A little background before I go into my question:
I'm in week three of finding out my wife has been having an affair over the summer and fall. What started out as physical turned into an emotional affair. As she became more withdrawn I finally clued in that was something was wrong and eventually broke what I thought was her trust by searching her cell phone. It was full of texts which laid out the affair in its ugly truth.

After spending days on this site I now see where I have been failing to meet her Emotional Needs for years. I look back and see where she tried to get closer to me but we never had good communication so she just gave up. She looked for some fun elsewhere and discovered a relationship she always wished we could have had. To further complicate our relationship as money became tight she increased her hours at the bar she works at and now works there Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. This is the place she met other man (OM, no idea where all the acronyms are coming from so I will make some up:). We see each other no more then 15 hours total a week and most of that time is spent shuffling around our kids and taking care of the house. There in lies the problem.

She has stated she understands she has to end the relationship but it is of course hard for her. Right now she does not feel we have much of a chance, she is willing to try because we have nice home for our two girls (11 & 8) and we do get along fine except for what caused this. She of course feels deeply for the OM. He recently turned up at her work again. I told her I understand how this affected her but she did restate her commitment to end it.

I don't want to push her too hard on this. I have stated the view of this site (we have not reached the point of going through this site together yet), she does understand how it is the appropriate course, but.

I don't know how hard I should push on this. It is only week 3.

I have not communicated with the OM yet. I have been waiting for her to break it off first. He is very afraid of me, I have no feelings about him at this time so there is no danger there, yet. I am thinking of asking her if I can remind him to stay away from her until she gets through this difficult decision.

Is it a mistake to not confront the OM.

Lastly let me clarify the situation. My wife is 38, the OM is 22. I'm 39. It is not that she sees herself with him for the rest of her life, but that she does not feel we can make our marriage work, and she does feel deeply for him.

Please do not tell your WW about this site or your user name. She is wayward and it will likely explode in your face and hamper your effects to salvage your marriage at this point.

If OM is afraid of you, I'd confront. Do not try to be Mr. Nice Guy. You want to make him believe he is going to be in for a world of hurt if he doesn't leave your wife alone. Working in a bar is not going to help your marriage. You might have to re-evaluate this part down the road. Have you exposed to anyone?

Don't ask your wife permission about contacting OM or about any sort of exposure. All you are doing is tipping your hand and openning yourself up for spin.

Sorry you are here.

I have only brought in one very trusted friend and it was the wife that suggested I do this. The affair itself is not public as it would be very embarrassing for my wife. I do not see the sense in exposing the affair while we try to work through it.

It should be embarassing to her. I would let her family, and yours know what's going on. Don't expose out of anger, but out of concern for your marriage.

Exposure is your biggest ally right now.

And she definitely needs to find another job. A bar is absolutely not a good atmosphere for a wayward spouse to ever be in alone.

It is NOT possible to recover your M while she is having an A.

You need to expose the A in order to end the A. Once the A has been killed THEN you can recover your M.

Do NOT tell her you are going to expose before you do it. Do you know if OM is married?

You are going to get the exposure advice up the whazzo. This is because it is essential you expose. It's a mystery to me why folks are reluctant to do so, as Harley says it is the best way to go.
It's like going to a physician and then not taking the medication he perscribes.

Get this, she has betrayed you, your children and the God that sealed your marriage. These deserve to know the details. Find out and meet her EN's.

OM should be confronted publicly if he seeks to meet with her. She must be aware of this when she write him the NC letter. Check the Notable post forum for suitable NC letters.

Have a plan as to how will meet her EN's -and do them. Action is worth far more than words.

Ok,

I hear what everyone is saying, but this OM is barely an adult.

I am quite capable of forgiving my wife for the betrayal and I do not wish to see her embarrassed by having her actions see the light of day. This kid is not married, he just moved out of his parents place. [EDIT]To me it seems to take this public is akin to saying let's do Plan B.

You will probably get better results in ending the A if you stop being such a great guy about it, Shawn. First of all, there are a million bars. The little fella your W has the hots for can find another pub to frequent. And it's up to you to tell him that.

If you wait for your WW to end the A, you'll be waiting a long time. She's admitted as much to you. Expect more of her feelings to come out over the coming weeks if you continue to lie down and wait for her to be a stand-up wife and straighten herself out. Waywards don't do that, as a rule.

If your W hadn't chosen to indulge in the destructiveness of an affair, she wouldn't have anything to be embarrassed about. Unfortunately for her, she made that mistake. And it's now your choice to expose that A (affair) if you want to end it. IF you want to end it. If you don't, then don't say anything. Just sit back quietly and let them carry on. Because that's what they're going to do if you don't expose it.

You shouldn't spare her any of the shame and embarassment. She brought that on all by herself.

Shielding her from the effects of this affair are just setting yourself up for future affairs from her.

The shame from exposure will make her think twice about ever putting her family (and herself) through the embarassment again.

You don't threaten anything.

Shawn, the appraoch you are taking is said to be very unlikely to accomplish what you desire. She has already demonstrated, unfortunately, that she has little respect for you and that she lacks a conscience in this area.
It's sad, isn't it. We expect these folks that are cheating to act as honorable adults. They simply do not and only seem to respond to consequences, as children do. These are not the most evolved folks, IMO.

The title of your thread is "Help me not be stupid"

That's what we're trying to do. Stupid would be NOT exposing her affair.

Oh, boy...

Stop right here. You're about to mess this up; you've got limited cards in your hand, and you've got to play them right in order to give yourself the best fighting chance to recover your marriage. I'll just chime in with a couple of points, but please, please, please listen to the advice from the more seasoned posters on here, who've begun posting above.

You are clinging to a fantasy that your wife is strong enough & possessed of the self-discipline to end this affair on her own. It won't work. The emotional rush someone gets from an affair is basically the same as an addiction. They crave that rush. They act on it even when their intellect (to the extent it's even functioning, which is probably sporadically at best) tells them they should end it. What killed my affair was exposure & the imminent risk thereof -- namely, my other woman's husband found her out, which forced me to come clean to my wife & forced me to start taking steps to save my marriage. Until this exposure began, I was content to have my cake & eat it too.


Buddy, do you wanna be a doormat? You don't necessarily need to take out an ad in the papers, but you need to identify people to expose to. These can be OM's relatives, employers, your and/or your wife's parents, OM's spouse if he's married, (though I suspect he's not). And then DO it. Expose the affair. And expose to your wife's boss, too -- most employers frown upon & may even actively discourage their married employees from conducting affairs with customers. And YES, you need to let the OM know, not only that you're onto him, but that it's a disgusting thing for him to pursue a married woman with children, and that you'll take whatever steps are necessary to defend your family from his predatory presence in her & your family's life. Chances are, he doesn't want that extra aggravation, and there's even a chance that this consideration might be enough to send him scurrying out of the picture.

It's all well & good that you're starting to read up on emotional needs & introspectively considering ways in which you might not have been meeting hers. Do your best to meet them, but first, you've got to get the affair over with and get "no-contact" verifiably in place, or she'll not even notice you trying to meet her needs, no matter how you redouble your efforts on this front.

And she needs to quit the job, NOW. No ifs/ands/buts. It's a public establishment, so there's no way to prevent OM from coming in at any time; and she can't get over the addiction if that happens. The temporary loss of her income until she finds a new job will be peanuts compared to the marital assets that you & she will each spend on divorce lawyers ,custody fights, etc., if your marriage fails.

Ok, then go talk to OM. Be VERY firm.

Since he's just a kid it is very likely that he will end things w/ your W b/c he doesn't want the hassle.

If he doesn't end it and you don't want to expose the A, then prepare to continue sharing your W w/ him for a long time.

seriously. He's got the perfect situation. Sex with no commitment whatsoever. For a 22 year old guy, that sounds like a good deal. And her husband is leaving him alone.

Right now he's got absolutely no reason whatsoever to stop screwing your wife.

I would let his parents know that he's fooling around with a married woman.

Be more than firm. Unless there's a chance he's armed (and granted, the kind of people that hang out in bars often are, unfortuately), you might consider telling the guy AND his parents that if he continues to pursue your wife, you'll spend the rest of your life making the rest of his so miserable that he'll WISH he were dead. Be careful, as he might retaliate, but chances are, for the sake of a woman 16 years older than himself, he'll just decide he doesn't need or want that sort of hassle.

Hellloooo, this is a kid. Just go tell the little weasel that you'll break his knees if he doesn't keep his you-know-what between them. Stop being such a wimp. You'll probably scare the cr@p out of him and he'll run the other way.

And EXPOSE. It's your most potent weapon. Affairs survive because of the secrecy.

The point is, if she doesn't suffer some shame or remorse for what she's done to you, if she suffers no consequences, what makes you think she won't pick up on yet another guy?

If a kid steals candy, and daddy says 'shame on you, billy, now let's go get you an airplane,' what will happen? Will he steal again?
If that kid steals candy, and daddy takes him by the hand and makes him apologize to the store owner, and THEN work to pay off the candy, do you think he'll steal again?

Your wife has to be afraid of consequences so that, next time she starts feeling 'mistreated' by you, she'll hopefully stop herself.

If you have to, explain it to her that way. She sounds halfway logical at this point.

Also, if her family knows, they will help her and you keep an eye on her for suspicious behavior in the future.

That's the FIRST thing I would do.