Hi Gurka

I am sorry that you need to be here.

However, seeing that you NEED to be here, nobody better than RIF to aid you. Pulled me out of hell a few times, for a fact.

I wanted to offer you some comfort regarding exposure. It is the most alien, contrary , uninstinctive act I ever performed. I felt like nothing I could do would certainly end my marriage like exposing would. Folk advising me to do exposure must all be crazy ! After all they don't now how vicious my WW is....

But in prayer I did it. It seemed " right" and that was better than all the wrong everywhere else in our marriage. I felt that adding some "right", goodness, honesty could not make my situation genuinely actually worse.

So while I was running an errand I called OMs GF from Tescos car park. I will never forget the exact second in that conversation where her heart broke. My guts just churned for her. I was a month into my own hell by then, so I must have seemed strong to her.

After a few minutes speaking I shut down the phone, then ran retching to a bush in the car park to puke. Before I'd wiped my mouth, my WW was on the phone swearing up and down that I had just guaranteed a divorce, that she would make my life hell, that she'd take my kids, that she and OM would be happy; that he was more of a man than I would ever be...

Yet even then, responding with anti-babble ( you tried that yet?) I felt an empowerment within me. A cleansing. I had taken control of my sheet. I had become a knight not a surf. The remote control for our lives had passed from OM and my WW to me.

WW was absolutely vicious for three weeks. OM dodged righteously thrown crockery for several days. But even if I M were to fail I knew it was the right thing. There was now fear, rather than swagger in WWs affair talk. Communication between her and OM was about quartered.

See affairs are about as real as ten year olds playing "doctors and nurses". When Mom opens the door and turns on the light it takes a REAL committed player to carry on ! Exposure is like switching on the light on their sordid, deluded little game. Lies they knew they were telling and receiving suddenly seemed like stupid lies with the light of truth exposing them. A future loomed where the pretend lives they swore to each other they would one day live in secret was an actual LIKELIHOOD and it made them retch.

Exposure subjects the bindings of an affair to stress. Yes a very few withstand it, but the overwhelming majority crumble like movie vampires in the sunlight.

You have committed a courageous and righteous act, sir. Be proud and disciplined as you watch to see as the roaches run from the light.

All blessings.

I get the feeling she's already been questioned once. That's why she said "your little plan didn't work." I imagine follow up questioning will take place soon.

Hey Gurka,

I forgot to add,

Please don't ask your LT buddy how the investigation is going. You don't want to run the risk of causing your's or your friend's SS to be dismissed because you were both discussing what each other wrote.

The investigating officer will inform your buddy to not discuss his statement with anyone unless it's with a JAG officer or the investigating officer.

Just sit back and relax... You'll hear about the "results" of the investigation soon enough. ANY punishment given out to an LT in their basic course will fly through the LT and CPT ranks faster than bad milk ... oops, sorry about that!

Seriously, you WILL know what happens eventually, so don't worry about the investigation.

Semper Fi,

RIF

Yeah, I knew better than to discuss anything about our statements with him. Just thanked him again for helping me do the right thing, and apologized for taking his time with this stuff.

Maybe, maybe not. I DO think that her Cdr probably brought her in and told her that an investigation was starting and that as of XXXXhrs, XX Day, XX Month, 2010 that she is to cease all contact with OM to include phone, e-mail, text, signal flags, smoke signals, carrier pidgeons, etc.

If the investigating officer talked with her first, I think you'd have gotten more "specific" hate mail from your W.

Again, don't worry about the investigation(s)... they're working and it WILL end the A!

Semper Fi,

RIF

You know, something that's been churning around in my head since I got here... Another LT from my brigade that came on the deployment and I were talking at Camp Phoenix one day when we first got to A-stan. He said, "So I hear you and your wife have an open marriage." I was shocked to hear that, since I don't know him that well at all, but I just kind of laughed it off and asked where he heard something like that. He was like, "oh, it's just a rumor I heard, guess it's not true."

He's an infantry officer, and has plenty of connections back to Fort Benning, so I wonder if some sort of rumors of what was going on back when my WW and OM were there got around to him somehow... I've been meaning to send him an email to ask where he heard that, but then I'd have to explain this whole situation to another person...

Be prepared if OM isn't the ONLY OM in your situation, but rather the only one stupid enough to get attached to your WW. This is based on your WW's sexual history as well as several comments by several others you have mentioned (this rumor as well as the one where you said one guy thought she was trouble because there were rumors going around with her and several other guys). If this guy heard you had an open marriage, it was probably because your WW told someone he knew and it got back to him. I don't want you to fight so hard to try and save this only to find she's been screwing around on you this whole time with multiple men. Just be very cautious about saving this marriage and insist on a polygraph if you eventually get to that point.

Pretty common for a WS to make up all sorts of "cover stories" if anyone confronts them... No telling how many WS tell their affair partner that they are either divorced, or going through a divorce, and then go home to their spouse and be all lovey-dovey...

I wouldn't worry about it too much... unless the investigating officer contacts you again and asks for more names from people relating back to her OCS days at Ft. Benning.

You're correct in this would just muddy the waters for the current investigation, and to be honest, they will most likely only be concerned with the time that OM got to Ft. Sill and your W got to Ft. Huachuca...

Semper Fi,

RIF

Hey Gurka,

I agree with jmwc95 on this, but I'll continue to say let's focus on exposure and ending the A.

THEN we can re-evaluate where you are and what you'd like to do. We'll help you with whatever decision you make when the time comes.

Multipl A's are a totally different animal...trust me, I know.

Again, keep your focus on exposing and ending the A... then we'll re-evaluate and see which way you want to go.

Semper Fi,

RIF

Awesome post, Bob! I wish that all waffling BSs could read it.

Sorry for the T/J, jeff but I can't resist a notable post. You are holding up incredibly by the way. You are still on my MB prayer list.

God's Blessings,

Say

It's still absolutely amazing to me that someone could be so caught up in a fantasy that they feel no guilt or remorse, and actually blame me. One of my friends just said, "The only way she could explain acting like this is if she was on drugs."

Planning on writing WW on Friday to thank her for the t-shirts. Going to see JAG in the morning...

You are right, I was putting the cart before the horse. It's just that comment really struck me. If people see your wife screwing around, are they more likely to think she's cheating on you or that you have an open marriage? If people think you have an open marriage, there has to be a reason (like someone told them that). I can't imagine a guy coming up to me and saying he heard I had an open marriage unless he genuinely thought I did and that it was pretty common knowledge.

Been there. Mrs. RIF kept her "guilt" hidden from me for 10 years! It took her over 2 years to finally start showing remorse for the multiple A's that she kept hidden from me.

Being in an A is almost like being on drugs... Mrs. RIF said that she enjoyed the "excitement" and the "thrill" of seeing what she could get away with without getting caught. That's why it takes some time for the WS to detach from the OP... they have to get away from their "fix" before they can start thinking rationally.

Semper Fi,

RIF

She could be a sociopath. They're not all killers. Only a small percentage. Google it and read the symptoms. My son has all the symptoms.

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The open marriage stuff is common. My ex's OW claimed that she and her hubby had an open marriage. That's one reason my ex didn't feel guilty about having an affair with the wife of a deployed soldier. When OW's husband came home and I exposed the affair and asked about the "open marriage", he said he wished he'd known that. So don't worry about it - wife is just trying not to look like a #####.

That is what is so great about MB. Affairees always do and say the same things. So the plans here work.

Concentrate on taking good care of YOU, then recovering the marriage.

Just had a PBJ sandwich, banana and some milk. Watching the simpsons. Taking good care of me.

I know, I was just saying that she had to be the one starting that rumor by her words, and it might not have been just the OM she told that to before sleeping with them.

I'll give you credit, whether it be a WW or milk, you aren't afraid to jump right back in to the thing that caused you a lot of pain and heart/stomach ache.

Well, it could be anything, but the most probable thing is that the Mrs. or OM was confronted by someone and gave the "open marriage" excuse. Otherwise she looks trashy cheating on a deployed soldier.

My ex and I both worked on Camp Pendleton, and I had heard rumors, people hushing up when I joined a group talking and things like that. There is NOTHING like the military for rumors. Something could happen at my work, and an hour later, it is all over Iraq and Afghanistan.