Marty, just hang in there, you have done the right thing. You have now put new pressure on the affair and caused conflict that wasn't there before. Don't you dare let him spin this into making them the victim. Remember, they are the ones who are destroying 2 lives and you and the OWH are their victims.

Your H won't like being exposed, but I would just calmly explain to him that you do love him but you have no intentions of keeping his secret for him anymore. Love does not mean enabling destructive behavior.

Don't let his anger phase you at all. You took a very positive step in helping to end the affair.

After this blows over, you could take a good look at Plan B because I suspect that will be the next step here towards marital reconciliation since he sounds like he is on the fence. You are doing great, Marty, so just hang in there.

Marty, I am confused about something,though. How does your H feel that you are "punishing" them? That makes no sense. The OWH already knew about the affair, so how exactly are you "punishing" them? And why was he sobbing? Why was he angry? Was he angry because her H gave her an ultimatum and he is afraid of losing her?

Melody, I think he felt I was punishing OW more than him. The way it looked to both of them is that I had called OWH and incited him to take a hard line with OW and demand an answer tonight. I didn't do that and I tried to explain that, but it remains that OW was upset and WH was defending her. He did actually calm down about that issue as we talked, but the sobbing came about because of his greater confusion about this A vs. our marriage. He has done this several times since D-day, in which he says he hates how much he is hurting me, he knows what he is doing is not right, but he doesn't think we can regain love in our marriage, and he just "loves her so much--boo hoo hoo." You can imagine how that makes me feel.

As far as I know, he still doesn't know that I talked to his boss about the A. But I'm even more worried now because of something I thought of last night. A concern that WH has expressed to me several times is that he doesn't want to leave me and make the affair generally known in the community because of their reputations, particularly OW's. As he has said, if he leaves me for her, both of their names will be "Mud." I know the rumors are already flying at work, but it's not generally known in the rest of the community at this point. So if I take care of that for him, then that's just one less thing that's stopping him from leaving me for her. I've been feeling horrible about what I did yesterday, and I'm very reluctant to do anymore exposing. At this point I just haven't been able to see how that could be God's will.

Today I read through most of Roughroad's thread about her sessions with Steve Harley and I'm confused about one part.

Roughroad writes: "I'm still confused about a lot of things but something in particular was doing a plan A and simultaneously doing things to intervene to end the A. SH said that often in an addiction related situation, intervention (by family/friends persistent push that what the person is doing is wrong & they are hurting people) can help but often is not the case in infidelity even though that is an addiction as well. That having the spouse actually be the one that is pressuring the "addicted" spouse most often just pushes them further away.

I mentioned again the involvment of my FIL (I'm still trying to think of things that can be done to help bring an end to the A). This time though I asked, what if my mom were to call his dad. SH said I would have to be careful w/this because if it were to be known that I asked my mom to do this then it would probably not be good. However, if I told my mom if she wanted to call my FIL and compare notes/see where he stands, etc. that it was up to her (wink, wink) and then I could honestly say I didn't ask her to do this."

Later Roughroad wrote "We talked again about the involvement of my FIL. SH said as long as the "exposure" to my FIL didn't come from me that it was okay."

What I'm hearing here is that it may or may not be effective to have family and friends intervene to encourage the end of the affair, but, regardless, the "exposure" should not be perceived by the WS to have come from the BS. What is y'all's take on this?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by marty25:
<strong>
As far as I know, he still doesn't know that I talked to his boss about the A. But I'm even more worried now because of something I thought of last night. A concern that WH has expressed to me several times is that he doesn't want to leave me and make the affair generally known in the community because of their reputations, particularly OW's. As he has said, if he leaves me for her, both of their names will be "Mud." I know the rumors are already flying at work, but it's not generally known in the rest of the community at this point. So if I take care of that for him, then that's just one less thing that's stopping him from leaving me for her. I've been feeling horrible about what I did yesterday, and I'm very reluctant to do anymore exposing. At this point I just haven't been able to see how that could be God's will. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Marty, it is not God's will to aide and abet evil and that is what you are doing if you help them hide their affair. Exposing usually puts so much pressure on the affair that it hastens it end. You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. You have simply exposed someone else's immoral behavior in an attempt to save your marriage.

As a Christian, you have to do everything in your power to bring your H back down to earth and get him out of this sin. Exposing his affair is the first step in doing that.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by marty25:
<strong>

What I'm hearing here is that it may or may not be effective to have family and friends intervene to encourage the end of the affair, but, regardless, the "exposure" should not be perceived by the WS to have come from the BS. What is y'all's take on this? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Marty, I am not sure about the specifics in roughroad's case, but usually Steve does tell the BS to "do everything short of taking out a billboard" to expose the affair. He has even counseled some to directly confront the OP. It has always been a standard practice that is very essential.

You can counsel with the Harleys yourself; they are very effective counselors.

Melody, thanks so much for your support and interest in my situation. I just think it's amazing that you don't even know me but you have spent so much time encouraging me. I have to admit that I still feel like I need to do some more thinking and praying about continuing to "expose", but I am also considering some counseling and hopefully soon I'll get it all sorted out in my head. I'll keep you posted.

What I'm hearing here is that it may or may not be effective to have family and friends intervene to encourage the end of the affair, but, regardless, the "exposure" should not be perceived by the WS to have come from the BS. What is y'all's take on this?
Generally, the affair should be exposed to everyone. In this particular instance, I'm not sure what Steve told roughroad specifically.

From past experiences (what Steve told me), the bs should not be telling the in-laws (or most people) to "encourage" the ws to end the affair.
The bs should let everyone know about the affair & that they are trying to save the marriage. Then whatever these people choose to do with the information should be left up to them.
For example, tell the in-laws but the bs should not say, "now you should do what you can to encourage (ws) to end the affair."

If the bs is telling the people to dog on the ws, then the bs is the "bad guy" by trying to "control" the situation, which will tend to put off the ws even more.

Make sense?