This is not a rhetorical question.
I'd really appreciate a yes or a no.

Want to know what you can do to get your wife back?

EXPOSE THIS AFFAIR!

She has not filed for divorce yet, but she might if "everybody" finds out since she is still saying this is not an affair.

You have this backwards. This is more likely to end in divorce if you DON'T. Your marriage can survive her temporary anger over exposure, it cannot survive an ongoing affair.

Affairs thrive on secrecy, so keeping it a secret will kill your marriage. Mold does not grow well in sunlight. The longer you protect her secret, the more likely she is to leave you for the OM. Every day the affair becomes more and more entrenched.

Listen to this radio clip of a man who called Dr Harley, the founder of Marriage Builders and a clinical psychologist. His wife was LEAVING him for the OM because he never exposed. Dr Harley told the man:

"It's very difficult to overcome an affair when you become an enabler. In my judgement exposure would have ended your wife's affair." listen here

And here is another of Dr Harley's quotes about exposure:

here

You are under the ILLUSION that appeasement will save your marriage. Trust me, it will not. Appeasement of someone whose intent is to destroy your marriage will result in a............destroyed marriage.

tucdoc, your instincts to ENABLE your wife are the most likely to lead to divorce. Enablers don't make it.

By the time he realizes that exposure was the KEY on saving his marriage, the divorce process would be finalized.

So why don't you do yourself a favor and file for her since you won't expose, because that my friend is where you are headed.

Tucdoc,

You want your wife to be happy...

You want to avoid making her mad...

You want to prevent her from making things worse...

How much worse than being on the verge of divorce because she wants to spend her life with someone else and be away from you do you think you can make it?

You have a LOT of reasons why your situation is different than any other affair and why what has worked for those who have done it is not the right choice of action for you.

In ANY affair, the PROBLEM is the AFFAIR. It isn't what she says or does or what happened ten years ago, or two years ago or last week...The PROBLEM is she is in love with someone else.

Romantic love is in the domain of infatuation and is the result of chemicals working in parts of the brain where logic and reason have no basis and do not exist.

The thing is that in the case of an affair it is really all just a fantasy. The affair partners don't really know each other and so any intimacy is a false intimacy. It is derived only from what each of them is willing to acknowledge and share with each other. Neither has shared their entire self with the other and even they can see that...

What they are living on and what the affair thrives on is a sense of expectation and part of that expectation is that you will just go away, leave them alone and let them live happily ever after or at least until they tire of it and then they can each return to the "safe and secure" home where all will return to normal.

your wife is not your enemy.

OM is not your enemy.

The affair is your enemy and unless you do something to make the affair less appealing, it will continue until it burns out, probably in a couple of years. If you have no problem with sharing your wife with another man for a couple of years just ignore it all, play nice, keep the peace and when she is all done playing with OM she will probably want to return to you...

Unless of course she gets pregnant and has his child and THEN wants to return to you in which case you might have another problem to deal with.

Or maybe she will only hang around with him and since you aren't fighting her affair she will pick another guy to try out as your replacement and then another and another...

Until she contracts something that could end her life...

and maybe your own...

You can talk to her until you pass out from exhaustion and it will mean nothing to her or to your situation. Only ACTIONS will do anything to hinder the affair. Centuries ago you could have found OM and beat his head in with a club and then he could try to defend himself and the winner would get your wife. 200 years ago you could have challenged him to a duel and the winner would get your wife.

If you fight the affair with what is known to work you stand as much chance of saving your marriage as flipping a coin.

If you don't use the weapons at your disposal and let the affair play out, you stand about as much chance of winning this as I have to go skiing in Bermuda in August of next year...

And I have NO plans to go to Bermuda...

You really have limited options if you hope to save your marriage. You can try to demonstrate that you can be a better husband and thus a better choice than OM by meeting her needs and avoiding Love Busters. (The Carrot side of Plan A) You can make the affair as hard as possible to continue at the same time (the stick side of Plan A) and part of that is making certain that people who care about you, your wife, your marriage and even OM KNOW what is happening.

Not the watered down "My husband is controlling and so I am trying to get peace by being with a "friend" called POSOM" version your wife will tell folks at some point.

If her intentions were honorable she would be happy that everyone found out she had POSOM to hang out with. If her intentions are NOT honorable, then she will have to deal with her choices when people know the truth. The thing about the truth is that it is always true and is never wrong.

You want to save your marriage because you love your wife...

If you keep going the way you are, you will not love her when this is all done. You will hate her...

And yourself...

Because you will have not done all that could have been done to save your marriage.

Even if you fight the affair, do all that you can do and end up divorced, which is still about a 50/50 deal at best, you will at least know that YOU did the right thing and tried all that there was to save your family.

And yes, I am a cranky old fart these days.

Mark

Just to reiterate:
She's saying it's not an affair because she has managed to redefine everything in her life that hinders her affair. She will also say that she isn't really married anymore - she'll pick some arbitrary date and say that's when she was emotionally "abandoned" or something to that effect. Her definition of friendship changes to fit her new view of reality which allows her to forsake things she used to hold dear/acceptable.

Please understand, Tucdoc, that the ABUSER doesn't get the right to define what ABUSE is and what it is not. The ABUSED (you) does. If your wife was beating you with her fists every night and you finally said "I'm not putting up with this abuse anymore" and she returned with "Oh, that's not abuse, it's only abuse if I use a weapon," you would think she's crazy, right? Well she's doing that now. She's telling everyone who asks that her "friendship" is not an affair. As Melody has said: Just because you call it a boloney sandwich doesn't mean it's not adultery.

IF you want to save this marriage, you must do exactly as the good folks here are instructing you. Look at the number of posts these people have. They don't [censored] around.

Whatever you decide, I would expect you'll get plenty of support from folks here. Either way, please use this as an opportunity to take inventory of Tucdoc's personal strengths and weaknesses. Again, your children are going to need you like never before. They have lost their Mother. She's been replaced by a teenager in heat. They need you to be a pillar of strength and to act with integrity you never thought possible. This is what I meant in my first post when I said "Don't Give Up."

opt

Horse pucky. She's trying to intimidate you into backing off so her fun can continue uninterrupted.

Exactly. This is wayward speak. They ALL say that. She feels she has ALL the power and you have none. Stand up to her. Call her bluff. It took me 5 solid, straight hours of calling ALL my FWH's bluffs to finally break him and make him send the NC letter. He told me all the same lines: Well, I was planning on working on the marriage, but now you have ruined that...I'm not having an affair b/c it's not physical, just emotional, I've done nothing wrong...Fine, you have told everyone, now we are getting divorced...etc. Let her get angry. You stay calm and just keep telling her that you are fighting for her and your marriage...no matter what she says. EXPOSE!!!! Secrecy is the key to an affair. Once the secret is out, it takes the wind out of their sails and starts to destroy the fantasy.