My wife wants me to move out. Her parents are visiting us until Sunday. They know about her A and don't think it's right, but still think the only way for us to move forward is for me to leave the house. This I believe is nonsense. I have reason to believe FIL will try to convince me to leave while he is visiting. I have had a good relationship with him for 13 years but now he can't forgive me for exposing his daughter's affair. He's a CEO and a hard charger. Usually gets what he wants and she's Daddy's girl for sure. How should I approach this conversation? Mr. Wondering had some ideas and advised me to post the question to everyone on Marriage Builders. I appreciate any advice anyone can give me. I respect my FIL but I believe he is enabling his daughter to avoid responsiblity for her choices in order to spare her some personal pain. Again, thanks for any help.
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You are exactly right - you moving out is no way to save the marriage, or protect your family. Explain to your FIL that you intend to be an honorable man and will do what it takes to keep your family intact. Your children deserve it.

You can add that you cannot control your wife's actions, and if she chooses to leave, that is her choice. But you choose to stay.

I have not read your whole story so if I get something wrong I am sorry.

Tell him you are not the one who is moving out. If she wants someone gone she should leave herself since she is the one having the Affair. She should also leave by herself since your children deserve a responsible parent.

You are standing up for your marriage. How would FIL like it if you were cheating on his daughter and asked her to move out of her home? I would ask him that.

She needs to be help accountable for her actions. Good luck to you!

After you nicely tell him what believer just said, and if he keeps it up and is a jerk, tell him to go &^%$# himself - there is no way I would take crap like that from anybody (of course I take more crap from W than I should, but no one else).

Believer,
Thanks for the reply.
FIL has said in a letter to my dad that he believes I am fighting for an unattainable goal. That of keeping my broken family together. FIL thinks the "toll of pain I am exacting from my family is too great. Especially for my wife, son and daughter". In laws think there is no hope for the marriage, based on my exposing the Affair, plus whatever foggy stuff their daughter told them. MIL has gone through her memories of the last 13 years and cherry picked examples of why we should never have been married. i.e. she thinks we had the kids to try to fix the marriage! Foggy.

bump.

And your response to this should be, "FIL, I am not the one exacting pain from my family. I am trying to keep my family in tact. It is your daughter who is exacting the pain with her ****** around at the expense of our family - especially our son and daughter."

I will tell you this as an example of the pain that will be exacted on your son and daughter going forward. My XH lives in another country - we have been divorced and he has been living there for 2 years now. Several weeks ago, my DS (4), told me he is sad because we are different and its "not the same." When I asked him what's not the same, he replied, "our family, we're not a family." My XH is now here visiting our DS. When he arrived at our house and he, myself, DS and our two dogs were all in the same room, DS said (unprompted), "We're a family, again."

Regards,

BB

Exactly what company is he the CEO of?

Infidelity, Inc.?

Calmly and firmly explain to him that you run the business of your life following certain principles. One of these is taking personal responsibility for your actions. You believe others should do the same. If his daughter wants to separate from you, she is free to do so. She chose to conduct an affair and if she doesn't want you around, she can take the responsibility to move out.

"Believing my exposure of the affair is the cause of the failure of our marriage is like you blaming your financial auditors when they report you've bankrupted the company."

Please tell me the name of the company so I can make sure I don't own their stock. if you don't want to post it here, e-mail it to me at mbwat@comcast.net

You're getting some excellent suggestions, Lost. Any conversational topic that gets back to the fact that it is the adultery that has caused the problem is a good way to go.

FIL could also be informed of some of the things you have learned here on MB, for instance. You know WS's rewrite history. Ask FIL what catastrophic problems he heard about in your marriage before she committed adultery. Ask why they became problems after the fact.

Perhaps, if prompted, FIL would share with you the circumstances in his marriage where problems in his marriage would have been solved by his wife indulging herself by having sex with another man. Perhaps he could point out passages in his church's teachings where that's appropriate. Ask him why adultery is acceptable but counseling and working through a couple's problems are not. FIL seems to badly need a shock to get him considering this whole thing in moral terms.

Ask him what his daughter has told him your marriage's worst problem is. Then ask him what the appropriate response to that problem should have been. There must be a zillion things he could be asked. At this point, there's no down-side for putting him on the spot and making him think. How could things be made worse?

.......in addition to longhorn's suggestions, also recognize that by extension, a failure on his daughter's part reflects badly on him. Hence, to an arrogant CEO, she cannot be wrong.

WAT

Expanding upon Wats comment above perhaps you can challenge him by informing him that sometimes success takes perseverance. Try utilizing terminolgy he understands.

That you intend to persevere and though it all may seem hopeless now, you have not giving up hope. Ask him the following questions:

Why do you see this as hopeless, have you not succeeded at times against seemingly overwhelming odds?

My research demonstrates that most affairs do not result in divorce and in the event of divorce most individuals and kids do not end up happier, do you not understand that saving this marriage is the most likely thing and best thing that could occur regardless of the current circumstances? (see this link for support)

Divorce and happiness

Don't you tell your employees "not to give up" and "keep trying", I mean wouldn't you rather see our marriage and family remain intact?

You could be an asset to such goal or a liability, that is your choice. I hope you'll at least give me a chance and support me, I love your daughter in spite of her flaws and these recent events and want to save OUR marriage...what do you say?

Just some thoughts.

Mr. W

With the attitude that your actions throughout the entire conversation are going to speak louder than your words.

So what do you want your actions to say? Do you want them to say, "I can listen respectfully to another point of view, even when I don't agree with it"? Then you might want to listen carefully to what your FIL has to say, ask questions when you need clarification, but not to be sarcastic, and thank him for being honest with you.

Do you want your actions to say "I'm trying to understand what went wrong here and what my part in it might be"? Then you might want to agree with anything your FIL says that you know to be true, even if you think it undercuts your argument.

Do you want your actions to say, "You should quit talking so I can explain just how right I am and how your slut of a daughter is lucky I'm willing to take her back"? I think you can figure out how to do that one on your own.

Keep in mind, your home is your home. You don't have to win an argument with your FIL in order not to move out of it. It is perfectly possible for you to listen respectfully to your FIL, acknowlege any good points he might make, thank him for talking to you, and then stay put.

Great post Elspeth,

I agree. Listen, respect your FIL and know you'll likely be unable to educate him. Of course, if he is amenable to listening you can set out some of the stuff we discussed above. However, if FIL has only one objective and that's to talk, not discuss, then hear him out, clarify, acknowledge and politely if you must disagree.

Do not allow FIL to engage you in an argument (nor a fight obviously). If he raises his voice, you lower yours, if he yells, you whisper and politely see yourself out of the conversation. You don't have to take crap from him in your own home but what will defending yourself or becoming hostile ever accomplish. Chances still are that you will save your marriage and have a continuing relationship with this man, so tread wisely.

Good luck, Mr. Wondering

p.s.- I was thinking also it might be best if you take the conversation to HIM instead of waiting for him to come to you. He'll be less geared up with exactly how he wants to attack the situation and he'll be more in the defensive postion. Use business pyschology on him. Try to approach him when he's seated in a comfy couch and you pull up a hard chair. Corner him if you can. You want to be above him, your head at a higher elevation than his, and you in the dominant position. If he corners you in such position, get up. Sit on a table or desk but do not allow him to speak down to you or place you into a corner literally.

Additionally, copy his mannerisms. If he folds his arms, you fold yours then open and try to get him to follow. Folded arms and crossed up legs are a defensive posture and you want him to open up and relax. He may try to do the same to you so watch out. Good luck.

Thanks very much to everyone for responding. I think I'm better prepared for whatever happens now. I'll post here with any updates from the weekend.
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Agree very much. Nor do you have to justify yourself to your FIL. He may not agree with your reasoning, but that is his issue to deal with, not yours. So, don't be nervous, you don't have to win a debate and you don't have to justify yourself.

Well, FIL never brought up any controversial subjects. He was very nice in fact. Better than cordial. I got home on Friday and both kids ran for the door yelling Daddy!:)
He made steaks for dinner which were great. Shopgirl came home and ate with us. In-laws helped out at the shop a lot on Sat. I dropped by with the kids to give Shopgirl a cappucino and take her car to be inspected. MIL invited me to go to church with them Sat. night. I went along. Shopgirl showed up too and stayed for the whole Mass. We all went out to dinner after that. Her store seems to be doing well. FIL made sure he was never alone with me it seemed. I'm not sure what's going on. Last time we spoke they seemed pretty intent on my moving out.

I left her a message from work this morning asking if she was going out tonight. She actually called me back and said she didn't think so. This is more of a response than I usually get. I wonder if plan A is having any effect?

Don't start wondering if your Plan A is working. That is a sure way to lose energy. You need to expect to do Plan A for several months, without any appreciation or changes from her. It is like growing a garden. You rototill it, put in soil amendments, plant the seeds, water it, remove the weeds, and wait.

It would be silly to go out the next morning, expecting the vegetables to be growing. It is the same way with Plan A.

Believer, that's the best description of Plan A that I ever read.

It needs framing.