Bugs, reread this, also:

Bugs, are you reading my posts? I think you have a confused understanding about Plan A and want to make sure you understand the most critical part of Plan A is exposing the affair [wide and far] AND in demanding she end her affair. Plan A does not mean saying nice words to someone who is being bad. It means being honest and forthright while avoiding lovebusters. The affair should be brought up over and over again by demanding she end it. This puts pressure on the affair. This should be coupled with family and friends and children contacting her about her affair. They should all be telling her how disgusted they are and trying to persuade her to end her affair. This is what it will take to kill her affair.

My concern for you now is that you have done a trickle exposure. A trickle exposure - versus a nuclear exposure - is about like taking a pea shooter to a gun fight. You just end up getting shot and achieve very little. You have a very tiny window to expose this affair properly before you lose this advantage of a tsunami exposure. Don't throw away your most powerful weapon by being timid about exposure, BB.

Here is what Steve Harley said to another betrayed husband who was being too soft with his wayward wife:


In other words, your wife needs to see a greater effort from you. She needs to see you fighting for your marriage. Complacence gives the impression that you don't care very much, my friend.

What about the OM's family? Is he married? If so, have you informed his wife? What about his mother? Does he have a facebook page?

Bugs take the advice from Mel. All at once, no holding back.

No retreat. No apology. This stuff works, it really does!

I did not trickle down. I exposed to everyone that I'm going to. To go around telling everyone and their cousin is not in my best interest - which you are going to have to trust me on that. I have used a lot of the tools here, and I believe that they are valid and effective, and I appreciate all the advice and support I have received.
I know some are going to think I feel like I'm special and not willing to everything as perscribed because my situation is "different". The only things that I have held back on are areas in which I believe that to do them the way it is described would make me a victim all over again.
I am encouraged at the way things have progressed to this point and feel like I have gone at least from feeling like we are 99.99% headed towards divorce, to at least being in the discussion for salvaging our marriage. There is a lot of work still left to do - this is my time to prove myself!

I never ever recommended that you expose to "everyone and their cousin" and am insulted you said that. I am much more strategic than that. And no, I don't trust your judgment on this. Not because there is anything wrong with you, but you a) have no experience at saving marriages and b) are the least objective person on this thread. Betrayed husbands have a tendency to operate on FEAR and you have already admitted that fear drives much of your decision making. BH's tend to have a strong emotional investment in conflict avoiding and I haven't seen anything here that makes me think otherwise.

You said yesterday that you exposed to ONE person and have actually hidden that exposure from your wife for some time. [WHY?] A one person exposure is meaningless. Are there others to whom the affair has been exposed? What about other family and friends? Your children? The OM's family?

Are there other hidden "exposures?" To whom have you exposed and does your wife know all about them?


I agree this is true. And the way to prove yourself is to do more to break up this affair. Since you are not in a position now to meet her needs, it is real important that you focus on busting up this affair.

What does Dr Harley say about a strategy of non exposure? He speaks to a man in this call who didn't expose his wife's affair and she LEFT HIM for the OM. Dr Harley tells this man "it is hard to save a marriage when you enable the affair."

Listen here

Who have you exposed?

The point of exposure is to tell those who have an influence on your WW or the OM, to give them the opportunity to use that influence for good.

I disagree that WW is broken, no matter how depressed she sounds. She is cracked, but broken looks much different.

The longer this drags on, the more concerned I am for your own health, especially with all that you suffered in the months and years leading up to this break, added to the trauma of the adultery itself.

You've tried waiting for the OM to contact you so you can confront him, while your stomach eats away at its own lining. Time for you to take charge of each part of your destiny, including this one.

Though I don't nag about it (much ) I still advocate exposure to the employer as a best possible choice. You can deal with even the worst fallout from that and have a chance at your M, but as long as the A continues, or even the daily C that is INEVITABLE while they still work together, your M has no chance.

Having family members contact her with their true feelings about her present choices is also so important. That alone may not be enough to break her, but it will really help the process along.

You want her broken.

Until she has been truly shattered, God has no clear avenue of communication, and neither do you. It's like you're shouting at her through a 3-ft thick wall of jello. She can catch a word every now and again, and occasionally a whisper of the Holy Spirit, but not much else.

If you choose at this point to continue to hold back on the workplace exposure, please keep it near the front of your mind if your other efforts do not fully succeed.

You've made some really great progress, and I see encouraging things happening. This is the time to stand up and fight even harder. You can do it!

I agree that health can be an issue. Depression can be an issue too. Since having confrontation with her and exposing her to both of our families (sorry not going to have my kids in on this), and also some of our more influential mutual friends - my whole demeanor and overall general feeling has improved dramatically. I know y'all don't think she has broken, but we have gone from angry venomous language on her part to having civil conversations. I don't know what else to say because I'm really encouraged, and most of y'all think I need to drag things down further then what they already are.

BB, how old are your children? If they are older than 4, they are old enough to understand the concept of adultery and what she is doing to their family. Your kids ARE in this and giving them false explanations for the tension just teaches them dishonesty and confusion. Kids can deal with the truth, they cant deal with lies.

As far as exposure, can you be specific? Are these "exposures" that were also kept secret? Because unless these people are talking to your wife, the value of "exposure" has been squandered.

Her new civility is meaningless unless she has ended her affair. Has she ended her affair? Unless she has ended her affair and all contact with the OM I would suggest you don't have anything to be encouraged about.

Dr. Harley on telling the children:

here



here

here

They are very tiny people, too young to tell unless there's an actual split and WW moves out.

In the case of separation, even a 2-3yo can understand, "Daddy/Mommy left because he/she has a girlfriend/boyfriend. That's not ok when you're married. You're only supposed to love each other."

You have reached a temporary lull in the storm. Enjoy it as a respite, without expecting it to last forever.

Her good stretch right now cannot predict the outcome of this, any more than the bad stretch just ahead will predict it. Both are just part of the process.

She's going to be all over the map, sometimes awful, and sometimes not as bad. This will go on for as long as she is in C with OM, and for a while afterwards, too.

Take advantage of the break, without being surprised by any sudden changes in her behavior toward you.

I really recommend a phone call to the Harleys. They can help you implement a custom plan, taking all your circumstances into account. Well worth every penny! (And cheaper than a D, I always say.) I may sound like a Harley commercial, lol, but for the most part I only recommend this to folks who may need specialized advice.

Your WW's A isn't any different or special, and your reactions as a BH are also pretty standard. (That's a good thing.) Dr. H or Steve can help you find your course of action and make a plan, with your input, and keeping your full circumstances in mind.

Thanks for all the added info.....and clarification...understanding.
I have a 3 and 4 year old that just are not ready to be used in telling WS how wrong her actions have been. She already knows that.

Children are never "used" as exposure targets. The reason you tell an older child (about 5 and up) even if their parent hasn't left, is that they WILL sense that something is terribly wrong, and they WILL blame themselves for it unless they are told the truth.

IMO, your children are small enough that they should only be told if WW leaves. Not for anything it may or may not do to WW, but to avoid compounding their trauma by their normal and predictable reaction to blame themselves for everything in their world. For little people, everything in the world revolves around them.

By the time it sank in that children should be told, AJ's A was over. I didn't see any reason at that time to dig it back out and parade it in front of them, but in hindsight I wish we had.

3-4 years after it ended, when they learned the truth, both of the older guys still remembered TONS of specific episodes that had never made sense to them, and suddenly they understood. "Oooooohh, so that time when Dad took us to x place and did x with us, that was why?" "Oooooooooh, so the time Dad said this to me, that was why?" A piece of their life that had (unbeknownst to me) always puzzled them, now fit perfectly.

It helped them tremendously.

Sometimes exposure to old-enough children helps the WS, and sometimes it doesn't. That just isn't the reason why it's needed - it's for the benefit of the kids.

Your babies are old enough, should WW ever leave home for a while, to blame themselves. At that time, they should be told the truth in a very simple way like I described above. (NOT "Your mommy has decided that sex with other men is ok, even though she's married. That's bad.")

You can tell them just enough to understand, without going into detail that they don't need to know.

Your reading assignment for the next few days is to read stories of WW's on here who have become FWW's.

I can give you the name of some of the old-timers, and hopefully someone will chime in with some more recent names, too. (Many of the recent FWW's I haven't seen their story, and they post so GOOD that you can't tell they were once WW's themselves.)

Look up BobPure's threads, since even though he was the one writing, he has great insight into the time when his beautiful W was a WW. Mrs. Wondering is another great one, and also aussieswife. Mrs. W hooked up with an old boyfriend on FB, and turned into a raving monster bearing no resemblance to the wonderful Christian she is now. Aussieswife cheated while her BH was deployed. She was already a pillar on here when I began reading her posts in 2005. Once when I looked up some of her earliest posts, I was SHOCKED to find out that she sounded foggy just like all the rest of them.

If you run a search for their profiles, click on Show User's Posts, and just go to the earliest ones you can find.

I'll look up some of them if I can. I'm just trying to remember more....

FWW?

Bob Pure

Mrs. W's first thread

Faithful Follower! How could I forget Faithy? She is a WW and a BW, wonderful lady!

Aussieswife

Former Wayward Wife