I have been lurking for about a week now and I think it's time to tell my story. I need help to get through this.

D-Day was August 26. Things seemed strange, he went to bed early so I checked his texts. Sure enough, all my fears were confirmed - he's having a PA with a co-worker. It's been going on since early July and according to WH, they ended it a few days before I found out. Texts and emails indicate otherwise.

We'd been in a rough place for awhile, neither of us really trying enough to fix it at the same time. We're both 35, have 2 daughters (17 months and 4 years old) and I'm due with our third child in March. We've been married for 7 years and together for 10.

Important to note however is that we actually got together 11 years ago when we were both with other people (he was married, I had a boyfriend of three years). But it was ten years ago that we decided to be an official couple. After all the reading I've done on this website, I understand so much more what we did to everyone back then and what should have happened. But I adore my children and I do still love WH so I can't say I wish it had fizzled and died the way it should have.

He has had EAs over the years - three that I know of and quite possibly more. Two were before we married. The last one I found out about happened when I was 6 months pregnant with our first child. None of it was ever properly dealt with. Before me, he had cheated on his first wife other times and they actually got together while they were both in other relationships. I guess this makes him a serial cheater. I realize that there might not be any hope but I'm not ready to accept that yet.

When I found out I confronted, I yelled and screamed, threw things, slapped him. I reacted very very strongly. A week ago I started Plan A. Had some major slip-ups but have been on track since Wednesday. I have keyloggers(spectorsoft and eblaster) and a deleted text reader (can't get spyware to work on his phone). She's gone overseas for a 3 week holiday/break from the affair so they can get some distance. They texted quite a bit at first, now it's been one FB message from her and a reply from him (possiby not sent because I knew what he was doing and interrupted him, killed him with kindness so to speak). That really hurt because it was after a good day. But I can do this.

I'm working on exposure now. I think I really need help with this. Guess I have to wait now for North America to wake up! (we're in the UK). I've ordered Surviving the Affair but I'm still waiting for delivery. Also ordered His Needs, Her Needs.

Sorry it's been so long-winded!

I'm in the UK too, jeleru. It's a public holiday weekend in the USA and Canada, so the board is very slow just now.

You say that you got together while your H was married to somebody else, so you know that you were an affair for your H. You knew at the time that he had had other affairs and you married him after he had affairs in your pre-marital relationship.

You knew that you H had no moral objection against affairs and indeed, you had no moral objection to being an affair partner in his marriage. Why do you now think that it is wrong for him to have this affair in your marriage? Isn't this what you signed up for?

Why do you think that exposure and moral pressure will work on this man, especially given the fact that your affair ended his marriage?

Don't forget to expose to her side as well. Exposure must be universal and done at one time.

While I understand you outburst on discovery, this helps him justify his activities. Stay cool.

Take your anger on us, not on him. Remember you need to endure for only six weeks before considering plan B. I pray that he wakes up.

Ummm...thanks for the reply. I don't actually think that exposure will work. I don't think we're going to make it. But I need to go through this process, to get me where I need to be. My kids are suffering so I need to make myself better. I thought that was part of Plan A and Plan B - to help me. Realistically I know it's not in my favour but I'm only human and it'll take awhile for the hope to die. I'm just here for help with this.

Thank you for your words. I've been trying to figure out how to expose to her side. I don't really know her but have been trying to figure out who her facebook friends are.

Definitely will watch those angry outbursts!

Hi jerelu
Im in the UK too, I have read your thread and first thing I would like to comment on is that you are pregnant right now therefore you should try to minimise your stress as much as possible as its not good for your baby.
If I were in your shoes I would go straight to plan B and cut him off to safeguard my health and my childrens.
He has got away with his Affairs over and over again and nothing short of shock tactics will pin this guy down.

Exposure wise its not as complicated really, TELL EVERYONE IN ONE GO, tell his relatives, yours (so you can also get support through this) His work colleagues and bossess (see template letter to boss on here).
You have a great exposure weapon on your hands and thats Facebook, log onto his account (the keylogger will help you with that) go onto her profile and copy and paste all her friends list onto a word document then contact each and every one of them and let them know what this little homewrecker has been up to with your husband.
yes you might get the odd annoyed reply but just ignore them in my experience homewreckers associates with low life standard of people anyway so their opinion isnt worth much but it WILL make her relationship with your H complicated and inconveniant.
Yes he will get angry and yes he will behave like a child who has lost his playtoy but then thats what he gets for his actions.

Plan A is appropriate also however in your case I dont really think its wise as its stressing you out and your children and its not the first time he has got away with this behaviour.

good luck and take care

I didn't know I could skip to Plan B. Ok, this will take some thinking - need to restructure my thoughts. I'd been thinking I had time to sort out how to accomplish Plan B. We're here on WH's work permit - we're from Canada and moved here 3 years ago. So if we separate, legally, I have to go back to Canada. And I'm fine with that because I'm desperately homesick. I have a lot of family and friends to support me there - my support system in the UK is small. But it means figuring out how to make it as stress-free as possible for the kids (and me and the baby too). I don't know when they'd see him again. And I need a note from him to give to Canadian customs to say I have permission to take the kids. And I'm still figuring out how to sort out the financial issues because we have debt.

I guess I was also worried that my head was not in the right place for an immediate Plan B. I'm definitely planning for Plan B - but maybe I need to move quicker and get more organized. I don't want to falter from Plan B.

I'm working on the exposure letters and hope to send them tomorrow, all in one go.

Thanks everyone.

jeleru,

Before we start talking, I want to tell you that many on MB will hit you hard because you are in what is known here as an "affairage" - a marriage that began because you and your WH had an affair during his marriage to another person. This isn't met kindly by many here.

Dr. Harley, the founder of the site, does say that he works to restore the marriage....even "affairages"....but I wanted to give you a heads-up that you may get some blow-back.

Truth is, you knew him going into your marriage. Let's talk about this.

You had an affair with this man while he was married. This tells you that he was willing to break his wedding vows, and had no issue with doing that. At the same time, it tells you that YOU also had no issue with breaking wedding vows.

This sends him a huge message, right? You basically told him that the word "marriage" to you is a loose term, that you have some boundaries with it, but you were certainly willing to bend them before for him.

His belief is that you were in the mix WITH him before, so you endorsed that behavior.

Why then, would you be against it now?

Do you see his reasoning? He sees the "boundaries" of marriage with you as quite different - because his knowledge of your boundaries as VERY DIFFERENT. Your participation with him in prior experiences tell him this.

There is the additional experience of his affairs since your relationship has extended. Even before the two of you married, you accepted another relationship outside the two of you.

In his mind, you CONSENTED.



To a man with his mindset, you are the perfect mate. You will cheat with him, and then consent to his other "dalliances", and take him back.



You ask if exposure will help in your sitch. I doubt it. I do think it will stun him. He will be surprised that his affair behavior bothers you....he may not say this, but it will hit him as a surprise, because he likely believes the two of you have something of an "open" relationship. Watch that he doesn't say something along these lines. That he thought it would not be "such a big deal". See if I'm not right when these words come out of his mouth.

My guess is also that he will want to keep you and the marriage. However, he will have great difficulty changing the behavior, because this will be a complete change of his arrangement with you - in his mind.

Your plan, IMHO, should be a nuclear exposure, a fast Plan A (about 3 weeks), then STAY WHERE YOU ARE and go to Plan B.

And good luck.


SB

Hi Jeleru, welcome to Marriage Builders. Like Sugarcane, I am not sure the real problem is the affairs, but one of acceptance. You have always known he was a cheater and married him knowing this. Now he is just doing what he does. You signed on for this knowingly and willingly. How can you ask that he stop now?

I agree with the others about jumping to Plan B or Plan D. I see no point whatsoever in Plan A since the issue isn't unmet needs, but a long habit of serial cheating.

I am sorry that your kids were dragged into this mess.

Ok, thanks. I do get it, about the affair leading to marriage and the feelings that brings up. I definitely have more insight on what we were and are. I'm not asking to be the victim or looking for sympathy - I just thought there'd be some guidance through this but I do understand that I was once the OW and can't separate from that. I did the wrong thing, I fell for stuff, he fell for stuff, I deluded myself that we were special...the list goes on. I do know now that that was foolish and I alluded to that in my first post.

Thank you for the honesty. Will get moving to Plan B. I suppose that's the guidance I was looking for.

Back to lurking.

I don't follow this. Are you both Canadian citzens? Are your children Canadian citizens, with Canadian passports?

Your husband will eat up Plan A with a spoon.
A permanent Plan A is exactly what he, a serial cheater, wants.
I don't have any advice for you.
Sorry.
I hope your pregnancy goes well.

Pep is right about the permanent Plan A.

The issue then becomes the fact that you will wear yourself out on Plan A, because you married a taker.


His idea of love is the kind of love-feelings that happen in those first months or so of meeting someone. You remember those feelings, when you felt "special".....that your love was different from anyone else's, that your relationship was untarnished, that you could be whoever you wanted to be with him?

That is what he wants. Then, when the reality of daily life comes crashing down on him, he finds himself - well, right there again. He is facing the ONE CONSTANT in his relationships:

HIMSELF.


He cannot escape the fact that the one thing he drags from woman to woman

is HIM.

While he may have blamed his first wife for the marital problems he told you about, her lack of this and that...whatever it was...you are now the first-hand witness of what she was dealing with.

He is now telling his new OW exactly the same kinds of things he told you, once, those years ago.

Because he truly believes that an outside source is to blame for his relationship problems.


At the time of your affair with him, you shared in the blame for the breakdown of that marriage. I see you understand that, now.

Good, because it gives you a weapon to move ahead in this fight. That weapon is an understanding that his affairs are NOT your fault - because HE made these decisions, you did not.

The one sticking point is that you did marry him knowing he had these issues, and knowing that the boundaries were poorly drawn (if even marked) for him.

FAST - expose.
FAST and SHORT - Plan A.
Then, I would go to the darkest Plan B I could muster. He needs to see that your idea of marriage is now something he has to understand as a firmly bounded playing field, and that field includes one and only one woman - YOU.

He needs to understand this very clearly from your Plan B letter, which while you are in Plan A you need to be working on. Yours has to be a strong letter, because he has to be left without doubt as to where you stand: you love him, you want the marriage, but his player days are OVER if he expects any future relationship with you - and this includes being a "friend" after a divorce if this goes that far.


SB

Dr Harley wrote a post about his theory on why he hasn't had much success in saving marriages that start as an affair. Your H's present infidelity is actually a small part of a larger problem.

What Dr H says is basically your WH (maybe you too?) will be (likely) unable to follow POJA and PORH which are critical parts of his plan for a successful marriage. If you want to read the actual post, let me know and I will find it for you.