If OMW comes down harder on OM, he will be forced to end the affair. Believe me, you are not progressing anywhere as long as they are still in touch. As long as they are still in touch, there is no hope she will fall back in love with you and recommit to the marriage. Until that happens, you are just your W's BOY that she keeps around in case she needs something and not a loved partner in a committed marriage.

I bet she wants to be your "friend," right?

It seems as if you are being played at the moment.

Other thoughts are to NOT do anything re more exposure.
Backing someone into a corner sometimes only makes them bite more viciously.

Her family will always love her, regardless of the choices she makes. They would feel supportive of her in respect of her being a divorcee with children, that is instinctive.

What you could possibly do, is bring them on side. Let them know that you really do love her, & genuinely want to work this relationship with her, that you need her to realise why she made her mistake & what steps she would take to avoid putting herself in such a compromising position again. Reiterate with her family how much you love her & how much you regret this sorry situation, that you at the time felt you had very little choice, & wish you could turn the clock back to time you both fell so deeply in love with each other. Tell her mum, tell any of her siblings that you trust who will convey your hearts intent honestly with her without judgement.

Do remember blood is always thicker. Do not while speaking of her, put her down, or display any disgust or anger about her. Show your broken heart honestly, allow yourself to be vunerable with her family. They will either support you or tell you fk off, they may actually be mad at you for divorcing her too, so be prepared to acknowledge that you really wished you hadn't, & want their forgiveness for hurting them.

Big lump to swallow.

AtomicSpin, this is not "progress." This is a WW who is trying to keep you on the line so she can use you. When a WS says they want to be "friends" that means she wants you to shut up and take her cruelty silently while she screws you over. She wants you to act pleasant to her while she shafts you and the children. Please don't object lest she will have to face the consequences of her cruelty.

Ask yourself this: would you choose someone for a "friend" who lied and cheated you? Is that the kind of "friend" you would choose?

Being USED by your WW is not "progress," my friend, and you should not buy that for a second.

AtomicSpin,

I would say the very first thing YOU should do is go to a lawyer and make darned sure she cannot take the kids away from you. Get that done NOW.

Then I think rather than continuing to meet her needs you need to consider plan B. Plan B has several affects.

1. It forces the OM to meet all of her EN's which he cannot do.

2. It forces YOU to quit focusing so much on her and what she has done, thus allowing you a chance to step back and really look at things and make good decisions, including stopping the LB'ing.

3. It settles things down so that your kids will get a schedule and start to deal with the fact that you and your EXW are divorced.

4. Finally, it will make your exW consider if she really does want to be married.

and 5. It allows "the fog" to clear from your head.

You are indeed in a fog if you believe your relationship is something special. It has been marred to two affairs that you know of. A divorce and huge amounts of disrespect. You need to reevaluate things quite a bit IF you want this relationship to recover, but right now you are not presenting a very attractive alternative to her and part of that seems to be based on how you view things.

Please consider what I have said and I hope that something I have said will help you.

God Bless,

JL

AtomicSpin,
Do you think OMW really even cares that he is having an A? Maybe she couldn't take a serial cheater and never liked him much, and maybe that's why she lives out of state. She could be keeping him only for the $$.
Afterall, Dr's make good money and like another poster mentioned, maybe she does have a secret life of her own. Unfortunately, not everyone is married for love.
I'm sorry you have to be here but everyone is so helpful and I think you will find a lot of answers.
Do you REALLY want you XW back? If so, then I agree with the others. Plan B sounds good, go DARK. She does not have a clue what life is like without you at this point.
I know it is hard to rock the boat when you apparently still spend a lot of time together. Plan B will make her mad, initially, as you will have no conact with her, however, she will go through a lot of emotions that pertain to your relationship. She certainly should see what she is missing and what a wonderful guy you are. People often don't know what they had until it's gone unfortunately. Best of luck in your decisions.

as,

You are getting some great advice, the 180 list and a few other things are posted on my thread '180 list please'.

Keep posting, you will get ALOT of good advice here.

And make sure to check with your lawyer about whether or not your ex can move out of state with kids. NOT a good thing.

Sounds like you have a lot of family support. How is your family dealing with this?

Love in Christ,
Miss M

AtomicSpin,
When I found MB, I was already divorced.

After two false recoveries with xH, I did Plan B for about three weeks.
Writing the Plan B letter allowed me to evaluate what I wanted from xH and what I wanted on our relationship and the conditions on which I would wanted us to reconcile.

Read everything you can here. Evaluate your current situation, what do you want and what you need to do to make those changes.

After three weeks of Plan B, a lot of thinking and hurt ... I started doing the 180 list. That worked better for me .. I felt better and started to see good reactions from xH ... even with that it wasn't until he completely broke up with OW that we started recovering ... before that it was still false recoveries and cake-eating ...
We've been dating for almost a year now and xH is going to move back home in March after his current lease expires, which at that time, it will be two years since xH left ...

It has been a long road and I know we still have a long way to go ...

Again, read, read, learn, evaluate, re-evaluate ... and star your plan, whatever it is you decide to do ... don't go to the battlefield without a plan because you're going to feel lost and get hurt...
Learn about what worked or not for others ... and make your move ... since what you are doing is stalled and it is not getting you anywhere with your xW ... it is time to start making changes ...

Plan B followed by 180 list was what worked for us ...
as others have mentioned while your xW still in contact with OM, she is still in the fog ...
I would add to the 180 list in addition to not talking about relationship, do not talk about her relationship with her and OM ...
xH lived with OW for 6 months ... I told him, I don't care what you do with OW or don't do, it is not my problem, I'm not your friend to talk about your relationship with her ...
I also told him, DD and me, we are not a package, you do not need to have a relationship with me to have a relationship with our daughter ... but if you want to have a relationship with me it is becasue you want to be with me and not because you want to give DD a home with both parents ...

bump^

I am pretty sure his wife doesnt approve of him having affairs. From what my WW says she was very upset when she first found out, driving home that night and confronting him. He basically pressured her to move away which didnt happen until after he started seeing my WW. She didnt want to but they have a special needs daughter that he told her needed to attend this private school and she couldnt be left alone there. He says he cant move because he has a very cush job here and would never find one as good elsewhere. Basically he works 3 days a week in a walk in clinic, no on call and gets nearly 300k a year.

I have done some thinking about this and it seems that he is trying to distance himself from my WW. She thinks he feels guilty so he keeps calling her. I think hes afraid if he lets her go completely she will retaliate by confronting his wife or something similar.

I am thinking about writing a letter to him, delivered to his work so it isnt intercepted, demanding that he break off all contact with my WW, no calls, no hi in the hall at work, nothing. If he doesnt do that I will tell his wife the truth about him and their relationship, along with giving her enough evidence to help her through a divorce. Also I would inform his employeer of his activities, something which is highly frowned upon in that organization.

The risk of this is he could give the letter to my WW and she would be very angry with me, but if I word it so that it makes it clear I am doing what i feel is best for my family and in her best interest I dont see how she could stay mad and I would include in the letter that if he would confront her with it I would again inform his wife and his employeer.

One condition of the letter would be that he would have to definitively end the relationship with her. Telling her he would like her to not call anymore and leave him alone.

I think he is very selfish and while he might not do this for her own good the possible risk of maintaining the relationship would far outweight the consequences.

What do you guys thing of this approach?

I do keep in contact with her family. Her sister says I will always be her big brother and she feels very bad for what my WW has put me through but she thinks I will be better off without her. Her mother knows that I care about her and has actually tried to talk to her about it but she wont listen to anyone. I actually stop over to visit her mom and her moms BF more than she does and they have come over for BBQ's and stuff this past summer.

Basically shes the type of person that lets her emotions rule her judgement and logic often doesnt apply to her descision making process. While this is occasionaly very frusterating I think that it might be one of the qualities that I find attractive about her because I tend to think and reason problems out too much and I often wish I could just do things without thinking and be more spontaneous.

Atomic, why not just carry out the threat and stop protecting the OM? If you make threats, he can easily pre-empt you to his wife and his employers and just go further underground to carry on the affair. He will do what most OP's do when threatened with exposure; he will spin the story to the targets, describing you as a jealous nutjob so when you do contact them, they think you are a nut.

Why bother with threats when direct exposure will likely effectively end the affair? Why would you try and protect the OM? Whose side are you on anyway?


And all you have to depend on is HIS WORD that he won't contact her again. Do you think his word has any credibility? This is an incredibly sneaky man who can easily just go deeper to hide his affair.

I honestly can't fathom why you would go to these lengths to avoid exposure when it is simply the most powerful weapon you have. You have a POWERFUL WEAPON that could save your marriage and you won't use it! WHY??

You are divorced from this woman.

Ask yourself this..."Would I date a woman who has the history that this one has? Is this someone I really want to share my life with?"

As MelodyLane said...there are lots of GOOD women out there...and you are free to pursue them.

Low

I guess I was thinking about threatening him because he already seems to be pullin away from the relationship and if he would just end things then it wouldnt risk getting her in trouble with her employeer and it would reduce the risk of blowing up in my face. If she found out I went to his wife and her employeer she would be irate to say the least and I dont find that to be a desireable situation to have to deal with so why not try to avoid it?

Would I date her if I didnt know her and didnt have kids with her? probably not, but I do and I do so thats kind of a mute point. My son still asks when mommy is comming home and I dont know what to tell him, I would rather fix things with her so my children can have a normal life in a healthy family than raise them in split houses, only getting to see them half the time, missing out on holidays etc.

About the lawyer thing I dont really have a lawyer, I did the divorce papers myself and we were amiable, she didnt get a lawyer either. I did consult with a lawyer and he provided the papers in the form of a word document that were basically fill in the blank, cost me about $200 total with filing fees. She left me with a lot of debt and I cant afford to get legal advice unless absolutely necessary and I think her mentioning moving is pretty much an idle threat because she doesnt deal well with the kids and if she had them more I dont think she would be able to handle it, she has already mentioned on several occasions me taking custody and her paying child support, but I think that was more because she wanted to be less tied down to make herself more appealing to him, Im not sure tho. She has mentioned in the past the she thinks he doesnt want to get involved with her in part because he doesnt want to have to raise another family but Im not sure if thats just her thinking to much or if he actually alluded to it.

Atomic, the reason that threats of exposure are not as effective as actual exposure is because you lose all the benefits. It defeats the purpose.

Let me explain. The main benefit of exposure is that it ruins the fantasy aspect that holds the affair together. Secrecy is the glue that holds affairs together.

Exposure is like turning on the light in a crack house and bringing in spectators. When exposed to the light of day, the affairees [crackheads] are forced to see how sleazy and ratty they really look through the eyes of others.

When left in their secret little fantasy bubble, the affair is allowed to thrive because it is immune to reality and the affairees view it as beautiful and pretty. It doesn't look so beautiful when the lights are turned on and others view them as 2 pigs getting it on in the pig pen.

It is also much harder to resume an affair when everyone knows about it and is watching. This is why exposure is ruinous to affairs.

It is also not helpful to the affairees to be protected from the consequences of their bad behavior. Not ever having to face consequences gives them a false sense of security to do it all again another day. Perhaps with another partner. And why not? They got away with it before.

So, if you just make a threat, you miss the benefits of exposure and only force them to go further underground. Doing it that way only defeats the purpose.

Helping them hide their secret helps no one; not the affairees, not you, not your children. The only thing it helps is the AFFAIR. Just remember that, by hiding this for them, you help the affair.

Threats don't do a darn thing if you're not willing to carry them out. Can you say empty threat? If you want something to change, you've got to be proactive. Figure out what you want to change and then put together a plan to make it come about. Sitting around and talking about making a threat isn't going to make it happen.

Wouldnt exposing them cause her to retreat farther and them to go underground more? Do you think, if I decide to expose them, should I do the wife first or their workplace, or should it be a double whammy and get it over with? How far do you go in exposing something like this? I mean I could go talk to the HR office there, or maybe talk to someone farther up the ladder like an executive, on the other hand I could just make up a little letter and post it on the bulletin boards around the hospital, Im sure that would cause a little stir. What is the best way to expose something like this without making her hate me forever yet still effectively putting the most strain on the affair?

So, you admit, you only want this for your kids. In that case, why is her desire to live as room-mates not acceptable to you? Seems like that addresses all of your concerns.

If you don't want this for YOU, it's never going to work.

No, I think you are having a tough time accepting that this person is no longer your wife. That's why I think all the plan A and B stuff is inappropriate. You're trying to save something that doesn't exist anymore.

JMHO, If there isn't enough there to build a BRAND NEW relationship on...and there doesn't sound like there is...then you're better off moving on.

But only YOU know what you want...and if this is the woman you want, then you are going to have to try to pursue her in the same way you would any other single or divorced woman. Tactics that you might employ to saved a threatened marriage will come across as downright mean and obsessive in this context.

The rules are different. You are no longer married.

She now has rights to privacy. She now has rights to free association without your interference.

You're going to to have to learn to play by the new rules.

BTW...She is no longer a "WW"...an affairee, yes, but a WW, no...

The exposure will put enormous strain on the affair, causing it to crumble. First they will hang on together, but that is when it will start to crumble because they will realize what a unworthy sacrifice it is.

I would start by exposing to the OMW, and not anonymously. Do it openly and give her your phone # to follow up. Suggest that you stay in touch until this affair is killed. Ask her to be your teammate.

The exposure at the hospital should take place the same day. I would suggest sending a certified letter to the head of Human Resources and to a couple of the top executives telling them that this doctor has effectively destroyed your marriage with a workplace affair and you thought they should know about it. Ask for them to respond on how they intend on dealing with this or if you should take this further.

And yes, your W will be furious, but she won't hate you forever. In fact, she may learn to respect you a little bit for finally doing something about this.

AS,

You said a few things that really make me wonder about your reasoning. You said
Then you say
So let's see here. She has cheated multiple times. She shows little or no remorse. She has threatened to take the kids away. She left you with the kids AND a lot of debt AND she doesn't deal well with the kids.

And you say you are doing this for the kids sake??????

I don't think so. I think you need to stop EVERYTHING and sit and comtemplate what you REALLY want in a Wife and a mother for your children. From everything you have said she is not much of either.

Finally there is an old saying "a physician that treats himself has a fool for a patient." You NEED to see a lawyer NOW, because you need to protect your children and they are not protected as it stands. Your W can take the kids and leave and THEN you will spend a lot of money trying to get them back.

And finally if you tell the Dr.'s institution about this, perhaps he will be fired so that he CAN join his special needs child and his W. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> Do you realize how sick all of this is? Do you realize how sick your W must be to find a man with the morals and sensitivity of this guy and think he is great?

Please, please start thinking with your children's protection in mind. So far you have not and they will be hurt more in the long run. You are right they need a mother, but it does not have to be their birth mother, it needs to be a woman that likes children...in large doses.

God Bless,

JL

LowOrbit, he has every right in the world to expose this doctor and his XW to anyone he chooses. This man has contributed to the demise of his marriage, so it is most certainly his business.