You misstated originally, then. You did NOT break your promise or agreement. she did. she rendered it null and void, which leaves you obligation free and clear to snoop.
[Unless the only reason you found she broke NC, was by you snooping before you knew]

Not at all the same situation as I'm in. So your example does not translate to it somehow being ok for me breaking my promise to my wife.

To me, a promise is a promise, end of story. unless the person you make it to, releases you from it. either directly, or by breaking conditions that you made the promise under.

Well then Techie you shouldn't have a problem because your wife is definitely unrepentent and still a wayward spouse. I PROMISE YOU she IS directly "breaking conditions that you made the promise under". If you can't assume that based upon her current actions and behavior and you refuse to snoop to directly confirm that because of this promise then you my friend might as well give up today.

I know this stuff is hard Techie. It is. You believe that you must maintain that promise, against all reality, when in fact the "promise" she manipulated you to give was under false pretenses. She had no intention of honoring any promise to you and she continues to dishonor you.

BTW, JUST CAME UP WITH THE ANSWER....if you expose to the OM's family (which I believe you didn't promise not to do) Then 10 minutes later your wife calls you and berates you for such exposure...then you've got your confirmation that she is "breaking conditions that you made the promise under". How else did she find out unless she was in contact with OM???? "Promise problem" solved without having to snoop. You'll be release from such bogus promise.


Mr. Wondering

For what possible reason, other than helping her maintain her affair, would you EVER agree to not snoop? Do you not see what a bad promise that is, techie? That is the kind of promise that could very well hinder your ability to save your marriage. I haven't a clue how you imagine it is a sign of "credibility" to keep a promise to help an infidel hide her affair. There is absolutely nothing credible about that at all

I borrowed this from Mimi's thread titled "The Art of War by Sun Tzu".






I behoove you to read the rest of that thread and get into the FIGHT/WAR for your marriage.

Your honor will truly be defined by how you ACT in furtherance of YOUR commitment/YOUR vow to love, honor and PROTECT your wife. Not whether you keep some silly promise. You are to be the HERO of the story, saving your wife from utter darkness. If you fail, don't allow it to be because YOU failed to exhaust all known opportunities available to you. IMHO, HERO's don't give up nor give in to fear.

Mr. Wondering

okay okay back briefly :-}


You are under a false premise. there were no conditions. I made the promise to her of my own free will. not out of being forced to. but because even before this A, she has privacy issues. Major Privacy Issues.
(yes yes I know about openness and honesty in marriage, etc, etc. I believe in that. she doesnt. she's a long way from accepting that framework)

To answer Melody's msg: I'm not "helping her hide the affair". I'm just not actively digging it out further myself. I already know it is there.
If she ever agrees to NC, I will ask her to release me from the promise. it will be a precondition.

She's not even close to agreeing to NC. I'm fairly sure they're in contact. So being able to snoop and verify that at this point, doesnt gain me anything as far as I can see.
In counterpoint, showing that I am capable of respecting her space and privacy, avoids what she put in a lovebuster questionnaire as crucial to her. Yes, it's a "foggy" LB. but it's hers all the same. SO, even if I didnt make it a "promise".. if there's no gain in snooping right now, and harm in snooping... i should not snoop.


and as a final word: to paraphrase numerous novels, stories, movies, whatnot: If to defeat evil, good has to become evil.. then good has already lost. I dont view snooping as evil. but breaking a promise is.

I understand the need to do "painful" things, for the long-term good. But breaking a promise unilaterally, is an absolute bad. It's what she has done. Reguardless of how she views it... It is not acceptible, to ME, to go back on my word.
When the time comes... IF the time comes... she must agree to release the promise, or we cannot go forward.

Ya know, it's funny after all the things people were saying, about "you gotta expose! to everyone! right away!!"
...
but then I finally got a copy of "Surviving an affair"..., and maybe I missed it, but it says nothing about exposure. I did read it kinda fast... there's a whole lot of stuff that is already "known" to me from the main site. but I didnt see any mention of exposure in it.

my copy was printed in July 2005

techie, he counsels exposure and talks about it almost daily on his radio show. It is a tried and true MB principle that we learned from him. BUT... ya don't "gotta" do nothing we say, it is your life! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Techie...

What is your plan right now?

You know, if YOU change nothing, nothing changes...

Mrs. W

Huh. forgot about the radio show. and it's actually from "Harley Sr.", the guy who wrote the book? INteresting.

So why didnt he revise the book, given that it is being reprinted as recently as a year ago? [sounds like a good question for the radio show, heh]

Also, here's an interesting counterpoint. I have now had three sessions with "Harley Jr." (Steve) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> and not once has he brought up exposure. He has given me suggested actions, that I would categorize as a "pure" plan A, as described by SAA. no exposure mentioned.

techie, you can ask him yourself. But you are also free to reject any advice you don't want. Take what you need and leave the rest.

I have changed something. Myself. Drastically.

One of the few things my wife agreed to do after the separation, was proofread a lovebusters questionnaire, that I attempted to fill out, "as her".
I got it pretty much right,except for frequencies. I include the corrected answers here, in rank order:

#1: selfish demands, 4 times a month
#2: prying/nosiness (yeah yeah I know)
#3: Disrespectful judgements, 1 time a week
#4: angry outbursts, 2 times a month
#5: dishonesty 2-3 times a year.
(probably referring to times I have given her impression
I was not snooping on her, but still had something going)
#6: annoying behaviour (nagging, frequency unspecified)

For one full month now, I dont think I've made a single hit on the above LB list. With the possible exception of "nagging", if you count "attempts to convince her to retry our marriage" as nagging.
You also see why I am determined to keep my promise against snooping now.

She claims that she still "cares" about me, but just doesnt think we can work things out together [but wont discuss why; presumably the biggest reason is cause she wants to be with OM.] But, there are some "valid" issues from her side, that I've been bugging the heck out of her in the last 6 months of our marriage, and she's probably sure I'm incapable of changing that.


she has made the comment to me, that she doesnt want to retry things, only to get "stuck in an unhappy marriage for the rest of her life".
Insofar as that unhappiness would be a result of my actions; i want to show her proof that I can take the hurt away from my side, at least.

one month aint going to do it (heck, I would not believe HER, if she said she could change her marriage-negative behaviours, after a single month. fair's fair I guess). She'll probably be leery even after 3. but I'm hoping and praying that it will sink in a bit by then.

Sucks to be me for the next two months, though. Would be reaaaally nice to see some more positive signs, sooner than that.

Melody is right

It's called "Surviving an affair" not "destroying the affair".

SAA will come in handy the most once the affair is busted up and you two can work on understanding why the affair happened and where to go from THERE. However, until the affair is busted up you are in status quo with absolutely nothing to lose.

Imagine this:

3 levels of marital relations:

1. Intimacy
2. Conflict
3. Withdrawal

Your wife could not be MORE withdrawn from you if she and you tried. Her interaction has one purpose only, to manipulate you to accept the status quo so that she can keep her options open. The problem is she's addicted an unable to, with certainly, "decide" or "choose" which option she wants.

That being said, "Conflict" is a step up in the relational paradigm. Getting her engage in conflict with you and angry IS a relationship. Exposure can achieve that without having to actually fight (which if and when you do DO NOT LOVE BUST). CONFLICT is better than what you've got and at the same time exposure makes the "option" of OM less stimulating, attractive, passionate, etc. She and he will constantly have to consider what YOU are doing to interfer next with their addiction to each other. She will be in crisis mode, not you. OM and her have to spend a lot of time and energy discussing and minimizing your effect on their insiduous relationship and then have less time to really be criticizing, lieing about and ridiculing you.

Another thing OM's always do and say. They exhibit within the secretive affair false bravado. The sense that THEY are somehow more manly than you. They say "If you were my princess I'd never stand for what you and I are doing...I kick my butt" <insert snicker> "your husband is a dofus and a fool...doesn't he know how special you are". Thing is, OM's are cockroaches. They cower in the light. They hide. They FEAR you. You don't need to threaten them explicity...they inherently know they could get their [censored] kicked at any moment. I do suggest a few very loosely implied threats (don't ever risk getting yourself in trouble...no real threats, OM ain't worth your freedom), these implied threats you covertly deliver via your wayward wife and never directly to the OM. You say stuff innocuously like:

*where does OM work again???
*what kind of car does he drive??? followed by "I thought that was him"
*What time does OM usually go to bed?
*what is OM's address or city??
*Does OM know how big I am (or how tough I am)???

Sidenote----<I myself reminded my wife I used to do a lot of Golden Gloves boxing in my youth...which she, predictably, brought up with OM very soon thereafter...via recordings you should have heard how much his ears picked up when she said that. He didn't act scared (he was 750 miles and false bravada keeps them from acting fearful in front of WW)...but was quite inquisitive. I'm also Greek. I completely joked that my dad was somehow connected with the Greek Mafia and my family had "connections"...which she jokingly repeated to OM. Completely untrue, but OM takes everything that threatens his personal security very seriously. He knows/thinks it may be coming. On the other hand your wife knows YOU, trusts you and knows you are just kidding, however, your WW loves to repeat that stuff and have OM repeat how tough he is and how he'd fight for her. Remember this...AFFAIR RELATIONSHIPS are juvenile. WW's act like high school women and get a rush off the thought of men fighting over them she'll repeat ANY ridiculous implied threat you give her and OM WILL be scared, just not overty>>>>.

You want OM to have the impression HE is a target. OM's get nervous and the relationship becomes slightly more complicated.

Finally, even the slightest complication has BIG effects. OM's and WW's are VERY insecure about their drug of choice quitting on them. He knows the marriage is his biggest threat. If OM senses your wife pulling back at all (even by talking about you a bit to much) he starts acting manipulative, controlling, suspicious and pyscho. This makes WW nervous and either she starts getting nervous and desparate cause she senses OM is backing off OR she begins to pull away ever so slightly from OM which further maddens the dynamic.

Again, like MWIL said, EXPOSURE is like a virus. The effects will appear small to begin with. Perhaps completely unnoticeable to you (in anger she will tell you over and over it had NO EFFECT). Just trust me, the emotional investment and anger directed at you (THE MORE THE BETTER) will make it seem like it was a HUGE mistake. However, it's not. It's the best and often ONLY weapon you have at your disposal to bust up that affair. Unless you are extremely lucky, you WILL end up doing it eventually...how else are you going to explain your divorce to everyone??? So might as well go down swinging and the sooner the better.

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - btw, men fear exposure also because they falsely feel that their wife's affair is somehow their fault or portrays to others your inability as a man to keep your woman in line. This is your issue. Her affair is not, in any way, your fault. You must accept that. Sure, the underlying marital problems you helped create. But those are a 50-50 proposition. Adultery is a 100% fault offense of the adulterer. I suggest to cast aside such false machismo fear and actually be a man/husband and fight for your wife/marriage with every available weapon at your disposal. Men are good with weapons....just do it.

Weel, I tried to talk to her grandparents, to even just get some advice from them, and see where things went from there. They said it was a "bad time for them" healthwise, and maybe we could talk another time.

Apparently, the first thing they did after that, was to call my wife and let her know that I asked them for advice. After which, she tells me to not bother them again, because it will do no good.

Which, given that they lied to me and just called her about it, would seem to be the truth. Cant see me trying to talk to them further, doing any good.

What would be the point of talking to them AT ALL if not to tell them the truth? What was the goal here? And of course she doesn't want you to bother them again, she doesn't want you to bust her or interfere in her affair. That is why she is telling it will "do no good." She is not going to encourage you in ruining her affair.

reguardless of what my wife wants... they dont want to talk to me (BECAUSE of my wife, but there's no way I can fix that. ) they've basically circled their wagons against me, and wont even discuss things with me.

Techie, You're playing with a loaded pistol pointed right at your head. You don't want to take any advice, you want to hold onto some bogus promise you made an alien on the mothership. Exactly what do you want from us here? There is no way we can help you if you regect everything you are told.

One more time......EXPOSE!! Don't be crippled by FEAR!!!! If she gets really angry....THAT'S GOOD!! DON'T REACT!!

If she Doesn't get angry.....that's when to worry!!

Because they don't know the truth of what has happened. You have ensured that. Not that they would help you anyway, but at least if they KNEW the truth she would not be able to lie to them. Just them knowing the truth would cause great discomfort in her affair, which is the goal.

i'm not even sure of that. Her mother knows she got involved with someone else; i told her up front. Her attitude was, "you dont make each other happy, so get divorced".

So if that's going to be the grandparents' attitude too, the only thing me "telling them the truth" would do, is piss my wife off more.

Also, Dr. Harley said in my situation, not to push it with them. He said if they want to talk to me, then talk; otherwise, leave it be.