And then she adds to the confusion by sending me crap like this, "I still love you but I don't think I can love you in an intimate way and I don't desire that closeness." What does that mean? Is the first part lip service? It's like she's the one dangling the carrot now.

Letter to OM parents. Too timid? Any advice on how to make it better? They've lawyered up for him in the past when he's gotten in trouble with domestic violence so I'm not holding my breath that this will be effective.

Dear OM parents,
Over the course of the last several weeks, my wife WW and I have had some difficulties being able to devote time to building our marriage. We have let life get in the way of spending time together in ways that invest in each other's happiness. As you know she works a couple jobs and between my job, school, and house renovation our time together has been lacking. I have come to learn that through these times that OM and WW have started an affair.

When WW and I exchanged our vows we were making a covenant to each other that for better or for worse we would stick by each other. I love her with all my heart and I want to love WW through this and to heal our marriage. Up until this point we have had a great marriage and have built a life together. I know you two have been married for quite some time and can understand that it isn't always easy and takes hard work. I feel I need to make you aware of the situation because it is happening in your house and business. I love WW with all that I am and am committed to doing whatever it takes to restore our marriage.

Try this template it is far more effective.

This is to the OM parents. Do you think it is effective to ask them to protect other marriages from their own son?

Take the sentence out if you wish, it is a template for you to use, yours was far to wishy washy

Good to know, I'll toughen it up quite a bit.

It means she is in love with someone else. She has a new point of comparison and is comparing you to him. Sorry.

No, of course not. That is just sample letter. You would take out the parts that don't apply. Personally, I would hop in the car with your mom and dad and drive down to meet up with his parents.

"I still love you but I don't think I can love you in an intimate way and I don't desire that closeness." What does that mean? BABBLLLLE BABBLE blah blah blah IGNORE IT as hard as that is to do. Right now shes on PCP and think of her talking as if she is high on PCP. ALL Babble because thats what it is. ALL WW's give the same garbage to the DH. Hard as it is ignore it and Plan A, If you chose to stay. Plan A and follow MB principals and 2 months from now you may be hearing I Love You and I am such a fool. Once the PCP wears off.
PCP = Affair

Just asking yet again, without having children and being married for only two years, what is the primary reason you are wishing to continue forward with this?

I think Melody Lane asked this earlier, because without kids and a lengthy marital history, there's not that much vested in this relationship other than your feelings and of course, the vows. Your furry "child" can get over a divorce much easier than a real child, of course, could.

Marriage IS important, extremely important, but I would seriously NOT consider bringing up children or spending the rest of my life with someone who betrayed me so early on in the marriage and would feel that I'd spend more time looking behind my back making sure they weren't going to cheat again, rather than looking ahead to the rest of our lives.

Because we are one flesh. It's now splintered and I know that the road to recovery is very narrow. For me it may even be a dead end if I can't deal with the trust issues.

The time table is so accelerated that she hasn't made enough withdrawls yet for me to not be in love with her still.

More so than just restoring my marriage is that she's my best friend. I can't seem to abandon her when she is in the most trouble.

Those trust issues that are going to haunt you for years. YEARS. My FWW cheated on me before we were M'd, and I can tell you now, I should have taken the hint back then and RUN LIKE LIGHTNING. If I had, I wouldn't have had to endure her second, much worse A, this time with two kids and a mortgage to think about.

Some good exposure today. WW is pissed. Delivered letter to OM parents. Not holding out much hope there since OM is 38 and living in his parents basement.

Some exposure participants haven't contacted WW yet today though. Do I need to tell them to at least text or call her that they know even if they can't talk in person for a couple days?

Is there such a thing as over exposure? I went nuclear but WW says it was too much. She feels like she has no one to talk to but... OM (surprise, surprise). She's been angry for days. Now I need to keep up the Plan A bits until she up and moves out.

To whom did you expose? I think there is no such thing as over-exposure, maybe some targets/ways can be ineffective.

Any kind of exposure is "too much" for WS. The angrier the WS the more effective the exposure was. Keep it up.

All of her friends, her family, his family, their coworkers. I was hoping the anger would subside a little by now. Instead she's looking for an apartment for May 1 and I'm scrambling to make sure I do enough things to make the home feel welcome before I'm forced into Plan B.

Typical wayward-speak. Make sure you gently correct her when she starts that babble.

For example: "No, honey - you've got ME to talk to. Want to go for a walk and talk?"

Expect anger like you've never seen. Its normal and fine.

You can recover from this, but an active affair will kill your marriage.

Quit worrying. Its not easy I know, but it will be OK.

How many affairs continue after nuclear exposure? Do they usually go on in secret or out in the open? Since exposing my WW has nowhere to go for physical adventures but they still went out for a drink and bowling a couple days ago. The texting also continues.

JustWanting,

Honest good exposure cannot be overdone really. You are seeking help to save your marriage. Having said this I must tell you and give you advice that I would give my own children and in fact gave one of my children whose spouse had an affair less than 4 months of marriage. They had dated for 6 years.

I told my child that "the marriage had not lasted long enough for you to mess this up." I will tell you the same thing.

Your WW like the WS from my child's marriage had issues...deep issues that came with them and the responsibility and "pressure" of being married was more than they could handle so they ran.

Your W has affaired down because she is not looking to replace you with OM, but rather using OM as a way to avoid what is really bothering her. Whatever is bothering her, is being transferred to you, and thus you are to blame for the failure of the marriage. But JW, you are not to blame, could you do better as an H? You bet and I hope you learn here how to do better, but what is happening is not about you, but about her.

My child is now divorced and this hurts my W and I and it hurts the WS' parents deeply but there was nothing that could be done. My child is better off and the one thing we are grateful for is that there were no children involved. That 10 years was not wasted before this happened.

I would recommend you do plan A and then Plan B, but more I recommend that you study here, learn here, and realize that the issues you are dealing with are HER issues not your issues.

I would counsel you to do these things because in the long run it will help you to know that you did your best to save this marriage and it will help you learn many valuable things. However, I will also tell you that if your best efforts fail, you should count yourself as a very very fortunate young man to have this happen now instead of later.

God Bless,

JL