I've been reading the MB principles and lurking on the forums for a few weeks. The same wayward speak and patterns were in my marriages, too. I would have stood a chance of saving my second marriage had I known about MB.

I was a helicopter pilot in the Marines and married a woman I dated in college. My squadron was in Hawaii. We had a very loving marriage in a beautiful place. I noticed that W did not like hanging around the other wives, but I figured she would eventually come around. W had no support group except me. Our families were 3000 miles away. I really pushed hard to get her to go to wives meetings, but she never went.

I can't say I was a perfect H. I struggled with co-dependency and trust issues. When I got angry I just shut down and ran a few miles to calm down. I did not like confrontation either. I was a poor communicator. I never yelled at W. But, I was always faithful.

After W became pregnant we were told my first deployment was going to begin 3 weeks before the due date. I tried everything I could to delay going, to no avail. When I left, W feared she was going to give birth alone. I was just sick over this. There was no internet or phones I could use on the ship. We could only communicate with letters. I found out though a naval message that she gave birth to a healthy girl and 2 other wives were there to help. 5 months later I saw my daughter for the first time

link to picture here

W was distant and angry when I returned. She blamed me for not being there. We worked on our issues over the next few months, or so I thought.. While I was on duty at the base one night, W went to a squadron party. I knew these guys and trusted them with my life. What could go wrong? The next morning she confessed that she had 'gone parking' with another pilot in the squadron. She said they only kissed, but I had my doubts. I was devastated. She apologized profusely and we decided to never bring it up again. The next day I found out the OM was my boss. He was married with kids. He apologized and begged me to not turn him in to the C.O.. I felt I had resolved the issue with WW and I did not want to ruin the career of of someone I worked with everyday. But I felt humiliated and really angry. WW and I stopped communicating on a deep level after that. The lack of communication was my fault. I just could not forgive her. Marriage counseling did not seem to help. I felt I could not trust her any more. Having a good plan A and working on my communication issues, would have made a big difference. When my next deployment came up a few months later, I left knowing our marriage was in a lot of trouble. I was in agony over this.

At first we sent long letters to each other every week. She put perfume in hers. We were communicating better than when I was back home. Then the letters became less frequent, and finally stopped. When I called from onshore, she did not have much to say. I was heartsick and in agony again. I knew she had found an OM. But I could not do anything about it. The Internet had not reached ships at sea then. And I did not know about MB. All I could do was to wait till the deployment ended

2 weeks after I returned from that deployment, WW said she wanted to go visit her family in Boston for 2 weeks. I should have told her to stay and work on our marriage, but I was feeling really defeated at this point. When WW walked down the ramp to the airplane with DD, my gut was telling me I would not see them for a very long time. Later I began to hear a lot of rumors of her being with 2 or maybe 3 OM while I was deployed. And, during the deployment, a neighbor called CPS, because my daughter was being neglected.

I began seeing an IC when WW left, but I could not go on AD's, because I was pilot. I ran several miles a day and privately cried a lot.

WW kept telling me she was coming back soon. At one point she said she had lost the return ticket and needed a new one. I decided it was time to give up after 3 months. I told her I would file for divorce if she did not come back. She did not want this, but she wasn't coming home either. I wanted custody of DD, but my lawyer said a Marine that deployed as much as I did, would never be granted custody.

A month after I filed, WW called to say she was pregnant. She said she did not want to marry OM#5-6? , but she wasn't going to come back either. In Hawaii you cannot divorce a pregnant woman. So I had to wait another 7 months to finalize the divorce. 2 months later WW told me OC died from SIDS.

This was more than one man should ever have to deal with. I did my best. But I was struggling. About this time I was in an accident which destroyed the helicopter. Only through God's mercy did we all walk away with just cuts and bruises.

I didn't date for 6 months after the divorce.

I wanted a safe marriage. One where we trusted each other implicitly. I found a wonderful woman who was a christian minister. I completed my contract with the Marines and flew to Seattle to get married. We had our ups and downs with money and the usual marital stressors. But we were very happy. We had a beautiful daughter together. She made more money as a minister than I did as a substitute teacher.

She ministered to a large christian church for several years. I was blessed and thought, what could go wrong? 5 years into our marriage WW developed an EA with an OM while she doing marriage counseling for him and his wife. (I'm not making this up). Our first marriage counselor told me to leave the marriage. The second marriage counselor got WW to acknowledge the damage she was causing. As we walked out the door WW began retracting every statement she made just minutes before.

WW disrespected and belittled me every time we spoke about our relationship. I felt humiliated and emasculated. For months I rarely challenge WW. I was afraid the pain I went through in my first marriage would revisit me again. I did not have a support network and I was paralyzed by fear. I did not want to be alone, or have 2 divorces in my background. I just prayed that this would sort itself out.

I was back in IC and on AD's. I even became suicidal at one point.

WW's fogbabble was right out of these forums. 'I love you, but I don't love you', 'OM is so wonderful, want to hear what we talked about?', 'I don't want to hurt you, but I love OM so much', 'God brought OM and I together', 'Its ok because we are not having sex'

She had no interest in working on the marriage, even though she was counseling married couples. Another woman minister came to WW for counseling about infidelity one day. This other minister was cheating on her husband. They had 3 kids. I saw this other minister and her family every Sunday in church.

WW came home that night wanting to justify her EA to me. She told me all the sordid details from the counseling session with the other minister. Then said 'If she can have a PA, Its ok for me to have an EA'.

I finally grew a pair (well maybe a little pair) and told her to stop seeing OM or its over. She said she did. I thought she was telling the truth because she was furious for weeks. But, she eventually started seeing OM again. She even brought him over to our house 'just to look around' while I was away at a reserve drill.

The EA finally ended when OM said he wanted to work on his marriage. A tearful WW came to me for sympathy and understanding. She was shocked when I had no empathy for her. The damage done to our marriage could not be resolved at this point for either of us.

If I had done an early exposure there would have been a nuclear effect in both our families and WW's church. The A would likely not have survived that. If I had worked a good plan A, early on, I'm sure I could have eventually wooed her back. But, I did not know about MB then.

My tale of marital woe should be required reading for anyone balking at an aggressive MB plan.

Do you want to do what is right with WW2?

As a minister she needs to be exposed! This should have been done during the marriage. Do you have proof to show the congregation?

What is your wish for your relationship now?

WW did break client confidentiality and committed adultery. WW was in such an utter fog, she did not care about her congregants or her family. She left her church on her own a few weeks later. I'm done with WW.

There is a dimension to this I did not mention before. WW was drifting from Christianity and into New Age beliefs. This was a significant problem in our marriage. She wanted me to 'reach a new level of consciousness' with her. I just could not get into all the crystal spinning, soul retrieval crap.

She moved to Sedona AZ 2 weeks ago, to find a community who believes what she does. She left the ministry to become a New Age Hospice counselor. Everyone that knows her thinks she's gone nuts.

There is no point to exposing now. She is out of the ministry and out of my life.

I'm still angry and I haven't forgiven. I feel like I was mugged. She still thinks her affair was a gift from God to end our marriage. I still need to be civil, however, because we have a DD.

Good grief, I am so sorry about what you have gone through.

I wish you had found MB a long time ago as well. Thank you for outlining what happens when you do not follow a plan.

I hope you are able to heal and move on. These forums might still do you good, as you can browse around and see what it takes to have a healthy M.

Good luck to you and your daughter.

PD,

There is no point to exposing now. She is out of the ministry and out of my life.

At the very least expose to the other people in charge at the church where this ocured, they need to know what happened to help them guard against this sort of horrible breech of
trust in the future.

Do the wives of some of your first wife's OMs a favor and let them know what happened. You will do no harm by doing so, the harm to their marriages has been done by OM.

God Bless
Gamma

I'm not sure about exposing to the BWs in his first marriage. There is no point in that because that marriage is long over and exposure generally is supposed to be used to kill the affair. It doesn't even sound as if they live in the same area. If they were still married, or if he had done it back then, it might be different. I'm afraid if he did it now, he may come off as just a crazy ex.

As far as exposing to the church about his second WW, I do agree with that, especially if she was counseling others. They need to know what was really going on.

PD: Wow, about your wife running off to join a bunch of new agers. Since she's left the church (and obviously God) she's leaving herself open for all kinds of bad stuff. I wouldn't want to be in her shoes at the end of the day.

It's a sign of the times where wrong is right, anything goes, and craziness abounds.

But I know who wins in the end.

Yeah, she decided our spiritual differences were too great. She told me she thanked God for bringing in OM to end our marriage. She felt I was not receptive to her spiritual beliefs, so she began sharing them with one of her congregants, the OM. And it progressed into a EA/PA?

Frankly, I had a very hard time listening to her new age religion. She tried to heal me once with magnetic wands and some burning sage. I made the mistake of humoring her, saying I felt a bit better. But I felt like crap inside because I lied to her. When I told her the truth she was pissed.

She did try for years to get me to 'see the light'. But I just could not give up Christianity.

I spoke to the moderator of her old church about the confidences she broke as a marriage counselor. He said he already knew about it.

Here is me seeing my my first DD for the first time:

Awwww!! She's beautiful. What a great photo, the look on your face says it all.