Marshmallow,

She has agreed and we will write it together this weekend. She has agreed to "come clean" as well. I am not at all optimistic that she will reveal all or even most, but every time we talk she reveals more. We will see.

I have exposed the A to people who can pressure her. I have not followed up to see if they have done so or not. I have not exposed the A to any of OM's family or her family. Should I do so if she does the NC letter and promises that it won't happen again, or should i tell her that i am still checking up on her and if she does it again I will tell her and OM's entire family and ask for their help?

She says it is over, it was a test for companionship and SF and it's done, that she knows it's me she wants. Should I further expose under these circumstances?

No, don't expose if she ends the A.


And NOOOOOOO, don't tell her you will expose if she doesn't end the A.

If she knows you will do this, she will try to preempt you, and thus ruin the effectiveness of exposure.

Quietly hold exposure in your back pocket for now.

Marsh,

Oh thank G*d, I was worried you were going to tell me to do it anyway! Shwew, and you are right, I will hold that info in reserve.

My plans are to listen to her tell me when, where, how long etc. Answer my questions, have her write and I send NC letter, and then ask what can both of us do to make sure this doesn't happen again. I plan to take her to dinner too with little to no talk about the A for awhile.

Marsh, you are a fount of wisdom. thank you!

Just talked to her, she actually spent the night at my uncle and aunt's house last night on way to taking DD to camp. I am frankly amazed as my aunt suspected something was going on as well awhile ago. She told WW in January to her face that she did not approve of her lifestyle of partying, that she was being a poor mother to her children, that she was disrespecting me by her behaviour and not wearing her wedding rings, and that she was setting a terrible example for her children. She told WW that if she ever wanted to talk she would be there for her though. WW was FURIOUS.

Now WW spends the night at their house, I am somewhat encouraged.

Thanks, SWW, and you're most welcome.


So am I!

Glad to hear this!

If the OM is married I would expose to his wife.

TheRoad,

he is a 35 year old single man with no responsibilites and in my opinion a real loser. 6 yrs younger than my WW. I would expose for sure if he were married.

Well,

I hit the road for home today. WW sounds excited to see me. DD at camp and DS out west with grandfather. WW sounds resigned to talking about A and has agreed to NC letter as well as truth and an end to her former bahaviour.

I am still skeptical, but I have to say that plan A seems to be working wonders. We have never been so nice to each other and we talk for what seems like a short time and then when i hang up the cell phone reads an hour or more. I could use some prayers. I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks, without you all I never would have maintained my sanity!

Very happy to hear things are improving between you two.

Many are praying for you.

ladies and gents,

dont know if i can take this anymore. was plan a'ing my [censored] off. Spent hours in the yard friday and today. Talked for two hours to WW on friday AM and never brought up the subject of the A. Just good company you know.

Then today WW calls and apologizes that she has a birthday party for our neighbors kid, feels bad she is gonna leave me doing yard work so wants to know how i feel about it. I told her no problem go. She leaves the house and i do more work. I go in the house and the 1 marker i have is the box of condoms in the bottom drawer. Now mind yuo, after our last talk there were 9 in the box. I check again.

Now there are 7 left and two packages are ripped open and put back in the big box empty. I freak! But...I calmly finish the yard work and go back to my dads. Kids are at camp. So i call her, i can hear the kids party going on and I tell her to call me when she gets in the car. She wants to know wahts going on, but i just say call.

Well I tell her about it and say how could you? in our house. She says with all that's been going on I have every right to doubt her but it wasn't her. She says she hasn't been in that drawer for ages and would not be dumb enough to put back empty packages back in the box when she knew full well i had been snooping. She called it a perfect storm.

She said we should talk to DD (15) about it that she and her friend had been snooping and may have gotten curious.

She came over and we talked. She told me about the A. That it went on for about 3 months. I said I don't want all the details but i guess you all did pretty much in bed waht everyone does, every position, or*l, etc.

She said it wasn't that exotic.

She has issues still though. She said i abondoned her like everyone else in her life has always done. said she couldn't trust me to stay now, that she could only trust herself and that was it. I told her that i had not been released from this relationship yet, and i talked about God's plan for marriage. That as difficult as it was I would be here to support her. That I was being told to do this. Now I know this sounds sanctimonious, you'll just have to trust me I did it slowly and tactfully.

She told me she thought the Bible was a storybook made up by people. That Lazarus was prob alive and that's why he came out of the tomb bc they put in escape hatches because medicine wasn't good and they often buried people alive. Read history for heaven's sake. She said Chrisianity was great for some, but she felt it was a great place for people who weren't strong to alleviate their guilt and use it as a crutch.

She spewed about how the Catholic Church treated her mom when her first husband abandoned her and how she will never forget it. She has a lot of anger, she said she didn't know what to do but had to leave.

I asked for and got a hug and told her if she wanted to talk later tonite i would be here. I told her about the NC letter and she is panicked about it. claims if her group of freinds find out they will excommunicate her. I told her too bad, if Charlie wants to spill the beans about a private letter that's his problem, it's happening. She said OK, but we do it together.


FOREVER HERS, I NEED YOUR HELP! Am I taking on too much?????

She's lying.

I'm sorry.

You need to hire a PI.

Have her watched when you aren't there.

IF she writes the letter, make copies of it. Hold onto the copies in case you need to expose, they will be your proof to her friends and family.

IF she writes the letter be sure YOU mail it...at the post office.

SWW.

Was it really ok w/ you that she left you this weekend to go to a children's BD party?

At least you got her to tell you about the affair and when you make a copy of the NC letter you will have proof.

SWW,

She's been lying for her entire life, it's not going to change over night. I wouldn't trust anything she says and follow up on everything. It sucks, but it has to be done.

I think it's a great idea to hire the PI, especially because you are not home 100% of the time yet.

That NC letter should have been done a long time ago, she's stalling.



Marsh,

Don't you think those so-called friends of hers should be on the "expose" list anyway? Wouldn't they be her "allies" in covering things up if they don't know the truth of what happened between her and good ol' Charlie?

OUC,

Yes, they should definitely be on the expose list. It's just the question of when to expose.

IMO, the A is still on going.

So exposure should happen now!

But, he'll need proof to show them.

SWW,

I know that you want so badly for this thing to be over. I know you want to believe her. But, you will have to accept the reality of the sitch before you can hope to end the A and recover your M.

Hire the PI, let him gather intel that the A is still on going and then expose the A to everyone who will put pressure on her.

Including OMGF. I think it's awful that she still thinks of WW as her friend.

BTW: It made zero sense to me that the reason she didn't want to send the NC letter to OM was b/c her friends might find out. Why would he tell anyone about it? It might get back to his GF. He's not going to take that chance.

I agree w/ OUC. She's stalling.

Get your proof. And then expose to everyone in one day.

DO NOT THREATEN TO DO THIS.

DO NOT TELL HER YOU WILL.

JUST DO IT.

TheRoad,

Yeah I thought it was positive she was talking about it too. She is, reluctantly, answering every question I have. She is so depressed, happy one second, weepy the next. I already have proof but the PI is a good idea. I will call him back.

The only thing on the condoms that gives me a 50/50 on believing her is that there was never a night when the kids weren't there the last two weeks since i was home except for one and she got home from taking DS to the airport around midnite. Since I was home we spent most of our time together during the day and at nite.

Marsh,

Yes I need to confirm if it is ongoing to expose further. I think she is a person torn apart right now and doesn't know where to turn or what to do. I am drafting the NC letter and yes I will be the one to send it. Once she signs it as I have demanded I will have even more proof in case it is still going on.

She told me that OM Charlie is now seriously dating some other girl and they left town this weekend for the Keys. I think she is in the withdrawal phase, but might go back if given the opportunity even though she says how stupid it was.

I am upset she seems to be more concerned about her "friends" than me and her standing with them. She does however see how all our old friends are sticking by me, and the ones to whom the A was exposed have been seriously counseling her and then reporting back to me.

I am still feeling a responsibilty for helping her and that God has not released me from this marriage yet.

How is this for our NC letter? Marsh told me to let y'all read first. Any opinions? Plan to have her sign and we mail together this weekend.



Charlie,

I have been doing a lot of thinking and now realize that what I and we did was horribly selfish and wrong. BS found out about it and I have admitted to him what happened. No matter what I told you about BS's faults, he did not deserve to be treated like this.

Now, I may lose my marriage and my family over it which was a consequence I had not truly thought all the way through. It was terrible to cause those I love so much pain. While putting my marriage back together cannot completely repay the offense, it is the right thing to do. I realize now that I care very much for my husband, the twenty-four years we have together, and my children.

For my family’s protection I have promised not to communicate with you ever again in any way and I hope you will respect that and honor my wishes. If we see each other accidentally again I have promised to tell BS about it.


Signature

Your letter sounds like it was writen by a BH not the WW.

It is personal verses cold, contains justifications, reasons and excuses. You also include how the marriage may collapse giving OM incentive to stict around. BH's pain, oh yah that will really make OM feel bad.

It is not short and to the point.

Mr OM,

Us having an affair was wrong. I have told BS everything.
I have recommited to my marriage and never want to have contact with you by any means ever again. This is why I have sent you this No Contact letter.


Signature

TheRoad,

Wow! Glad you read it first. Thanks very much. Yeah, I wrote it and after your comments I can see it is pretty sappy.

I am just having a rough day after the details she told me about their PA and I guess it bled over into the letter.

Sorry for not writing sooner, but we've been without internet for a week...

SWW, my first impression of the NC letter is to ask you why YOU are writing it and not HER? I get that she is not excited about writing it and that she has agreed to sign it, but I think it is an exercise in commitment for the WS to write out in their own hand what they did and how it harmed their spouse. They must commit to paper that they will never communicate again. It is a subtle difference, but I know that my H asked me to write his NC letter too and it would have meant so much less to our recovery if I hadn't insisted that HE write it himself. I helped him with the points that should be mentioned (a basic outline) but HE wrote it in his own handwriting with his own words.

Second, I think you should expose to all of her "friends" immediately. You say that you have proof, use it to show them. If you expose to them, then she cannot plead with you due to her friends possibly finding out. You did nothing wrong. You are a messenger of what she did and they were accomplices (knowing or unknowing) and have a right to know. By telling them, you do not need to feel guilty if she looses them as friends...that was already decided when she chose to be unfaithful. It was not your doing.

Third, the condom thing worries me. I get that you don't think she had the opportunity to use them at the house, but could she have left to meet him? And if she didn't use them, then the two of you should sit down with DD immediately. Does DD know about the A? If she does, she will understand the importance of knowing who took the condoms. If she doesn't know about it, you still need to talk with her. And DS is 13? My H was 12 when he lost his virginity...scary as it may be...you might want to talk with both of them.

Good luck.