Mel,

I know you are from Texas and I am married to a Texas gal. A weapon whether to hurt or protect does so by causing harm or the threat of harm.

I am indeed talking semantics because I have seen in over a decade of being here so many BS reluctant to expose the affair because they think it is harmful. The term weapon is not a term of endearment. It is not synonym (sp) for honesty or a cure. It is a term for an instrument of harm whether used defensively or offensively.

It matters not what I think on one level and really doesn't matter what you think Mel or BK. What matters is how the newbie coming to this site for the first time sees it. And while Mrs. W may think a weapon is a defensive instrument others don't hear that.

But, there is little room for misinterpretation of the words honesty, and truth. If we used those words in juction with exposure I believe more BS's just coming here would do it with less angst.

JL

The only problem with using the words "honesty and truth" in regard to exposure, as opposed to using exposure as a weapon to attack the affair is that far too many BS show up here and think that THEY are also supposed to be honest and truthful about things they need to keep to themselves...such as their sources of information, their snooping, and these forums.

A BS must gird him/herself up for battle against the affair, so I think that calling exposure a "weapon" is a very good choice of words.

I'm disappointed to see that you appear to be joining in with the PC crowd, JL.

It "protects" by stopping the invader, a good thing. I am ok with calling it a weapon. I have been here almost a decade myself, and know the biggest fear is enraging the WS. Calling it some new name is not going to prevent that. You can call it whatever you choose, however, I seriously doubt you will successfully eradicate the FEAR of enraging the WS. Nor will calling it "truth" or "honesty" to a WS do anything to alleviate his rage.

But hey, you are free to call it whatever floats your boat.

Don't worry I will.

LC, if ever there was a none PC guy it is me.

But look at the title of this thread. "Was it a mistake?" How could he possibly think being honest is a mistake? But, he and others do.

I am not trying to sugar coat what has to be done. I would just like to see more BS's do it with less angst, because their situation is bad enough.

Words do have power and while I am not telling anyone how to say things. I am suggesting that if resistance is met, perhaps we should talk about honor and the duties of honesty. And that is what exposure is about.

JL

Well he's not the first BS to get taken in by his wife's threats post exposure and question if they did the right thing.

I agree with you JL - Exposure IS a weapon but it's intent is to destroy/harm THE AFFAIR not the WS. Why do you find that offensive?

Had you ever actually fought (oops there's a military term again) against an affair and fought to save your marriage from the onslaught of adultery you might care less about the semantics.

Fighting an affair IS a battle and it's appropriate to call the tools weapons.

I don't at all understand where anyone here has advocated dishonesty.

BK,

Will you folks read what I have said. I have not said that exposure is bad. On the contrary in my mind it is REQUIRED.

The issue is getting BS's to understand why it is required. Yes, they want the affair to end, but they often think they are hurting their WS's by exposing. In reality the best thing that can happen to the WS's although they don't know it is that their BS is honest and gets support. The fact that honesty also means shining light on the affair is great.

But, they need a leg to stand on and defend...in their own mind. I would have no trouble exposing, but then again I am a hard [censored] about this. I simply walked when my Fiance pulled this crap.

What I have learned here is that my response might not have been optimal. That there are other ways to look at things and handle things. And part of that is seeing the big picture.

Harley correctly points out in his policy of RAdical honesty, that honesty is required. He mentions it between W and H, but his advocation of exposure means it believes honesty is required if the affair is to be ended. He also points out that exposure often does not end the affair. But ultimately honesty by the BS helps the bes assess the situaton and seek support.

My whole pointed started with a comment by the originator of this thread. He could not seem to find the way to "defend" exposure. My response is that you don't defend it, you just look them in the eye and say HONESTY is where this marriage start to rebuild or end. In my world I would follow with "deal with it."


However, I am cognizant that we are talking about peoples lives and their futures when offering our suggestions so I would prefer that we find the best way to reach the BS and leave our emotions out of it. Hence I offered my thoughts about exposure.

I don't find it offensive that exposure might help end the affair. I am suggesting that perhaps more BS would be willing to use exposure and sooner if they realized it is simply bringing honesty and the truth back into the equation. Some folks are squeamish about weapons and they do view them as a means to hurt people. If that is their take, then they are going to be reluctant to use it and using that term to the WS or FWS is not going to help rebuild the marriage nor does it reinforce the idea that honesty is the watch word for a good marriage.

JL

PS: recall my comment originally was to the originator of this thread. Offering him the idea that he had other ways of explaining to himself and his W what he did and why. And frankly a BS should NEVER apologize for exposing because in my mind one should NEVER apologize about being honest.

PSS: Have I mentioned lately how much I HATE the latest change to this site where one has the input jumping around as one types? It is getting really annoying.

Semantics, baloney.

Exposure, tool or weapon the end result is the same.

In my best "Arnold" keyboarding voice, when you use either a tool or a weapon their will be "collateral damage".

One bullet can hit more then one object doing it's job. A saw will cause saw dust.

What about a knife. One the many multipurpose objects. It can be a tool and a weapon.

An affair is like a car about to run you over. Why stand there arguing over what shade of gray the car is?

While doing nothing to stop the the car. Exposure causes relief and pain. Do you not take a medicine because it will taste bad?? No, you take it because it will work.

From your original post and what I think most people are getting their back up about. You prefaced that remark by saying Mel and Pep may not agree (and indeed Mel didn't)

It is false to say that exposure is not a MB strategy which is where this all started. Dr Harley is of course a great advocate of honesty in marriage but the ONLY way a marriage will survive an affair is if the affair ENDS. As Dr Harley himself has said, exposure is the start of recovery - but that is because in many cases it is the END of the affair.

I don't think anyone would have even glaced at your comments if you hadn't said it wasn't a MB Strategy because it most certainly is.

Many BS's are searching for any possible reason not to expose. Saying exposure is not a MB strategy gives them something to cling onto.

Ah - there's something we can all agree on!

The word weapon implies that there is an attack or battle around you. In an active A, this is true.

A weapon is also something used to protect yourself or your property, in an active A, this is again a very true scenario.

Quite a few BS come here totally emotionally beat down. Many believe that they are the cause of the A, or deserve the consequences they are putting upon themselves.

Giving them the idea that they need to protect themselves, their families and their livelyhood is appropriate. Exposure is a great weapon, and I for one, missed my opportunity to use it, and paid dearly.

Time for an update from the man who nuked....
My WW continues each day to show just a tad more caring. The examples are subtle. There is no question in my mind that my ten year old son crying for hours after my WW took off with him to MIL's home has had an impact on her. I suspect, no, I believe that my WW thought there were no consequences to A's as long as "what he (me, and the children) doesn't know won't hurt him / them. Well, exposure clearly defined the impact of her actions. Does she in her extremely self defensive mind set want her to blame me still? Yes. But now she knows that her actions hurt others. And as much as I want to be loved by her, now I have to admit that I needed her defenses to be attacked. I search back in my mind to a time when I was in college and thought very little (and had no real guilt then and it took many years for that to show up and its still there today) of having a girlfriend at home while developing a girlfriend in college. But I now know it was wrong to have done that. Eventually I chose the girlfriend in college for two years (after about 6 months of playing both sides of the fence). Then I turned around after college and reversed myself. I guess that is the best I can do to relate to an A. Its not quite the same thing but its the best insight I can relate to from my own life. I think I would have dropped the college girlfriend had I been exposed during the time I played both sides of the fence....
The real weapon that was played in my situation was all the emotional abuse of withdrawl from support of me, the A's and the trashing of me for verbal abuse. If you want to save a marriage with a partner suceptible to using fantasy A's to deal with life's pressures then you have to force your Wayward to choose. I am terrified but I am growing stronger each day now. Perhaps the little bit of increased caring I see each day is helping me grow stronger. The casualty of this is that I can feel myself putting up a wall and for the first time in 12+ years I am no longer in love with my wife. Maybe that will come back. Right now I am hoping that we become the friends we were before we ever began to see one another. That is goal number one. I do not want her "trapped" in marriage with me. If she cannot atart to see the wonderful, giving man that she has been married to, well... then the marriage probably should end no matter what it does to me. I am realizing that I cannot beat myself up anymore or think about "why I have never been good enough."
Each day I pray that I can forgive her weakness and also help her become strong but I know also that I cannot control that. It is her choice now. I am sad that I do not feel in love. Its a terrible tragedy to feel that. Do I love my WW? Yes. Am I ever going to beg her to love me again? No. I cannot build my self-worth on her opinion of me. I have some negative characteristics. Yelling - a nasty temper. Have I been working on that with my whole heart? Yes. But I am a human being and there has been lots of provocation.
If my WW decides I am her best friend, then we have a foundation to build on. No matter what I do, I cannot make that happen. That is her choice and my attempts over the years to try and make that happen have only frustrated me and led to angry outbursts.
I also realize that my WW has her own weaknesses and expecting perfection from me while emotionally abusing me with withdrawl and A's are just as bad or perhaps even worse than anything I have ever done. I believe I can get past that but I will not continue ever again to live in fear of her withdrawl and use of fantasy A's to make life enjoyable.
Those are bondaries that I have to set for my own emotional well being.
Exposure is what my managerial hat would define as high risk but potentially high gain. Eventually when I did it, I was really drawing a line in the sand and saying NO MORE. Never again.
I was ready to do myself in 24 hours after I exposed. Guilt, loss and fear of the future. No one should ever be pushed to that point. And I was.
If ther is one thing about exposure that needs to be addressed it is that the response from the Wayward can be so intense, and the guilt that the victim spouse feels at that time so intense that they need to have a plan that includes lots of support from the second they expose. I lead a lonely life of organizational leadership (the boss can't have work friends). My family is all I have. My grown children are more than a thousand miles away as are my siblings. My wife's family has become my support system so my wife took them away from me leaving me with no support to care for me. I was too embarrassed to call on my siblings for support. My heroic Marine son kept me alive with phone support from his duty station thousands of miles away. Without question, I needed support and I did not plan any. Exposure is the hardest thing I have ever done. Essentially I called the question and asked for a vote.
If I had not done it (and I wish I had not been angry when I did it), I was dooming myself to a life where I truly believed it was my fault. All my fault.
I have thoughts a couple of times a day "Why have I never been good enough?" But 48 hours after exposure... I started to realize that I am a good man. I am not perfect. I do have faults, but they do not belong being exagerated to the extreme that defines me as unloveable.
I suppose my income has led me to never think of marriage in economic terms. I need and want a best friend. No wonder I was so frustrated for so long. My wife was my best friend but she stopped being even a luke warm friend to me.
I cannot keep the marriage going any longer by myself. I will not accept a child centered marriage. I need more than that.
So I will define exposure from my very recent experience as a simple line in the sand. If exposure has helped my WW to see consequences are involved and that a life philosophy of "what he doesn't know won't hurt him" then in my case it has been worth it. But if the members of this board advocate exposure, PLEASE, please spend a thousand words telling the victim preparing to expose to have a support system ready and informed of what is about to happen. If I did not love my WW I would not have had teh emotional turmoil but I did. But I did. Lacking support in those first 24 hours was actually my big mistake. Did I make a mistake in exposing? Only if I was not prepared for D. I really wasn't. I so often remember my MIL's words when I first talked to her about infidelity... "You can't love what you don't respect." Well, I have not done a good job of respecting myself and I accepted my WW's view of me as not being worthy of respect. No longer. I am a good man but I am not perfect. My WW can be wonderful and gentle but she has not been. If she cannot see me through the fog, and respect me then there is no future. I now respect me for finally standing up for myself. I think of my ten year old son quietly looking at me after his bed time prayer (when he returned to my home after I nuked) and admire his insight "Dad, I am sorry." He was not talking about himself. He understood my pain.
If and when my WW gets to that point there is a future.
Meanwhile I have to try to prevent any angry outbursts. I was doing well at that but I was not prepared to hold myself in check when my WW had an angry outburst. Now I think I can do that - we all learn by making mistakes and I don't think I will make that mistake again.
Meanwhile... my WW received an A on the final exam she had yesterday and if she can just get a 79% on her exam on Friday she will be on the home stretch at college. I am supporting her 150% to do that. Friday we will leave for our first vacation alone since our honeymoon 12 years ago. I hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Stress is a major factor in relationships and my WW's schooling has contributed mightily to our issues. It would be nice if she can pass and it would put her in a happy mindset for our ski vacation. Perhaps with some luck we can become friends again.
Blessings everyone here. Time to get to work.

hurtingturkey

HT, this is the most positive post I have seen you write and I so glad to see you turning around in a positive direction. I believe that standing up for your marriage by exposing has helped you tremendously in every way. Rather than feeling helpless and lost, you feel more in control of your life. {{{{{{{{{hurtingturkey}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}


I agree with this. Like you said, there is nothing worthy of respect in enduring abuse for years on end. Nothing. I have watched so many beleaguered BS�s magically change from serfs to knights, in Bobpure�s words, by taking charge of their lives and refusing to be at the mercy of a wayward tyrant. Affairs and lies thrive on secrecy; exposure ruins all that. Keeping it a secret gives it power. Exposure erodes that power.


This point cannot be emphasized enough. Many BS�s are shocked at the reaction of the WS, which scares them to death. I don�t think a BS needs to be prepared for divorce, though. I think they need to prepare for divorce if they DON�T expose, because that is usually the result.

See, I look at it another way: I feel empowered to know that I have a 'weapon'. I have also looked at exposure as a tool, but that just didn't give the same power to the exercise as the word "weapon" did.

Weapon = battle. The battle to save a M that has been damaged by adultery. Tool = screwdriver. To screw the lid back on my 2 qt saucepan. Nope - it's just not the same amount of oomph for me.

When I was a newb, and learning about exposure (which had already happened in my sitch by the time I got here) it was a totally new concept. It was an eye-opener to see that exposure was recommended, and I heartily confirm that it was a weapon in my case - the OWH used it as a means of revenge. No matter, same outcome - it ended the A.

Just my two-bits.

HT,

I am delighted to see your post. Enjoy your vacation and let us know how things are going.

God Bless,

JL

Time to check in.
Our ski vacation went well. We both missed the kids especially our ten year old. On the plane ride out I was in an airport book store and decided to lighten things up by buying my wife a book entitled "How to change your husband by Friday". She actually began reading it. It was funny to watch the faces of nearby passengers who could read the title of the book while my WW was sitting next to me smiling and eventually laughing as she read the book. Every so often she would ask me to read a page or two while exclaiming (with laughter) "this is you." It felt tremendous to see the author's humour allow her to laugh.
We have been home for two days and I am at work this morning. She IS trying. It feels genuine now. I am trying to take things a day at a time but for the first time in more than a decade, my WW seems more grown up. Life's disappointments are not all my fault anymore in her eyes. Its like watching her growing up. Maybe the same thing is happening to me. When she criticized me on vacation a few times over minior things I gently told her that I was going to keep a tick list of the number of improvements that I needed to make. She smiled.
The time together was clearly a big help. As much as I wanted to ski the double diamond trails I stuck to the intermediate trails to ski with her and we did have a good time.
My WW failed her tough course by two points so she (at my recommendation) is taking it over immediately. She was registered to take another course but called her instructor and was given an exception to take the course over immeditely. She will pass this time I am sure. We have an afternoon shopping trip planned today when I finish up with work and dinner tonight by ourselves. We took our ten year old out for a simple sandwich dinner last night. School starts for my WW on Monday so I will just try and support and help her all I can.
For now, our friendship is coming back and I am grateful to God for that. In addition I am realizing that I cannot allow my WW to define me. That is my job. I am not sorry that I exposed. I just should not have done it in anger. I do believe that exposure has leveled the playing field of our marriage and that we now both know that we each are accountable for the future. Meanwhile I am working as hard as I can to discourage the negative images and thoughts of a past that no one can change from interfering with today.
Blessings to all of you.

hurtingturkey
ME: me BS age 55 male
WW: age 48 female
Ours: age ten
Hers: 21 and 17
Mine: 21, 27 and 30
Original DD: April 26, 2010
2nd DD: Feb 1, 2010
Exposed 2/19/10

Good job, HT.

Did you read my thread about the importance of Undivided Attention in rebuilding romantic love? Go check this out: here

ML
Thank you. I just read the thread and printed it out to read in my car a few times for future reference.
I will share this with my WW if I sense the timing is right or otherwise keep it to myself for the moment.
Blessings

hurtingturkey
ME: me BS age 55 male
WW: age 48 female
Ours: age ten
Hers: 21 and 17
Mine: 21, 27 and 30
Original DD: April 26, 2010
2nd DD: Feb 1, 2010
Exposed 2/19/10

Its almost too painful to jump back on the board. Its been a month now since my last post. I received alot of good advice here. My former WW continues to demonstrate effort towards out marriage. There are days when its more obvious than others. We have had some outside issues to address and that has made us both join together to address them. They involve my former WW and college grades and an unfortunate issue with an instructor that are in process. I don't want to call it recovery as to where we are. I am not sure what it is. Its much better I can say that.
Well, why am I here? I feel that somehow, I have lost something. Over the past few weeks I do not feel that I am in love with my former WW. We are following the basic plan of MB and we are spending time together. But neither of us will touch the A issue and maybe that is for the best. Somedays like today I just feel this great loss. For years and years I was in love. It motivated me, it gave me strength and it helped me through the difficult days.
I hate admitting it but I am drifting further away emotionally from my WW. I feel like I am going through the motions. Perhaps she is too. I really don't know. There are moments of affection but that special something is gone. I will continue all of the MB strategies for this stage. But I feel I hve lost something that I will never get back.
Since there are many members here who have gone through the revelation process I am wondering if what I am experiencing is normal. Why can I not just enjoy that I have a chance now. That we have a chance now.?
I want so very much to feel that feeling I always felt. I want my former WW to feel that.
Thoughts from any of you who have been here?

Thanks

hurtingturkey
ME: me BS age 55 male
WW: age 48 female
Ours: age ten
Hers: 21 and 17
Mine: 21, 27 and 30
Original DD: April 26, 2010
2nd DD: Feb 1, 2010
Exposed 2/19/10

I don't know if this will be any help, but here's my two cents worth. Yesterday when I was at the counsellor, he told me to consider my "old" relationship dead and over. He said from here on out, it's building "new" one that will be much stronger. It really stuck with me....and in a way it's a relief to think of it that way because, why would I want to stay in a relationship where WH is unhappy and cheating on me? But yeah, I feel a great loss over it too....

I hope your feelings can be rekindled. As I understand it's just a matter of time to get past all the neg feelings. Recovery takes a while (I'm not even there yet!).

HT,

You are coming up on 1 years since D-day. It is very common for the one years anniversary to be a real biggie with respect to asking oneself deep questions. You are drifting because it is likely you are not getting your needs met. You still have a need to address the A. Perhaps I can offer you something to consider.

Why don't you consider asking yourself, "What have I learned from the A? What have I learned about myself, marriage, my W, my goals, and my ability to handle things?"

Then it might be prudent to ask your W the same thing. What has she learned from her affair? This is not discussing the affair or the why's? But inquiring about something very important. If nothing is learned, then nothing is gained. Does this makes sense?

God Bless,

JL