I completely agree with ML.

Who cares HOW BS finds out...what is important is that they indeed FIND OUT!

I got a totally and completely unexpected ring at my door on a Monday afternoon and found OW and her BH standing there. He had found out the night before and dragged her to my house to confess to me in person while I stood there with my 4 yo and 2 yo dd's at my feet and my new born dd in my arms. Would that have been my preference for how to find out? Ummmm...irrelevant. I am SO THANKFUL that the OW's BH had the guts to drag her over to my house the very next day after finding out. He didn't let her out of his sight after busting her the night before so my H had NO IDEA they were found out and they never got a chance to pull a "story" together.

BEST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED IN THIS AWFUL SITUATION. I am SO THANKFUL I was told. Our overlapping lives diverged from there...my H and I went into hardcore recovery efforts and today 3 years later have another baby and are recovered and very happy...they filed for D within 4 months of d-day. WHAT you choose to do with the d-day is up to you, but every BS DESERVES a d-day and a chance to CHOOSE what to do with it.

MHO

Glad

He stands heads above some of the gutless wonders we see on this forum. I bet you have never spent one second regretting WHO told you or HOW you were told, have you? These irrelevent side issues are usually only promoted by those who are looking for excuses. When someone is being harmed behind their back, they don't give a RATS [censored] who warns them!

Yes!!

I bang my head on my keyboard when I read about people who are "getting a plan together...getting themselves together...gathering more evidence...waiting for the right moment...wanting to be sure it is the right thing to do" TO TELL THE BS WHAT THEY KNOW!"

I am not usually so fired up about a topic...sorry. But from someone who was told, I am forever grateful that I did not have to live one more day than necessary being a "clueless fool" (my own words about myself, not directed to anyone else at all.)

And, no ML, I have never spent one single second regretting WHO told me or HOW I was told.

Thanks ML for being such an outspoken advocate for exposure.

Glad

My exOMs wife was also my friend. Was she happy to hear from ME that I was having an affair with her husband, nope.

It was one of THE most terrifing moments of my life...to stand on the other end of the phone and rip her heart out...knowing it was all my fault.

Luckily, my husband was on the other phone with me, and we did it TOGETHER.

Suzet...is this something your husband will do with you? I understand the fear (and it may not be cause of what OM thinks of her guys - I read it too - but unless Suzet admits that I wont make that assumption...fear in itself is crippling hense KiwiJ's sitch)

Can you ask your husband to be with you on the phone when you TOGETHER phone his wife? or TOGETHER write a registered letter to his wife that only his wife can open.

Doing it WITH your husband is a great stand to show your husband AND the OMW that you and your husband are a united front now and aren't out for vengence or to steal her husband...

Bingo. That's SO one of my pet hates too. This obsession with evidence. Gimme a break.

I forgot to say in my post - she was grateful to know that her husband had been in an affair....even though she did not enjoy hearing it from the woman he had an affair with...her question to me was - is he leaving me for you? WITH my husband on the phone with me I could say - if he is leaving you, it is not for me as I have chosen my husband and my marriage...which I do believe was slightly reassuring for her.

It needs to be told....

Like I said, I would rather hear it from anyone else but him, but that's just me - it doesn't apply to everyone.


Nowhere does he also say that the POJA is NOT to be used first! (Show me where he says this and I'll retract this statement)!

Of course Harley advocates that all contact should end because that's how to solve the problem of a vast majority of affairs. But NOT all of them!

The same is the case with EXPOSURE.

I'll refer you to this exchange you had with K a few months ago about exposure.

Now, I know you've been around here for a while, and so have I. When I came here the rules were 1 - No love Busters (Rule of Protection); 2 - Meet EN's (Rule of Care); 3- Rule of Honesty (w/ POJA); 4 - Rule of Time (15 hrs/wk).

POJA was the cornerstone to all of this. It is meant to solve all marital conflicts - including the negotiation of the end of an affair (See Surviving an Affair for reference). You try that first, and if that doesn't work then you go to something else.

But ABOVE ALL, YOU TRY IT FIRST!!!!

That is the way you build love. If you gain at the expense of your spouse without trying to negotiate first you are only engaging in love busters, which will only serve to destroy your spouse's love bank.

That was the intent of my post.

-HD

Sorry HurtingDeeply, but ending contact IS NOT A MATTER OF POJA and Dr Harley has never presented it as such. Neither is exposure. This was clarified by Dr Harley on his radio show a couple of months ago.

If you have that impression, let me disabuse you of it real quick. Things that are BAD for the marriage are not NEGOTIABLE issues. You don't negotiate away the recovery of your marriage and that is what you have done by allowing continued contact.

Let's look at his words about continued contact:

Never see or communicate with a former lover

"In spite of career sacrifices, friendships, and issues relating to children's schooling, I am adamant in recommending that there be no contact with a former lover for life. For many, that means a move to another state. But to do otherwise fails to recognize the nature of addiction and its cure."

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html

He does not say "try and negotiate no contact," he plainly says I AM ADAMANT IN RECOMMENDING NO CONTACT." That is a clear misuse of POJA to say otherwise. If contact is not ended, then the next step is Plan B.


huh? And sometimes ppl survive Russian Roulette. Does that mean its smart to recommend RR?

Can you please cite a source for this drivel?

Page 177 of my copy of "His Needs/Her Needs":

"When a man wins a wife back from an affair by learning to meet her needs, he has little to worry about. My couseling experiences have shown that when a straying wife comes back to her husband and finds her needs being met, her former lover often no longer tempts her.

But with straying husbands we have a more serious problem..."

There it is. My situation.

I won my wife back. I have learned to meet her needs. And while she still works in the same office as the OM, he no longer tempts her in any way.

It's not drivel. It's straight from the words of Willard Harley himself back when I was going through the recovery of her affair in 2000.

And it's been six years and we're still doing fine.

-HD

WOW that's some nice selective reading there Bub.

not to mention a nice distortion of Dr Harley's principles to suit your own decision

HD, I am glad your marriage has recovered. But we cannot overlook the CORNERSTONE of Marriage Builders [he actually calls this the "cornerstone'] which is NO CONTACT. His words were:


You cannot leave out this important cornerstone of recovery. We are on a thread where can CLEARLY SEE the outcome of ignoring this advice. There are others on this forum RIGHT NOW who also ignored this advice to their peril and the affair resumed YEARS LATER.

What we see here is what ALMOST ALWAYS happens when this advice is not heeded, HD. So, please excuse me if I express ALARM at your allusion that it is OK to ignore Dr. Harley's advice. IT IS NOT. This woman might very well lose her marriage because she didn't.

If I understand Plan A correctly, it's the BS's attempt to entice the WS to end the affair and recommit to the marriage, correct? Does that not also include trying to negotiate the end of the affair first?

That's my point. The POJA is a tool for negotiation. And it's a good one to learn, too! If you can get your spouse to end the affair (or in my case, had already ended the affair before I found out), what is the point of going any further? Why go through the increased pain of exposure if they have already ended the affair and recommitted to the marriage?

Now, if Plan A (or the negotiation) does not work and the affair is still on, then you go to more drastic steps, such as increased exposure, a time frame to change your marital behaviors through the elimination of love busters, meeting whatever needs you can, etc. Then if that doesn't work you eventually go to Plan B, etc. (You know the drill...)

This was how it was presented to me six years ago. Full exposure to the world back then for me would have been devastating for my marriage, and I probably would not be married today. Now, things may have evolved since then, but it worked for me then and it still works for me today.

-HD

Dr Harley sayd the other BS should always be told too.

Look.

I didn't mean to get into this arguement over semantics. Suzet's situation is much different than my wife's (or most people on this board). I realize that.

And in her case, no contact is a very, very good idea due to her continued weakness towards him.

My main point that I was trying to make to Suzet was that she should talk with her H about how to do exposure to the OM's wife if that's what they both want.

Who knows? Maybe her H doesn't want to tell her? We don't know!!! That's why I was advocating the POJA to begin with. It's usually where everything starts when you look at Dr. Harley's "4 Rules."

What I do recommend, however, is that if they do expose to the OM's wife it should be Suzet's H, not her.

It would be easier that way on everyone, I believe.

And for bigkahuna, let's just agree to disagree. I did not engage in "selective" reading or distort anything. It's right there in the book, and while it doesn't apply to everyone (heck, I'll agree not most), it did apply to me and my wife.

And it served us well.

-HD

HD, the key term here is negotiating an END TO THE AFFAIR. That is not the same as POJAing continued contact. We don't POJA things that are dangerous to the marriage. You don't negotiate IF contact will end, you negotiate THE END in Plan A. It is not negotiable if the marriage is to resume and recover. If contact doesnt end, then it's onto PLAN B.

POJA is a tool that is used to negotiate MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL issues in the marriage in RECOVERY, not things that are DAMAGING to the marriage. Recovery does not start until the affair has ENDED.


I am not sure what you mean by "full exposure" and who has recommended this, but as far as I know, MB has ALWAYS advocated exposing to the betrayed spouses.

I agree that because of the concept of “Radical Honesty” that the OM’s wife in my case should know about her husband’s affair. But as far as I’m concerned, at this point, it’s his responsibility to own up to it – not mine or my wife’s. It’s his marriage, not mine.

Since my wife’s affair is over and has been over for a long time, I’m right now more concerned about strengthening and making my marriage better than to be worried about what’s happening with his family.

-HD

No one is suggesting exposure to the world. It is stated that the OM's wife needs to be informed- this is not an issue of POJA. It is something that needs to be done. HOW it is done can be a POJA- CAN not IF.

It is also stated over and over on this site and in Surviving an Affair that there should be NO CONTACT.

Dr. Harley is adament about exposing to the BS and No Contact.

How does that work exactly? Because I am not getting that. Shouldn't it be the "responsibility" of whomever knows? I thought it was the "'responsibility" of every decent human being to warn someone when they are being harmed behind their back. Shouldn't it be the responsibility of whomever knows?

And actually, since your W was one of the victimizers, shouldn't it be HER responsibility to tell her? Or isn't she "responsible" for her OWN behavior? She screwed this woman's husband after all, so how is she conceivably NOT responsible for her own behavior?

Silly me just thought that it was an act of human kindness to warn someone when they are being harmed behind their back.