I did not even know about this place a month ago. If you have not been following my thread, I will give you a quick recap.
My wife was in what I believe to be an emotional affair (EA), others have different opinions on how likely it was only emotional, but it matters little. I have known for months, even snooped a lot in the beginning and knew things were serious. Many are probably coming here everyday for the first time like I did. Let me state some of the things I have learned the hard way.
1)The affair will most likely not stop on its own accord. My wife and the OM were violating their own belief system. I feel they tried to stop many times. I even thought it had stopped and let my guard down. But it always came back.
2)Until it is stopped, you might as well forget about your marriage working. I came back home, did all I could to show her love, made some real changes physically, admitted to my part in our marriage problems. I would think things were better and then they would get worse. Nothing really changed, and I was confused as to why until I came here.
3)If you think you can stop it without exposing it, think again. I tried for months, got it to stop at times. But it never really stopped long.
4)If you won't expose, don't waste your time and other peoples time here. I posted a couple of times about a month ago, asking pitiful questions, trying to get someone to agree with me that my marriage might work without doing the things I was afraid to do. But, I was basically told that the way I was, I might as well give up, my marriage had no chance. So I quit posting, but did not quit reading.
5)Again, expose, expose,expose. If I had done it when I first found out and had the evidence I did then, I could have crushed it. I tried to get it to stop, feeling that eventually morals and reason would win out. The world of an affair is devoid of any sane thought along those lines. The draw is too powerful. I even tried once more about 3 weeks ago confront and pressure but not expose. But the results were not good.
6)The reason that pressure doesn't work is because your spouse will see it as a desperate attempt at blackmail. That is not a way to build a relationship. And, as I have seen, it won't stop anything.
7)Snoop and root out any evidence of contact.
8) Once again, expose. After seeing for myself that the wisdom of the people on here could not be denied, that they could tell me everything I had already tried and why it failed, and had predicted the future, I knew what I had to do.
Snooped out some pretty good evidence and blew the lid. Do it all at once. Tell everyone important that you can think of. Some will tell you to tell everyone, period, the heck with the consequences. At least tell your kids, spouses parents, any family that will matter, and as many people connected to the OP as you can.
9)Most importantly, don't be afraid. Of all the reasons I gave myself in the beginning to remain silent, a big one was that, after admitting that the relationship developed but denying it was what it was, my wife told me that if I exposed that our marriage was over. I was too confused and scared at the time to realize that given the status quo, it was over anyway. They will be furious, but like many on here told me, if your marriage is going to make it, it can survive the anger, but not the affair.
Just hope this may help the ones who are like I was just a few weeks ago. It is yet to be seen where my marriage ends up, but instead of being taken for a ride, I am driving my own car now. I pray my wife will jump in eventually and we can drive together, but I know the direction I am going.
I was told this at the beginning. Hope is not a plan. Just hoping is hopeless. It takes a plan, it takes action, you have to fight.
Last edited by mmmherb; 04/08/09 01:16 PM.
Thanks for the excellent post!