@waitingitout, being a doormat means doing nothing when confronted by the knowledge of your husband's infidelity. Your earlier posts came across as being a bit wishy-washy, even if you didn't intend them to be.

The course of action you take is determined by the results you wish to get. If you want out (and no one would blame you if you did), then there's very little point in Plan A.

However, this is MarriageBuilders, and the goal here is to build strong(er) marriages. Thus, if you want to try to save your marriage, then you start with Plan A. The two parts of Plan A are The Carrot & The Stick. Gather your strength, make a list of exposure targets, put on your prettiest dress and get to work!

I want to save this marriage because I have seen him change in front of my eyes before. He got very good at avoiding angry outbursts. He could calm himself down quickly. And I learned not to fight back but to walk away from the yelling and speak about the issue at a later date when he was calm. OUr sex life got better again 5 years ago after our counseling. But lacking again this year so I started to get suspicious. I should have jumped into more sex then, knowing I was taking a big chance by also withdrawing.

We have had lots of passion in the past. His angry outbursts are a family disease, seen it with a lot of the men. I had hoped he would be the first generation to stop it. At least our daughter does not have that trait --she saw how futile it was!

Guess I'm not following some of the replies here. To go back to what Fred in VA says I think I need to go into Plan B, Plan A has not worked for the last 9 days. And I am still in shock and have withdrawn, get little conversations from him or replies to my questions. He will get up soon so I need to erase my web visit history, don't want him to see this site, but I will look more at Plan B now.

but I am still here if someone wants to keep talking...

still confused, I am reading the rest of the website frantically to learn about Plan A and B. The last time he had an affair I asked him to leave the house and he refused. He was yelling at me every day then, just before and after I'd learned of the affair. Placing the blame on me, as if it was my fault he had to resort to going outside of the marriage!

This time: as soon as I learned of the affair I confronted him, nine days ago. We sent the email to her saying no more contact. I have no evidence of what has happened betw. them since. I don't know her family or friends, they are all in her country, but I do have her sister's email address.Should I write to her?

So today I can expose but I think some of his friends are up to the same since I saw other emails which included pornographic pictures. Assume I should not expose to those people but to people I think would be sympathetic?

@waitingitout, you're having to deal with time zone issues, I know. That has to be frustrating. I hope someone closer to your region will join this thread.

To be honest, I am reading a lot of in your posts. However, it's your choice and if you want to try to save your marriage, the MB program is the best one going.

About Plans A and B. I provided a link to the Carrot and Stick aspects of it. Did you read that? Are you able to follow through? In order to properly expose, you have to have concrete proof, and you must expose to everyone all at once. In particular, you have to expose to the OW's H or BF, parents, bosses, his siblings, pastors, etc. You write letters and make short phone calls. You ask for help and advice in killing his affair. That's the stick portion. The carrot calls for you to be the wonderful woman he married and said he wanted to spend his life with together.

I am concerned about his anger issues and even for your safety, as he will most assuredly get angry when he learns of your exposure. If you think he would get physically violent, I would advise against exposure and go straight to Plan B. If he won't leave the house, then at least refuse to allow him to sleep in your bed; make him sleep on a couch or in another room.

Marriage Builders is about being strong and making strong marriages. If you are going to work the MB principles you have to find the strength within yourself to apply its principles. You seem cowed by your husband's anger and as long as you can't safely stand up to him and fight for your marriage, or if you are physically at risk, I would not suggest MB. If your husband is violently abusive, I would call the police and ask for protection.

As I had written in an earlier post I have the written proof since I've seen the email exchanges between the OW and my H. Together my H and I wrote to the OW saying to cut off contact via his email acct. I also have just written to her sister, whose email I also got from that group of messages. As I said, they are in a different country and I don't know the rest of their family or friends. She came here to meet him and I just happened to see the email 9 days ago. I acted promptly, confronted him and got into this website that night too.

My previous questions about exposure have not been answered. In choosing his friends for exposure do I chose the ones I think would be supportive? I believe that some of his men friends would simply take his side. I am the foreigner here, the outsider. I am about to telephone his siblings before he comes home from work.

We have been together 26 years and never once have I felt he might get physically violent. He has a quick temper that is true and he manages to calm himself down pretty well.My role in that is to walk away if he becomes angry.

One by one I am telephoning his family.

I have now notified my family but they are in my home country.

Your questions about exposure have been answered. You expose to EVERYONE you think has influence with your H. You can't tell who will be supportive and who won't. Guessing this could have you overlook someone. I exposed to OMW, and not only did she not do anything, she had her lawyer contact me requesting I not contact her again. But that wasn't the point -- the point was that I exposed to her. She cannot say she didn't know. You may be surprised who your allies are and who won't lift a finger to help. This is where you find out who your friends truly are.

Good. If he were physically abusive, my advice would be completely different. Especially since he will get extremely angry over your exposure.

I am not ok w/ his 2 affairs, two that I know of for sure. First time we got into counseling and afterwards I wasn't suspicious until this year, 5 years on. Since I am not a novice at recognizing affairs now, I could see the clues, and then found the evidence in bl and white in his emails. He has this opinion that he wants a marriage, says he wants to be w/ me into old age, but now it is obvious he wants to have it on the side, which I am beginning to think is an addiction. I don't know if a person like that can change. Guess those are the red flags that Fred in VA is referring to. He changed his behavior in many ways with our sessions w/ counselor 5 yrs ago so I was hopeful at the time. Things went along very well for a good number of years until this year I noticed a change in his interest in sex w/ me.
It's the weekend now so we are together more so not sure I can get into this website much today and tmrw.

Yes, he wants both a marriage and to be able to prowl, I see that now after discovering this affair and seeing the clues this year prior to finding this proof. That must be sex addiction. We have had a fantastic sex life but as we've aged it's changed. I openly say I want more, so does he, but of course ours are different kinds of "more", our different needs lists.

I have done the exposure. Some of his family think I should not expose to people at his work. I don't really know them, never go there, he is the boss, can't imagine who is influential. ONe guy is his long time friend but I think his marriage is a result of an affair too. He is the only one I really know a bit, from his first marriage, but I believe he may have influence over my H. Influence is the key word, that I missed.

From my writing it seems you think I knew he was having affairs left and right. This is not the case at all. I learned 5 yrs ago, we got counseling, things changed. This last year our sex life dwindled so I got suspicious, realized that he could be going elsewhere, but hung in there thinking I'd learn. If he is telling me the truth, he is having affairs, but not one long term that he wants to get into and leave our marriage. Says he wants the marriage. I don't have any reason to not believe that. We are from two different cultures and I think in his mind it's ok to have the affairs, as long you don't get caught. Of course I do not accept this but I can only control my own behavior, not his.

Since I did not reply to you directly are you seeing my additional comments. I have to go back and read the "how to's" on this forum.