Trisolo,

Please be advised that, first, Poster hu7668 is a WS who hasn't told his BW of his affair. Second, his A painfully ended once his lover's H found out. Third, he attempted to deceive other board members here by posing as his own BW....SO I think it is fair to say that you can conclude that he would not advocate exposure or being truthful. I am stunned that he would judge others of their ability to give marriage-building advice or feel justified in calling others "selfish".

Anway...I don't have anything more to add to the great advice you have alread received...other than I am begging you as a BW to call your OMW to tell her.

The thought of my H's EA dying on its own and never being told is horrifying and humiliating to me...

Tell her yourself, too. Please give this gift to her.

Sorry
That guy MAY be spouting off because of a guilty past......but I agree with him. As long as the affair is TRULY over, I see NO REASON EXCEPT REVENGE. And I respect you for admitting that at least a portion of the reason contacting OMW WAS REVENGE.

ANd I will admit that I'm a BIG proponent of revenge. If someone does something to you that is heartless and causes you great pain, they deserve WHATEVER they get. Its up to YOU what you want to give them. I ADMIT that I am into revenge, but I also realize that it is NOT the right way to be.

I'm NOT a WH and I MAY be a BH....soooooo, man, the affair is TWO years old, what GOOD would it do to reveal now?? IF it would GUARANTEE your wife never ever hurting you again THEN I say go for it. But will it? WHat if his wife does lay the big D on him and he comes calling? Its possible, isn't it? Are you completely sure that your wife wouldn't fall off the wagon? You know, if you guys are rebuilding your love and trust again, your luckier than me. I think the old saying "leave well enough alone" may have some merit.

BUt I realize that many poster here, with a ton of experience with this stuff, disagree. ANd I'm trying to understand their thinking on this one. This was just my opinion, those with the opposite view are pretty smart, so I guess you gotta read, think and decide. Good luck, man. You got a budding remarriage, of that I'm envious.

well, that is just sad.

How about the reason that the other betrayed spouse has a right to know what happened. They have a right to make decisions about their own life based on truth and not being kept in the dark.

I agree 100%

The absolute worst feeling for me as the BS was the feeling of being manipulated by my spouses lies.

No one deserves to live a lie.

Yes - they have a right to know - But what right does this guy have to be the one to tell her? He has NO standing with her.

I am not sure what the right thing to do is but YOU do - Do not let US influence your action. Decide what to do based on what is right for you.

Look at it this way - you may be helping that whole family live a wonderful, happy, life. If she never finds out, then he'll think he can get away with it and do it again someday when they hit a rough spot in the marriage. Or, he may just get too confident and keep doing it anyway and not appreciate what he has at home.

If you tell her, (and I know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but she has a right to know) you will give them the opportunity to look at the marriage and build a better one that will last.

I can almost guarantee that she won't leave him. Heck, I would bet that every BS on here said that before it actually happened to us. When it does, everyone tries to save their M, no matter what we said before. Reality is a different story.

I can almost guarantee that if she doesn't find out, the scenario will repeat again either with your WW or someone else. She will find out sooner or later, and I would rather see her find out after the first offense (if this is indeed the first) rather than after multiple offenses.

Well is was his wife that the OM diddled so he does have 'standing' with her.

Does THIS sound like a "revenge" motivated decision to you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Should an affair be revealed?

I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.

From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.

Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.

But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.

It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.

It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.

It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.

After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.

The Policy of Radical Honesty is one of two rules you must follow to protect your spouse from your self-centered behavior, which includes affairs. The other rule is the Policy of Joint Agreement (never do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse). If you were to be completely honest with you spouse, and you were to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement, an affair would be impossible, unless for some reason your spouse wanted you to have one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Revenge motivation denotes pleasure at someone else's expense.

It is apparent that anyone who thinks Marriage Builders encourages spouses act out of a "revenge" motive has never read the basic concepts about infidelity, or perhaps need to reread it.


PART ONE

and


PART TWO

Decide what to do based on your knowledge of RIGHT and WRONG



Decide what to do based on care and concern for your marriage and the potential for HARM done to another human being -



Here is the situation:

You know for a fact there is another spouse at risk - in danger -

Your silence should bother your conscience - because silence condones the abusive nature of adultery.

Your silence is not courageous. It is weakness in the face of evil.

Pep

YES!

The OM screwed HIS wife. The truth does NOT require some special standing to be revealed. ANYONE that is aware of ANY affair should be willing to tell the truth. In this case, it is a no-brainer...the BH is invovled!

"I am concerned about this aspect. Part of me feels that to tell his wife is for revenge,"

Yes you will feel good from outing the OM. But this is only a benefit for doing the right thing.

"Maybe he has turned over a new leaf? Has dealt with the causes on his own?"

OM has not changed. Why? He is still fishing for your WW. Why? Because there is sill contact between WW and OM.

"his email to my wife that things were going better in his marriage since the birth of their second child a year ago or so."

Direct from the player Hand Book: "he had insisted that she promise not to tell no matter what. That his wife would not forgive it and would not allow him to see his child."

Also direct from the WW book ON How To Be A WW: "He also told her that I would react the same way. So in fear of all this she had kept their secret even though her intuition was telling her to reveal it."

"(There is probably a certain level of Bull in this)."

Yes the level is 100% bull. WW's lie to protect the AP.

2 years later still contact.

"Anyway, when she told him not to contact her anymore, she told him he should tell his wife and he said he never would."

Being WW has still kept in contact can not believe what she told OM or what OM said to her. How about WW being able to keep OM as a back up for her? If OMW finds out her affair safety net is gone.

"Part me of wants to let it all go and not say anything,"

Normal BH letting fear take control over him preventing him from doing what has to be done.

"I know that my telling will throw them into a state of turmoil,"

The health of their marriage is not your concern. The health of your marriage is your concern. The door must be slammed on this OM. Only exposure will do that.

If you are concerned about their marriage then help remove the cancer of the OMW living a lie. OMW needs to know. I bet if she knew there would not of been any more contact between WW and OM. OM would no longer have a unsuspecting and naive W. Where the OM can continue banging WW's ruining more marriages.

Exposing is good for you, WW, OMW. There is nothing wrong that can come back to you. Expose.

He has only turned over a new leaf if he has told her the truth. But if he is still lying to her about her own life, he has done no such thing and she needs protection from him.

I am always just flabbergastered that this question of whether to alert a victim about something that has been done to them ONLY COMES UP WHEN THE CRIME IS ADULTERY. Would this same logic make any sense when applied to anything else? Of course not!

Imagine your neighbor's bookkeeper had embezzled money from him. Would we justify not telling him because:

1. it might hurt him to know the truth

2. It might be "revenge!" [I have never understood how this rationalizes not doing the right thing - does my personal irrational fear of vengence supercede doing the right thing? ]

3. he and his bookkeeper are getting along great! she has stopped the stealing for now

4. it's not my place to warn him! [this is some mysterious standard that holds that only the criminal, the most unlikely person to confess, is the only one qualified to tell the victim ]

5. it's not my place to interfere in their life [what a great samaritan!]

Please, lets use some common sense here. The woman was harmed behind her back and needs to be told. This is information about her life to which she has a RIGHT. Telling her would be an act of decency and compassion. If more people did this, there would be less adultery.

Trisolo, hu7668 is a deceitful wayward spouse who REFUSES to tell his own wife about his own long term adultery. His agenda is DECEIT. He would not be your GO-TO GUY when it came to doing the right thing. He is advocating deceit because that is how he lives.

Oh my...it appears that hu is getting a serious case of the guilts.

Whatcha gonna do about it hu?


committed

He is shaking in his underbritches that Trisola might be his OW's husband getting ready to call his wife and bust him!

Now wouldn't that be something... :MrEEk:

Not to be crude...he might need some clean ones too.

committed

Tri:


As part of no contact, can matters be arranged so you and your wife are absolutely sure there will be no contact? Would she have to leave the organisation? Would the OM? No contact is one of Harley's absolutes. And Harley is the man with the plan. I wouldn't even begin to attempt an exception without a complete and thorough discussion with his coaching center.

Secondly, Pep posted extensive quotes from Harley's exposure postings AND the state of a marriage where an affair is kept a secret. As part of your own recovery, which trumps any concern for the OM, it is in your best interest to expose. As for the OM's kids, exposure might just insure that he does not wander again, which is a good thing, and that their own marriage be set on the right track, again a good thing. Any exception is something that a professional at Harley's coaching center is best equipped to deal with as opposed to all the rationalization you can generate on your own.

Chances are very, very high that exposure will happen at some point anyway. It seems to me that if you do it, you can state that you are recovering your own marriage, which might just be incentive for the OMW to do the same. If OM decides that he got away with it once, he might feel entitled to do it again, and the next time might be even more of an emotional train wreck than this one.

Just a thought.

Larry

Tri -

Amazing - many parallels with my (our) own situation:
1. We are 7 (almost 8) months out from D-day
2. OMW has not been told specifically by me about the affair - mainly because NC appears to have been adhered to and it also appears that confrontation/plan A stopped the affair. But I did discover the affair before it ended, WW did not confess.

One difference - My WW claims that she and OM did not have sexual intercourse, and based on their emails and my WW's willingness to take a polygraph test, I cautiously concur. Although based on my WW's statements, they came (pardon the pun! ) pretty close to sex on more than one occasion.

We are in counseling with Steve Harley and I have posed the question to him. No doubt, it is a very tough question to consider. Especially since I have concern for that loser's wife.

Provable sex with OM for me might be a deal-breaker - as in Plan D.

But would I want to know if I was OMW? ABSOLUTLELY !! Even if it was "only" EA/PA and no intercourse? Yes, I would still want to know.

You will have to make the decision that's best for you and so will I. I am leaning toward notifying OMW via certified mail addressed to her. But I am waiting on further consultation with Steve Harley.

I have met the OMW in my case, and frankly, I'm not sure of her strength. I believe that she knows something was going on, because she does know that their (WW and OM) frequent "working together" stopped. But she hasn't seen all of the email evidence that I have seen.

Thats right. Let sleeping dogs lie, right HU. Cuz when the OM’s BW gets an asymptomic case of HPV which results in stage 3 cervical cancer after a few years, we certainly don't want her cheating husband to be held accountable. Even though it all could have simply been avoided by SOMEONE-IN-THE-KNOW telling her she's been exposed.

Wow! What a concept. Making INFORMED choices about your health and life despite years of hidden lies by someone you trusted, namely your spouse.

BTW HU, it wasn't "too funny" to go thru. Just ask me. I'd be happy to share.

You really need to defog your selfish self.
Jo

I apoligize. I missed the part where the OM has recently contacted your wife once again, with a "progress report" on his marital situation. For me, that changes EVERYTHING.

But the ROAD was 100 percent accurate in his or her post that he is trying to relight the affair. His desire to inform your wife on how great his marriage is doing is total horse sheets. With HIS history, go straight to his wife. He's got some sack to try this garbage again.

ANd I must admit, Jo's post about uninformed exposure and cervical cancer is legitimate...........affairs suck on so many friggin levels, its mind boggling.

Again my apolagies.