I have a very big problem with my marriage. My husband has been unfaithful and now he wants to leave the marriage and be with his affair partner. I believe the affair was the result of several issues. My husband lost his father to cancer only a few months ago and is still suffering from that loss. My husband has spent the last year and a bit working a lot of the time (about 60%) away from home, only returning on weekends. Our marriage has been in a slump, we spend a lot more time looking after the children than our relationship. Our sex life was not good, we would only have sex every two or three months. He was working closely with his affair partner on a project, they had a close friendship which has grown into an affair.
We have been married for ten years and have two beautiful children. Until he dropped this bombshell on me we have had a happy marriage. He is now saying that he has been unhappy for a long time and does not want to save the marriage. His behaviour did not suggest that he was unhappy or wanting to leave the marriage until recently. We have discussed plans for the future and even day to day organisation without any hint that he was planning to leave. This has come as a shock to me and to all our friends and family. It is out of character for this devoted family man to just up and leave without trying to fix the problem. I want to save our marriage. What can I do?

Hello Albizia and welcome to the best place to be in your circumstances.

For starters, read here.

Oh, and the only reason why he cheated, was poor boundaries.

MB advice for the people in your situation is and will always be the same.

1) Get evidence
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2461388&page=1

2) Expose
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2266646#Post2266646

3) Plan A
http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2458276&page=1

Hi there Albizia,

Sorry you have the need to be here, Your problem is very familiar on this site, there are steps you can take to save your marriage..........first I would read all the information on this site about exposure and PLan A and PLan B..........
I think the first thing you have to do is tell your husband that you still love him and want to rebuild the marriage so both of you are happy............
Tell him he has to give up the OW and commit to you and your family, if he refuses then you expose the affair to everyone important to him, your families, your friends, his work colleagues. The OW's family and friends........
Affairs happen with a secrecy when they are exposed it's hard to carry on with everyone knowing..........
Then you Plan A your husband the best way you can..............fill his most important emotional needs.............look this part up as well.........
I would look up affair fog babble as well, a lot of what he is saying fits this as well.......as long as they work together it will be difficult that is why the exposure at the work place is crucial, a lot of places will not tolerate this between employees........he will be mad, but so what your marriage can survive him being mad, not him being involved emotionally with another woman.........
You need a good plan, take back what is yours...........Expose to break up the affair.............If you don't you can't save your marriage. Is the OW married.......tell her husband first........
tell her parents, siblings, whoever you have to........do it all at once for the best effect..........
the vets should be around soon to help you with your plan......
jessi

Welcome Albizia,

Affairs make aliens out of friends. He has conveniently rewritten history to justify his actions.

Read the articles here. Especially the "Carrot and Stick" article.

Expose to all who will make a difference. Meet his emotional needs. (Find out what they are first) Contact us here when you need to vent.

Do not try to re-educate WH. Do not get emotional (it's hard) Cry in quiet. Look beautiful when he sees you. Do not Lovebust (Check the articles)

Gotta go. Writing this while on the phone!

Welcome, albizia, I'm sorry you have had to come here, but we can help you.

First, I'm assuming your WH and his AP work together, correct? Exposing the A to their employer could go a long way toward ending the affair. My H's affair ended the day they were exposed to their employer. We can help you with the process of exposure.

Do you know the OW? Is she married? Have you looked on Facebook to see if she has a FB page?

Don't tell your H or your family about this website. We have tools on here to help YOU. It wouldn't be good for your WH to know about us right now, or you'll expose those tools to him.

Have you read the articles on this site? Please read as much as you can. Check out the links in the yellow box on the right of your screen and start there.

Also consider buying Surviving An Affair - you can find it in the bookstore on this site. I consider it my handbook in helping recover my marriage.

Thanks for the help.

I have exposed the affair to family and close friends. I am trying to carry out plan A however, I have done some lovebusting behaviours as well.
I am scared to be too active in my exposure as I don't want him to hate me and I am trying to protect our two young children (6 and9) who have already suffered so much.
It is hard to fill his needs when he is not here and is having very little contact with me (only when he sees the children).

Oh, no - you DO want to be very active in your exposure! And you need to do it all at once - exposing a little here, a little there is called 'trickle exposure' and is not a good tactic for killing the A. It just puts your WH on notice that you are starting to talk to people. That gives him time to come up with a reason to justify the A - like, your M was on the rocks already, you've been distant from each other for years, blah blah blah. And yep, he'll more than likely be furious. Good. That means the exposure is working. Look at it like this: your efforts will be severely hampered if he isn't upset - that means he doesn't care who knows! Your M can survive your WH's temporary anger. It cannot survive an active affair.

Make a list of people who can put pressure on both of them to end the A. Can you get her info? Facebook may help with this. Her parents are good targets. The number one target is her husband, if she is married. Obviously the employer should be at the top of the list as well.

Put your list together first. We can help you with the exposure. We have letters that you can use - can you put together a list? Do your children know the truth of what their father is up to?

The children do know. He told them that mummy and daddy have grown apart and daddy has met a new lady. I don't want to bad mouth him to them because I don't want them to hate their dad.

I know she is seperated from her husband and has a 3 year old daughter. They are both on FB.

But you don't want to teach them that this is appropriate married behavior, either. You need to be honest with your children.

"Daddy decided that he wants to date a woman. Married people are not supposed to date. I love Daddy and I am trying to help him see that what he is doing is wrong."

He has lied to his children. Do NOT support this lie. Many, many children are harmed because one parent lies and the other parent does not combat the lie. You can tell the truth without "badmouthing" Daddy.

Here's what you say. "Honey, Daddy has not told you the truth. Daddy met a new lady and decided that he wanted to be with her instead of with Mummy. We did not "grow apart" until after Daddy met the new lady. The new lady is married. Her 3yo daughter is probably sad that HER mummy and daddy are separated, too."

That's the truth. The only "badmouthing" is that the truth shows that Daddy was a jerk. But you shouldn't call him a jerk. You should just tell the truth. Kids are smart. They can figure out who was in the wrong simply by knowing the facts.

If they get mad at him for acting like a jerk, then that is a consequence of his actions.

The chance is very, very good that they 'separated' so she could carry on her affair with your husband.

You need to do some research and track down her husband's address. A FB notice will work, but try to find a physical address and phone number for him first. In person is better when it's the BS you're trying to contact.

Try him on www.intelius.com

albizia, if you want to save your marriage, then you must expose the affair wide and far. You are not protecting your children by keeping his secret. Your marriage can survive his temporary anger, it cannot survive an ongoing affair. It is the most powerful weapon you have. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so exposing it ruins the fantasy. It is no fun to get high when every one is watching with disgust on their faces.

Many of us saved our marriages by exposing our spouse's affairs. Here is what Dr Harley says about exposure:

here

By helping him hide his secret, you are inadvertantly ENABLING his affair. This affair should be exposed to everyone, his parents, your parents, the OW's friends and family, your children, the VP of their company, EVERYONE. This will ruin the affair. While it may not kill it overnight, it will hasten its death.

If you are interested in saving your marriage, we can help you develop a strategic exposure plan.

They will grow up and hate YOU when they find out that you have allowed their father to teach them that wrong is right. He is screwing with their minds and as their mother, you have a moral obligation to protect them from that. They might learn right from wrong on their own and figure out you did not protect them.

See, little kids instinctively know right from wrong. They know what their dad has told them is wrong and they are very confused because they are being told by an adult that wrong is right. When you don't validate their instincts, they will rightfully conclude they are stupid and will learn to doubt their instincts.

This is the beginning of profound moral confusion. And unless you stop this abuse and neglect, they will grow up LOST. Just LOST. Don't do that to them.

Lying to little kids like that is the equivalent of rearranging the furniture in the house of a blind person. It is just the same, because you are rearranging REALITY in the mind of a child. It is like living in the carnival funhouse. And don't get me wrong, some people ENJOY screwing with people's minds, but hopefully you do not.

You need to tell the kids that adultery is IMMORAL and why it is immoral. Tell them that their dad has hooked up with bad woman and that their father is trying to replace you with this adultery partner. The goal is to break up their family. Just say it.

Tell them you are doing everything in your power to save their family.

They SENSE that adultery is wrong and just need an adult to validate that.

Exposure killed my H's A the DAY I did massive exposure.

Listen, you aren't going to convince us that exposure isn't right for YOU. Your situation is no different than anyone else's, and exposure is par for the course around here.

You MUST end the A before you can hope to get into recovery. Exposure is your absolute best bet at ending the A.

Please don't waste anymore time telling us why you can't or won't expose. We just can't help you much until you do this and put a big fat damper on the A.

MB has a fantastic plan for recovering from an A and exposure is the very first step. Please do this so that we can help you get to the rest of the recovery plan.

DITTO.

You ~~~> Afraid to take action because he might "hate" you.
You ought to worry about his disrespect for you, not imaginary/potential "hate".

He has no respect whatsoever for you right now. Disrespect is a love killer. Disrespect is a love buster on steroids.
Disrespect will ruin any hope for a future happy marriage EVEN IF OW DUMPED WH TODAY, your marriage would rot with disrespect.


A Better You ~~~> Determined to take action because it will kill the affair and show you have self respect. And courage. And integrity.

OK then if I am going to expose the affair how do I do it? Do I post on his FB so that everyone knows?

You can do that in addition to calling your close family and friends and asking them to use their influence to persuade him to end his affair.

I would plan on exposing to the OW's family and friends on facebook by sending them private messages. Go to her page, copy and paste all of her friends names into a WORD doc for safekeeping. Change your facebook picture to one of you and your husband. Send out private messages SPACED A MINUTE APART SO FB DOESN'T SHUT YOU DOWN FOR FLOODING. I will post a sample letter.

Additionally, if this is a workplace affair, I would send letters to the Director of Human Resources, a key VP and both their supervisors. If they work at different companies, notify both companies since they would both be affected by their irresponsbile, unprofessional behavior. We have a sample letter for that too.

Dear friend of Skankyhola,

It is with great regret that I send this letter but I believe all of her friends should be aware that Skanky is having an affair with my husband, Joe. We have been married for 5 years and have 3 heartbroken children. They have been having this affair since October according to the evidence.

I would be happy to provide the evidence to anyone who asks.

I would ask that you use your influence with Skanky to persuade her to leave my husband alone. You should also watch your own husbands around her because she is no friend to marriage.

I would appreciate it if someone would notify her parents and ask them to call me at xxx-www-xxxx.

Thank you, BW


Developed by Brits Brat, board member and corporate attorney

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is to bring a matter to your attention that may be a violation of your Company's Code of Conduct and/or other policies, procedures and business ethics.

WS and WS are involved in an extramarital affair that is taking place, primarily, in the workplace. Aside from the potential sexual harassment claims this situation presents, it also involves the inappropriate use of company resources and assets. WS and WS are using company time and company resources to further their affair. If you check the call histories on their office and cell phones along with their workstation computers, you will find the two of them are spending an inordinate amount of what should be productive work time to further their sexual relationship.

If you have any questions, please call me at xxx-xxxx. Otherwise, I will anticipate a response from you once you have investigated these concerns and taken appropriate corrective action.

Regards,

BS
_________________________

Well I sent her seperated husband a message on FB.
I have also learnt some new information from WS mother. She told me that he sent her a letter trying to explain his actions. He has claimed full responsibility for the affair and subsequent seperation. He told her that OW has been very supportive through this whole thing and even offered to step back if there was a chance of reconciliation. Man she is pulling a Plan A on him. How can I compete with that?