because from the e-mails I've read between the 2 and also to the 2 friends she has confided in.

Plus since they got back together in Sept, WW keeps telling him she wants to get a room to go all the way, but he wont do it for some reason.

So I'm pretty sure

Did you expose to OMW?...never mind I just read he was divorced.

Another think WW has indicated to me that she has really enjoyed the good times we've had in the last month, which is an indication that she is willing to try to make the marriage work.

Would bringing her to this forum be benefitial. I did tell her I found a website that was giving me good advice, and she kinda mocked it and made fun of it, but that was right after I told her I had her e-mail passwords, so she was pissed off as well.

Exposing to WW's boss was a good move. The rule of thumb is not to tell your WW you did it but don't deny it when she asks about it. Don't apologize either. One of the important concepts in Dr. Harley’s plan is that you do not attempt to shield your wife from the consequences of her adultery. If she is reprimanded at work, that’s a consequence of the adultery, not exposure. The root of the problem between her and the company is that she’s committing adultery and using corporate resources to keep it going. Let the chips fall where they may. Whatever the financial implications are, your marriage is worth far more.

She's going to be furious, particularly if her boss takes some kind of punitive action. When she confronts you, she’s going to throw a lot of crap at you. She’ll probably tell you something like, “I was going to work on the marriage, but no way, not now…” or, “I can never trust you again. How could you do something like this?”

Let all of her invective flow around you without letting it touch you. I doubt you’ll hear anything members of MB haven’t already heard. It’s as if there is a handbook out there somewhere and all wayward spouses are speaking from it. Don’t apologize for exposing her adultery. Tell her you regret it was necessary to do it, but you did it to save your marriage. Keep that as your mantra. Be calm where she is livid.

Mike, here on MB we talk about aliens a lot. It’s an easy way to refer to the fact that your wife has been doing things she would not have done if her sense of values were still intact, saying things she never would have before, and she’s become entirely incapable of using ordinary logic. She has no idea how her cruel words and actions are hurting you and her son. In fact, she may wonder why you are standing between her and her “soul mate.” She will expect her son to want to meet the OM accept the fact that mom wants to have another man.

Think of your wife as having been taken over by aliens from a mother ship hovering over your hometown. She’s been acting as if she had been absorbed into some kind of collective for a while now. She’s going to get worse as you threaten her nice little fantasy world she and her partner in adultery have constructed around themselves. Expect it. Be ready for the most outlandish things in the world to come out of her mouth, okay?

BTW, have you exposed the adultery to your son? He needs to know, Mike, so he won’t begin to worry he may be the cause of the discord between you and your wife. Children will do that when they don’t understand what’s happening. At his age, he probably already has some idea of what is happening anyway. My youngest daughter was four when her mother began her infidelity. She absolutely knew something wrong was happening.

You WW may even want to move out after she finds out her adultery has been exposed. Some WS’s do threaten that, but few actually do. Of those who do, only a tiny fraction of them are out of the home for more than a couple of weeks.

You cannot stop her if she wants to move out. However, you must make it clear your son is not going to be ripped out of her home because her mother is involved in adultery. Your son stays right where she is. I hope it doesn’t need to be said that you do not even consider moving out. If you do, you set yourself up for a far more difficult time reconnecting with your wife and there are possible legal implications also.

Please do not tell your WW about this website for now. Let this place be your refuge for the time being. You’re going to need a support group. Getting through this is going to be hard, Mike. Adulteries are hard to break up, and long term ones even harder. There are no guarantees you will be able to successfully smash this one, but you’re doing the only things you can to accomplish that. You’re going to need all the allies and support you can get. Let us work with just you for now, okay?



No. What this means is she’s enjoying having you meet her emotional needs that she wants to accept from you while she gets others met by the OM. It’s saying she certainly appreciates you working hard for her and leaving her enough room so she can keep the adultery going too. Here on MB, we call it “cake eating.”


I’m not sure why you’re trying to contact the OM directly. What do you think you’ll accomplish with that? FYI, adultery partners are not a very honorable group of people or they wouldn’t be doing what they are. He knows your wife is married and is intruding into your marriage anyway. If you talk to him, it’s not likely he’s going to change anything he’s doing and he might even bait you into saying or doing something you’ll regret later. Instead, I would find out all you can about this individual by using Internet search engines such as the ones I suggested earlier or hire yourself a PI.

Mike, things are going to get tough for a while. Your wife is going to be enraged that she can’t conduct her adultery freely. Hopefully, she will be embarrassed that her boss and coworkers now know what is going on. Her anger will last for a while, as will her embarrassment. The thing is, Mike, a marriage can survive a huge amount of anger and a ton of embarrassment, but it cannot survive a third person insinuating himself in the marriage. Hang in there. The ride is about to get awfully bumpy.

Oh my, the cats out of the bag, WW just called and is very upset with me for teller her friends husband about his wifes affair and for me telling her boss. She wanted to know who else I've told and who else i'm going to tell.

I told her everyone, friends, family, anyone who will listen.

She's so pissed right now. She scedualed a counceling appointment with our marriage councelor after the 1st d-day, all her did was tell us how to get divorced nicely.

She say's she feels vilolated and her privacy has been broken.

I told her I have a right to know the truth and I wont apologize for exposing her to others as I fell she's worth fighting for and I will do what I have to do to end the affair as I cant trust her to do it.

BTW, we have a son, and while we havnt discussed it outright with him, he I am sure has heard some of our arguments and has heard OM's name enough to know. Also, she has introduced him to the OM.

Things are critical now, She is talking divorce now for sure. Say's i'm completely to blame now and I'm taking no responsibility for what I have done, i.e. spy on her. She say's I had no right to keep reading her e-mails after I exposed to her what I knew on May 13th.

I'm not even gonna talk to the OM now.

should I keep exposing her to others? At this point it has only been her dad and her boss and her friends H. She is fuming mad over me telling her boss. She wanted to know what her boss said, and I told her that she is going to be monitered closely and might lose her job if she uses the internet or phone for personal reasons anytime other than a break or lunch.

My worry is that my wife is very crafty, and I tend to completley lose my train of thought and wont say the right things when I'm confronted. When WW was yelling at me, I remained calm, didnt raise my voice, and told her she is just twisting things around to justify her actions, and that I have a right to the truth, and her actions led me to have to spy on her. and that she shouldnt expect me to from that moment on believe everything she tells me.

Another thing she said on the phone, is that she is resenting me because I keep bringing up things that I have read in the e-mails. And that I'm not suppossed to ever mention them.

I feel much of it is relevant right now, yes eventually I will have to let it go, but right now, I do not believe so.

I told her again, how hurt I have been by so much of what I read, and that I will fight for her as I feel she is worth it, Her reply was she is way more hurt than I could ever be because I spid on her and that I can fight for her all the way to divorce court.

I'm really not happy about her decision to go see this EAP councelor. He did us no good, Plus she had an e-mail I read that said thought he was cute and wouldnt mind dating him. Plus the guy has been divorced like 3 times.

Marriage counseling while she is still in contact is a big old waste of time and money. It would only be divorce counseling as she wants the opportunity to appear as though she "tried" and get the counselor on her side by venting everything about you she can to enable her to continue down this irrational road to destruction. Besiedes...this counselor has already demonstrated his ineptness. Save your money and call the Harley's yourself. YOU are the only one that needs assistance right now and the only sane person currently remaining in this marraige.

Again, read the thread Longhorn suggested..."For Newly Betrayed Spouses" on the just found out board. He and I put a lot of good stuff in there for you to digest.

Everything she is saying now is FOG babble. Do not internalize it. Further, ignore everything you previously read as fog babble. None of it was reality based anyway. YOU can save your marriage but regardless you will make it.

Mr. Wondering

I have read a ton on here today, trust me. Everything is moving much faster than I had hoped, or maybe I am hoping it moves this fast, who knows.

I am not going to the councelor, she is. And like I said, he did everything he could to get us divorced ??????? Told us we had no marriage to fix and so on....At one point I told him I might just go file, and the next night at her session he told her to seek legal council quickly.....

How does one contact the Harley's directley?

Mike_K I was reading your posts and I think your wife is dealing with a type of sexual addiction due to her childhood abuse. Childhood abuse creates some terrible problems. In children they can stuff their emotions and adults looking back trying to reason out the emotions don't know what to do. They may think I deserved it, or I wanted it, or I made it to happen. It's because they are looking back with childhood eyes through and adult mind thinking I should have been able to stop it. Well an adult can, but a child never had a chance to stop it. And that is the problem, the adult is not thinking of themselves as the child. So what happens is they then start thinking, I'm dirty, I'm not clean, I'm a slut, I'm a homo, I'm worthless, I'm unpure....and those become the core beliefs of the person. Once those become the core beliefs that becomes the basis for an addiction and the person is always trying to resolve the emotional pain. For instance if they believe they are a slut and ugly, they will seek out men who say they are attactive and sophisticated. They are looking for approval and someone to lift them up in life. And from there it leads to the sexual relationships because it goes back to the point of the abuse trying to cure what happened.

Also, sexual addicts hide their pain and will lie to cover it up. You can put the truth about an affair right in front of an addict and they will lie. It's because they don't want you to know the truth about their inner self. They don't want you to know about their ugliness, their imperfectness, their impurity, or whatever core belief they have developed. They will lie to extremes to hide those beliefs. Everywhere they can be honest, except about who they are.

Mike,

Will you answer a few questions, please?

1. How much do you know about your wife's abuse? Anything more than you've told us so far?

2. You've been married 17 years... and all of a sudden... there's one long-term physical affair, sexual activity with a neighbor, and inappropriate comments about how cute your so-called marriage counselor is. Do you think this is all new, or do you think maybe there might be more from the past? Any chance she's a long-time serial cheater?

3. What did you do that contributed to the deterioration of your marriage? Can you articulate it? List a few specific things?

Please take a moment to answer these questions if you can Mike. The information you provide will help everyone understand your situation better and give you better guidance for your specific situation.

--SC

Not much, really.... It came out during a marriage counceling session we had years ago.


Wow, I never thought about it, obviousley I want to think it's the only one, but I have no way of knowing. she has 2 close friends that she has been confiding everything to thru e-mails. she has told both of them that the OM is the only one she's ever been with except me sice we got married.


Well, we started off the 1st 6 years with me working nights and her days, we got married and instead of coming closer we drifted apart. she has filed for divorce twice in the past, and we've been seperated twice. But we have always gotten back together.

Our marriage has never been really good, I had gambling problems early on and we lost alot, I had a very short very brief EA with a co-worker that lived across the country, never saw the woman though.

Being depressed I started smoking pot, and playing video games also dabled with pornography online. Dont smoke pot anymore at all, and computer use is minimal now .

I am certainly not an inocent bystander by any means. but have worked hard to fix our marriage many times, but never been able to break that barrier she has put up. the barrier was finally broken on may 13th after I agreed to her still seing the OM, and now I understand why, she got to eat her cake too.
Mike K

Mike,
unfortunately, I have to get off the computer now. I don't have time to respond to your answers, but there's some good info in there, and I hope some others will come along with some advice. Just didn't want you to think I left you hanging on purpose.
--SC

Those are addictive habits too.....it's possible the two of you are co-addictive. Now that would be interesting to find out. It may be that you have been feeding on each others dysfunctions.

Told you she would be furious. She used a variation on the "trust" thing I talked about but it's inherent in the things she’s complaining about (spying and exposure). I love to hear about the “invasion of privacy” comment. It’s an indication of how fogged out they really are. Your WW is essentially complaining about the fact she doesn’t have any privacy in which to conduct her adultery. How sad.

Stay on message, Mike. You’ve exposed because you want to save your marriage. You’re doing well. Keep on maintaining your temper under good control. You can’t react with anger yourself at this time, okay?

She’s angry, Mike, because Fantasyland is not nearly as wonderful a place as it was before you found out about her infidelity. She’s mad as a hornet because things aren’t looking so good now. People know…and she’s been trying to hide that at all costs. Cracks are beginning to appear in that foggy facade he and she have built up around them to explain why they’re committing this obscenity.

Keep it up. Expose to anyone else who can put pressure on this adultery. Church leaders and/or congregations, professional societies or associations she belongs to, siblings, friends and associates, your son, etc., are all targets for exposure.

I’m sorry I got your child incorrectly identified in my earlier post. I edited that post so everything is right now. If I were you, Mike, I’d stop any further contact between your son and this OM. Your wife has no right to mess with your son’s mind like that. Again, I think if you sit your son down and explain what is going on rationally, he’ll be in a much better place. Tell him you’re fighting to keep his family intact and he’ll understand.

As you’ve noted, she’s threatened divorce before. Right now, it’s just an angry outburst and something many pissed off wayward spouses say. If she does go to an attorney, though, you’re going to have to protect yourself and your son by seeing one also. You might see a lawyer before she does and have something drafted up to ensure she cannot loot your joint accounts and force you out of the home.

This doesn’t mean you can’t still do a great Plan A. In fact, you’ll have a perfect reason to not talk about divorce with her. You can say you only talk marriage and refer to your attorney for talks about divorce. If you have to hire an attorney, pick a mean, cold-hearted bulldog, Mike. You’d be getting one for self-defense, not to be nice to anyone else in the world but you, okay?

You said you have trouble keeping your train of thought in these discussions. How about making it a firm policy, a boundary you set for yourself, that you don’t make any decisions in a discussion when either you or she is angry. Also, I was a senior NCO in the USAF and found that I would get caught up in the moment when I was counseling a subordinate on a particularly difficult issue. I got into the habit of using a small, unseen tape recorder to tape the sessions to check myself and see if there was anything I missed or misinterpreted. You might be able to adapt that to your circumstances.

Hang in there, Mike. When she comes home, she’s going to spew invective at you like you never saw before. She’ll use words you didn’t even know she was acquainted with. Let it go right past you without responding with anger. She’s an alien right now, Mike. Keep that in mind. It’s the alien talking and not your wife. Keep an image of an ugly alien head superimposed over your wife’s features when she spews, Mike. It’s not really her doing this.

Longhorn, you were right, she got home and was furious with me, called me some names and said she wanted a divorce immeadiatly....... all FOG babble, but she's serious in her mind, the only thing she is worried about is herself right now.

She told me she made an appointment with the same councelor that we saw last time for 6pm tonight <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />
She wants nothing to do with me and me out of her life, we talked(well, I talked and she thru insult after insult) for about 45 minutes then she left for her counceling session.

It's 11pm now, she just went up to bed and we just got done talking for a couple of hours. She's still extremly pissed, but calmed down a whole lot, her councelor told her that I had no right to invade her privacy and tell other people and let them know our business, totally discounting the fact that she has taken e-mails in the past from me to her and forwarded them to her friends for their opinionand to ****** about me. It's okay for her.... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

He told her to take a few days, weeks to straighten things out and to 100% cut off her contact with the OM. That she shouldnt do anything that she wouldnt be proud to tell our son about. At this point she say's she's going to do that.

She is convinced she's going to lose her job tomorrow, for violating her companies internet use since AI exposed her to her boss, especially after her boss sat her down on a 1 on 1 2 weeks ago reprimanding her for to much internet use during non braeks and lunches.

I relitterated that grief and harm she caused to me by having the affair and the pain it caused me and that's what let me to do what I did.

I did not appologise for doing it, although I was regretful that it came to that.

At this point, she doesnt want marriage counceling right now(she's still angry and I think I need to just back off and give her some space. I'm noty going to stop telling her I love her and I'm not going to stop being the best husband and father I can be, but I do think I need to let her collect her thoughts. What ever happens is going to happen.

I contacted 3 of her friends as well, 2 wouldnt talk to me, and the 3rd told me I was wrong for involving any family and friends, but did tell me she thought I was a great catch and has been telling WW that she should stay with me. I did tell alot though, not sure where it will go, WW thinks she will tell their circle of friends. I also told WW f about her flirting with our neighbor whose wife is in that circle of friends. I do not want his wife and him to know about it(well, obviously he knows, but not his wife)
My WW wife may come around, she's scared right now and as you said everything is unfolding right before her eyes.

During our talk tonight, I told her I feel somewhat responsible for giving her reason for straying, although that desicion to do so was hers and hers alone, and all I can do at this point is recongize what I've done wrong and correct them and I will, but I'll need help in doing so.
Thank you all for so much, these are trying times, and I know I can do it, just not sure if she will.
Mike

her councelor told her that I had no right to invade her privacy and tell other people and let them know our business,

Whoa. Perfect illustration of how dangerous IC can be for a WS. Worst case they validate the individual no matter how reprehensible their behavior. This IC sounds like a peach. How is what's happening in YOUR marriage not your business? Were your WW single THEN her dating life would not be your business. Unbelievable. SO irresponsible. These counselors should have their licenses taken away and be SUED. Can you tell I had a bad experience with a counselor in the course of my WW's A?

Mike,

First of all, you seem to be doing really well. Staying calm. Staying on message. Keep it up.

It seems to me, you guys have a lot of issues to sort through. You say she has always had a barrier up... very common among we childhood sex abuse victims, I'm afraid... and very hard to break down.

But I don't want to put the cart before the horse here. The immediate goal is simply to get your wife to recommit to working on the marriage. You're getting great strategy guidance for that from Longhorn. I hope you're studying his posts carfully. The only thing I see lacking in his advice (no offense LH) is sympathy/empathy for your WW. Maybe I can help you with that a bit....

Your wife is in a lot of emotional pain right now. She may not be showing it, but trust me, she is. And there's going to be more pain once she starts to face what she's done and take responsibility for it... that's why she'll avoid doing that for awhile.

You are right that the affair was 100% her choice. You cannont push your spouse into someone elses arms. However, you can (and I think you DID) do things to push her AWAY. The sooner you take responsibility for those things... start changing them... tell her and show her how serious you are about being a better husband... the better. That's why I asked you what you had done to contribute to the problems in your relationship. I was trying to get you to acknowledge those things so you can tell HER how sorry you are for them... and then take steps to fix the damage.

Mr. C and I sort-of had two d-days. A couple of weeks after my affair ended... I told him I didn't love him and didn't know if I wanted to stay married to him. Then, about three weeks after that, I admitted to the affair. His reaction on both D-days BLEW ME AWAY!

On the first day... I expected him to say something along the lines of, "What!!! We're married 13 years and have two kids and now you decide you don't love me. W*** T** F***!! You know, this isn't the life I wanted, but I did it for you and now you tell me you don't love me!! I just wasted the last 13 years of my life! Good riddance!" Instead, I got, "When you said you don't love me and may want to split up... I was just so shocked. But then I asked myself: What have I done to show this woman I love her the last several years... what have I given her... how have I showed her how much she means to me? And the answer came back loud and clear -- nothing! I'm so sorry. I don't want to stay in theis relationship if you really don't want me, but please give me a chance to make it up to you and show you that I can be the kind of husband you deserve."

Mike -- I couldn't believe my ears. I was ready to walk... didn't see any hope... but his words stopped me in my tracks.

In my case, I had good reason to believe that he didn't care much about me or the marriage. But the point is... whether or not you gave your wife any real reason to feel the same way... I bet she does fel that way anyway. And I think it could be very powerful and persusaive for you to tell your wife again, and in detail, that you know you did things to make her feel unloved and not cherished... and that you want another chance to do better.

Also a word about snooping...

What I'm about to write has nothing to do with whether you have the RIGHT to snoop... just an attempt to help you see her perspective... understand part of the reason she feels so threatened by it (aside from the reasons others have mentioned about it making it harder for her to carry on her affair). Okay?

I'm still in the process of figuring some of this out myself, so I hope I can articulate this clearly...

As you know, like your wife, I was sexually abused as a child... never worked through it... and kept it mostly a secret for years. In order to keep the secret (and this is what many of us do)... I learned to put on a happy face no matter how scared, sad, or ashamed I was feeling inside. I learned to hide big chuncks of myself from the world and those closest to me. I learned to survive by keeping secrets. I learned to commpartmentalize different parts of my life and myself. And I never learned how to shut off that defense mechanism when I no longer needed it. It became a way of life.

Those of us who have hurtful, shameful secrets from childhood learn to guard our secrets and emotions with ferocity. And anyone poking into our "private" stuff... feels like a MAJOR threat. An attack. A serious violation.

So please understand that when she reacts so strongly to your snooping... part of it is that you're messing with her fantasy world... but part of it simply scares the sh** out of her. When keeping secrets has become a means of survival... at least in her mind... any attempt by you to expose those secrets against her will feels like an attack on her very life.

Listen, I know that may seem melodramatic... but trust me... I know what I'm talking about here.

You have the right to know the truth about your marriage. And if the only way to do that is to snoop, so be it. But please try to understand why she feels violated when you do.

--SC

SC,
TY for responding, Last night I did acknowledge all those deeds in my past, and I did apologize for all of them and I did tell her that I loved her and loved her enough to get help to change my way's. I told her I didn't have all the answers to know how and what all I had to do and wanted to get real marriage counseling help to do that, NOT some EAP councilor that we went to last year and she went to last night.

What your saying about the abuse and the wall she has put up seems to make sense to me, but again I don't know ANYTHING about that kind of stuff.

Right now my WW is caught up in the fact that I exposed her to her boss and a couple of her friends, and that I was reading her e-mails when she thought that on May 13th we had an agreement and everything was worked out, and that we were telling each other the truth from then on, and that this great month we've had has all been a big lie as she feels she was duped.

I told her it was and that it was real, and she said don't tell me how to feel, those are my feelings and nobody can tell me how to feel(her IC talking) She knows what she did is wrong, but is not grasping with the effects it has caused and turning everything around to make her feel better.

SC, I wish somehow I could put you in contact with her, right now she knows I'm getting advice from a website, but doesn't know what site, and she mocks it anytime I bring it up. Not sure how she would react If I asked her to or even how to ask her.
TY,
Mike

Mike,

Real quick -- You're doing great. Just keep telling her that you're doing all that you are doing to try to save your marriage.

Part of that May 13th agreement was an "open" marriage. Is she still asking for that?

All the things she's saying are pretty typical. But she's still there, right?

I'd avoid telling her anyting about this site for now. Make everything you do and say "YOUR" idea... otherwise, she'll accuse you of being "brainwashed" by a bunch of "fanatics".

One step at a time.

Hang in there,
--SC

ok, will do

I've told her that that is not an option, I am the man in her life and will not be part of an open anything


For now yes, although I wonder if she had the resourses if that would be the case, but yes she is still here.


It is hard, I'll keep the site hidden then, it's just hard because she is hurting right now, and while I know she brought it on by herself by her actions, i'm still the one that exposed her, and I KNOW it's the right thing to do, but just hard because I care so much for her....