Alph,

I hope things go well today with everything. I hope you feel better also. Keep up the good work.

HINY

Well, IC was a waste of time. She called my efforts to expose WH 'vindictive' and said I would be 'responsible' if he lost his job.

She kept referring to OW as WH's 'partner'!!!

Also kept talking about my childhood and my parents marriage - how is this relevent???

Actually, I feel she was a bit scared of me...didn't understand MB method at all.

I really NEED to know that there is a way back for H and me if he loses his job - I know I keep going on about it but it really is a big, big deal for me. Any one out there whose FWS has lost their job because of their A???

Headmaster didn't call me back today. Looking forward to it! (NOT).

Doctor is upping my steroid pescription and trying to bring my hospital appointment forward. I'm having blood taken tomorrow.

Phew.

Also, WH called girls today from Spain. I dialled 1471 to bring up the number - and it wasn't WH's cell number!!

I don't know if it's OWs cell. It might even be the landline of OW's parents! If I give the number to my PI, could he check something like this?

Alph.

Alphin, yes give the number to your PI. Also, can you call the Harley's for phone counseling instead of this so-called IC you went to? WH's partner? Give me a break.

It sure sounds like a good idea to give the number to your PI.

Don't take your IC's words to heart. bOb pure has described many IC's.MC's in GB to be like that. He did suggest that you try to contact one from the marriage care group..I think it was called. I think that many therapists in the US would be like yours too. It isn't easy to find a good one. Two of the IC's I had tried were the kind that just listened and had very little constructive advice beyond telling me to do stuff for myself like getting out and walking or exercising and journaling. Many seem to buy into the soulmate A's as being real love etc. and the BS should just accept it as that.

Yes, faithful, it made me quite sick to my stomach, to be quite honest.

She's his mistress, if I have to dignify her by giving her any name at all - one that can be posted on MB, that is!

You can listen to the Harley's on the internet..on Dr. Willard is his wife, Joyce's, guest on Monday's (Marriage Mondays)from 3-4pm Eastern time and Thursdays (same time) (Relationship Thursdays) for their call in radio program. See the link on the far right corner at the top of the page. You can hear lots of the same advice that you read about in their books and here right from the 'horses' mouth.

There are inexpensive long distance calling plans that may make it feasible to afford phone counseling with them. I think that the value of the dollar is in your favor still.
I understand if you get your counseling under your health plan that it probably wouldn't cover counseling with the Harley's here so it could still be cost prohibitive.

If your H loses his job it will be his choices that caused it and not your exposure. Didn't he tell you that people at school know and they were ok with it?

If you D you may or may not be able to keep your house. A new beginning isn't the end of the world. Try and look at the positives and not dwell on them as gloom and doom.

You still have your extended family.

Alph,
I'm so glad you are here and are getting good support!
Throw that IC out the window. What a bunch of garbage!

Just so you know, I am an Ex-WS. Exposure would have done the trick on me. I feared it greatly. Instead my H just gave up.

I seriously doubt that your H will lose his job over this. And if he does, you are not to blame -- he is. This was a risk he willingly entered into when he began his affair.

He will come to respect you for what you are doing. (He will! Really!) Your mantra -- every time you speak to him -- should be "I will do everything necessary to save our family".

Trust NOTHING he says. NOTHING. If he tells you the headmaster knows, he's lying. If he tells you his colleagues know, he's lying. If he tells you his friends know, he's lying. He hates you? He's lying. Your marriage is over? He's lying.

I know you are afraid about the job. Stop living in fear.
Stop trying to find reasons to avoid exposing. You simply must do it. Call the Headmaster over and over and over again until he takes your call -- its that urgent.

GOOD WORK on the phone number. I'll bet you just got the information you needed so desparately!!! Make that call too. Like Melody told you earlier. Do it all at once. Its best to do one HUGE exposure day, and deal with the fallout once.

Call that phone number and ask for Mr. XXX (OW's last name)
Right AFTER you talk to the Headmaster!

No more giving him clues to your plan!

Hi Trix,

My problem with the house is that WH is paying mortgage and all bills at the moment. If he loses his job, then that's it - the house is gone (I'm not working).

I am prepared for this to happen - I can go into rented accomodation, but I must admit to being very apprehensive.

Alph.

Well, so much for that counselor. This is exactly why I recommended you share with your IC what you were getting from us.

Please be aware that exposure of an affair is NOT an exclusive MB strategy. Based on my personal browsing of affair fighting guidance out there, I think the good ones are pretty much all the same. The descriptions and nomenclature may vary, but the core concepts seem very similar to me. And, ya gotta admit, once you think about it, exposure makes a heck of a lot of sense. So I recommend in any further descriptions you make to counselors or whomever, you not describe expsoure as "MB." They might think that it's an exclusive strategy akin to some off the wall cult therapy recipe or something. (I am partial to "beach" therapy, however - sitting on the beach in my lounge chair doing nothing.)

Now, that said, exposure if not carefully done will come across as vindictive - especially to the WS. This is why many of us recommend exposing in expanding concentric circles rather than renting a billboard. But even if it is vindictive, it works and may be the only action a BS can take that can make an affair uncomfortable other than filing for divorce on the grounds of adultery and causing a WS to vacate the home. That works sometimes, too. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

WAT

Alphin, that is where you are headed anyway if you don't bust up this little affair, because he will divorce you. That is where you are headed right now and what we are trying to help you prevent. Except you will be there with no husband AT ALL. Your only hope at stopping this little train wreck is to try and end this affair by exposing him at work. The affair is the GREATEST THREAT to your livelihood, Alphin, please stay focused on that.

I am sorry to say that your IC is worthless and knows nothing about saving a marriage from an affair. This is why Harley is so wildly popular across the world - he is successful. Just stick with Marriage Builders principles, Alphin, and you will be fine. He is the pro, your IC is not.

I would point out that a WS thinks that all exposure is "vindictive." They won't like ANY level or form of exposure and are not expected to. Believe me, you won't get a single award from him for exposing to anyone! The reason it's best to expose in one fell swoop is so that the WS doesn't get a chance to reach the targets first.

As in this case, a very important target, the headmaster, could be lost because the WS was forewarned. I only hope that the WS doesn't get to him first and spin the story in such a manner that it renders exposure ineffective. That is a very real threat to not exposing in one day.

Alphin

I'm sorry that your experience with the IC was so disappointing. Was this the first session? The first session is supposed to be an exploration and fact-finding mission, but the object of therapy is suppposed to be to get the individual to a place where they are strong enough to cope with what life has thrown at them. The therapist might well challenge and provoke the client in order to find the boundaries and weak spots of the individual, and to encourage the client to think outside their normal bounds, but that wouldn't normally be until the relationship was well established.

Although it shouldn't happen, I suspect an IC's personal history can affect their attitude. You presumably have no way of knowing whether your IC has a history of affairs herself, or has in fact been an OW. If you go back to her, it would be reasonable to ask whether she is unbiased in this, and what her personal attitude is to infidelity - and whether she has ever been cheated on. Most therapists take a no-blame attitude to infidelity, but some swing too far and blame the victim!

Many therapists - even marriage counsellors - have little experience of repairing a marriage, and little understanding of the mechanics and distortions of affairs. Presented with a wounded marriage, the easy way out for them is to amputate the spouse and cauterise the wound. They genuinely think that they are doing the best for you in cleaning out the rotten wood of a defective spouse. But if the client's desire is to take time to recover and repair the marriage, that desire should be respected. The IC has no right to decide what's the 'right' thing to do.

If the IC is inexperienced in the mechanics of affairs, she may well see exposure as 'vindictive'. After all, if you're not familiar with what happens when an affair is exposed, then the only reason you can see to do is to hurt, to obtain some temporary relief. To a naive onlooker, exposure DOES look like nastiness. It takes experience to know that controlled exposure is an effective way to force the affair to emerge into the light, where it can no longer make use of comforting covering darkness. After all, if the affair partners are for real, they will have to show themselves in the light eventually, won't they? And, in fact, by visiting OW's family they have themselves exposed the affair. They are presumably happy, therefore, to extend the knowledge to others back home?

By the same token, how can you possibly be responsible for your H losing his job? If he is acting in ways that are contrary to the terms of his employment, all that is protecting him is secrecy. He has already 'gone public' with his affair - by visiting OW's family - so he has already blown his cover. If what he is doing is OK, then he will not be sacked. His own future is dependent on his own assessment of whether what he is doing is OK or not.

I would be hesitant to tell you that your IC is an idiot, as I sometimes suspect that therapists issue challenging statements just to see how the client reacts, and the client assumes that this is how the IC sees it. But you are in a perilous situation that requires careful and expert handling, and it may be that your IC simply does not have that kind of expertise. I've never consulted with the Harleys, but they have an excellent record, and are deeply experienced and knowledgeable about infidelity. Well worth a thought.

(BTW, I found an IC within weeks of d-day, and I was lucky enough to recall that a friend had consulted a therapist who was a member of my Catholic church. With her, I could have some certainty that she understood the comittment to marriage, and the comittment to my children. Even so, she several times suggested that I would have to relinquish my grip on the marriage and accept the fate of aloneness, in order to have the strength to keep my boundaries from collapsing.)

Keep strong. An unsupportive IC is a nuisance, but no more than that.

Prayers are with you.

TogetherAlone

Thanks, guys.

I've already had to pay for the next session with IC so I may as well go along.

Togetheralone, this was my second session - my first session was a 'fact finding mission' as you said, and was with a different counsellor. I liked the first one! But this one seemed to want me to move on and forget about my M, as if this would be the quickest way to stop me hurting. I expect to hurt much more before the end game, and I'm not afraid of that. STILL CAN'T BELIEVE SHE CALLED OW WH'S PARTNER!!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Ahem. Regarding exposure; I can't believe how much braver and more confident I feel about it now - certainly compared to a week or so ago. Most of the time I feel confident; only occassionally I waver - that's when I come here and you all give me your support so generously.

Thank you. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I've just spoken to my friend in Spain, and he says he will willingly translate any letter I care to write to OW's parents. He's even given me pointers on how to make the letter sound totally convincing to a conservative Catalan couple. Great. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Alphin can you ask that you see the original counsellor? I've just finished 6 weeks IC on the NHS (my doctors surgery can "prescribe" counselling) perhaps it's an avenue you could try?

I liked my IC but she did say occasionally that I shouldn't beat myself up so much for my affair. Er...yes I should! I taught her a lot about MB and said how important it was to be pro-marriage! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Hubby and I tried Relate but it was awful and not for us. I was marked down as a "potential domestic violence" client as I admitted to throwing keys in my husband's general direction a number of years ago.

Finding Pro-marriage counselling is not easy in the UK but you have every right to interview your IC and reject those that aren't pro-marriage. That's why many people suggest Christian or church counselling as they should be pro-marriage.

Sorry your IC said something so insensitive! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />

Well, if you meet with this one again and she uses this term, you can simply finish it for her: Partner in crime.

Ya know, "affair partner" would be accurate, huh? Perhaps from a BS's frame of reference, "partner" is abhorent because it puts a label on it that isn't vile enough.

Perhaps you should ask her what marriage means to her and if it ought to be treated as a consumable.

WAT

ugh! Sounds like she is trying to normalize the abnormal with labels like "partner." Agree with WAT, partner in crime is more accurate! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Hi Alphin,

I am still brand new to this, but had to throw in my two cents (pence to you?) about exposure. In my sitch, H had hired on OW to work for our company, and I started getting all kinds of calls, some from employees and some from friends of (at that time) WH. From the amount of noise, (most of the employees & business associated did meet her at one time or another), I could have sworn they had walked around the job sites holding hands and introducing themselves to the employees as a couple.

The A had already ended before they found out how many, many people knew, and both were horrified, aghast, and I would have to find a thesaurus to describe it properly. THEY THOUGHT NO ONE KNEW!!! If I had known sooner the effect exposure could have, it probably would have ended things much more quickly. (Her roommates still don't know - they think FWH broke up with her just because he wasn't ready to make a commitment to her. Well isn't that the truth....)

Don't be afraid. You're doing a great job, and you have incredibly wise people guiding you. You can make it through this!

Neak

Alphin, was that sack of sh&t counsellor from relate by any chance ?

useless shower of sh&te.

Contact marriagecare. Its a catholic marriage advocacy service and they won't call this kooze 'a partner'.

Exposure can be done for vindictive reasons but it has the effect of making the affairees' bindings exposed to the light of criticism. Away from the fairlyland construct they live in.

True a tiny proportion go on to make new lives with affairees but the overwhelming majority don't stand up to scrutiny.

Only bad bit you got is OW isn't married with kids.

A don't waste a SECOND on bad counselling again. I was told exposing was vicious too. I asked if the relate C had been in an affair and he wouldn't answer but got flustered. Go figure as our US friends say.

All blessings Alph. Chin up.

SF, WAT, Melody, neak - Thanks. 'Partner in crime' is right! I could call her plenty of other things too, but not something as polite and accepting as 'partner'.

Mr. Pure - welcome back! Did you, Squid and the kids have a great weekend? Hope the weather was decent for you.
Yeah, IC is Relate alright. I thought they'd be pro marriage as they are MARRIAGE councellors!
I think it's partly a British disease - stiff upper lip and all that. Yes, your heart has been blasted into a million pieces by your WH's 'lifestyle change' and his new 'partner', but you have to put up with it, not make a fuss, and certainly not try to break up the nice romance. Wouldn't be very sporting, now, would it?

Yes, I think I'll try marriagecare. I don't have to be a catholic, do I?

I have just phoned the school, and obtained the names of the school's director of languages, and the head of language teaching.

I will be sending each of them an exposure letter, as they are both 'bosses' of the OW.

These letters will be waiting for them when they get back to school next Monday after half-term break.

Alph.