(((HT)))) What an awful situation. This is totally not MB but this is what came to my mind.....
If the A does not die before she does you might ever get rid of her. She'll be immortalized. He is being the knight in shinning armor, her hero...to be forced apart... a romantic tradgedy.(gag <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />). The quickest way to get thru the fog is to let reality in. I am probably really wrong and I don't know if I could do it myself but.....I'm thinking tell him she needs him more than you do...he should go be with her....EXPOSE....then plan B. Living w/ someone and being the care giver a terminally ill person is incredibly stressful and incredibly difficult.
Since he is not willing to give up contact the A will continue and you will be enabling it. SH is wonderful and I'm glad you are speaking to him but I really don't think anykind of recovery can begin while he is in contact.
These are just my thoughts...I am definitely no expert as SH is.

You are in my prayers.
I would not make any promises you can't keep.

i would do whatever Dr. Harley advised you to do.

Funny how all WS think "theirs" is unique!

Rule of thumb: they all LIE!!!! dont believe a word he says!!!

my .02 cents!

you know moving forward

now i'm beginning to fear my h's affair IS one of the unique ones that will last

i wonder if all the BS fear that at some point too

Post deleted by hurtingterribly

if I'm understanding this, you DID tell Dr, Harley that your H asked you to "promise"?

before you do, realize that later you may need to consider if you could or should break your promise if that is what is needed to save your marriage

(we do what we have to in this situation-that's just MY opinion)

Yikes!! Did you copy that from one of my old posts <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> SH actually told me something similar (although I don't remember him telling me not to expose...he might have though. I haven't looked back at those posts for a LONG time).

My ex was so far gone that he also couldn't see things ever being okay. SH said something to the effect that he can't get to the corner, let alone look around it to see the possibilities.


Again, I got similar advice. He needed to see that there WAS a way to get to an end point. I remember him asking XH if just because he couldn't see Hawaii from the California coast, did it mean there wasn't one? Then he asked him if he saw it on a map and wanted to get there would he just hop in a rowboat and take off with no provisions, no route, no PLAN. His point was that first he needed to believe there WAS a Hawaii and then needed a plan to get there.


EXACTLY!!! You don't have to tell him you will NEVER expose though. You don't go into battle having first given up your weapons!! Set some rules, sure. But don't promise on something you can't deliver on. With or without your marriage you have to maintain your own integrity and honor. Fight by all means!!! But don't give up your own morals/integrity to do it. Isn't that what he did? Stepped outside of his own boundaries to get what he wanted?


Really? All you want if for him to LOOK seriously? How do you gauge that? If you feel he's LOOKED seriously - not worked, not given it a chance, just looked?


Hold it... not promise not to use it.


It seems like if you give in to what he wants that you're increasing your chances. He's saying he'll give you what you want (What he KNOWS he should do anyway) if you will protect his affair.

FIM

I have heard it all now...

HT,
Please dont let this high drama push you into a disasterous position. Slow down. You dont have to do anything this second. If you cant bring yourself to say 'Not in a million years', then say 'I cant make this decision now, I have to think, I'll call you later, please leave, now.'

You are seriously getting the short end of this bargain. He gains much, you get a cheating H stuck in some high-hormone, Harliquin Romance Novel. You could not pay me to take that man under those conditions. He's not the husband you were waiting for!!!!

And nothing happens very quickly with all this. NOTHING has to be sworn to, tonight. Please be strong and take care of yourself - Dru

I really don't see why this situation is treated as something special because of her illness. It is still an A. Does she have no family that could be there for her at this time?

I don't get your WH at all. The pain you are going through is huge! The wound you got is real! Is it less so because it is not a physical wound? Why is he not seeing that what he is doing to you is "killing" you?!

When it comes to exposure, I got no advice, but to promise him that you will never expose is rediculous. He promised to charish you and forsake all others, in front of God and family. He certainly did not kept this promise forever did he?

Don't be mean or sarcastic, but please don't be naive either. Tell him you cannot promise that. Noone can.

Daisy

hurtinterribly, the problem with exposure is that it will ruin his affair and he knows this. He knows very well that you could ruin his affair if exposed, which is why he is trying to hard to manipulate you into protecting he and the OW. [I'm sure the OW appreciates your help too]

And this is why exposure is such an effective weapon against an affair, it is ruinous to affairs because affairs must have secrecy to survive. Unfortunately, your marriage cannot survive the affair. It can survive exposure, it can't survive the affair.

So, really, you must take your pick: do you want to help the affair by keeping their dirty little secret for them, or do you want to help your marriage by exposing it?

It is because of this that you should never agree to not expose. It is your best weapon and you should not forfeit your weapons while you are under attack. Of course, the only thing worse than making a bad promise is KEEPING a bad promise. So if you agree to not expose [which I wouldn't suggest] you shouldn't keep such a self destructive promise.

And 2 months of MC?????? Won't even scratch the surface ESPECIALLY in the case of a WS that won't end contact. Total waste of money, time, and your emotional well-being.

My FWH went with me to MC after he agreed to and maintained NC from the get-go and we saw NO visible signs of benefit from MC until a full 3 months into it. In fact, he was ready to walk out of the counselor's office and straight to the attorney's office at about the 2 1/2 month mark.

Here's what 2 months of MC will be like while WH is still in the A - WH will see every question, exercise, discussion as critical of him, his choices, and his "soulmate". He will resent you and the counselor for dragging him through it. A WH who won't even agree to give up the OW is only going through the motions.

Are you ready for your response to him when he throws up to you how YOU'RE the liar because you agreed not to expose when you inevitably have to after this 2 month experiment with MC fails as it almost certainly will?

HT,

You said your WH was brought up to be religious. Does that mean he, personally does not much or any faith?

Do *you* have a spiritual foundation? Is his mother staunchly religious?

If she's staunchly religious, then expose to her, in confidence, and have her pray for her son constantly. Also, if she's on your side and knows, she can help you. Perhaps you can tell her where your WH is likely to be WITH OW so that she can see them together, or perhaps she can call him and ask for advice or engage him in lengthy conversations when he's trying to be w/ OW.

In my case, using hindsight, it's clear it was a VERY bad idea to involve my in-laws to help me end my W's A... mostly because when they had time to think about it, they figured that I was a horrible person who must have driven their perfect daughter to depravity, and then tried to convince her to get me to commit suicide at the lowest point of my depression... But I digress. The point is My W was I-M-ing a guy she'd met online while I was on the phone with her mother and my W had told her mom that she was messaging ME... but I had spyware on her machine and she was utterly busted.

The point is that despite your pain, YOU can think clearly, and your WH's brain is mush, at best. You can help orchestrate things so that HE ends up blowing his cover and exposing himself.

You said it correctly, this is war. You can play honorably... Choose your words carefully. WS's that are in the fog are so accustomed to hearing what they want to hear that it's likely to help you if you say something LIKE what he wants to hear. For example, if he wants you to promise not to expose, you can say in feigned defeat, "Okay, if you're really going to give our marriage a 100% effort for the next 2 months, then I won't expose you."

Sounds like he gets what he wants, but ANY contact w/ OM is, by definition, less than 100% effort on your M and you are free to expose.

The war, more often than not, goes to the side that plans better, so use your functioning brain to your advantage. In a battle of witts, he's a sitting duck.

Post deleted by hurtingterribly

***but I just am sooooo afraid to lose the only chance I think I may have left for him to see this will tear up our family and hurt our children. He's so unreachable even about them-total denial of what it would do.***

Well, yes. Exactly. Do you think that if you agree not to interfere with his affair, and agree to be the wife who tolerates his girlfriend without complaint, that that will make him see your pain?

You've got it backwards. The only thing that would make him see what he has done to you would be to see his wife and children disappear before his eyes. This called "Plan B."

You must realize that no active WS is ever moved by the pain of the BS and/or the pain of the children. Not one.

Your pain will not motivate him to change.

Only his own pain will motivate him to change.

But you are frightned of that and back away from letting him suffer any pain, because you know he will bully and terrorize you if you do.

And so he gets to have both a wife and a girlfriend.
Mulan

What did he say regarding exposing this affair NOW (that has been going on for 6 months). Does he still advice keeping a lid on it for now?

Lem

Two things:

(1) Know thyself.

AND

(2) Know your enemy. (WH)

Have no doubt, your WH *is* your enemy and will remain so until he becomes a FWH or until you stop being on the side of the M.

So... What does that mean to you?
First, understand what you can take. Do not risk your physical or emotional well-being, especially since you have kids to care for.

Second, a WS is SOOOOOOO selfish and blind that he/she can only think of himself/herself. So, since you know he's selfish and stupid right now, you can use that to your advantage. He's motivated by instincts that tell him to satisfy himself at all costs, and avoid anything that looks like pain (the effort of recovery).

There's an old saw about negotiations - whoever comes to the table first is the weaker party. He came to you to bargain for the ability to keep things secret. He thinks secrecy is more valuable than 2 months of MC. That is, he thinks he'll get more pleasure by keeping the secret than he'll give up by going through the motions for 2 months.

Give him his secrecy, but you make a demand... absolute and verifiable NC. The moment he breaks it, his world crashes in. He'll think he's fooling you because WSs are that arrogant, and you blow the affair. Heck, when you blow the lid on him, you can even tell people that you gave him the ability to keep things hush-hush by ending the A, but he wouldn't do it... That makes the fact that he's hanging out with a sicken-Wiccan even more disgusting, because he won't have any real way to deny that he invited this pain and has given up his family for nothing.

Know your enemy... Knowledge is power, and Wisdom is priceless!

If he wants an "amicable" divorce tell him, fine... you won't be *mean*, but the grounds WILL be adultery. Make him own his A.

Agreeing to hide his affair for him is not a "chance" at anything. Hiding his affair will not save your marriage, I assure you, it will destroy it. I know that SH is not ready to expose just now, but eventually he will; I can almost assure you. Because that will probably be the only thing that can save your marriage.

Just remember why your H is so adamant about you helping he and the OW hide the secret: he knows that exposure will ruin his affair. The greatest threat to your marriage is the affair, not exposure, ht. Like Mulan said, you have this backwards. By not exposing you are protecting the affair at the expense of your marriage.

Are you sure she has cancer? Could it be the "I'm too smart to claim pregnancy so let's try this" trap?

I would clearly explain that divorce means divorce...no family vacations and Christmases will be split.

Does being this desperate to keep this marriage together seem healthy to you? I remember telling my fwh to go and be happy with psycho ow. It shocked him. I told her she was welcome to him and his problems. It shocked her. I meant it. Having the blessing of the wife to go on with life made it not so appealing.

What's the old saying, I never had fun at a party where I wasn't invited.