Emmy,

If you are having suicidal thoughts, please call: 1-800-SUICIDE

Prayers,
Jo

Once you have decided to tell your husband. I recommend a coaching appointment with Steve Harley to help you with what to say and to put together a plan for marital recovery.

You say you've been a MB member for eight years. In those years have you ever counseled with the Harleys?

Jo

It's REALLY hard to tell them. You just muster up your courage and spit it out. If it's easier for you, write him a note and hand it to him. Yes, you will be terrifed, you will both hurt. It's gonna suck. But it's the first step forward.

To cut ties:
1. Tell your H
2. Give your H your cellphone
3. Give your H all passwords to your computer, email, facebook, etc. acounts
4. Ask your H to install a key logger on your computer(s)
5. Ask your H to put a GPS tracker on the car and monitor your motions
6. Ask your H to bug the telephone and monitor all calls.
7. Write a NC letter and let your husband mail it.

Do anything else your husband wants you to do in order to help him feel safe and to help you enforce boundaries in your M.

What to do if he leaves? Work on you and hope he comes back. You're miserable in the M right now anyway so what have you got to lose, really?

Here is my problem with telling him.

OM is part of our circle of friends. We all knew their lifestyle, but for some reason, H and I were "immune". I am furious with myself for choosing to take that step. Even more furious for thinking there would be no reprecussions.

So if he were just some joe schmoe it would be one thing. But the betrayal of his friend and his wife...the turmoil and pain it would cause other people in the situation...I totally deserve whatever comes my way. They don't.

Radical honesty would require I tell him everything. I can't NOT tell him who it is.

As for suicidal, I don't know how I feel about that. Seems to be it would hurt less people than breaking this whole thing open.

Where can I find the NC letter?

You HAVE to tell him who it is. He has a right to know. You have no right to keep this secret from your H and the OM's wife. To do so is cruel, manipulative and DANGEROUS. They all have to know so they can protect themselves from you and the OM. They do not deserve to be lied to another day. Every day you don't tell them is a LIE added to the mix.

Also, Emmy, you stated that your H would want to leave you if he knew. Does he not have that right? Or is he your PET DOGGIE? Do you believe you have the RIGHT to decide for him whether he stays or goes? However do you imagine you have that kind of power over another human being? Who are YOU to deny to him the right to leave if she so chooses? Are you truly cruel enough to keep a man in a marriage based on a LIE?

You have to tell him and you have to tell him the FULL TRUTH. This is information about HIS LIFE to which he has a RIGHT TO KNOW. He is not your PET, Emmy.

interesting ....


Try reading BASIC CONCEPTS see the red menu bar at the top of this page


but you already knew that - because you've been reading & studying MB for "8 years"

Pep

Emmy - this is heartless and cruel of you to perpetrate this.

If you maintain this attitude your marriage is doomed. Your husband has a right to know everything - including the identity of the OM. To recover you can no longer be in that social circle anyway.

Your BH might surprise you in his reaction.

I'm not surprised you are exhausted. It's not easy living a lie.

That's not that unusual here. You will not be able to see those friends. You shouldn't be seeing them anyway if they bring OM into your midst.


Do you mean the betrayal of your H's friend (the OM) and the OM's wife? You've already done that and now the consequences of that will surface.


That would be cruel in the extreme. It would be horrificly cruel. You must tell him EVERYTHING. I had to face my adult children after my H told them. You think that wasn't tough?


Now you are not thinking rationally at all. You would hurt far more people in a very horrible way. All that would do is remove you from the situation, it would leave everyone else in a much, much worse state than being honest right now and dealing with it like an adult.

Yes, your H will be angry, possibly very angry, yes, he will be hurt and betrayed but if you've learned one thing from MB, you should have learned that you CAN recover a marriage after infidelity.

Lets talk about this statement.

The OM deserves to be exposed so your husband knows he is not a true friend, but instead an enemy to your H, you and your marriage.

The OM's W, who you state condoned and encouraged the adultery with her H, is also not a friend to either of you. Quite the contrary. So she too is due exposure so you and your husband can cut ties with them FOREVER. Also known as NO CONTACT for LIFE.

Its time to clean house, Emmy.

What they deserve is to never be your friends again. They were accomplice to betraying your husband, their supposed FRIEND. True friends do not lie, covet or betray one another.

What about what your husband deserves???? I think you should ask yourself why you are more concentrated on them, then you are him. Thats not a good sign.

The OM is not a friend of your husband, he is his ENEMY. And your H has a RIGHT to know so he can protect himself from his enemy and from YOU. To allow your H to go around this OM without knowing the truth is to compound the crime. I would tell your H before that happens again.

I'm encouraged to know you're asking for the NC letter. So are you planning on sending that to OM and his wife as a Team with your husband, after you tell him?

Jo

I know you're scared Emmy. You and your H always thought you both were immuned to the OPEN marriage of your two "Friends" (OM & his W).

Now you have to tell your H what you have done.

The sooner you do it, the sooner you will feel better about yourself. Yes, there will be major fallout. And yes, your husband will be crushed.

But if you wait too long, you know he will eventually find out without you telling him. Thats one hundred times worse not hearing it from you.

I also think you're at a point where hiding this LIE is going to destroy you.

Tell him.

Emmy,

I realize that you just started posting here. I know what is being suggested frightens you as well it should. But, let me repeat what everyone is saying by offering to you what the alternative view of this might be.

1. It is a good thing that your H is a cuckold.

2. It is a good thing that your H's friends all know he is a cuckold, and are talking about him behind his back if not laughing at him.

3. It is alright that OM/his W and your friends think little of your H and have no respect for him.

4. It is alright that your H is working to support you, but you don't appreciate it.

Finally, you really shouldn't worry about your H leaving you, because I am sure OM will offer you a place to stay in his house and his W will be very happy to have you. Then you will have two people to talk to so you won't feel so lonely. (sarcasm intended)

Do you see how silly and deadly not telling your H is? There is a old saying that "three people can keep a secret if...two of them are dead." Your OM knows, your OM's W knows, I suspect all of your friends know and someone is going to spill the beans, and when your H finds out from one of THEM, he will be so humiliated, that he will have little choice but to leave you. If he finds out from you, there is a chance, perhaps better than you think.

You have made your H a joke and a cuckold. I hope your revenge on him for working hard was worth it.

JL

Hi Emmy - I'm no expert on affairs and I rarely visit this forum. I do want to extend my sympathy to you. Being emotionally starved for years in your marriage is a very difficult situation to be in. It can drive you to extremes of emotion and action - as it has to you. I see your choice to have an affair as morally similar to someone who is malnourished and steals to eat. Is stealing ever right? I don't think so. Are there almost always better ways to have your hunger satisfied besides stealing something that isn't yours? I think so. Still I understand the desperate nature of where you have been. It may have seemed to you at the time there was no other or better way to keep yourself from dying from emotional malnourishment. I can understand this. I don't think you are evil - any more evil than the rest of us. I think you made a poor choice in trying to get your emotional needs met - you seem to agree. But I sympathize with where you are coming from. Sympathy does not mean approval but I don't condemn you.

I agree with the other posters about the needs to come clean - for all the reasons they mentioned but also because doing so may be the first step in actually getting what you want. You may doubt it but telling your husband may actually be what needs to happen to truly heal your marriage. You may (and your husband) may realize that he cares about you far more than you think. My wife thought I would kick her to the curb when I found out about her brief EA. My reaction was just the opposite - surprising to both of us. Once I realized how close I was to losing what mattered most to me - I woke up to how much I loved her and our marriage. This motivated me to change and become the husband she needed.

I realize your situation is maybe more complicated but the principles still apply. Maybe your husband will leave you. I'm not sure that would be the worst thing either. I'm not sure that your current marriage is worth saving. If things don't change (for both of you) I don't think you are in a healthy marriage. You say you would rather die than leave him but I wonder if this is more fear of being alone than fear of losing him. You did leave him when you had your affair. In many ways you have already left your marriage.

Regardless of the outcome, coming clean is the right thing. There really is not other solution. You can't build a marriage on a faulty foundation. Trying to improve your marriage without cleaning this up would be unwise and unsafe.

I hear your pain and I do not dismiss how hard it is to feel like you will NEVER have your needs met. I realize how crazy and sad this predicament can make a person. There were and are better ways to deal with it but this does not diminish how hard it can be.

BWS

Morning JL.

Just an FYI, Emmy has stated she has been an MB member for EIGHT YEARS.

Jo

Hey Emmy

I will try to listen carefully to your circumstances. I need more detail in order to "get inside your head".


1. What would be the worst likely consequences of exposure to your H?

2. What is to you the most important reason that you save your marriage?

3. Is there any constraint that prevents your IC with the Harleys?


Be encouraged, you have made the attempt to save your marriage by contacting MB. I exhort you to persist despite the 2x4's.

I will attempt to understand your fears!

Emmy, take it from someone who was the OM: bring your affairs to an end, find a way to tell your H, and ask for his forgiveness, regardless of what he's been as an H. The 2 of you need to work this out, and you can work this out. If he loves you (he must have; he married you) then he can be appealed to go to counseling or some other method where you can both put some effort into this TOGETHER.

Because if you don't, the consequences of going where you're going now will leave you without self-respect, turn you into a liar, and will splatter pain, misery, and absolute destruction throughout a number of people (remember that you have a family, as does he) around you, including you and your H. It will last years, maybe a lifetime. And you may very well hate yourself for the rest of your life.

Do
the
right
thing.

So glad to see you posting, MyCroft!

Emmy, you are so clueless about the havoc you wreak,

If you can't tell, let me. I'll give you an email address, you give me his. I'll do it for you.

Having been in his shoes I would do ANYTHING to lessen his pain.