I have seen a lot of posts about "exposure" and would love some general thoughts on why this is a good idea. I obviously understand why it happens, but, aside from the instant gratification of humiliating the cheater, what are the positive benefits? It strikes me as an odd way to channel the absolutely justified hurt and anger, and it would seem to really be about vengence, rather than a constructive way to deal with the situation.

I am sorry if I sound naive, but I am honestly curious. And certainly not passing judgment on people who do this. Again, I can see how someone would want to lash out and hurt someone who's hurt them so keenly. I just want to know why it seems so broadly endorsed and if the MB program recommends or endorses this too.

Just to give you some background, I had an short affair almost a year ago. The OM's W immediately called all of her and her H's family and friends to tell them what had happened. She also emailed my H, but I had already confessed everything to him. She continued emailing me with questions and comments, all of which I shared with my H. My H emailed her asking her not to contact us again. His desire was to distance our families immediately and permanently to start dealing with the situation. My H did not tell anyone in his or my family and, aside from our counselor, we've not discussed this with anyone but each other. We took the approach that this was between us and have been working through it privately. Again, I'm not passing any judgement on the way people react, just was not sure why OM's wife (who is a counselor, btw) felt it was necessary.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Hi, TS! Welcome to Marriage Builders!

Exposure is one of the most effective ways of ending an affair and helping the wayward see themselves in a realistic light. It is not a "hurtful" act, but a helpful act. It has nothing to do with vengence or "lashing out." It's purpose is to HELP the infidel. It is therapeutic.

And sure, the WS is humiliated. They should be humilated about committing adultery! But the humiliation comes from their bad behavior, not because they were exposed. It is a consequence of bad behavior. The more people that know about the affair, the more people to hold you accountable.

Secondly, affairs thrive on secrecy, so exposure ruins the affair. Keeping the affair a secret only serves to enable it.
Anyone that helps hide an affair is an enabler. And enabling helps no one.

Dr Harley has written about it here:

When Should An Affair Be Exposed?

trulystruggling, I read your other post about how your marriage is not recovering and how you still pine for your OM. I would attribute that to the LACK of exposure of your affair. Exposure lifts the fog and helps you see your adultery in a more realistic light.

Because your affair has been hidden from your family and friends, you have been able to fantasize that something pig filthy is really pretty and romantic. You are still very foggy and don't have a realistic perspective about your affair.

Another key reason you still pine for him is listening to affair music and looking at his picture on the internet. Of course that will keep you trigggered. Does your poor husband know you disrespect him like that?

Dr Harley addresses this in his Exposure article:

Oh .... Brother ....

"instant gratification?"

REALLY?

..... You decided to post THIS to a forum where folks are suffering and in incredible pain ?

Is it possible you are this insensitive?

What is your story? Are you a BS or a WS? Because if you are a WS then OF COURSE you don't see why it's important to expose! YOUR the one doing it!

I tell my husband that I am soo glad he exposed my affair, if he didn't I would be half across the world living with the OM....shudders....BLAH!!

For the rest of her story you can visit the recovery forum!

See, when an affair is kept secret it is real easy to romanticize it into something that is really no more "romantic" than 2 pigs rutting in the pig pen. Exposure is like turning on the lights in the crack house and bringing in a crowd of onlookers. The crack heads get to see the looks of disgust on their faces. It is a real wake up call!

ts, happy to respond:
You mustn't misunderstand the purpose of exposure. It's not for the purpose of "the instant gratification of humiliating the cheater" (although cheaters who know they've done wrong may feel shame & may thus feel appropriately humiliated as a side-effect), nor for "lashing out" and channeling hurt & anger (although people who expose may certainly be rightfully hurt & angry), nor for vengeance.

Rather, the purpose is to drive a stake through the heart of the affair. By tearing away the veil of secrecy, exposure makes it much less likely that the affairees will be able to sustain or resume their fantasy-relationship. Sometimes exposure to only a few people does the trick. Sometimes affairees are so brazen that no amount of exposure works. But exposure is the quickest way to kill an adulterous affair. THAT is the purpose of it. So a wayward spouse who in hindsight wants to save her marriage shouldn't take it personally.

My affair was exposed when my OW's husband found her out via use of a private investigator. He confronted her, and she confessed. Then she called me in a semi-panic. Right then, I knew that I'd been exposed. Right then, I knew I had a choice to try to continue the affair, or try to save my marriage.

Had I not been exposed, I would've almost surely done what I'd been doing for the previous 10+ weeks... let things go on, letting the OW have what she wanted, taking advantage of her lousy behavior with my own lousy behavior, and "having my cake & eating it too." I not only owe her (now ex-)husband an apology so big that no apology I could ever make to him will suffice, but I owe him a debt of thanks as well, for taking steps that led to my affair being exposed, and thus to its ending.

Were your OM's wife's actions necessary, you wonder? Who knows. But when you're trying to kill a vampire, you don't settle for incremental taps on the stake and keep checking the vampire's heart rate. No, you pound on that sucker with the heaviest sledge you can find until the hammer sinks into the vampire's chest, and you do it as if your life depends on it. Similarly, when an affair is threatening to kill a marriage, it is silly for a betrayed spouse to risk incremental escalation against the thing that is threatening to suck the lifeblood out of his/her marriage. So what if you'd already told your husband? How was SHE to know that with certainty, after the lies that her own husband had told her about his affair with you? The best exposure is all-out, pedal-to-the-metal -- you will often hear it referred to by veterans on this site as "nuclear exposure." You ought not to resent her for it one bit. You are living barebutt-naked & shoeless in a glass house when it comes to throwing that rock of resentment at her.

ts, please tell me if you don't GET this in its entirety, and perhaps others will be able to explain more clearly & succinctly than I have.

P.S. - You might want to examine the thinking behind your seemingly (to me) pejorative use of the phrase "instant gratification" in reference to a betrayed spouse's exposure of an affair. Do you not see the irony? The affair was the "instant gratification" here; easier to seek fulfillment of needs outside the marriage than to put in the effort necessary to MAKE time together and have needs of both spouses met within the marriage.

You NEED to get the book "Surviving an Affair." You & your husband can both benefit from reading it cover-to-cover.

The humiliation does not come from exposure.

If they had done nothing wrong, there would be nothing to expose and there would be no humiliation.

Humiliation comes from the adultery. Humiliation is a result of the fact that you debased yourself with a man not your husband.

Humiliation - to reduce to a lower position in one's own eyes or others' eyes (from m-w.com)

You humiliated yourself when you decided to sleep with another woman's husband. Her telling the world wasn't humiliating, the humiliating act had already occurred. Had no one known, you would still have been humiliated. Her exposure just opened your eyes to how lowly you had debased yourself.

You felt humiliated and mortified - rightly so.

One of my fav Pep-isms: You are only as sick as your secrets.

The adultery was a canser that would have devourerd your soul. You should thank the OMW for exposing it to the world. Her courage has enabled you the CHANCE of repairing the damage you have done.


While it may be done in anger, or vengeance - really it is the ONLY constructive way to deal with the situation. It is the only way to STOP the destructive behavior.

I'm sure your affair (though you say it was over) had NO chance of reoccurring after she did what she did. Had she not - it is likely the affair would have resumed.

She did what she needed to keep you - a known predator and threat to her family - away from her. She also gained the support of those closest to her, which she desperately needs.

If you loved and cared for your husband, you would encourage him to expose this to those closest to him so they, too, can provide him love, encouragement and support.

If you have children, you would to go them, repentant and humble, explaining the atrocity you committed against them and their security and ask for their forgiveness. You would allow your husband to demonstrate to them the power of forgiveness as you rebuild your marriage.


You are only as sick as your secrets.

Your affair is a cancer that will rot your family from the inside out, unless there is openness, repentance and forgiveness.

I'd encourage you to read from some of the WONDERFUL Former Wayward Wives on this forum. Each of them in recovered marriages, and every one GRATEFUL for the exposure that revealed their adultery.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, people....I'm not even remotely insinuating that I did anything right here or that what I did to my H and the OM's family was anything but despicable, but I can honestly tell you that, in my case, if, upon my confession of the A, my H's first act was to inform anyone and everyone in our lives, we most surely would not have stayed together. I honestly think OM and I would have consoled each other and both families would be split apart right now instead of in the process of healing. Though undeserved, I felt my H showed tremendous restraint and respect for our relationship by working through things together, alone, with a counselor. There are no secrets between us and, frankly, it's no one else's business when it really comes down to it. And really, the humiliation is there, every day, always, whether or not everyone in our extended family and friends knows...

I seriously doubt that. Married men RARELY leave their wives for a cheap piece of fun. In fact, 95% of affairs never make it beyond the affair stage. They know it is a bad risk. Your OM sure didn't leave his wife when she exposed his affair. He chose her, not you, so the proof is in the pudding. There was no future in your affair anyway. He could have never taken you around his family or his children or decent friends.

And secondly, a wayward who is serious about recovery does not let exposure stop them. In fact, it HELPS them recover by bringing everything out in the light. A recovered WS never objects to exposure. Of course they have no grounds to object because it was THEIR behavior that caused it.

Adultery is not a private issue, it effects all the family, so all the family should know. The more people who know, the more people to hold you accountable and give support to your marriage.

Did the OM come to you after he was exposed?

How do you know he didn't throw you under the bus to his wife after she exposed?
You had no trouble humiliating your husband by having an affair, should you not be willing to suffer the consequence of your actions...whether it be shame or humiliation.
Your husband was noble and tried to protect you, but it has not helped. You still pine for the OM and look at his picture. Do you think your husband, who chose to protect you instead of expose you..deserves you doing this?

TS, in my experience, almost EVERY wayward threatens to leave over exposure, but they never do. It is an idle threat, a pack of fogbabble. When they are sincerely committed to saving their marriage, nothing stops them. If they are "humiliated" it is because of their actions, they only have themselves to blame.

And secondly, if a WS did leave over exposure, the BS is better off without her because she wasn't serious about recovery anyway.

more on exposure from Dr Willard Harley, he feels if exposure threatens the marriage, then so be it:

here

I threatened my husband time and time again that if he told anyone I would leave. Well guess what? We are now in our 6 month of recovery and yes he did EXPOSE!

Melody Land, SspphireReturns and Shaken,

I never threatened to leave or even ask my H not to expose. He was absolutely free to choose exactly what he wanted to do. I was totally honest with him about what happened and told him I wanted to save our marriage. I let him decide what came next and he made his decisions without any pressure from me. OM did come to me after he was exposed and tried very hard to convince me to start a new life with him. I was the one who said no; I pulled the plug on the relationship because, despite my strong feelings, I knew what had happened between us was very, very wrong. I felt horribly guilty and remorseful and I did not want to cause any further pain to either family. After all that, I know that he chose to stay and work on his marriage because I received the "no contact/apology" letter from him, which I shared with my H.

I consciously chose to keep my family together and am working hard to get past what I know are still terribly confusing, disappointing feelings. I DO NOT WANT to still feel for OM but I just do. This will be a work in progress for a long time.

Of course you do. You purposely trigger yourself by looking up his picture on the internet and listening to adultery music.. That way, the affair stays romanticized in your mind and you don't see it in its proper perspective. As long as you continue to do that, you will stay triggered.

Does your husband know you do this? He has a right to know that you actively seek ways to trigger your feelings about this scumbag.

Just so you know, this is the typical ploy of most OM and what it really means is that he wants to maintain a position where he is getting his needs met by TWO women. They don't leave their wives, TS.

And if you did buy that line, he would have dragged things out for years while you continued to put out for free:["attorney says I can't leave the house or it will hurt my divorce" "my son really needs me right now so I can't leave""just be patient and one day we will be together!" blah, blah, blah...] until he either grew tired of you or you gave up. Rarely do they really file for divorce; they just claim they did.

We have seen this tactic many, many times. The purpose is to keep the nookie supply flowing. Sorry to be harsh, but it is highly doubtful he would have ever left his wife for a cheap, sleazy affair.

Listen to Melody please.

My H did the same thing in his A. He was "doing improvements arond the house to sell it in this economy", etc. Seriously? The OW believed it.

It's a way of getting all your ENs met, but not having to meet those of others. Selfish, self-centered, and wrong.