I am sorry to be contacting you but I need help ~ my WW and OM are having an affair and it is breaking two families apart. I still love my wife and children and want to save my marriage but can't do it until this A dies. I need your help in putting pressure on them to end this affair and return to their families so that we can try to mend what's been broken. I am heartbroken and so are our children."

Sincerely,

stillwater

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate the support on here. It's just so complicated. Also, the OM told my wife he would methodically stop chats over the next two weeks (he lives about 3000 miles away) so he could work on his marriage and my wife told him he might as well stop now. She's been staying with a "friend" closeby and is devastated by the breakup of her affair and has no one to talk to. Why? Because EVERYONE thought she was an idiot for doing what she did. She knows she won't get any sympathy so she's crying all the time,etc. What hurts is that she said she's lost everything. She just called me on the phone in tears saying she was leaving for Lake Charles with the friend (a female co-worker) supposedly she's been staying with (remember the OM is still 3000miles away). She did crash at her dad's last night by the way (I was there for awhile). She won't be back till Sunday night when she's supposed to return to the house as past of our 50/50 agreement. Not sure what to think of the Lake Charles trip.

Did you read our posts?

She's a total mess right now. Are you guys basically saying to wait for her to come to me vs. going to her to be there to support her. Believe it or not, part of me pity her, the other part feels should deserves the pain.

You should not support her while she is being destructive.

I would tell her if she doesn't get home you will be changing the locks and filing for divorce on grounds of abandonment. If she wants to run around like an alley cat in heat, she needs to find other digs.

How far away is she right now? I would calculate that distance and add about 15 minutes to be nice.

stillwater, all of the above has NO bearing on the advice you have received to expose the A.

Anything your WW said that OM said about focusing on his M...anything your WW says about her own intention to end communications... is all bullcrap and a deliberate manipulation to keep you from interfering.

To think they will just end communications on their own is a complete lack of understanding of the addictive nature of an affair. You need to expose and you need to go back and reread the advice you have already been given.

You need to write down your plan and not allow the fogbabble, woe is me crap that your WW is spouting to confuse you. Let us know if you plan to expose and your list of who you are going to expose to and we can help you from there.