First marriage did not end from the affair. The “affair” lasted one month. It started with a female friend asking me if I was happy in my marriage to which I finally unloaded all my thoughts and feelings I had not told anybody about. This became tons of communication over the next few weeks. There was one kiss. There was talk of me leaving my wife for her. Then one day it was discovered with a simple check of my phone record. I was confronted by my wife. I confessed everything. I snapped out of it as if I was under a spell. Marriage continued until one day we were out on a date and I thought to myself I would rather be anywhere else in the world right now than with her. As Forrest Gump would say “that’s all I have to say about that”.


As for current marriage, this situation is that last year my wife reached a point to where she assumed I was done so then she decided she was done and went on a dating site. Note that we had no talks about anyone being done. I was never done. I didn’t know anything was wrong. She tells me now that she met two guys and went on 3 dates total. But she said this wasn’t for dating she was just trying to make friends. She historically is a person who is friends with guys instead of girls. Girls are too much drama. So she claims nothing happened there.
No I have know way of knowing.

Also with the coworker I have no way of knowing.

Welcome to MB.

Please tell us about these affairs. As BrainHurts asks, what role did yours play in the breakdown of your marriage? In the case of your wife, you say that there was more than one affair. How many were there, and what makes you think they did not involve sexual relations? Do you think that any of those affairs, or a new one, might still be taking place? Could she be involved with the male co-worker? How would you know if she were?


Your therapist says the opposite from what Dr Harley would say. He would say that if your wife does not want to spend time with her husband, she is probably spending time with another man.

Welcome to MB.

Did your first marriage end because of your affair? Are you working now?

Hi all. I'm new to the forum but not new to Dr Harley's concepts. I first read His Needs Her Needs and Love Busters in my first marriage, after I was unfaithful. I am currently in my 2nd marriage and learned last month that my wife was unfaithful to me starting last year. Neither instance of unfaithfulness involved sexual relations, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt as badly as if it had.

I feel like I am losing my mind because my wife will not commit to working on our marriage with me. She says she is not sure what she wants. All I want is for her to agree to try and spend more time with me in person and on the phone. I should mention that we don't currently live together. I lost my job last year due to being unable to perform despite my mental illness. Which led to us not being able to afford our rent anymore or rent anywhere. It is very pricey around here. The only solution was for me to move in with family and her to move (with our 2 dogs) into a male coworker's condo. Where I am is a rental and pets are not allowed. I know you might have other ideas we could have done for living arrangements but lets please not focus on that.

So since December 1st we have been living apart. I have been the one seeking time with the other one the whole time. I think we got together in person twice in December. We did not even celebrate our wedding anniversary together which is also new years eve due to drama because she wanted to spend that day at a friend's party instead of being with me, but that is a story for another day.

Starting this year, I got on a combo of meds that helped me and I got through a depression which had lasted over a year maybe 2 years. My mind is clearer than it has ever been. Sidenote, we are in our early 40s. Okay so anyways, I began mindfully courting my wife. We started spending more time together, not a lot. Nowhere near the 15 hours a week, including phone time.

I'm losing my mind because I am completely open and honest with her and sharing every feeling i've got. I am hurting so badly. I feel like she doesn't care. She says she loves me and cares about me, but why won't she try to spend more time with me? Why does she have excuses why she has no time to read the marriage books?

I don't understand. I just finished reading Fall in Love Stay in Love. Now I am reading Surviving an Affair. Everything I read makes me cry and makes me more worried about what she could be doing every day without me.

I have no one that I feel comfortable talking to about anything that I experience except my wife and my therapist. My only 2 people in the world and I get very little time with either of them. My therapist is really good though. She lets me email her every day whatever I am going through and she reads it and sometimes can respond in between appointments.

At my last session my therapist said she thinks I might be suffocating my wife. She thinks it sounds like my wife needs some space and I keep pressing her more and more for time with her. I am just so worried that I am running out of time. That every week she is spending time with friends, her single male housemate, and having fun not associated with me. Why would she ever want to try and work on things with me if she associates me with unhappiness?

Thank you so much

Good.

Did you email him at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com?

Email your questions to Joyce Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com. When your email question is chosen to be answered on the radio show, you will be notified by email directing you to listen to the broadcast. If you would like to consider being a caller, include your telephone number. You will receive a call to explain the procedure.

I have emailed Bill Harley... I am not sure which Dr harley to email?

I have emailed him, I hope he finds my email! Thank you.

No I don't know how to, how can I email him?

Have you thought about emailing Dr. Harley?

Thank you for the advice,

I'm not seeking approval, I need help dealing with the right choices. I agree it was wrong of me as I concealed the relationship, my spouse having affairs didn't make it right for me to lie to her and take part in the same type of behavior. She never knew I was involved with someone. I decided it was over thinking I had no other option after years trying, it was unbearable and believed I had no choice other than leaving.

We live in separate states, when I left, I moved to a different state where I met someone. I did not tell her about the relationship, until very recently. The new person and I have been living together for the last 1.5 years.

I left now and telling her it's for work, I need to be alone for a few days. My eldest son is distant from me because I left, I feel guilt and don't want him making the same mistakes as me.

Full article here: When should an affair be exposed

As well as the advice in the Exposure 101 thread, here is Dr Harley's advice on exposing a workplace affair:

"While I unhesitatingly recommend immediately exposing the affair to friends, family, clergy, children and the other person's spouse, I'm not so quick to suggest immediately 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.

If the unfaithful spouse has separated, in spite of my reservations I recommend immediate exposure to the employer. But if the unfaithful spouse has not separated, I advise the betrayed spouse to warn the unfaithful spouse that if he or she works there one more day, the affair will be exposed to the employer. That gives him or her an opportunity to use vacation time to look for another job and make a graceful exit. If a new job is not found by the time the vacation time is over, I recommend applying for an unpaid leave of absence or a resignation to avoid returning to work.

If the unfaithful spouse becomes angry upon hearing the warning, making it clear that there will be no resignation from the job, I encourage the betrayed spouse to expose the affair to the employer immediately."

According to this advice, you need to ask your wife to leave her job (which I don't know that you have done yet). You need simultaneously to get her agreement to moving far away - letting out your house this very week, if need be. If she refuses to leave her job, expose to the relevant people, all at once and with them all copied in, the day after her refusal.

As for childcare in Plan B, I know single parents here in the UK who hire a live-in Au Pair to cover after school care and on-call care. You need to find a trustworthy person with good references, but being an on-call doctor does not make child care impossible.

Dr Harley advises the husband to move out when he is ready to go to Plan B, and not to "kick out" the wife. You should see a lawyer first about your legal rights and responsibilities. For example, how to stop OM from moving in.

I assumed when you answered "yes" to reading Exposure 101 that you had learned from it and would be implementing its suggestions. I should have realised when you suggested plastering the neighbourhood with flyers that you had read it and disregarded it.

One of the key recommendations it makes is that if this is a workplace affair - which it is - if your spouse does not agree to leave the job with immediate effect, you should swiftly inform the employers that the other person is having an affair with your spouse. There are specific suggestions for informing HR and demanding a response.

Informing the superintendent of the whole district is not good enough. In the case of a school affair, you need to target the head teacher, HR, and the Board of Governors - and you need to ask what they intend to do about the situation.

Posters are specifically warned about inadequate exposures that only serve to tick off the spouse, little by little, each time you expose a little more.

With your wife working with this man and living close to him, and having your financial and parental support, it's no surprise that the affair will not end. You seem to be reluctant to take decisive action because you hope she'll grow to love you and then she'll leave him. That won't happen if the job situation and the living situation do not change.

Long story short: You have been in an affair for 1.5 years and you are asking us whether you should stay with your wife or leave with the other woman.

You should be aware that this site is Marriage Builders. As you will know if you have read Dr Harley's materials as you say you have, all of his infidelity advice is aimed at ending the affair and rebuilding the marriage.

Also, if you have read through the threads on this forum, you will have noticed that it is full of betrayed spouses who suffered greatly through an affair. Where any unfaithful spouses stay around after their initial posts, they have renounced their affairs and worked to restore their marriage. In short, nobody on Dr Harley's forum is likely to advise you to leave your wife and continue your affair. In fact, it is very insensitive for you to come here hoping for any support for the cruelty you are inflicting, and would continue to inflict, on your wife. We have been through affairs with spouses who, when discovered, made every kind of justification, and no justification makes any difference to the hurt and the wrong of an affair. If you are deeply unhappy in your marriage, you should communicate this to your spouse. If the marriage is still unbearable, then leave it first (which means divorcing) before committing adultery.


God had nothing to do with your adultery, as you well know if you have found Him as you say.

If, as you seem to be planning - since you have posted in the Divorcing section of the forum - you want to leave your wife and go with this other woman, you do not need anyone's approval to do it, and you are unlikely to get such approval here.

If you want advice on building your marriage into a romantic, satisfying, and enduring relationship, you must start with ending all contact with the other woman. She is not a good person as she is in a relationship with a married man who is hurting his wife and children, so you need to stop feeling sorry for her.

Yes I took your advice and notified the superintendent, basically the head of all the schools here. He is a good friend of my dad actually; he was the principal at my dads school for 8 years. I made sure the point of it was not my affair, but the fact that the OM has targeted two married women at the workplace, and that it sends the wrong message to the parents and community. I don't know where this will go, probably just a more stern warning, or maybe a kind of probation, but I'm not holding out hope they will fire him or anything.

Currently I am in plan A, but it is obvious my wife only wants cake eating. All my exposures and actions so far is not preventing this OM from leaving my wife. So I am in the planning stages of plan B. There are lots of details I need to work out, and I will put them here once I have given it a good thought. This is much more complicated than the last time I did plan B, as we have more finances to discuss and also the kids, and my wife is in fantasyland, but hopefully we can come to an agreement.

I want to add that my care for my spouse and her care for me is just as big, we both hope our family could be restored. I care a lot for her and the children so much, I am not too fussed over attraction because I believe dr Harleys methods will work. I am just torn about what to do if I should leave this person and try restore my family or not.

I am in such turmoil and anxiety. I am under a lot of pressure, I took time away to be on my own so I could get to the bottom of this, find an answer to peruse and have some peace going forward. I need peace either way I go, I need peace for my family if I remain with this person. I need peace over missing my spouse she is a lovely person now that she is healed. I need peace if we try again, I won't have regrets over leaving someone special.

I have no idea what to do.

Hello,

I am in need of desperate help. I'll begin saying I got married to my wife about 16 years ago, we have young children. After marrying I discovered she had a past with trauma that caused her to suffer with a disorder. From our dating relationship, throughout our marriage we had no intimacy I was deprived of sex and found out she had been having sex with a lot of men, the number is unknown between 50 and 100 over the time. It was out of her trauma, I didn't understand it at the time but I do now. Her trauma had caused her to act out in abnormal ways. Our relationship became extremely toxic and abusive. We fought and fought over it, I was very traumatised by the whole experience. It was an intense attack on me and the family and it got to a stage where I thought someone could get hurt. The children experiencing the fighting caused a lot of fear in them, needless to say I decided something had to be done and I decided we needed to end it. I gave up on years of trying to make something work.

I was too afraid to tell her that it's over, in fear that it would cause us to fight and in the separation it would get worse, it would become a war and the children would suffer more. So instead, I took time away so that we could both recover and the fighting stop and maybe we could start healing and get a long. However I didn't tell her that in my mind it was over.

So I started spending time away from the house, I took days and weeks at a time. In this time I started to learn myself and understand her more. Because I was out of the traumatic situation I was able to see a lot clearer.

I happened to meet someone, and I couldn't believe this person actually liked me since the whole ordeal left me thinking I was absolutely useless that my own spouse couldn't and wouldn't want her needs met by me. Over a few months, a relationship formed with this person, I started to heal parts of myself I developed a huge amount of compassion for her and her for me. We fell in love and developed a deep love. I opened up to my spouse about the new person. I started to realize that being honest is the only way, in my brokenness I was too afraid to tell her I'm leaving. However, in my healing I have found God, Jesus and in the time the same happened to her. She found God she found Jesus and we both became born again. The kids are in a safer place, they are healing and close to her for the first time. I am 100% convinced she is fully healed and trustworthy. She has completely transformed and changed as a person. I care for her deeply, I am so grateful she has healed. She has become a whole woman and I have come a long way. I understand God wants healing and he has been doing that in both of us. My wrongness came from the fact that I hid and did not tell her I was leaving, I hid the other relationship for a few months. I deceived her and when met another person I wasn't fully honest about how the relationship grew. It happened that I opened up about it and she was completely understanding. She cares for me as well and we both want the right thing. We don't fight anymore, we can easily be friends and the kids around whole people that love them.

I am stuck in a terrible situation now, that I have no idea what to do. I feel like there is hope, a chance that now we are healed and both have God. We could make it work? We could restore the family. I have fears it would be going backward, I have fears about attraction because I only had some attraction to her in the first 2 months of dating at most but with all the years of trauma it's been ruined. We have never really been in love. I trust that God can restore all those things and they are just fears. But I am in a terrible situation where the person I have met is dear to me. I care for her deeply, I love her, we have had a sexual relationship, she loves me incredibly. She is loyal, trustworthy and gives her all. We have attraction and I feel alive and whole, loved and accepted. It would be a new marriage if I was to peruse that. But I am afraid if I continue that path, I am concerned if the children will be affected. I am anxious that if it's wrong in the eyes of the lord. I have intense pain when I think of leaving and breaking her heart I don't know how to cope with it. She has been true to me.

If I tried with my spouse again, I know that it would take several months for me to recover from heartache and over the fact of hurting someone elses feelings in the most deepest of ways. The level of compassion to this new person and love is immense and I don't know if it's wrong for me to brutally cut ties. It's gone on for about 1 and half years now. We've focused on God, brought each other closer to God and I feel somewhat wrong to rip that all up and say bye. I don't know what to do. On the one hand I can see it is great for the kids, where they have two parents that are whole and a father in a relationship they can actually get to see him like that. But I am not sure about the split causing pain to the children and effect their lives in ways that bother me. I want them to be ok. I want everyone to be ok. I need serious help I am torn into pieces over this.

Please ask me anything, I have a lot of anxiety. I am all open for God, what he wants I need wisdom. I have a lot of fear.

One of the things that happened is when I met this person she showed me I was someone that can be accepted and loved. That I really could be attractive, I was so convinced I must have been a useless incapable man so disgusting that my own spouse became desperate to have her needs met, that I just wasn't capable of meeting any womans needs. I don't know how I could have realized I was wrong about myself if I hadn't experienced someone actually liking me that way. Maybe God would have shown me, I don't know because I was so lost I think I would have gone from bad to worse unless something happened that showed me I can be a man someone wanted.

Now that I realized that, my eyes opened more about the issue my spouse actually had and I developed a lot of compassion for her.

I have so much compassion for everyone that I want everyone to be ok. I know I should think about myself as well, but what I personally want is everyone to be ok. The level of pain I feel for leaving the person I'm with now is very intense, I feel like it would crush her and be very damaging. I don't care so much for my own heart break I know it will be intense, I care about other people.

Do you have a copy of Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders to give to her?

Was his prior cheating on her or in another relationship?

A family member of mine is age 27 (soon 28) is dating a man in his early 40s (never married, no kids).

There are several issues in the relationship, probably the biggest one (according to her) being that because the family won't accept him or allow him around (he has an extensive arrest record - a recent SO charge that was extinguished.) She feels torn between the relationship and her family.

There are other issues in the relationship, however, such as prior cheating by this man. They have lived together for about two years. She has previously left him only to get back together with him.

She feels stuck in her life because of the turmoil this relationship causes and oftentimes feels that she needs to be alone and figure out the direction that she wants for her life, only to go back to him. She is planning to move out/break up with him but as you can see from this narrative, I am afraid it will not "stick".

Any links or advice that I can pass along? I will send her a link to the thread also.

Thanks so much in advance!

Hello jah,

I do not remember if you exposed to the workplace, but you mentioned in your last message that the OM had an affair with another teacher at the school, and the teacher had to quit. Is the school HR aware of the situation with the OM and your wife? This is the school where your wife works? Even if not, is HR aware?

I think you probably see how this could help you if they were made aware and they were forced again to take action. If I was an HR Manager or the Board of Directors' HR Committee Chair, I would look very negatively at a teacher involved in 2 affairs with fellow married teachers. That is a pattern of negative behavior and the school cannot condone it. It sends the wrong message to parents and the community.

And if the school HR admin does not tale action, I would go to the corporate governance body and complain loudly or to the local school board, etc.

Long time no see! Looks like it’s been about 12 years since I last posted. Finally, 12 years out, the drama has stopped. WWxW stayed with the POSOM until he croaked a crappy, protracted painful death in winter of 2021. I was remarried to the woman I started dating during my last post in 2012. We are still going strong. A lot has happened, and everything WWxW had continued to do from 2012 to 2021 was always in the best interest of POSOM. Not her, not the kids. Here’s a quick run down of the drama. That’s what happens when a massive alcoholic is running things in your house.

- spring 2013, judge held WWxW in massive contempt of court for enrolling the kids out of state in school. He “punished” her with placement. So, no more 50/50 shared. The judgment was like a bad ending to movie out of left field. Crazy. Basically, since I work, WWxW did not, the kids are with her.
- Summer 2014, WWxW is arrested for hitting POSOM, WWxW files a PFA stating POSOM is raging, violent alcoholic. Of course, it goes to court, and the two of them blame the cop for exaggerating and both their cases are dismissed. This is incident # 2 that I know of where one of them is arrested for a DV incident and the cop lied.
- Winter 2017, adolescent DS15 at the time is lashing out at POSOM. Of course, WWxW and POSOM decide to put DS in a mental hospital for his safety, also, they happen to tell intake that I have a history of molesting the kids. (This is now PA, I’ve stayed in DE). They fail to mention that all their claims have been fully investigated by DE, and our judge already told DE CPS that any claims by WWxW have to hit his desk before CPS can investigate because of WWxW’s history..
- What this does is prevent me from seeing DS or talking to staff. They know I’ll show them the multiple DV reports filed by WWxW.
- a couple of weeks after he is released, I get a call from POSOM to come pick up DS. WWxW is out of town for some reason. He’s acting out. I live 90 minutes away, it’s the middle of a snow storm. I ask POSOM why he didn’t activate the crisis plan. He doesn’t answer
- We pick up DS, he’s missing a chunk of hair, he’s trembling. We make a police report, call PA CPS. POSOM convinces WWxW that it was all DS’s fault, they in turn convince the police and CPS not to file charges.
- We just got a new judge, our original judge passed away. This new judge is known as add another zero. She always punts litigation, never makes a decision, never upset status quo, and she dismisses our custody petition despite the evidence of DV. She believes WWxW that it’s always someone else’s fault.
- April 2018, a friend of DS asks how he’s doing after the fight, I ask her what fight? She says he and POSOM were in a fight and POSOM was arrested
- I sleuth, POSOM was arrested, he beat the [censored] out of WWxW, DS took a hammer to POSOM’s windshield and windows to distract POSOM from his mom, POSOM arrested, no contact order is in place, POSOM’s daughter who is a state trooper pays for a new apartment for him.
-June 2018 POSOM pleads guilty to lesser charges, WWxW and I are getting along fine, I’m thinking everything is OVER
-Labor day 2018, DS is acting out, I ask him what’s up, he says WWxW moved POSOM back in
- I file an emergency custody petition, we now have ANOTHER judge who is a hardliner
- Oct 1, 2018, I present my case, outline the history of DV. WWxW says POSOM is the loooovvvvveeeee of her life. NEVER addresses the DV in her house and says I’m a jelous BH. The judge is FURIOUS as WWxW.

The ruling:

- sole legal and physical custody to PSUBIKER
- WWxW has SUPERVISED visitation with the kids, no overnights

- I enroll kids in good private schools. DD thrives, DS struggles, he acts a lot like POSOM
- Fall 2019, DS is kicked out of private school for being a [censored]. Real reason is WWxW is blaming the school for his behavior, and says they need to change their ways. We’re not huge donors. We don’t have the big di#$ to swing around at the school
- I enroll DS in local school, not a very good school but only option. WWxW starts filing crap again. Blows up my email and voicemail with screaming rants, etc.
- I file a PFA, she loses, no contact with PSUBIKER for 2 years! Yipee!
- fall of 2020, POSOM has a massive aneurysm, and is in the hospital. He can’t talk, smoke, drink, and only eats through a tube. Lol!
- Since its COVID, the hospital tells WWxW that she can’t visit anymore due to COVID, or, she can just stay at the hospital, so, she stays in the hospital with POSOM. For 5 months. Never leaving. Has to quit her job. She nearly runs out of money and has her sister bring her food! She nearly loses her house. Doesn’t see the kids form5 months.
- DS is now 18, a senior, struggling in school, so, WWxW has him go to her house and take care of the horses for her. He’s 18, has his own car, is emancipated by state law. I can’t stop him. He somehow graduates high school.
- POSOM kicks the bucket in Feb 2021. The LOOOOVVVVE of WWxW’s life. ,
- DS finds a job in summer 2021 as an electrical lineman and takes off like an eagle. He gets involved in an unsuccessful union drive for his yard, the union notices him as smart, ambitious, and hard working, and ask him to join. He cleared 6 figures for 2023. He’s been to Florida for storm repairs, etc. He has his own apartment and is thriving. He’s still sarcastic, but he’s grown up a lot
- By this time, the kids are both free range, DD is 16, driving, and set her own schedule with WWxW. The PFA expired, and WWxW is a completely different person
- we are at a pre homecoming get together in fall of 2021 and WWxW introduces me to her new BF. She knew him from college, professional. According my Dear Wife, WWxW is dating me again! Lol What happened with wanting to be with a horse person? He’s a good guy, a little nerdy, but, WWxW is happy for the first time since she met POSOM.
- WWxW let’s me handle the college process for DD
- March 2023, DD receives an appointment to the Naval Academy! If POSOM was in the picture, no way DD would have gotten an appointment. Losers beget losing. WWxW is enthusiastically on board, her BF now fiancé was enlisted for Gulf War 1 and paid for college on the GI Bill.
- May of 2023, WWxW goes up to my wife and thanks her for being a good mother to DD when she wasn’t.
- Summer 2023, DD calls WWxW and I and wants to quit Naval Academy during Plebe Summer. We’re both on the exact same page and tell her she’ll be working at either WalMart or Amazon for six months while all her besties are posting their best college life on Instagram. DD decides to stay.
-October 2023, WWxW and mine Best Man comes to the Navy-AF game, Best Man had not talked to WWxW since before she met POSOM. He tells her you look and act exactly like the last time I saw you. She tells him she was mentally not well for a long time. It’s clear WWxW has worked on herself once POSOM died.

Naval Academy is its own drama and WWxW have been a United front for helping her navigate it. We get along great. I look back at what a total waste WWxW and her relationship with POSOM was. It came within a whisker of destroying me, mentally destroyed WWxW, DS was in a very rough period, and DD struggled too.

Thank you SugarCane, I can see you are very detailed and looking through all my texts carefully. It was not technically a 4th affair. This one happened before we were married. When we were engaged, separated 6000 miles (she was in SE Asia, I was in the US), she had an emotional relationship with a man. By the time my wife came over to be with me to be married, she had mostly broken it off, but I discovered that she was still contacting him on and off the first year after we were married. She broke it off shortly after I discovered it. So does that count? I know in hindsight I should have just left her then, but wouldn't life be great if we had hindsight? I like to joke that the greatest superpower a hero could have his hindsight.

Also, those first 3 affairs in the first 2 years of marriage, they were all back to back. As in they all happened within a 1 month block at the end of 2 years of marriage, after which I found marriage builders. I don't know if that counts for anything, but as a pediatrician, when a parent says, "My child vomited 5 times!" and I find out they vomited 5x in a 2 minute period, I count that as one episode.


Actually, I confirmed she was looking at marriagebuilders by looking at her browsing history; she had looked up marriage builders forums once about two weeks ago. Seems like she's not checking anymore, but who knows?


I do think plan B will have to happen. It's hard to be in plan A, because people are starting to find out about the affair, and my wife is pissed at me when it happens. When they come to me asking what is going on, I have a very specific answer: "My wife is having an affair with (OM name), and he knows that she is married with two children. The affair is killing me and devastating to my children, who knows what is going on. However, I have decided to remain faithful, wait it out, and fight for my marriage and my family." My wife is pissed when she finds out I tell people this, she wanted me to say, "We are separated" and leave it at that. Of course not. She tells me I'm ruining her and OM reputation, and I say I am not, they are the ones ruining their reputation, they can end it at any time, and I'm just speaking the truth of what is happening.

She is starting to have that far away look in her eyes when spending time with me and my family. I know that look; it's the look of, "How can I be with this OM and go out when it will ruin my reputation?" There is one other reason she might have this look, it's because recently I found out that this is not the first married woman this guy has targeted. At the school, there was another married female worker that had to quit because the OM and her were having a relationship. I confronted my wife about this, and she said she knew already, he told her. I'm sure he spun it own story, as in "She was flirting with me, I didn't do anything!" I wish I could get more details, but unfortunately the investigation is private and all I got to go on is rumors. I told her that she is the second married woman he is pursing, and she won't be the last. He doesn't value marriage and is not marriage material. She never tried to defend him when I said that.

But plan A is working a bit. We watched a movie together. I massaged her sore knee. We had a fun session at the table telling jokes with each other and the kids. But these moments are very far and few. She is still texting and calling and going out to be with this OM all the time. She is looking for a place to be separated, I refuse to help her based on the principle of I would be helping the affair, but I cannot wait for plan B to start. Now, you might think, just kick her out already and let her figure it out herself! Well, we are still married, our finances are still tied. She doesn't want to move into the OM house. She wants to see what separation is like. And she still wants to have her time with the kids. So kicking her out to be homeless isn't good, and if I did just kick her out she would have to stay at a hotel or something and spend 5000+ dollars a month while looking for a more permanent place. Plus, wouldn't that be the worst thing to do, after all my work making her remember the good things about me in plan A, to kick her out and say, "Get lost already!"

He will never be able to support her like I do, sorry but that's the fact. Unless he suddenly finds a job that pays 4x what it pays now; he's a teacher, so no chance. You are right, she has no romantic love for me, she even told me that straight, saying she has no romantic love for me but still loves me like a brother or a very good friend. And I tell her I still have romantic love for her, but the affair is killing me and its fading day by day. And her misguided 'romantic love' for this other guy is more like 'romantic lust'.

When I cry or breakdown in front of her, I don't think she is pulling at my heartstrings. She is genuinely sorry for hurting me. Sometimes she cries along with me. At first she apologized often, but now she doesn't apologize much, because every time she apologizes, I tell her, "You don't get to apologize. I'm hurting because of you. Only you can end it." But the fact is that her feelings of guilt right now is much, much less than her 'romantic lust' for this OM. So she shrugs it off.

I have more to write, but I'm hesitant again because she or the OM might be reading this. I am lucky to have Steve Harley to help guide me though; we talk once a week or so. I'm going to hold off writing to Dr. Harley for now, because I hope I answered your questions. If it progresses further where we start working things out, I'll ask the question about the chances of recovery if we don't move homes.

Thanks again for everyones help, and especially you SugarCane; I see how detailed you are in reading my responses and following along. If you wanted to give me specific advice that might be bad if read by my WW, are you allowed to message me directly? Just wondering.

If you come back, please answer this:


How did it go from 3 affairs, which we knew about from your first thread here in 2012...

...to 5 affairs?

When did the 4th happen? How old were your kids then?

Who was he? (Not his name; his connection to her.)

How did you discover it?

How did it proceed? Did it last long? Did either of you ever move out?

How did it end?