You have an absolutely horrible marriage counselor. Seriously bad.

The counselor is going to guide your selfish wife right into a divorce.

I know you have taken some hits on here. But I think you and I respect each other, and you know I have followed you for a long time.

Go home. Plan A. Fire the counsellor. Hire Steve.

Another wayward gets their way and boots their husband out. I hope you're not paying too much to this person who is counseling you.

Gave her a little 'space', did you?

Marital, thanks for your help this am. One other question waiting for you - might seem like a dumb one.

And I have to learn how you do the little characters, they crack me up.

PNA, again I am convinced moving out and allowing space is WRONG.

I agree w/ Reyonlds and MB. If there is any way you can get back in that house, do it.

My biggest regret (though I try not to have regrets) is agreeing to move out of my house after D-Day. Not only did this allow the A to grow unimpeded and at-will, but it also created a situation where, when trying to reconcile, the marital house was filled with reminders and bad memories--it's a triggerfest. Furthermore, I waited too long after Marital Bliss and others told me to get back in the house--every week that went by was another week where more triggers were created and the A strengthened.

Certainly not overcomable, but not ideal.

Get back in that house any way you can.

Stuck and I have been working together for a while. We hopefully will never have to end up being roommates - no offense Stuck...but the man knows what hes talking about. Hes been there.

PNA you around today? Digesting or discounting?

Yes, I'm here. But I'm getting conflicting advice from MC and you and others so its hard to know which to digest. I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to post anymore. I trust my wife and I trust my MC. Thanks for your support through this crazy time. I think I came here out of fear and that's something I need to work on.

You trust your wife? Do you realize how that sounds?

You were afraid when you arrived and you are still afraid. How about working on it? How do you plan to do that?

Got time to talk to Steve on your own? I am just a dude who got cheated on. Hes the pro. I say call him and spend an hour. Worst case you are out some cash and you have another opinion you can't reconcile. But he will lay out a plan to get your wife back. Has that been a stated goal of your MC? Or is the stated goal making you "happy"?

Just saying.

Snooping turned up anything?

You trust your wife? The one who lied to you and cheated on you?? And your MC, who told you to leave your own house???

This thread is one of the saddest I've ever read here. To me, Pls sounded like he was truly Powerless! I have a question for all the vets:

Pls kept on saying that he is scared to be more threatening or to take exposure further than he was comfortable with, because that would make his wife run even faster to D. The advice here seemed to be 'don't matter, just go ahead and expose'.

What would your follow up advice be, if the events DID turn out like that for Pls? I.e, if he did expose in 'the right way' and his wife then filed for divorce? Maybe this advice will be more helpfull.

Also, it seems that many of us assume that a betrayed spouse has been an 'angel' and all he/she needs to do is expose; and the WS should then quickly get scared and turn right back into the M. What if a BS was the worst ever spouse? What if there was unbelievable levels of emotional abuse (always present in codepency issues), such that the M is over with or without an A? What if a BS is sooooooo in the red in the love-bank, that they don't even have a right to ask for a conversation/demand/whatever?

I don't know how to better explain my point. But it seems to me that you can have a spouse who has been so bad, she/he is in no position to even negotiate - nevermind make demands. Or put another way, you can have a situation where one spouse has been so abused/neglected/emotionally abandoned prior to an A, that any move on the part of the other spouse (such as ruining the other's job by exposure) would be the last nail.

I guess I'm just sympathetic to the powerlessness of the whole situation; or the risk.

Exposure was not the only thing lacking in his plan (if you can call it a plan). They also were going to a traditional MC who wasn't very pro marriage. He also made excuses that his W's A was because she had alcoholic parents. He alo conveniently moved out for her, allowing her the space needed to continue the A, instead of making her move out. I'm sure I'm missing some things, but it seemed like he did just about everything opposite from MB. This was entirely predictable.

I think the theory is that regardless of what the past is, you cannot heal your marriage with three people in it. Exposure takes care of that issue.

In terms of sitting down with a MC and getting the WS to leave the affair and work on the marriage, it does not work. Been there, done that. I hope PNA threatening exposure works for him.

WS's don't leave because the got exposed.

WS's leave because after being outed they can no longer fence sit.

WS's that were going to leave were going to leave when it suited them and according to their WS schedule. All exposure did was force their hand to move up the date they were going to leave their BS.

WS's, the same way they justify their affair now use exposure as the justification that they are now divorcing their BS.

You see the WS has to make sure in their mind that they were not to blame for any of this.

This is why exposure does not always work because the WS was stick a fork in them done with their BS and were never going to atempt recovery.

It is there fore better to expose even this type of WS because why should a BS have to put up with their WS leaving at night to bang the OP?

It is much better to see the WS walk out the door to never come back then to keep seeing the WS come home every morning after banging the OP all night.

This is a common misconception held by newcomers. There is a REASON why vets and those who have saved their marriages are not concerned about "exposure causing divorce." Because it doesn't. What causes divorce is NOT EXPOSING. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so keeping them a secret is the most likely thing to result in divorce. We have seen it time and time again. It is just common sense that protecting an affair is not healthy to a marriage.

Exposure will never prevent a WS from recovering her marriage if she wants to recover it. Wild horses would not stop her, much less exposure. Resentment over exposure is a sign of the fog, and the fog is more likely to go away if the affair is exposed.

Exposure

But how would you know what is or isn't helpful? What is your background? I don't agree that would be helpful because it is an unrealistic outcome. What is not helpful is your unncessary fanning of the fear flames out of your ignorance. Why not move on and allow us to help this man. Your post is not helpful in the least.

And these kind of comments demonstrate absolutely no understanding of Marriage Builders. First off, there is no alcohol and drug addiction in this marriage so "co-dependency" is irrelevant. And even if it were, it has absolutely nothing to do exposure. Even if he did emotionally abuse his spouse, it does not entitle his spouse to abuse him with an affair. And most certainly has no relevance to exposure.

Why did you post the above paragraph, mamma? Can you show me a citation from Dr Harley that says that any of this?

mamma, you sure don't sound like someone who has been here since 2005 with posts like that. All I see from you is some fueling of the fear, which is not helpful. This man is fearful enough, so I view your post as a distraction on a thread where this poster really needs help.

Why not show that you have any idea what you are talking about and answer his fears? You didn't do that, sadly.

What was your old screen name?

Nevermind.

Hi all. I'm back here after 5 months to learn more about recovery. My other thread "How do I expose the affair" is also in this forum and I posted some of the new news there thinking it was still in the Infidelity forum. From now on, I'll just monitor this forum, which is where I believe I need to be now.

So much has changed, I don't know where to begin so I'm going to start by just reading other threads in this forum and posting questions here as they develop. We leave for vacation together in the mountains next week which will give us unlimited time together for two weeks to continue our recovery work.

I watched Amy Wambach score in the last minute of World Cup soccer today. There was no way I thought the USA would tie the game and survive to make it through to the next round. There was no way I thought my marriage would survive to make it through the EA, through divorce filing, to where it is today either. Like the USA though, it just means we get to move on to the next challenge. Like Hope Solo said (a very relevant name by the way!), we're here to win a tournament, not just a game. I see recovery as that ongoing tournament and the elation of making it to here needs to be replace by sobering truth in preparation for what is next.

R51-
This turned out to be my experience. I did not move out. But I did not mention affair, divorce, marriage, etc or try to "fix" in any way other than Prevention. I detached and worked on myself and made my own plans for moving on and quit pursuing. Sometime around "week 4", she mentioned how badly she needed a vacation. Where would you go I asked? She said the beach. I fixed her up and sent her to the same state where OM lives - that's how certain I knew the affair was over. Two days later, while actually driving home from my lawyer's office, she calls and says she really is having a good time and does not want to come home yet - IS THERE ANY WAY I CAN FLY DOWN AND JOIN HER?? Boom! We had a great time, but it seemed too soon, so I remained fun, but detached and did not make any sexual or relationship moves and did not pursue which I think made her really think - what is going on with him? Why didn't he ask about the divorce? Why is he not interested in this tan, sexy body?? Wow, is he looking good!!

Really, that one phone call from a beach hotel came out of the blue and the whole dynamic changed and "week 5" soon became "week 6". In May, she finally said those things that needed to be said and we have begun recovery and rebuilding and my favorite, re-avoiding.

So, thanks for the advice. It does happen this way sometimes and she did eventually emerge from fog and recommit to finding something better than what we had. My goal too!

Really, thank you, R51. You were one of few that seemed to give me the benefit of the douby that the affair was indeed over so where do we put our emphasis during withdrawal if D is on but A is off. I put the emphasis on myself and quit trying to control what I could not. And that made all the difference.

Optimism is quickly squashed here (for good reason), but I'm a very, very happy man who not long ago was a very, very sad man!! I like happy much better. So I'm still in a bit of Withdrawal Honeymoon. What does Month 2 look like??

P.S. Not an Economics prof, but close.