How can she not be ate with guilt if she is having an affair? I couldn't imagine facing my children with that on my heart. Satan has such a stronghold on her. She is such a hypocrite, she has her apartment filled with decorations of pictures and plaques with bible scriptures on them.

Yes, satan does have a stronghold on her. You will see that they all say the exact same lines and have dead eyes. They are very hypocritical and will even tell ppl that "God" meant them to meet their affair partner. It is unbelievable. They are so obsessed with their adultery that they abandon every good thing in their lives.

Once you find out the truth, the best weapon you have will be exposure. We will help you make up a strategic exposure list and give you talking points. The point is not to TRASH your wife to these ppl but to ask for their help in pressuring her to end her affair. One of the first ppl you would call would be the OM's WIFE. But, we will help you with this.

If it is an affair, your kids will need to know the truth, hope, so they can get your moral guidance. If you dont tell them the truth and give them guidance, they will be very vulnerable to the lies of your wife. She will mess them up with lies and spin if given a chance, but you can prevent most of that if you set them down and give them the truth along with sound moral guidance.

Melody, have you been through this first hand?

oh yes, and so have most of the people on this forum. My H had an affair 8 years ago and our marriage is fully recovered today. My last marriage ended due to an affair. I made every mistake in the book when I discovered his affair and they are still together today!

Melody, thank you for your help. I will pray about this tonight. So far God has been leading me to just wait and let Him reach my wife.

Sounds like God led you to this forum because he needs you to do some work, too, friend. I bet he wants you to try save your marriage and that is why you are here. Many of us would not have saved our marriages if we had not found this God-given forum.

Does anyone else have another view of this from a Christian perspective.

Hope: mostly here you'll hear counsel to expose the affair and do everything possible to hasten its end. Marriages can't endure ongoing affairs indefinitely. You'll also hear about Plan A, which includes meeting your spouse's deepest emotional needs and not doing things that destroy love. MelodyLane's responses are distilled from much experience, and clearly in the majority opinion here.

My take is that Harley's principles are fundamentally a working-out of the Golden Rule. You can hear similar things elsewhere. For example, James Dobson's book on 'Tough Love' argues that standing up for yourself and not tolerating the affair is a way of loving your spouse.

In my view God would prefer you to protect your marriage, your kids, and even your wife from the destructive behaviors she is engaging in. Working to convince your spouse that it is in her best interest to end the affair (which it is) is an ethical, caring response to this situation.

So the advice you've been given to expose the affair is good. We don't do it for revenge - it is a calculated, loving response to avoid even greater damage and pain. Drawing sharp financial boundaries is also helpful -- wayward spouses aren't thinking clearly, but realizing that they can't have their cake and eat it too, helps them reconsider.

I'm so sorry you and your children are in this lousy situation. I'll pray for your marriage.

- WG

I'm a Christian.

Do everything Melody has told you.

First, get the PI and the facts.

Then come back here for help.

You think you found this place on your own, without God? He sent you here to save your marriage.

Hope,

This is a hard path to travel alone. While I received a lot of benefit from the online community at Marriage Builders, the most crucial support for me came from personal interactions with people who had been through the same situation themselves.

One face-to-face, christian support group is Divorce Care. You might give them a try. Their web site has a locator to find a local group; typically organized by a local church. Despite the name, they minister to people experiencing separation, and naturally want to see marriages reconciled when possible. At least 75% of the participants in my group had to deal with affairs.

- WG

WOW...change the 1800 to 1100 and it matches my posting almost exactly! Sorry you're here hope.


YES, you prayed and ended up finding this site. What more do you want? You have been guided to help, now act on it.


LISTEN to what others are telling you. PLAN A and EXPOSE. It can work. PLAN A worked for me. As I said, it is the exact same story. Text messages, ice cold, wanted a divorce and so on. Now it is your turn to do something about it!

Just an aside, don't let your WW make any health care decisions with/for you. When we are sick we need someone truly vested in us to help us. Get someone who is truly interestd in YOU, a parent, sibling. GF

Hope,

You have bigger fish to fry (i.e., exposing, Plan-Aing), but I wanted to make one suggestion:

Be careful about involving your children in assessing or fixing your marriage. They are kids and it isn't their responsibility.

(BTW, it really stinks that your W won't protect them from this mess.)

About one month after I discovered the affair my WW and D13 came back from shopping, rather late, like 10-11pm. (I think they did actually bring in bags -- it was the holiday season.) I went in my daughter's bedroom to wish her goodnight and I asked her about her evening. Things like did she buy anything and what stores she went to. She started screaming (literally) for me to 'leave her alone' and to 'stop bothering her' and 'why didn't I believe her'. I was really disturbed and perplexed.

After pondering it for awhile I realized what I had done. I had thought that I was just asking neutral questions and caring for her. (That is what I was doing.) But, it wasn't an innocent shopping trip. WW took D13 along with OM to the shopping mall. My simple questions disturbed my daughter because she was caught up in the lie.

Seeing the damage being done to my child I firmly resolved never to use her to get information about the A.

- WG

If she is cheating with a married man, what and how do they do to keep it hidden from their spouse. I mean do they go to lunch together, meet after work etc. I pretty sure the OM is still living with an unsuspecting wife.

Your wife has her own apartment where they can meet all the time. But, this boat is not going anywhere until you get the truth.

And don't ASK her if she is having an affair. She will just lie and go further underground. find out on your own.

When I contronted the phone calls and text messages, which started this whole downward spiral, she said that they were just friends and just talked about and made fun of people at the bowling alley. After I contronted her, most of the calls and text's stopped except a couple a week. When she moved out she had our cell contract seperated so I can't view the calls since about mid august. She denied several times that it was nothing like what I was thinking.

I think our 19 year old son might being staying there now, as of the last two nights, but is going into the Air Force in a couple of weeks. He had asked her a couple of times to move in with her in the last month and she had said no. But now she knows he will be leaving in a few weeks and she won't have to deal with him anymore.

Well now at least you know when to have it staked out. Bring a video camera.

ok, so what will you be doing to find out the truth?

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. Ephesians 5:11-13

"She denied several times that it was nothing like what I was thinking."


This is called gaslighting. Of course your wife denied having an affair, and then told you it was NOTHING LIKE WHAT YOU WERE THINKING. Because YOU ARE CRAZY!!!! Don't you know you're crazy?


That's exactly what she will tell you, until you focus on getting proof that she is in her affair. Once you bust her, have the proof, and

EXPOSE HER AFFAIR TO THE LIGHT OF DAY

you won't be so crazy anymore.


She will be angry. She will tell you that she can never forgive you. She will say all sorts of things.


But once you expose the affair to the OM's wife, and the church friends, and your family, that affair will begin to die. Because you will call these people and ask them to help you save your marriage. You will tell them that your wife is in an affair, but that you love her, and you need their help and support to save your marriage. That the problem in your marriage is an affair, and that you want the marriage to be saved, and you are working on the things in the marriage that can be strengthened, but need their support to make the affair stop. Ask them for it.

Expose it - but you will not be able to do that until you confirm it, and you can't confirm it unless you ACT NOW.

If you can't afford a PI, then hire a babysitter and camp out yourself. Watch her at the bowling alley where she can't see you - borrow a car from a friend so she will not recognize that car. You have a RIGHT to know the truth about your marriage. You have a RIGHT to know exactly why your marriage is failing, and you are currently sitting by being willing to do nothing to stop it.

I appreciate that you want to pray about it. Pray. Also, help God help you, by doing something to help yourself. You must take some action in a direction, and that direction must be to gain knowlege about what is happening.

Get going - get to finding out what your wife is doing. To do nothing is a sure-fire method to lose your marriage.


SB