Remember you are fighting for your marriage. The affair is only fun if it is secret. I think you have to expose. I'm sure some veterans will be around to give you more advice on this as well.

DO NOT TELL HER YOU WILL EXPOSE JUST DO IT!!!!!!

Yes. You should NOT threaten to do this, you should just DO IT. Blackmail is a huge lovebuster and the affairees will simply get to her first and spin you as a "crazy jealous nut who imagines everyone wants to bed his wife." Then when you do call she will think you are a nut.

You should just do it. She has to know anyway so she can help stop the affair from her end.

I read your thread and I want to tell you that our sitchs are almost identical. My WH met POSOW at his work. They started out as "just friends". As you see by my sig line I was actually told about OW in November 2007. Over the past 2 years, I found a lot of evidence of an affair but was talked out of it. In March 2009, I even went out for a day to figure out what I wanted. WH called me repeatedly and asked me to come home. He said that he loved me and didn't want to lose me. He had me so convinced that they were just friends that in the summer I was thinking that I needed to work on myself and stop being so jealous and insecure.(HA)

Then came September 2009 when my WH gave me the ILYBNILWY speech. I was devastated. He convinced me that there was no other woman that things just weren't working anymore(BLAH BLAH BLAH). I found MB at the perfect time. I installed a keylogger on Nov 26. It was only on there for 2 hours until he discovered it. There was enough on there to tell me that they were indeed having sex and they were "IN love". I read and reread that info and could recite it word for word. Funny thing is he still wouldn't admit it and I said "You know I put a keylogger on the computer. I know." He is living with her right now and as he was leaving was still trying to play off like he would be in her "extra bedroom". Don't try to analyze what she is doing and why just follow what the vets on here are telling you.

I exposed, Plan A'd till it made me almost lose my mind and am now firmly in a Dark Plan B. What have I discovered? I always "knew" but didn't want to believe it. I love my WH very much but can NOT let him treat me this way. His affair continued because they worked together everyday. I may have been too late, but I hope not.

As far as if you exposing to his gf would get POSOM and your WW closer, it may be hurtful to you but it is good. Their affair can't last in the light of day. My WH is in the same house as POSOW and I am actually feeling better than when he lived here. Crazy huh?

Follow what Melody has been telling you as well as others. They know what they are talking about and they are leading you down the path for your ONLY chance to save your M.

Now I have her work phone number, work address, home address, email address, and facebook and myspace accounts so I think I'm covered.

So..
I call the girlfriend, tell her what I know, confront the OM, tell him I know, confront my wife (in that order)then see her reaction. If she agrees to quit work and have no contact we rebuild our marriage. If she angrily denies everything and loses her mind I calmly tell her I want everything to work but she's going to have to tell the truth..then I tell everyone (the nuclear option) co workers, family, everyone. At this point I honestly see one of needing to leave for a couple days so we don't kill each other...

Scotland,
Thanks for sharing. I sincerely hope it works out for you, although what happened to you is exactly what I fear.

DO NOT LEAVE. think of her talking in fog babble like the teacher on Peanuts(WHA WHA WHA WHA). Don't engage. If she feels like she needs to leave don't try to stop her. I had advice to say things like "I can not accept a marriage where you have a boyfriend, would you like some tea?" If she suggests that you may have been unfaithful to her simply state, "I believe in a marriage with only two people, I really like pudding."

Listen to the vets they know their stuff

1. call the girlfriend

2. go home and confront your wife

Save the confrontation with the OM til later. And do not leave and do not fight with her. If she wants to leave, let her leave. BUT YOU DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOME.

Don't let fear guide you. If you have a spare moment(or a few days hehehehe) you can hop over to my thread and see that the advice you are getting is the same. I may be further along in the process but I still have FAITH in it.

You will be able to do this. Pick up your cajones and DO IT.

You are not alone. All of us are behind you. Like was said to many others, this is a WAR against the affair. On one side you have POSOM and WW. On the other, you have YOU and all of US. Keep your chin up and take your punches(only figuratively) YOU WILL MAKE IT.

JCB, a few tips so you avoid doing what I did in several ways. While they didn't totally botch my recovery (so far), they created needless drama and escalation.

1. Never, ever discuss your snooping methods with a wayward. Not now, not ever. Dr. Harley emphasizes Radical Honesty, but in this case, you can be Radically Honest about the fact that you snoop, but your spouse has no standing to ask or be given an answer as to how.

If she finds out it's a keylogger, she'll start using a different computer. If you watch her phone, she'll start using pay phones or pay-as-you-go phones. If you tell her about the GPS in her car, she'll search until she finds it or else go to the lengths of taking public transportation or getting rides with friends. Every time you are "radically honest" about how you're getting the goods on her infidelity, she'll take it further underground to try to escape the truth.

So that's Tip #1: Be radically honest about every aspect of your life EXCEPT THIS ONE: don't share how you know how she's lying to you. My stock answer to her questions is to be honest about the fact that I'm keeping tabs on her activities: "Yes, I keep track in several ways, but I am not willing to discuss how I know when you are lying to me." I am telling her the truth: that I cannot tell her because she's not safe. And I'm telling her the truth that I cannot trust her with the information about how I keep track of her. But I'll never intentionally expose what those methods are ever again.


2. When you expose, encourage your exposure targets to get involved. Yes, I said "encourage". Your wayward is then stuck in the position of trying to reason with people who are outraged over her behavior. It's a dose of reality.


3. Never threaten to expose. That's a selfish demand: "Do this OR ELSE!" Just expose. It's Independent Behavior -- a Love Buster -- but a targeted one designed to make the affair very uncomfortable. And my answer to her anger over exposure, like so many before me, is "I am willing to do whatever it takes to fight for my marriage." And when your spouse starts to challenge that exposure isn't the right way to fight for your marriage... learn to walk away. It's really, really hard to do, but I learned to say "Telling the truth is always the right thing to do."

Great post, BB! And to back up BB's excellent advice, here are Dr Harley's quotes on these points:

1. "There are two situations where I don't recommend radical honesty or the POJA: Abuse and infidelity. In the case of infidelity, if one spouse suspects the other, I have gone so far as to encourage hiring a private detective to help investigate, using spyware, keyloggers, putting a gps on the car, and all sorts of other snooping methods. If its found that the spouse is not guilty, I encourage revealing the snooping to the spouse. If found guilty, I encourage keeping spying techniques secret indefinitely. Your conclusions are correct."

2. needs no further comment, exposure means exposure.

3. "But the alternative, helping the unfaithful spouse to keep the affair a secret, is enabling the addiction, prolonging the agony. In the long run, making the affair public knowledge without any forewarnings, threats, or bartering (which by themselves can create massive withdrawals) actually reduces the number of Love Bank withdrawals made by the betrayed spouse. It�s my opinion that the advantages of immediate exposure usually far outweigh the disadvantages." article here

Attempted to contact the girlfriend...no luck at any numbers, she might be off for the weekend.

My wife and I went out last night and had a great time, or so I thought...after several drinks the subject came up and she said she was glad nothing ever happened between her and the OM because she loved me so much...

Absolutely crushing to know the truth and not be able to say it yet.

Anyone at this stage ever think...it's not going to work anyway...too many lies, the absolute humiliation, it sounds strange but I could forgive the affair, but the lies...I don't know.

Are you disguising your # so the OM GF can't ID you?

The lies make it very bad, jcb. The lies are harder to recover from than the affair because it is adding insult to injury.

jcb, I wouldn't allow the exposure to the GF to delay your chat with your wife or the exposure to your DD, though. I would get this done so you can ask your wife now to quit that job.

NO!

You call the girlfriend. You call your wife's parents, siblings, and other relatives and tell them. You call her best friends and tell them. You tell your children. THEN you call OM's parents, siblings, relatives and friend.

IN THAT ORDER!

Then, if you still have energy, you call OM and tell him to stay the heck away from your wife.

I have the plan in place to confront my wife. I have the plan to show the actual evidence without sacrificing the keylogger I have installed. I am ready for what will happen.

However, telling my 2 daughters and my wifes mother is conflicting me. Our kids did nothing wrong..this will make our oldest daughter (the one who yelled at my wife on a previous d-day) absolutely lose her mind she also knows who the OM is and where he works, her response will probably be worse than mine...our youngest daughter will be crushed because she defended her mom and was adamant that she would never do something like this to me and our family....can not telling the kids show my wife I have allowed her to keep some small amount of dignity?

Lying to your children will not retain your wife's dignity, it will harm your children by teaching them to be dishonest and causing moral confusion. There is nothing dignified about lying to children. Your wife sacrificed her dignity when she had an affair - don't protect her from the consequences of her choices. Who does that help? Absolutely no one.

Your children already know what is going on, it will help no one to whitewash her crime. Maintaining an illusion by lying to your kids helps NO ONE. It does not help your wife, and it certainly does not help your kids.

Kids can deal with the truth, they can't deal with lies. They have every right to know what is happening in their own life so they can be equipped to deal with this.

Dr Willard Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders:

jcp, your older DD already knows about this affair, so it sounds like your wife has been allowed to lie to her? Have you allowed your DD to be treated that way by your wayward wife?


Also, have you put a keylogger on your wife's computer?

More Dr Harley on telling children:

JCB,

However, telling my 2 daughters and my wifes mother is conflicting me. Our kids did nothing wrong..

Your daughters lives have already been altered by the dark matter of your wifes affair, and the OM is attacking your Mother in-laws grandchildren. Yes they need to know the truth of their lives, and the affair partners need to understand what they are doing to your innocent children.

I'm an OC btw, and everyone knew the story of my life for something like 35 years, EXCEPT ME. Was like being in the Truman Show.

God Bless
NJ

jcb

"the one who yelled at my wife on a previous d-day)"

The D days will never end because your lack of courage, refusing to expose WW, has taught WW that there never will be consequences for her to face.

Children can and will handle the truth. Letting them believe lies is what mess's them up.

Showing them that there are no consequences to infidelity mess's them up. To the point that the odds greatly increase that the damage done to them by the lying and covering up that they will most likely have their own affairs as adults.