Why would you NOT expose to her family? I didn't read all 15 pages of your thread but I can't think of any reason to keep this quiet. I believe exposing to my wife's family was the key to ending her A.

You haven't exposed yet? WTH?! Why on earth not?

BHFF,

Plan B? What has your Plan A been like so far?

Keep in mind that during an affair the WS will manifest many if not all not the characteristics of BPD as well as many of the symptoms of the narcissistic personality. This is probably because of the addiction to the feelings created by the affair. The way to tell the difference is to examine the relationship BEFORE the affair and see if those same drama queen tendencies were there all along or if they only began to manifest themselves during the time of the affair.

Was the lying and manipulation present from the beginning? If so then BPD is a very real possibility. Was sex used as bondage (not talking handcuffs here) and control or was it shared as equals? Did your WW always thrive on drama and crisis? Does she tend to distance herself from any form of real intimacy with you and the children not just during the last few months but since the beginning of the relationship.

The thing about an affair is that it is a purely selfish thing and in order to carry it out the selfishness must be manifested by the person carrying out the affair.

When I first read about BPD during my wife's affair I was flabbergasted by the way it described her then current actions and words. But having raised a child who was diagnosed bipolar when in her early teens I also saw clear symptoms of manic phase actions and poor decision making. When I first read Dr Harley's description of the Electric Fence personality I saw at once the behaviors my wife was manifesting and as I began to look into addictions I found that any and all of those same things show up in a list of what appears in the life of an addict. It was this last list that caused me to agree that an affair is a very real addiction and led me to look further into the chemical/neurotransmitter actions in the brain during a period of "falling in love."

So if your wife was once a sweet and loving gal who has only recently shown selfish tendencies and an inability to show any sort of empathy then I would suggest that perhaps her actions are purely the result of the affair and not a diagnosable disorder. If on the other hand she has always shown these types of personality traits and has always been a liar and manipulator and thrives on drama and crisis, I would do whatever it takes to extract yourself from this relationship.

But before you run off and divorce her, be sure you know that you are really dealing with someone who is never going to be able to be an equal marriage partner. You were advised to expose pages ago. Who knows about this besides you, us and your WW?

Plan A is supposed to win her back by making you a better choice than OM. But MOST WW's will try to cake eat and keep OM in the loop as "a friend" since they are getting some EN(s) met by OM. In most cases the affair isn't about sex to the WW anyway so to her the PA only happened to prolong the EA where she was getting whatever EN she was getting met by OM continue being met. (Yeah, the affair partners manipulate the hell out of each other) So for HER the "relationship" didn't begin as wanting to leave you for OM and become his sex-salve but as a "friendship" that met one or more of her ENs. It was how she justified what she was doing at first since she did not begin with the idea of cheating on you at all.

So until that kind of thinking is challenged directly, she will engage in whatever way she has left to prolong that fantasy that she has created, which BTW, has NOTHING to do with what OM might or might not be expecting from the relationship. The BEST tool to end this line of logic is the mirror of reality and truth that comes from exposure.

To you her affair is boinking OM. To her it is conversation, admiration, affection and openness and honesty (ironic, that part) that comes from "SHARING" with OM.

Two things can still turn this around IMO. One is exposure which will cause others to see what is going on and when SHE knows that THEY know the truth, she will be forced to examine her own actions. The second thing is to confront her directly and express your feelings about what is going on. She does NOT define an affair as having contact with another guy since to HER it was not about sex to begin with. When you confront her you must be in total control of your own outward appearance and manner.

If you scream, shout, threaten and escalate things to her being nothing but a common wh*** then expect the turn to be for the worse. If you state that you KNOW she is still in contact and that contact hurts you (make it about your feelings and not her actions) she MIGHT be more open to change.

Now if all of this is about she is still looking to get her ENs met because you aren't doing a very good job of that then look at her ENs to see what you are missing. What are her top 3 - 5 ENs? Can you identify them? What are you doing specifically to meet each one of them?

If you want her to end the affair for good and never have another, you have to get her to engage in fixing the marriage from her side of the equation as well as fixing your own half. Unless you give her some compelling reason to do that she has no motivation to engage you at all, since her "IMPORTANT" ENs are met quite nicely by OM without her having to engage in sex with him (at least in her mind) and the way to win her back is to be a consistantly better choice than OM. Meet her ENs, avoid Love Busters and blow her fantasy to pieces by letting the rest of the world know that she is having an affair.

Look at it this way; if she REALLY wanted you out of her life so she could be with OM, she would be gone and living with OM already. That means she has reason to stay. Now give her the reasons she needs to give up OM.

Meet her ENs.
Avoid Love Busters.
Expose the affair.

Doing the first two without the third gives her more reason to eat cake. Not doing the first two at all or poorly gives her no reason to end the affair. It takes all three pieces to give her a reason to change.

Seek a resolution of the conflict instead of avoiding it...

Now if she has always been a manipulative conniving cut-throat b!tch then drop what you are doing, get to a lawyer and run as fast and as far as you can to get away from her and take the kids with you.

You have no (as in zero, nada, zip, zilch, nyet) control over anything she does. You only have control over what you do. If you do certain things, she might respond a certain way. If you keep doing what you've been doing and it does not make her do what you want her to do, you need to change something. Since you can't change her, find out what you can change in yourself and then do it.

:twobyfour:

And in case no-one has gotten the message through to you yet, when exposure happens she will be mad enough to chew up railroad spikes and spit out thumbtacks. EXPECT it. ANTICIPATE it. KNOW that it will be so and know how to disengage from the nuclear holocaust that will ensue. You goal is not to prevent her from being angry, it is to get her to end the affair entirely and commit to rebuilding the marriage.

What have you done so far?

How's that workin' for ya?

Mark

Sorry about my absence, I told her I was thinking about leaving after my last post, she told me she wanted me to stay and she loved me. It has been a long couple weeks, stomach flu through the entire family for 8 days, so not much marriage work outside of the fact I was the one who was affected the least and spent a lot of time caring for everyone. It is late, and will try to post more later.

So this ought to make all of you laugh-
At work, bored to tears, sitting around having stupid conversations. Started talking about cell phones, what they do now, blah, blah. I said hey did you see you can even locate someone with them now? On the internet, signed up for it, WW got a message that that part of our plan had been activated. (BTW she was "working late") Get a phone call, why have you done this? Because I am playing around, sent you a text told what we were doing. Well WW is not working late she is with GF. Starts fight.
Rest of long story-
Babysitter calls, DS sick, cant console him cant reach mom. Leave work, 11 PM, pick up DS take him home, no WW. Dont know where WW is, phone is turned off. Slept grand total of 1 1/2 hours, coffee and nicotine now keeping me moving.
WW told me earlier that she was with GF who had broken up with her BF and needed consoling. That part is true. But, hey here I am.

What to do, what to do..............

If she turns her phone off again then pack her clothes, leave them on the porch.

Hey BHFF,

Sorry to hear about recent events. Have you dropped the Mr. Needy yet? You have to show some of that tenacity you exhibit on the job. You cannot wait around like some pathetic clingy character. Even if she is not doing the other guy, she still isn't respecting you. Everytime she has gotten the feeling that you are finally going to man up on her she says she loves you and you cave. The best thing was when you activated the phone locator. Have you shown her the side of you that is confident yet? Make her stay home with the kids. Make her worry about where you are. If she pulls away, you pull away. I would not even come home the next set of days off you get. Go fishing. She needs to know that what she does effects how you treat her. She hasn't had to put any effort in the marriage, because you are doing it all for her. She hasn't had to worry that she is going to lose you. Why don't you make her worry that she is going to lose you. But its your marriage.