Gosh, how do you do exposure without pissing the WS off?? I can only imagine his reaction. Won't he hate me??

The OW is someone he knows/has known, started talking about relationship issues (his and hers) at physical therapy, I don't know where she works. She is married, apparently to a man who beats her (so my husband says) and she has 2 kids. I know her last name, but I have no idea where they live, etc...or if they are even separated.

I am so sick, he picked up our son today to hang out with him and took him to lunch with OW and her two girls!!!!! I want to freakin puke!!@! My son is the one who informed me of this and when my husband came downstairs I asked him what the ****** does he think he is doing by that? I asked him if he introduced her to our son as his potential new "step-mom" - I didn't give an angry outburst, but I was clearly upset and I did call OW a pig and a homewrecker - and I also told him how much it hurts me. He then apologized, said he didn't think negatively of the situation, but he understands and it won't happen again. WTF!!!!

I just don't see how I can get into PLan A at this point....what do you think? Thanks so much.

Oh no, not another betrayed husband who supposedly beats his wife........

Think about it - if your husband beat you, would you risk making him angry by having an affair?

Yes, he will be FURIOUS when you expose his affair. He will rant and rave and threaten divorce. But guess what? Your exposure will be ruinous to the affair. Affairs cannot survive without secrecy. If the exposure does not immediately kill it, it will hasten its death because it ruins the fantasy aspect.

However, some temporary anger will not kill your marriage, but the AFFAIR WILL. Your H will get over his anger quickly, but he won't over this affair if you help him and the OW destroy your marriage by keeping thier secret.

Just know this, you are HELPING the OW destroy your marriage and steal your H by keeping her secret. You realize that, don't you? Whose side are you on?



Yes, he is now using your kids in an attempt to "normalize" his affair and give it a false air of respectibility. This is a fairly common WS tactic. This is where you should put your foot down and refuse to allow your H to drag your children into his sleazy affair. If you won't protect them, then no one will.


Are you KIDDING ME?? After what happened today, how can you NOT go into Plan A? Do you not want to bust up this affair and hopefully save your marriage?

Oh please. If I had a dollar for every ho-bag who used the "abusive husband" lie, I would be a millionaire. We see it on here EVERY DAY and it is never true. The OW says this for 2 reasons: a) to garner sympathy and b) to ensure that your H - or you - does not bust her to her "abusive" husband. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Apparently SHE HERSELF is not concerned about getting beaten by her "abusive" H or she wouldn't be having an affair. If she is not worried about it, then why should you be?

So what should my response be to him after he asks me why I exposed the affair? I Am not sure I understand how properly communicate my reasoning. I am about to call his mom.... please help! TIA.

Tell him that you want to save your marriage and will do whatever it takes.

He will be furious and go on and on. He will say how could you do this, how could you hurt her, she will get beat, it's none of your business, he was going to work on the marriage, but now wants a divorce, he will never trust you again, you're crazy, and on and on.

But the fact remains - your marriage is dead meat as long as the affairs continues.

Don't rush into this!

You explain to your MIL that your H is having an affair and you are trying to save your marriage. Ask for her support and prayers. Ask her to speak to her son and ask for her support in saving your marriage. [use this same spiel with other exposure targets]

It is best to expose the affair in one fell swoop to get the maximum impact and to prevent the affairees frm pre-empting you.

I would carefully make up a list, gather your #'s, write out your talking points and do this all in one afternoon.

Put the OW's husband, parents, and possible EMPLOYER at the TOP OF THAT LIST and right after them, add your MIL and BIL and any other of his key family members.

When your H explodes, you tell him that you love him and you will do what it takes to save your marriage. You are sorry he is so upset. You don't let him bait you into a fight;.

Luv-

Believer and Melody are right. You have to re-implement plan A.

I know it *seems* impossible because you are separated....but it's not. I did a separated Plan A and it worked very well.

A lot of Betrayed Spouses get caught up in the "They won't let me fill their emotional needs" thing....they can't exactly stop you. Print out the Emotional Needs Questionnaire on this site.....If you don't think he'll fill it out (most of them won't) then you make an educated guess what his needs are and what order they should be in, and then concentrate on the top 3.

WS's ALL buck you trying to fill their EN's because they feel guilty....you are being so nice and they're off screwing around with someone else.

One of my husband's top EN's was domestic support. I did not keep a very clean house at all. I would neglect doing the laundry, and just throw in a load of what we needed to wear the next day, I left the dishes in the sink after we ate...sometimes until the next night. I had piles of clutter EVERYWHERE. I knew full well that this bothered him...but I thought, if it's not important to me...it's not important. So here's what I did. I went over and cleaned his house (I still had the key) and I made him a nice dinner and left it in the oven on warm so he'd have a hot meal when he got home. Then I proceeded to get my apartment in tip-top shape (He'd come over there to see our daughter) and this wasn't just a one time thing, I have myself trained now, and my house is absolutely spotless at ALL times. (By the way, if there are things he is unhappy with about you...such as my H was with house keeping, you have to not only demonstrate change, but you have to make sure it's a PERMANENT change)

Sexual Fulfillment was also a HUGE EN of my husbands (It is for a lot of men). I started out by going over to his house to pick something up. He was sitting on the couch and I climbed on his lap facing him and began coming on to him. He was trying to gently push me off of him, and saying "Caren....we can't do this anymore"....I didn't let that stop me. I continued doing the things I KNEW he liked, and before you know it we were in bed together. There were a lot of things that I refused to do in the SF department throughout our marriage....but during Plan A, I pulled out ALL the stops. My husband actually asked me one time after SF "Who are you, and what have you done with my wife?" LOL!!!

Another EN that he had was Admiration. I think that he always felt that I was smarter than him...that I looked down on him. It wasn't true, but sometimes I'd tease him about not being able to spell something. Or if our daughter needed help with her english homework, and she'd ask him, I'd jokingly say "Oh, no honey....if you have a homework question....ask Mommy". Well even though I was only kidding, and he never acted like it hurt his feelings...I'm sure it did. And I'm positive he never felt admiration from me. So I went to work on that. I made sure that I complimented him on the things that he did really well. There are TONS of things he does better than I do, and I just focused on those things. I told him that I've always been proud that he was my husband, that I thought he'd always been a great father, that he always worked really hard to support us....etc. etc.

Now ALOT of the time he wasn't very receptive to the things I did, but I didn't let that discourage me...I kept plugging away.

We went into a false recovery...as you can see from my bio line, and we are once again separated (I'm in Plan B again....and he's finally beginning to come out of the fog and he has taken divorce off of the table)...but my Plan A was very VERY good.

When you end up going to Plan B from a FANTASTIC Plan A, your WS will go into withdrawls from YOU.....and they will look to the other person to fill the EN's that you no longer are. Well the OP won't like that one bit...the Affair will go from being fun and romantic and thrilling to being a chore.

Also, as far as exposure goes....that is a must, and you MUST do it in essentially one fell swoop for it to have the most impact. And your WH is going to be so mad at you...they will say what Mel said above..."Well I was going to try to work this out, but NOW I want a divorce", they will say they hate you and never want to talk to you again...yada yada yada, but the anger doesn't last very long, and like Mel said it's not going to destroy your marriage to expose....but not exposing most certainly will.

You need to find out more information on the OW, you need to get details. Do you have the funds to hire a P.I.??? You need to know all you can about her so that you can expose properly.

One more thing, when you found out that WH had taken your son to dinner with the OW you said " did call OW a pig and a homewrecker"......now none of will argue that the OP is a nasty skank.....that they don't deserve to breathe our air.....BUT by insulting the OW you are insulting your WH, because if the OW is a 'pig' and a 'homewrecker' then what must your WH be for choosing to be with her?

I think it was Orchid that said she would call the OP in her sitch Mrs. Smith (Or whatever her last name was) because it emphasized that this person was NEVER going to be Mrs. Luv....and in your case emphasize the MRS. because she is also married.

And yeah.....the whole her husband beats her thing is a load of crap. We do hear that over and over.......your WH may actually even believe that's what's going on...but he is telling you that to keep you in your place...so you won't out them to him.

Okay hon, well we've given you a lot to think about. Get the books (His Needs, Her Needs and Surviving an Affair), start your investigative work, start doing a FANTASTIC Plan A and start making a list of who you will expose to.

You have to trust us, we know what we're doing and we'll be here to support you.

Good Luck and God Bless,

-Caren

Thank you all so much. There isn't any reason for exposure. It's exposed - people know. I found out last night by talking w/one of his business partners. It is out in the open.

I just do not think my WH realizes what the ****** he is doing! This is just SO not like him. He is such a moral man, I cannot believe this at all. I talked to his partner for about an hour and half. I then called WH, and he sounded completely OUT of it, like he had been sleeping, but he said he wasn't - that he was just sitting by himself and feeling physically/mentally horrible. He said "do you realize how mentally F--ked up I am?" His very few words were garbled and I could hardly understand him. It was very odd. I couldn't tell if he was crying or just totally out of it. So, I basically told him that, at the risk of sounding like a broken record....I don't believe we should be giving up on us, that we have far too much at stake here, that I realize my mistakes and the things I need to work on as far as meeting his emotional needs, etc..., I told him that he is just not the man I knew and I am afraid he will be making a very big mistake. b/c when he comes out of this, he will realize what has happened & the former man that I used to know will be back and asking himself "What have I done?"- I told him (for the fifteen thousandth time) that I am willing to do whatever it takes to make things work between us, that we have SO much to save...and so on. He was listening to me and in the middle of it all, I asked him why he wasn't saying anything and he garbled out "I just don't know what to say right now" So we sat in silence for a minute or two and he then said "can I call you tomorrow?" I said yes and that was that.

It is his birthday today. Open for suggestions as to what to do next...TIA - I SO appreciate it.

Luv, exposure doesn't mean a few rumors floating around. It means getting the RIGHT STORY to the right people. If the story is out there, it is spun in a way that makes the affair justifiable. It is your job to get the correct story out there in order to put pressure on the affair.

This affair has not been exposed to the key people, such as your MIL, BIL, the OW's husband, family and employer. That is the foundation of Plan A and until you expose the affair, you are wasting your time.

He will not wake up until you shine the light of reality on his little fantasy and start causing some conflict in affair-land. Remember whose side you are on and stop keeping their secret for them, Luv. By doing so, you are aiding and abetting the affair. at your own expense.

Take him out for a nice dinner and have a pleasant chat about everything but your problems.

I don't have funds to hire a PI and find out more about OW. I am planning to expose to MIL, BIL and maybe his other business partner. They are the key people here.

Mel,
As for his b-day, I highly doubt he would go for that - I am afraid to get rejected if I ask - I would also have to bring the kids, so we wouldn't be able to truly "talk" - how do you suggest I ask him, and in what manner? TIA!

Luv, probably the most potent exposure you could do would be to OW's H, if any, and her family. I would try doing a search on your own if you can't afford a PI. It is too critical of an exposure to pass up. If you have a phone # you can do a reverse look up on www.anywho.com, you can do a search on her name, whatever you have to do to find her family, you should do it.

I'm still not getting anything researching her last name, etc...I don't know her husbands first name, I only her first and last name and cell phone #.

I called WH about 45 mins ago to ask him if he'd consider letting me and the kids take him to dinner, esp. since we have a giftcard that we recvd for Xmas - figured we could use that & his response was "Let me give you a call back"

He just called me back and said "you won't be mad if I say I don't feel up to going to dinner b/c I am still not feeling good at all, stomach-wise?" And I said, "no, I understand if you don't feel good" & he replied "Are you sure?" And I said, "yes, I totally understand" and he said "I'd rather do it another time when I am feeling better" I said "okay, no problem, I understand" And I told him I hoped he felt better. He sounded very calm, mellow and sweet.

What do you think Mel? Gosh, I hate reading into everything all the time.

ok, then plan on bringing him a nice present today and perhaps some soup or something good for his tummy!

Can you get an address on the OW? Try looking her up in ZABAsearch.com

I already gave him his presents from the kids yesterday. I honestly can't even think of something add'l to give him & there wouldn't be enough time anyway as he is only at work for a little while longer - I have our kids and we're over 1/2 hour away.

I am wondering where all his "calmness" is coming from. He is acting very different lately.