Melody.....Excuse me, but have you ever heard of herpes, crabs and other STD's???? I am running, not walking, to my family physician Monday to be tested since I have had relations with H during the past few months even though he denies physical relationship with Hot Pants (hotel bills and reasonable thinking would lead me to believe otherwise).

I WILL NOT have a man in my bed who is actively engaged in an affair.

Ladylonglegs, MelodyLane is the "superwoman" of Marriage Builders! You are fortunate to have her online today -- so please take notice of what she says and pay attention!

I agree that your marriage can be saved. Her point of trying because you have nothing to lose that you wouldn't lose anyway is also worth noting.

The mere fact that your husband would suffer by exposure is proof positive that exposure must happen! He has done the unthinkable, and now the consequences must be faced. That this affair can have a stake driven through its heart is undeniable. If you do not expose it, you enable it.

For now, put aside your advanced degrees and professional standing and let yourself be assisted by MelodyLane and the folks here who have the "advanced degrees" in marriage building!

Of course! Don't have sex with him, LL. But STOP lovebusting him right now. Stop attacking him. That only makes the OW look good.

Don't help the skankho!!

You don't have to have genital contact with him to have him in your bed. You can also meet the emotional need of sexual fulfillment (a big one on a man's list) with out it.

You can be alluring, hot, sensual without the act. Gotta stop the lovebusting and etc OR you will hand him over to the OW on a plate.

Do you want that? I doubt it and even if you did......why be in such a hurry?

Read the concepts on this site like craze and READ Surviving An Affair post haste!

It gets to be even 'fun' to follow the MB plan.....the Plan A part is empowering beyond belief.

Really.

I don't know what to do with my anger. No, if nothing else, I don't want Hot Pants to win out of spite for her. Even if I decide I don't want him, I want to ruin it for her.

Channel your ANGER into a strategic plan to ruin the affair. That is what you do with it. Use it in a way that helps YOU and hurts the SKANK.

Come vent to us NOT HIM. She is not attacking him, LL, you can be assured of that. Don't make that STD ho look good at your expense.

We can help you do this if you can get a grip on your emotions. And I KNOW YOU CAN. When the urge to slam or berate him comes, tell yourself "SHUT UP, SHUT UP, YOU ARE MAKING THE OW LOOK GOOD!!"

Keep in mind this

Anger is fear. Fear of loosing control of the relationship with your spouse, fear of things falling apart when you are not ready to deal with it, fear of many things rushing at you.

Just knowing that helps a bit BUT also....another good way to deal with the anger is to take long walks and let yourself vent during them.

Having friends who are not your waywards friends to vent to. Tell them about your anger and how you need them to vent it to so that you can put on your best game face with the husband.

Then, as you are plan Aing and putting on your best game face, let your inner soul KNOW that this is BEST for you if no other thing comes from it.

Learning to seperate the Ego from the true self is SO very useful in life.

Really challenging but really empowering.

You CAN do it and it makes YOU better for it.

Truly.

OK...if I expose here's the possible fallout:

1. H will lose face (I don't care about this)
2. Hot Pants will be exposed as having affair w/prof/advisor
(I don't care)
3. Media will likely get wind of this (I don't care but we'll be
in gossip columns of university and other press (don't
like it but would do it anyway)
4. Federal and state grants for millions to university would
be jeopardized as H runs major research division and misuse
of grant funds could result in funds being jerked from
university impacting many people negatively, possibly
job losses due to pulling federal and state money by
auditors. If I expose affair w/advisee, would probably
mean others would start to look at whether he used any
grant monies to fund trips w/advisee....easy to find...I
did pretty fast. Many grad student stipends and research
projects are funded by grants written by my H. (This
would hurt a lot of innocent people)

5. I would further make challenge to validity of Hot Pants
doctoral degree since grades/credits were earned while she
slept with her advisor/major professor who was giving
grades. I would do this publicly so her credibility with
academics and professionals in our field would be highly
suspect.

Thoughts?

Sounds good to me! Except that I would change the wording to:



It is the AFFAIR that would cause those consequences. And this is a risk that the OW and your WS were glad to take. So, don't YOU concern yourself about risks that they obviously ARE NOT concerned about.

Don't protect them from the consequences of THEIR CHOICES, LLL. That would be harmful to them.

I thinkone important thing to focus on is that it isn't the EXPOSURE that might cause negative fallout, it is the AFFAIR that causes the negative fallout. Exposure is a tool; the affair is the causative agent for all of this.

LLL, why would you be concerned about protecting them from risks when they WERE NOT? They took this risk willingly. They volunteered for this.

You need to tell him, when he wakes up that you were emotional when you threw him out and want him to come back to your bed and offer to carry his stuff up.

Do it.

Tell him you want the marriage to prevail (even if you have many doubts right now you must be appearing to be loyal and sure)
Do it

My thoughts on the exposure fall out are that you must calm yourself down enough (a couple days to work issues out in your mind) and

first

Shame on him for potentially messing up innocent people's lives! Shame!

second

When you expose, you do it matter of factly (others can give you examples of proper letter writing and face to face comments to make to those you expose to).

You are asking yourself about an Ethical choice to make about the exposure situation and it sucks that innocent people would be harmed. It truly does. You are doing the good and decent thing wondering about this. It is something he and the OW did NOT do.

Hopefully, another person can step in and take control of the grants and so on to minimize any damage. If not, the structure of the institution is really fragile and needs to be restructured.

I get it....but I'm still thinking....do I want all this grief in my life? Do I want to stir up hornet nests and have to endure the crap that will come with it?

I'm thinking of trading my knowledge for his money. Early retirement for me, live in Tuscany for a while. Italian men.....sounding better to me all the time. Sell out, clean him out and take off. I'm thinking of myself as a movie character, right?

What you need to keep in mind is that this plan will buy you time to figure out what you ultimately do want to do.

It is too soon to know for sure.

Acting as if you want to save the marriage will give you the choice for much longer. MUCH longer.

That is your power here.

Keep your power. Whenever you wonder if it is worth it.....note to self....."this is my power here"

YK?

I'll go one step further than MelodyLane:
Other than that, I see no down side. Do you?

LLL, I live in Italy and work in tuscany in the summers. There are positions you could apply to in Florence to teach a American universities.
As far as Italian men goes...they are the same as American men. Plus they tend to be a bunch of mama's boys.
Also, read Eckhart Tolle's books if you have not yet done so. Loss is a wonderful opportunity to get in touch with what is really meaninful in our life.
blessing

Why is he hanging around the house? I figured he'd be out the door and gone all day just to avoid me. I am being civil but having great strain trying to do anything more positive. I hate him right now. I don't deserve this.

LLL,

Decide soon whether you want to try to save the marriage, or justifiably follow through with divorcing your cheating husband. Nobody faults you either way. Dr. Harley -- as I believe was mentioned in this thread -- himself has often said that he supports those who wish to divorce a spouse that has broken their vows in this way.

But most couples want to try to save their marriage after thinking about it a while. Typically, it takes around 3 weeks from D-Day for a betrayed spouse to come around to that viewpoint, if they are going to.

The advice you're getting so far regarding exposure, "Plan A" of meeting his needs while avoiding being the cause of his unhappiness ("Love Busters") is to preserve that chance if you wish to take it. A couple weeks may make a world of difference in your decision, and like I said: most couples decide within about 3 weeks if they want to salvage the marriage from the train-wreck the unfaithful spouse created.

If you DO decide to save it, you'll have to eat some crow and admit you own 50% of the distress your marriage was in prior to the affair. You'd built independent lifestyles, and both of you were not exclusively having your most important emotional needs met by your spouse. He owns 100% of the damage his choice to have an affair caused, but you own 50% of the preconditions that allowed it to happen... as does he.

So there you stand on your choice. This forum is Marriage Builders, not Divorce Central. So you know what kind of advice you'll get here. Many marriages can fully recover from an affair, trust regained and all, by following Dr. Harley's program.

The book "Surviving An Affair" by Willard Harley and Jennifer Harley Chalmers is truly worth it whether or not you decide to salvage your marriage. It provides a road-map to recovery, and even if your marriage doesn't recover, it provides a superb plan for eventually walking away from your marriage with absolutely no regrets for the decision.

Your husband is conflicted. Around here we call this "cake eating" (as in having one's cake and eating it, too). He derives some emotional need from you; the OW is not able to fulfill some of his needs because the affair is not reality based. He wants his cake and eat it, too.