WS has agreed to a telephone counseling session with Marriage Builders. My question is this: if she is still in contact with OM and is lying about it, is there any value to doing this counseling? Should I do the counseling alone? Anyone who has any experience with this, I would love to have your input.

I do not have personal experience, but having been on the forum for a few years, I think it has value.

You don't actually know what she is doing. She may not be in contact, but in withdrawal.

There are a great many people who quit smoking, but take a while to get over it. They wish they could smoke, they think about smoking, and they have a hard time NOT smoking, but they get over it in time, and then the day comes when they wonder how they could have ever wanted to smoke. It becomes abhorrent to them.

I think you will be happy if you go with MB coaching. One of the goals is to help your W understand why recovering the marriage is the best option of all the ones that she is thinking about. They will help you understand her a little better too, so that you can help her more.

I think it was Marion G Romney that said (Essentially) that we could make every decision in life correctly if we would learn to follow the the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. Keep praying, and listen closely, and you will know what to do.

SS

Counseling during an affair is a waste of money is the normal saying especially with most counselors.

However a phone call to the Harley's has push many a WS of the fence to go NC with the OP.

Worth a try being you can't verify NC.

Steve has talked many WS' into ending their affair. Be sure and counsel with Steve because he seems to do the best job with waywards. He counsels alone anyway by splitting up the hour. He will encourage her to end her affair and be honest with you, so it would be worthwhile. He will sell her on the prospect of a happy, romantic marriage with you.

Alright MB veterans, I need help. Digital Voice Recorder has confirmed what I suspected- WS is still carrying on in full force with OM. I now have a one side of a 40-min phone conversation between them during which she discloses lots of details about what has been/is going on. What should I do now?

After reading this post I wept. I feel your pain!

I am looking for some kind of digital recorder. any suggestions?
I have most other areas covered.

It�s simple. You have to have nuclear exposure. You tell your family and hers that she�s having an affair and that you need their support to save your marriage. You expose to your kids in an age appropriate way. You expose to OM�s wife if he has one or a girlfriend, if he has one.

I�m willing to bet that 90% of the advice you get will be along the lines of exposure.

Once you�re done with exposure, you confront her.

You don�t need to reveal your source of info. A skilled interrogator doesn�t.

Perhaps there are things in the conversation she had with OM that you can use to hint that you found out through friends or outside sources.

In the end, you don�t need to reveal how you know. Telling her things that were said or that she did is enough to usually get the guilty spill the beans.

One very effective interrogation technique is to trickle the truth. You confront the wayward with a question that you know she will lie to. Once she lies, you present your evidence that contradicts it. It could be something as simple as a statement. Example:

WW, did you see OM on Thursday night?

�No.�

�I happen to know for a fact that you met with him at the sleaze motel at x time. Care to change your response?�

Then you move on to another question you know the answer to.

This gives the impression that they can�t slip any lies by you because you already know everything. They then tend to totally spill the beans.

But the first step, if you hope to save your marriage at all and kill this affair, is to expose.

If you have her voice confirming an affair you need to expose.

Not to beat a dead horse here, but you need to expose like crazy.

To kill an affair, you need to make her realize what it will cost her. Right now, it's costing her NOTHING. She's still got you hanging on the line, she's still got the esteem of her family, the esteem of her friends, her kids ... she's able to have her cake & eat it too.

What exposure does is, it starts to make the cost of an affair apparent to the affairee. When I was in my affair, I had twistedly reconciled myself to being happy with getting some affection/attention/sex/companionship on the side, even though I well knew how wrong it was, because it wasn't costing me anything. However, once the affair was exposed to the other woman's husband, that created the possibility & awareness of major costs for me: My wife was certain to find out eventually; maybe she'd dump me. Maybe the other woman's husband would want to shoot me in the neck like I deserved, too. Even without those extremes, the costs I was suddenly looking at were huge -- maybe losing my home, my children, my job, who knows. So on the morning when the other woman called to let me know that her husband knew about us, I spent about, oh, one nanosecond adding up those costs, and decided to break it off, confess to my wife & throw myself on her mercy. And then that's what I did.

Later, I came to appreciate that without exposure at least in the form of the other woman's husband knowing, I almost certainly would've stayed in the affair at the time. I didn't start getting my head straight until after the light of day fell on that awful situation. Daylight/sunshine, exposure -- is what kills affairs better than anything. The fact that my wife & I then exposed together to some others -- friends of ours -- helped add an extra layer of assurance, making it less likely that I'd resume the affair. The more pairs of eyes, the better.

Don't warn her you're going to do it, just do it. "Shock & awe" is the order of the day. Bring the truth down on everyone whose esteem she values, everyone whose esteem the other man values, to the extent you can track them down. Bring it down quick. The idea is to make the affairees' heads swim, disorient them, smash up their insular little secret world, and bring them face-to-face with the costs of continuing the affair.

And if I may add one thing to your fine response, GO:

Some BS's think they can reason with their spouse and avoid the heavy lifting of exposure. Well, scratch that idea, because you CAN'T. You can't make a wayward see the light of reason. They are ADDICTS. Do NOT say "If you don't stop the A, I'm going to tell everyone." Or similar ultimatums. This will blow up in your face. This gives the waywards time to spin their story: "Oh, WW's husband is a control freak who thinks every guy on the planet is after his wife. He even thinks I'M having an A with her, can you believe that??" or "I am so angry at Mark! Do you know that he thinks OM and I are having an A?? Is that not totally ridiculous? He does this with every male friend I've ever had - he's so controlling!" blah blah blah.

Do not forewarn the affairees!

Do not warn that you are going to expose.

Do not try to bargin that you won't expose if WW ends affair.

All these things will do is let the WW and OM get their stories straight. Time to paint you as a nut case.

Those that tell their side first are usually believed.

So, in case you didn't get it in the last few posts, EXPOSE EXPOSE EXPOSE.

You may not even need to confront your WW. I am CERTAIN that after the people you have exposed to start calling her to say, "WTF?" she will be contacting you.

Get you list of exposure targets together right now and get ready to expose this. You need to do it all at once for it to be MOST effective. Do you have all of OMs info to expose him too? Do it all at the same time.

Keep your source secret as long as possible. You will still want to record her to gather more intel on her plans.

Proved my wife's affair via VAR.
Called everybody she cared about.
Exposure to the OMW led to cessation of the affair on his side immediately, and on my wife's side one week later.

I'm not sure if you've answered this before, but is the OM also LDS? If so, exposing as widely as possible to everyone in his family, ward, etc, is extremely important. The more pressure that is placed on him to end this on his side, the better your chances of ensuring a quick end to this thing.

As everyone else has said, expose, expose, expose. Your kids need to know, especially the teens. I think one of the mistakes my H made was that he never exposed, under the advisement of our Bishop. My H's failure to expose made it much easier for me to carry on the A long after D-day (6 months to be exact). I have no doubt that my A would have ended much sooner if he had done a nuclear exposure to everyone, including our kids.

Expose...
Also, mel said schedule steve because he is better with WWs.

That may be true, mel has never steered me wrong, but due to times available, my WW and I had ours with jennifer. She did a fantastic sell job on the marriage. If steve is better than that, cool, but I think jennifer is "good enough" too so don't feel bad if you can't get steve.

Expose. Nuclear. Don't give details of how you know. You don't owe them proof, they already know what they are doing. Don't warn, when she starts getting calls from people she'll figure it out.

Keep going with Plan A, wage jihad on the affair. Make the marriage and family the only reasonable choice.

Can you go on your phone plan and block incoming calls from OM? If nothing else, shut off her phone, change the number, change the plan to a teen one where she can only call you and 911 or something similar. You are not obligated to support an affair. We got on fine without cell phones for thousands of years. Is she using a vehicle to go to OM? Take the vehicle keys. Fight the affair. Expose to omw, oms family, use the internet. Info is out there, $6 to Intellius got me my WWs OMWs number.

She will rage at you. Be calm, remind her your family is your kids and you, and if she wants to be part of it, she has to come by herself. NC. Your battlecry is you are protecting your family and marriage, that you love them both and she is welcome to be a part of them whenever she is ready. Just repeat that over and over, calmly and sincerely. My WW told me that hugely threw her anger off, when she would say all those terrible things and I would respond only with that.

Keep your appointment with Harleys, try get her there as well. My WW was home 1 day from camping with her AP, not sure she WANTED ab marriage with me, but a condition of her being home was participating in my choice of counseling, and she talked to jennifer.

Nothing I am posting is my idea. Its what vets told me and it works. My thinking never got me anywhere, they did.

Expose. Plan A. War on the affair.

How are you doing today? Thinking of you...

You can get an inexpensive one at Wal-Mart. Very easy to use and will download directly to your computer. Get some velcro tape and you will be all set. Good luck, and sorry you are here.

OM is not LDS. In fact, he is pretty much a dirtbag. No wife (she left him after 18 yrs because of his adultery). He has no incentive to end the affair, so no options there. Working on nuclear exposure right now.

Doing okay. WS is frantic. Not much fun at home, but feel that progress is finally being made, just not sure in which direction. At any rate, something has to change, and it finally is. Should have exposed a long time ago, but didn't have concrete evidence that A was ongoing.

Nuclear exposure is underway. Exposed to both sets of parents, exposed to WS' siblings. Exposed to 18-yo daughter. Going to expose to 15-yo also. Exposed to WS' best friends (married church friends). Divorced friends already know, as they have been aiding/abetting. Also going to talk to LDS Bishop (church leader) tonight. He is aware of EA, but not aware that it had progressed to PA, or that it is ongoing. Wife was Primary President (head of church group for children), but has been released. WS is going to her sister's in PA for a few days to think about her decision. My question is- what do i do now? Do I continue with Plan A for as long as she stays? If she decides to leave, do I continue Plan A, or go directly to Plan B? Need some advice from the veterans.