By all means, this is a call you have to make - and you seem to be weighing the right pros and cons.

If you choose not to reveal any hard evidence - be ready for denials and more denials. Don't try to get her to un-deny. When she denies, just say, "I know this to be true. You know this to be true. Denying it does not make it untrue."

In one way, NOT showing evidence can be very powerful. She'll know you're on to her and it'll eat at her how you know. If she guesses or tries to guess where you got the info or , "Why would you think such a thing???" just repeat the "I know this to be true..." mantra. "How I know is irrelevant." She will expend a LOT of time and energy trying to figure out how you know and preventing you from knowing more. The affair will instantly become less glamorous and fanciful. Follow me?

Believe it or not, right now you are the most powerful man on her planet. She doesn't know it yet, but she will if you pull off the confrontation with calmness and confidence. Go in there knowing you have the upper hand.

WAT

I follow you. I have played this out in my mind and I think you and are on the same page. how i know is irrelevant. the fact is it's going on and she's not being honest with me, herself, this marriage, or her son. i will stick to my guns and if i need to reveal a little to her to show that i know, i think i can do so without her knowing where i got the info from. i'm sure a lot of the stuff she is typing in the e-mails she is saying on the phone. i know that talk several times throughout the day. my guess is she will immediately come home and pack her stuff to move in with her grandparents (they are local). i'm sure she will still be in contact with him from their house thinking that i either bugged her room or got stuff somehow from our home computer.

i know i can be calm and i have prepared myself for the worse. i anticipate her leaving the session immediately. if she does do i go after her? i want her to know that i still love her no matter what she has done and that we can still work things out between us.

What's your relationship with them? They need to be one of the first you expose to - maybe even before the confrontation. The point here is that once you confront her with your knowledge and if she runs off to Grandma's house, she'll first paint you as the villain to them. This also illustrates why a BS should NEVER hint to a WS that exposure is coming - it gives them a chance to make a pre-emptive strike. To a WS, the best defense is a good offense. Rgeardless, if she runs off to them, you should immediately expose to them in your best "I want to save my family" demeanor. Go over there and do it in person - staying calm and cool, allowing her to make a fool of herself.

I say no. Stay with the MC and talk about what just happened. If the MC is worth a chit, he/she will recognize what's going on. This is why I suggested you wait for the session for the confrontation. Where will your son be?

Keep in mind that a predictable reaction of a WS soon after such a mysterious confrontation is stark paranoia. She's gonna go bananas. If she up and leaves, this will be confirmation that she knows she's been busted.

JMHO

WAT

my son will be at the grandparents house that she will eventually run to. she will drop him off and then meet me at the session so there is no chance for me to expose to them before the session. i can't risk them saying something to her before she goes.

my plan is to expose to her, then to them and then make my rounds to the rest of the family.

her and her dad are close in a way but right now they aren't talking. she says that she doesn't like her dad but deep down i know that is not true. should i expose to him at all? she may be bitter enough at him that she could care less what he thinks, but i deep down inside she is daddy's little girl. they are just both really stubborn and go through these long periods of time where they get mad at each other and don't talk.

Absolutely expose to him.

It doesn't matter so much what people you expose to do with the information - it matters that people know and that the WS knows that they know. When word gets around and she confronts you about who else you told, tell her the truth! Exposure can't work if the WS doesn't know she's been ratted!

But be ready with your "save the family" mantra. Exposure is a HUGE LB to WSs - maybe the biggest of all. They naturally jump to the conclusion that the BS is trying to hurt them in revenge, but this indicates that it's having the desired effect - shame. Let's be frank - the active ingredient in expposure IS shame.

When she spews her poison at you, your response, "I understand your concern. My highest goal is the preservation of our family and building a new and better marriage with you. Removing the secrecy of your affair is the first step."

WAT

Awesome advice. I almost looking forward to friday. i think exposing to her dad should be very interesting. he and i don't really get a long that much, but he will be crushed to know that his daughter is acting this way.

After i expose to family i think i am going to go to friends and co-workers. it's not that i want to hurt her, i just agree that everyone needs to know.

At every stop, profess your devotion to your family and your wife. This is vital. The folks you expose to need to see your noble goals. Portray the opposite of revenge. Makes sense, right?

For a newbie BS, much of this seems counterintuitive. But once you reason it out with your brain and not your emotions, it all comes together in a sensical way. Think before you speak and act and use your brain. Avoid using your emotions. Get a handle on this and you can hardly go wrong.

The next most important thing to keep in mind is that haste makes waste. Don't do any of this stuff in a hurry. Time is on your side, because when you hesitate, the affair still continues to burn up fuel. Sometimes doing nothing is the best course - because you avoid screwing it up. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> The affairees are pretty good at screwing it up themselves.

WAT

i don't know that i follow you here. what do you mean by not doing anything? or are you telling me not to hesitate with exposing? in essence, expose from one family member to the next as soon as i can?

another question i have for everyone is i've read that sometimes exposure has no affect on women and only gives them the reason they wanted to go be with om. i guess i have to be prepared for that.

has anyone out there been through this first hand and can speak one way or the other?

No, No. - sorry.

I was talking in general terms, not about exposure.

Sorry for the confusion - I understand completly how I confused you.

I meant that generally for affair related stuff, don't be in a hurry and if you have ANY doubt about what to do, do nothing.

I guess exposure is one area that requires deliberate, non-hesitating action.

Cleared up?

WAT

got it

In my opinion, there are no gender differences regarding exposure. WSs may have wide variation in their reactions, but it doesn't seem to be related to gender to me.

As I said, exposure is a huge LB. Any LB'ing by the BS can be reinforcement to go be with the OP.

This isn't such a bad thing. They'll lean on the OP for support and often the support vanishes.

Bottom line - exposure is a calculated LB. It'll make the WS madder than anything else possibly can. The upshot is that - like chemotherapy - it kills the disease a little faster than it kills the patient. One step backwards to take two steps forward.

WAT

That's my biggest fear is that it's such a big LB that she goes running into his arms. as much as i love her, i guess that would answer a lot for me. after all we've been through, for her to turn to a guy with a bunch of good pickup lines during tough times would tell me a lot.

i know she will resent me initially and i guess only time will tell if she will see the error of her ways. i just don't want her to hurt herself and destroy the rest of her life with a bad emotional decision.

No, no, no, pc.

You're still thinking of her as a rational person.

Re-read Rule #1.

Read all the stuff in the Affair Exposure 101 link in my sig line below. You should conclude that exposure, such as you're about to do, is the very, very, very best weapon in your arsenal. Bar none.

"Running into his arms" sounds so romantic and beautiful, huh? Don't buy into this crap. Affairs are ugly business and there's little shine left after exposure. Oh, they may try to re-make the glitter. But it's soiled. Stay the course, man.

i just received a call from my attorney's office and they told me that getting into ww's e-mail is illegal. given that and the fact that i now don't have any proof, do i still try to pull off exposure this week?

can i do it just by telling her that i know and give her some vague bits of information that would prove that i know?

a little lost and definitely scared right now. need some advice.

I dont think she cares much about it being your fathers day now. WSs are very selfish at this juncture. I actually exposed to my wife what I new about her affair on my birthday because she got a phone call at my birthday dinner with a few of my friends there to watch as she frantically ran out of the house to go see the OW in the hospital. They can be so fricken insensitive.

I say don't delay the exposure.

You "know" about the affair and with whom - just proceed.

If ultimately she finds out you got into her e-mail, oh well. You were trying to protect your marriage. She can rant and rave all she wants about how you illegally found out she was having an affair. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Congrats to her.

WAT

Here's the situation. I met with an attorney yesterday and he told me that what i did is very illegal. he said that i need to destroy all the evidence immediately. without that evidence all i have is accusations (even though i know the truth). i could show her the e-mail and the attorney said that i may not get prosecuted for what i did, but that in a custody hearing it would not fair well for me getting custody.

without any evidence that i can show her or her family, if i just tell her i know, she will just deny deny deny. her family may choose not to believe me without proof and now the whole thing blows up in my face.

my other options are to hire a PI to catch them together one of these times they see each other.

another option is to confront her with the reality of what it would cost to go to court and fight for custody and that neither one of us can affor that financially, so she can either end the affair and we can start to work on us or we can come to an agreement of joint custody and do an uncontested divorce. if i do that, she is going to have to agree to a lot of things that i don't think she would agree to.

any thoughts? given these new circumstances, should i start a new thread and include a link to this one?

Well, frankly I'm surprised at that legal opinion. I have NEVER heard of anything comparable being described here before.

It makes no sense to me that having those e-mails are going to adversely affect your custody issue over what they show - YOUR WIFE IS HAVIBG AN AFFAIR! Duh!!!

We all know that the (US) courts don't usually consider adultery in divorce and custody matters - hard to believe they'd consider it THIS way.

I say don't destroy the e-mails without a second opinion.

Hire a PI.

I'll put out a call for MBers with legal credentials to see this.

WAT

Is the attorney talking about the personal email account or the work one? I can see where accessing the work one might be illegal.