Melody, there is only an email address in the letter, but I did sign my real name.

IMstaying, there is not a risk if the OW contacts her H. She is ending the marriage. Even so, that is no excuse for not exposing the affair. But there is a risk with the OWH not knowing. If his wife is cheating on him, he is at risk of getting STDs. He has a right and a need to know what has been done to him behind his back so he can protect himself. It is an act of decency.

If your neighbor's bookkeeper has stolen money from him do you not tell him so you can "let sleeping dogs lie?" That would be pretty cruel and inhumane.

Marriage Builders DOES recommend exposing the affair to the betrayed spouse no matter how much time has passed. It is the right thing to do for all concerned. Everyone should know about the affair.

That should be good enough, OH.

That is cowardly advice from a not-very-former WS who is still concerned about protecting his own [censored] from a beating.

You suggested to this board that you tell the PI about this other affair, in the hope that the PI would stop watching you. I think you even suggested paying the PI yourself to make him look away from you.

You were told many more things than to "keep that information in (your) back pocket".

First, you were questioned about why you thought it was a PI, and what made you think he was watching you. PIs do not exactly advertise their activities and it is their job to go unnoticed.

You were asked what you had to fear from a PI watching you, if you had NC with OW. It was suggested that you were still in contact - especially since you had broken NC once already, and not been open about to this board. You answered that your wife might freak out about the PI. She had made such an instant recovery from her 20-year sexual aversion to you, and was claiming immediately after D Day to be having the best time ever in her marriage, and you did not want her to get upset. We took you to task on your version of these events and you eventually had one thread locked and abandoned the other.

Several people, including me, suggested that you had no right to deny OWH knowledge about your affair with his wife, and that you should face any consequences that you had coming to you. It was not your right to try and put off the PI (if it was a PI) to try and save your own skin.

You were asked about previous affairs and your disclosed more than one, and at that point closed the topic. Have you ever confessed those prior affairs to your wife?

Does OW still live in your neighbourhood? What are you planning to do in the long term to protect your BW and offer her security if OW stays there?

I don't think OH should listen to advice from a WH whose main interest is in covering his own back.

Here's basically what I wrote in the letter (I won't quote it word for word).

I apologized for it taking me 3 years to send this.

I summed up what happened between his wife and my husband during the period of summer/05 through fall/06. I told him how they had met at the reunion, what I understood happened in the month or so after that, how it took me a while to figure out/get the info from H that they had actually dated and had deep feelings for eachother at various points in the years between HS and when they were about 25 or so. I told him about what H told me when she flew into town the week before our wedding, told him she'd made a huge mistake walking out on him years before and begged him not to marry me and I gave him the date of our wedding. He can do his own math--she was married to him when she did this.

I told him I was missing some chunks of information during the time I suspected but hadn't yet hacked into the email accounts so I could only quote for sure what I'd read and then pass along some things H told me.

I then gave him my email address and told him to feel free to contact me if he had any questions but not to feel obligated to do so.

IMStaying, in addition to SugarCane's excellent points, if both the BS's know everything, it makes it much easier to WATCH the wayward spouse. And a WS should be watched like a HAWK because they are untrustworthy.

If the other BH injures the WS, that will be because of the risk he took by sleeping with his wife. That was a risk he was willing to take. [censored] whoopings are a known potential job hazard that affairees willingly take.

That is perfect. You know what is so striking to me, OH? I bet he has questioned his whole marriage and had suspicions all along. Can you imagine having to live like that? You will be giving him the missing pieces to his life for the past 25 years. Now, his life will make sense to him.

If it's not MB advice then please do not give it on the MB board.

SC,
I have no worries about getting my [censored] beaten by OW's H or anybody else for that matter.

No, I wanted to tell OW's H about it so that he can spend his resources watching her. I have no idea how OW spun the A to him. Frankly, I don't even care.

I have never broken NC! She broke NC 2 days after I did, and I have not heard from her since. Nor do I want to.

Absolutely. In fact, a month or so ago the OW from 1998 called me. I said that I was happily married and not interested. I told my W that evening. O&H is something that I have committed to.

No, a few miles away though.

Well from what H told me (based on what OW told him so I realize this is a liar and a cheat talking to a liar and a cheat so who knows how accurate it is....), he has a drinking problem (actually this is confirmed--he was in the airline's alcohol abuse and recovery program in order to keep his job), he has been violent with her and that she is just hanging around until the kids are out of the house. My own take on that is that there is probably some grain of truth there--I'm sure he's no day at the beach either. The personality type of a guy who was a fighter pilot just doesn't lend itself to someone who would be a docile type husband. But I'm almost positive she's had other affairs. She used to write to H about her sister's open marriage and how she envied it and how she wished her own H would get a girlfriend and quit bugging her for SF. I wouldn't be surprised if he's had some affairs of his own though either based on his lifestyle and personality type. Of course, that doesn't negate the fact that he should know about this. And also based on the emails/chats that I read, I do know that she was terrified of him finding out!

IMStaying, she holds disdain for your attitude. As do I. That has nothing to do with our own husbands. Telling someone they should not expose to the other victim is very wayward, fogged out advice that reflects a distinct LACK OF REMORSE on your part. It is cowardly advice.

But just not terrified enough to NOT screw around! Apparently she is not too worried about it so you shouldn't be either. If she was too worried she wouldnt be having affairs. Most OW play the "i am abused" card to justify their adultery. They typically demonize their spouses. The wacky logic goes something like this: "I am abused, therefore I am entitled to commit adultery." Now, would you cheat on someone you are afraid of?? Does that make a lick of sense to you?

That is because 9 times out of 10 it is a LIE. A baldfaced lie.

And while it is no excuse to drink, but if my spouse scammed me about my life for 25 years I might be inclined to drink excessively too. We have one member who became an active alcoholic after years of dealing with his wife's affairs and her gaslighting. He drank himself into oblivion to escape her abuse. And then when he became an alcoholic she convinced him she cheated BECAUSE OF his drinking. Needless to say, he is divorced now and has been sober in AA for 3 years! Thank God!

EXACTLY...AND further, ImStaying, HOW DARE YOU? Even IF that is how Sugarcane felt, [and it's NOT!] why in the WORLD would you poke someone about their hurt and pain? That is incredibly CRUEL and HEARTLESS, AND it reflects VERY poorly upon you and your status as a FORMER WS...*shaking head* IMO, you owe Sugarcane an apology...

Mrs. W

My gosh, I hadn't heard this yet. That was one of the things the OW told my H too, that her fiance was abusive, mean, etc, etc... I did not know that was a common thing and typically a lie!

Interesting, because when I suggested telling OW's H about her other affair partner, I was told that it would be cowardly. So if I told OW's H I would be a coward, yet if I don't then I am a coward. Can't win that argument.

I would not blame OH if she told the OM. Not at all. But I also would not blame her if she didn't. This would do absolutely nothing to rebuild OH's marriage. The thought of bringing her H's OW and OW's H back into her life at this point, three years later, post-R, is risky. Now she is saying he might be a drunk and have anger issues. If she does, could you at least recommend to her that she tell her H about the exposure, just in case a crazed, angry, drunken ex-military man shows up.

Actually Mel, you are wrong on THIS issue. Many abused women DO have affairs, in fact it is quite common. Even Dr. H addressed this in one of last newsletters ( which I can pull up for you later after I get off work). Generally women in abused marriages are looking for that " white" knight to rescue them from their situation.......

Not2fun

Interesting. OW used those EXACT words to H. She said "you are my white knight" and then went on to gush about all the other ways in which he was perfect. When they first started emailing right after he came home from the reunion, he told me it was because things were difficult for her at home and she was happy to have a friend to talk to (of course this was before I even knew they had a romantic relationship lurking in their past). All I said to him was that we were in a very low point in our marriage and she seemed to be in a low point in hers and that I didn't think it was the best idea for the two of them to be talking back and forth if we were going to try to patch things up between us. He agreed and said he would tell her no more emails or phone calls. I went away with my sister that weekend and when I returned, he told me he'd talked to her and that the phone calls and emails would stop. (oh how naive I was back then...) Three weeks later, we went on an overnight trip. I had to use his phone for some reason--mine out of battery power or something and I wanted to call the kids. When I hung up, the call log popped up and there was a 45 min phone conversation from him to her!

We went to dinner. I was pretty agitated. He said "is this going to ruin our dinner?" And I said "only if you keep lying to me". So first he said 'well she always calls me'. And I said that the call history on his phone that I saw showed that HE initiated that call. And he said 'well she had been calling and leaving voice mails so I finally called her back." (I later verified this through the phone records--it was when I started checking the call logs and finding all those 2-3 hour phone calls that had been going on...)

So then he said "she's going through a rough time and needed a shoulder." And I said that I was sure there were lots of shoulders locally where she lived; she didn't need one 2000 miles away. And then I told him to spill his guts about her and that's the FIRST time I ever had found out they dated and were more than just HS friends. And even then, he played down how involved the relationship was. I didn't find THAT out until a few months after this conversation.

Anyway, all this memory stuff came spewing out of my brain when I read those words "white knight".

Which makes them ABUSIVE women. Remember, Dr Harley says affairs are abusive behavior.

No one is saying that they should be abused.

However, if they respond with abusive behavior, is it justified? Of course not.

Because if you get right down to it, any abuser can likely find "justification" for their actions.

There is NO justification, lest anything think there is.

But if someone responds to abuse by having an affair, it's likely that she was just as abusive to her husband during the marriage as she claims he was.

She just escalated her abuse to the next level, an affair.

Bullcrap. Women play the abuse card all the time in order to justify affairs. And it is almost always a LIE. Rarely is it true. We see this over and over again on this forum. Nevertheless, it is not an excuse for adultery. Just as ElightenedEx pointed out, adultery is as, if not more grievous, than domestic abuse.

OH, this is how many OW attract men into adultery. They a) claim to be abused and unhappy and b) need a nice man to help them and talk to them. It serves 2 purposes in their mind: to justify the adultery and to flatter the OM by making him feel like a "knight in shining armour."

This is CLASSIC OW behavior. And 9 times out of 10 it is a lie. Most of the men here have been portrayed as "abusers" to their wive's OM.