Please clarify, did you date for 6 months or six years?

Well, I would suggest you find creative ways to work the fact that your wife is banging some other guy into your holiday rituals.

OPENING THE GIFTS - "Oh, how thoughtful, honey, you gave me the opportunity to share an STD with you!"
SAYING GRACE - "...and let us give thanx that my wife's dickmeister was unable to join us at this meal."
PLAYING PARLOR GAMES - "And now wifey will show us the new game she learned from her co-worker: Hide-the-Salami"

Seriously, dude, you gotta put some priorities in order here. Yes, this holiday season might be a bit .....strained.... but that is HER doing, not yours. If your septic system collapses on December 20, you don't decide to postpone digging up your lawn until after the Holidays, do you? As stinky and messy as BOTH that situation and an affair exposure would be, they both should be started IMMEDIATELY!

You dated for 6 years and have been married for 1 year and she is 23? She has been with you since she has been young, and she isn't that old now. This may be something she needs to work through. Have you suggested she go to counseling alone?

sunnyhere56

btw...when you wife confessed to you that she kissed some guy that was a wayward wife test.

She was testing to see how much you really cared and whether you'd stand up and stop her. She was telling you just enough to test you but not the whole truth because she didn't REALLY want to stop having the affair...she just wanted to stop feeling so guilty about it. I understand your reaction (many bh's don't know what to do) but your quite passive reaction gave her just the rationalization and justification she needed to continue the affair AND escalate it. In summary, she was attempting to warn you but she really didn't want you to stop her. It's tricky but she manipulated the exact reaction she got which gave her the justification she wanted. Essentially, she could blame you (in her mind) PLUS get mileage from OM who, no doubt, indicated how tough he'd be if he were in your shoes.


The reason I tell you this is to point out that your thinking and instincts are WAYYYYYY OFF on this and making things worse. It's time to trust some people (like us) that have more experience with these matters (been there done that).

Do this now...as in TODAY...before the holidays as 3 weeks without access to OM is a good thing.

Mr. W

p.s. - Is her cell phone in your name? If so...cut it off and cut off any and all joint credit cards. Make sure that for those three weeks she couldn't contact OM even if she wanted to.

ok i need to clarify...I was 24 when we met and she was 18. dating for 6 years will come up in a few months so really about 5.5 years of dating. She was of age and I had just turned 24 from 23. i dont want any of this to start creepy and all but yes i know she was young when we started dating and did hold off asking her to marry me till she was 22. she is seeing a counselor as am I. phone is hers and we have no CC as we use just our debit card. we are both on the lease to the apt and have a joint bank acct i agree that ending it with him now would help the situation as they wouldnt be able to speak for some time. I don't have his email at work so would a phone call telling him to stay out of it and to end it be better. I do however think I can email some of his supervisors as they seem to have their email on the web

NO, do NOT call HIM first!!

Court, the POINT of EXPOSURE is to shock the affairees by plunging them into extreme discomfort (social, financial) due to their ongoing affair. That's the mechanism by which exposure works.

The very LAST thing you should do is WARN the affairees that you're exposing! If you call the other guy without telling anyone else, you'll just lok weak. He'll tell her, and they'll just spin up some disinformation to the effect that you're crazy, and then they'll have a laugh together over you before & after their next screw. That's why you tell family, co-workers, bosses, and friends FIRST.

YES, E-mail his supervisors. If you call HIM, it should be the last call you make. He should not know what's hit him. After you've told everyone else, after he's gotten to work & seen the entire parking lot at his workplace papered-over with evidence of their affair, after all her relatives know, and all his relatives & co-workers know, THEN, when his head is spinning, you can call him and tell him that if you see him around your wife, you'll mess him up so bad he'll only WISH he were dead; then you end the conversation.

What in the world does she have to work through??

You contact him AFTER you have done a nuclear exposure. Expose to his bosses, director of Human Resources, his parents, facebook friends FIRST. AFTERWARDS, you go see him. Don't call or email him. Make that rat look you in the eye. First expose the hell out of this affair to all the sources I gave you above ON THE SAME DAY. Do it with military precision.

Are you ready?

Like all the others have said, you are the one who needs to make the decisions here, not her.

Are you willing to live with a lying cheating women or not. If not, send her packing.

If she doesn't want that, she needs to enter the program described above.

I'd add confront her with some witnesses, recording, even video tape in case she decides she wants to try to play the abuse victim. The script is clear.

Start with this, your affair, regardless what you say it is, emotional or more is emotionally abusive, and I refuse to be a victim of any further abuse. Either you end the affair, establish verifiable no contact and begin to work the marriage builders program, or pack you bag and move in with your friend.

I love you, but I refuse to remain married to someone who is unwilling or unable to end her emotional abuse and provide verifiable emotional and physical fidelity.

Heck, I'd even go one step further when setting this up and already file for divorce. Inform her you've done that citing the emotional abuse as grounds and say that if she wants to prevent that, these are the steps she needs to take.

Otherwise, she can pack her bag and leave. I don't recall if there are any children, but you can let her know you'll take care of them and she can see them every other weekend.

Ditto with any pets.

I don't think he's going to do anything, I think he's afraid. He's not going to confront the other man when he's too timid to confront his wife. It's all so inconvenient, if he exposes he'll have to deal with his wife, and questions from relatives on both sides, and some of those questions will be rather pointed and fraught with embarassment for him.

Afraid of your wife, courtvision, uneasy to be dealing with negative emotions? You need to realize that this stick your head in the sand approach and ignore everything you find unpleasant is a big contributing factor to what is happening right now. Not your fault she's having an affair but you sure did a lot to set the table.

Expose now, everyone you expose to will help you end the affair if you do it in the manner that MelodyLane told you to. Everyone you expose to becomes an ally in your quest to end the affair - and you can't do anything else until you end the affair. So far you haven't done d*ck to even make it uncomfortable for them.

Ok, so she was legally an adult when you married her. She was and still is a child.

I dated women just like this and was 25 when I dated a 19 year old. What I learned from that experience, to include my ex WW, is that both men and women at this age are by no means marriage material. I married my WXW when she was 22, just like you have.

I would have loved it if she showed her true colors BEFORE I had children with her. You have that golden opportunity. You now know her true colors and have them before you before you have children.

My advice, since you don�t have kids, is to take this woman out of your life, run in the opposite direction, and count your blessings. You will be returning here, wondering how to get your lovely cheating wife back, after she�s cheated on you again and you now have little ones running around and a custody fight on your hands because your WW feels she needs to go find herself, she never loved you, and that you robbed her of her youth. Throw into that that you act older than your age and don�t want to do fun things like go to clubs, dance, etc, since you�re well past that stage in your life and feel it important to take care of your kids.

Why do you wish to save your marriage with this woman? What does she bring to the table that can�t be found with someone else? You have NO KIDS! She�s cheated on you and is sleeping with another man.

Want to get massive respect from her? Tell her that you will be second to no man and that you�re grateful that she�s done this before you had kids with her. Then pack her stuff, put it in the front porch, tell her to get the he77 out of your house, go to POSOM, and that you�ll see her in court. Do that while exposing her affair to the universe.

I�ll bet you a million dollars she�ll suddenly start begging for forgiveness since you grew a pair.

But seriously, be grateful she�s done this before you had kids with her, D her, and find women your age in the future.

One thing I have learned from my wife's affair this summer, the worst thing you can do is be a doormat. In general, you must be strong, confident, and caring....but absolutely firm in your stance regarding adultery. Most women, including your wife, will value you more if you stand up for yourself.

I knew for a short time about my wife's affair, before I confronted her. I thought maybe she would end it without a huge drama-fest. Boy, was I wrong. Only after I confronted her, and also the OM, did I stand a chance in h*ll of saving my marriage.

Love her, but make her affair fantasy the most akward, disgusting, and uncomfortable situation you can make it. Listen to all the experienced posters here. If ultimately your wife walks, at least you can leave with your dignity and self respect.

Thank you all so much! i am just trying to get everything in order before i do this.

I know she was of legal age, and I know you have an age difference, and as far as what would she have to work through. It seems like she wouldn't have much, but you are wrong.

Since she started dating you at 18 and she is now 23 I can see where she would be going wait a minute, am I missing something other women my age did since maybe they weren't in a relationship.

It would be better if she dealt with what is in her mind now before you have children. It could turn into her walking away from all of you in her 30tys.

Like she missed the boat, didn't experience things.

She literally went from her parents to you, not a good combo as she ages. She will look back at this and maybe is now as to should I have been just me more before I got entangled in a serious relationship.

sunnyhere56

I just wanted to touch base on this quote. But I have been with my wife since we were 15 and 16 years old .. i am now 32 and we are happier than ever!. No physical cheating of course .. Maybe some short lived E/As tho as we didnt really know about MB much til recent years but none the less ... we made it. Possibly (and most likely) i am a minority but it can be done. YOu can get married early in life and still have a great marriage and grow together if BOTH want it. But in this guys case ... with no kids involved .. I would DEF be questioning her integrity and if she REALLY is right for him.

Sorry for the disruption, i just felt like chiming in there for a bit of encouragement on young marriages.

*shrugs*

So if you marry young, you're entitled to...what? Get divorced because you married too young and feel you want to date? That doesn't require an IC.

Or maybe she feels she married too young and lost an opportunity that a single girl might have, like maybe...going to college? Married woman are allowed to go to college. No IC needed here, either.

The only thing I would be concerned about with an early marriage would be that one or both of the spouses are too immature to appreciate the work that goes into a successful marriage. But that can be true, regardless of age.

None of these reasons is cause for an affair or IC.

ITA that it doesn't justify an affair, but I understand what leads down that path. There are so many posters who come here and say they married their spouse when they were young or dated them since they were 16 that it makes me think that marrying that young is generally a recipe for disaster.

Of course, not all young marriages end in failure, but I do think that middle age hits and it's not uncommon to go through a "have I really lived life" period.

I think that's when a lot of temptation creeps in.

In this particular case I challenge you to ask yourself these questions: Why do I want to save this marriage? What does she have that I can't find in any other woman out there that makes me put up with her infidelity?

I say this as a man who was caught up in my ex fiance's looks years ago. The girl was hot. I put up with a lot because of it. Eating disorder, mood swings from bipolar disorder, and a general recipe of immaturity combined with craziness. I put up with it because she was hot.

I'm sooooo grateful I never ended up with her.

Here you have 23 year old woman who cheats less than one year into a marriage.

Why would you possibly want to save this?

There are sooooo many good women out there. Why this one when you have no kids?

Actually Dr Harley says that marrying young is better for marriages because it is much easier to learn the POJA when you are less set in your ways. The older you are the more set in your ways. So he prefers young marriages because they tend to do better.

That being said, I very much agree with helpforlostdads. There is much to be said against trying to save a marriage that has been together a short time and has no children. It is probably less traumatic for all to just get divorced. If this were my son, I would be advising him to get a divorce.

If this poster wants help in saving his marriage, I will be glad to help, but he needs to consider cutting his losses.

Really?? That makes me feel very lucky! I would like to see where he has said that!

Sorry to sway off topic .. but i was intrigued by that quote.

I was surprised too! He basically blew apart all the mythology about the dangers of marrying young [and he and Joyce married young, btw!] and was in support of it. It was on a recent radio show. Sorry, I can't remember the date.