Ok so here is my situation.

My H and I went through 3 years of stress, financial problems, depression, etc. We did not maintain our marriage. The non-exsistant relationship I had with my MIL turned hostile. My H retreated into gaming. I retreated into myself.

About 2 months ago my H become the WH. He started talking a lot about this chick at work. At first I thought nothing about it because he alwas had female friends at work and it never caused an issue, I always became friends with them too. This one sent up red flags after a few times of hearing about her. Our situation with money and my older kids from previous marriage made it so we needed to move to our old home state. This is when the EA started. He started keeping secrets. He was up all night chatting with "guy friend" which I knew was bull. He wanted to hang out with his friends before we moved and was constantly late coming him. He ignored me and affection went to nothing. Sex was not asked for as frequently. I do not believe there was a PA though.

When we moved things got worse. The distance got horrible and I called him out. He addmitted he "loved me but was no longer in love with me" A week later I called him out on the EA and he admitted it.

He refuses to cut it with her saying he is not sure he wants our marriage to work yet here we are in counseling, acting like husband and wife in all manner of things,etc. OW knows I know and I have been in contact with her on facebook. My MIL knows and is promoting the affair!!!!!! She loves this girl and is all buddy buddy with her even though they never met. I tried to apologize to MIL and she refused telling me to move on.

So obviously I do not have his parents in my corner. They are supporting him leaving me and having this EA. Same with his brother. Some of his friends know. My family knows and myfriends know. OUr counselor and pastor who is counseling us know. That is a whole lot of exposure yet it continues. He told me he cut it off but he was busted when she messagd him on his faeook wall and I called her out on it. Sh told me he never told her to not contact him like he told me he had. I mean I knew he had been in contact with her anyway, I am not stupid. If he hadn't we would have been almost through 3 weeks and we might be making some progresss.

Honestly I am feeling like going on facebook t the wall post she left yesterday and saying "Why don't you go wreck someone else's marriage" It would be enough to expose her to some more of their mutual friends. I would also like to send her husband a message but I can't remember his name or find him (they seperated the day we moved out of state) and expose to him. The thing is from what I hear he is an emotional abuser so I am not sure that is a good idea having been a victim of that in my first marriage.

With all that said I just don't know that exposure will work because so many people know and nothing is changing. He still refuses to cut it off.

JAS:

That's one way to expose: Vindictively put those words on her Facebook account, but it will make YOU look like a crazy shrew, particularly to the people who don't know what's going on.

Take control. Take deep breaths. Be strategic and expose to people who you think may INFLUENCE your husband and skank. ASK for their help in ending the affair. People are far more interested in helping someone who seems sane, than an angry betrayed wife. (Though your anger is certainly justified).

Also: Keep your questions on one thread. It's the best way to keep those of us helping you together and on track.

HUGS!!!!!! to you JAS.

JAS, WHAT does your MIL and her family know about this relationship? Who told them exactly WHAT?

Are you married?

A week ago I tried to be the bigger woman and apologize and reconcile with my MIL. She told me my marriage was over and I should just move on. I ruined it, blah blah. She, my BIL and his girlfriend have all friended the OW on facebook (they lived 600 miles apart and never met). MIL and OW post back and forth about how they love eachother and need to chat. My MIL HATES me and we have never had a relationship.

MIL, BIL, etc are going on a cruise next month. WH told me his mother wanted to fly him down to her house and pay him to dog sit. I am pretty sure this is a load of crap and they were all going to go on the cruise together. She has tons of friends who could dog sit for her and save her $1000 getting him down there and paying him. I found a file in his email called CRUISE, although it was empty. We were planning to go on a cruise but that was 5 years ago and never happened and he did not have the folder then! He refused to go "dog sit" though. I have to assume that she wants to get rid of me that bad that she would push their affair deeper to do it.

I guess I am basing all of this on intuition. So far everything my intuition has told me with this situation has been right.

We have been married for 9 years, together for 11. We have two kids. The EA is pretty fresh. I had no clue there were problems between my WH and I until a month ago. There were no signs until the EA started brewing. My WH is trying to say that he has wanted to leave me for 3 years but I think he is just trying to justify his EA.

Is she wayward herself? Its an odd woman who welcomes a total internet stranger, and a skankho at that, into the life of her son.

Why doesnt she like you?

You asked on your other thread if exposure works. It depends on what you mean.

Does exposure ensure that you WH will want to work on your marriage? Nope. My WW didn't.

Does Exposure mean that the affair will end? Not necessarily.

Does exposure remove the affair from the darkness where it thrives and force decisions to be made in the light of day? Absolutely.

Here is one scenario. You expose to everyone, in particular their work. Maybe one of them has to quit the job. You don't say if OW is married, at least I didn't see it. If she is, then she has to deal with that. Maybe his family will be no help, maybe they will. Maybe your family's opinion means nothing to him, maybe it does.

At the very least, the affair is removed from the fantasy realm and into harsh reality.

Another scenario, keep going like you are.

Don't be afraid. If the affair starts hitting them where they work and live, it won't be so fun.

I'd keep an eye on this. There's a good chance WH and OW have been invited to go on the cruise with them. Watch out for WH to suddenly decide to 'dog-sit'.

Were either of you married to other people when you met each other?

Is this the first marriage for the two of you?

Ok let me try to answer all the questions...

OW is married but seperated from her H right after the EA started

Work is no longer an issue. My WH and I moved 1200 miles away from OW and their shared workplace a month ago. Thank goodness!!!

This is my second marriage. I was married at a very young age to an emotionally and sexually abusive man. I met my current H when I was seperated and starting divorce proceedings with my first H. My WH has never been married but had a serious long term relationship before me.

Cruise should be a non-issue now. He has no passport, and no time to get one. He used all his vacation time when we moved and if he took off he would be fired. Wonderful how that worked out isn't it!

MIL is a very hard headed, worldly woman. She is all about the appearance of wealth and power. She divorced my WH's father twice. She is remarried. She does not like me because we do not agree on anything. I am very natural minded, kind of a hippie type as well as very old fashioned and conservative. I am not worldly and I do not seek out power and worldly possesions. I believe in old school gender roles and such. She is the opposite. We just butt heads on EVERYTHING. She LOVES my BIL's girlfriend though. This girl is an alcoholic and as full of class as a beer can (I used to like her once but ugh she changed) but she strokes MIL's ego and plays right up into MIL's value system. Anyone who will stroke MIL's ego (like OW is through facebook) is better than me I guess. She would rather see her grandchildren go through the pain of having their parents divorce than have to deal with me. Awesome huh! I only ever wanted to have a relationship with her. I tried so hard to have one but I was not willing to be all fake.

Tonight our pastor is coming over for counseling. I am going to give my WH one last chance to end the EA on his own during counseling. If he does not choose to do it I will consider exposure.

You need exposure either way. On her as well as him. Your marriage needs support and they need to have the greatest distance possible put between them so he can get through withdrawal.

Oh and at this point if I do not choose to do exposure I will be trying to do my best to wait this out. Yesterday I think I did some real damage to the EA through a conversation with OW on facebook. I think it had the desired effect of planting seeds of doubt in her head about how honest he was being with her AND I.

He came home in a good mood but then he disapeared to go buy smokes (a.k.a. he needed to call her so he had to leave) and came home in a very down mood. Wih 1200 miles between them and their only contact being secret texts, calls and facebook (and I and a couple other people watch that like a hawk and they know it) it is going to die out eventually. She is just a baby of 23 years old, how long is she going to wait around for a 34 year old man a thousand miles away, who is having fun with his wife, going to counseling, going on dates, sleeping with and having sex with his wife? I know at that age I would get pretty sick of it fast. It may just be a waiting game. Or I am stupid to think it will die out. But other than conversation there is nothing there to build on. They can't see eachother, they can't touch if they wanted to, they can't share daily life, etc. Words are cheap and eventually they won't be enough to sustain the affair.

That would be a very disasterous tactic on your part and is the most likely to lead to divorce. If you want to save your marriage, it is important that you take action. Conflict avoidance and enabling will not save your marriage.

Your marriage will not likely survive using these tactics and there is virtually nothing we can do to help you. If you plan on taking this very dangerous route, I would strongly advise you visit with a psychiatrist who will prescribe you massive doses of anti-doses and tranquilizers to help you through the likely nervous breakdown.

Dr Harley is a clinical psychologist with 40 years experience helping couples recover their marriages frm affairs. He advises that betrayed WIVES go into a complete separation if their husband will not end the affair within THREE WEEKS. You know why? It is because women have nervous breakdowns and suffer years of post traumatic stress disorder from doing what you are doing. We know of women who have hung themselves. And when you have a nervous breakdown, your marriage will really be over.

The longer the affair goes on, the much greater the chance that he will leave you for the OW. By the time the affair "dies a natural death" it will be too late for you.


You are delusional if you think this will do anything. Typically an OW will use this as a way to keep her affair going. You need to get serious here and start taking some meaningful, effective steps to kill this affair. OTherwise, you are throwing away your marriage for absolutely no good reason.

Yes, talk is cheap. But as long as there are cars, planes and trains in your town, your H can fly to her town and be there by the end of the day. And she can fly to your town.

Do you live in a town that has cars and planes?

Affairs are never meant to be real realationships. OW KNOW they are not in an exclusive arrangement - they just dont think about it while passed out drunk on the excitement of the A.

The texting, the secrets, the 'forbidden' nature of it - is not a downside to them. It is the entire point of having an affair. Its what gets them high.

But because they are not real relationships, they are fragile. Drag 'em into the light of exposure and they are shown to be a wreck. Affairs are not meant to see the light.

And if the spouse ever decides to say 'see ya' - the affair is revealed to be nothing more than a one legged stool - with 95 per cent toppling within two years.

Affairs can last years in the darkness, however. The spouse is allowed to fulfil two thirds of the WSs needs, and the OW the other third. The darkness of the secret, if kept, helps keeps the WSs fantasy exciting, rather than embarrasing. So the dark, tattered, urine soaked one legged bar stool that is the affair stays standing, with the BS propping it up.

Affairs end in two ways. Either the stool gets dragged out into the sunlight of exposure where you tell everyone that the disgusting thing is what your h has been sitting on. He either says, 'ugh, no way' out of embarrassment, and agrees to never go in the bar again or he stubbornly persists.

If he stubbornly persists, you leave him on his own to try and get the stool to stand up by itself. (Plan B) It won't.

But the fact is, it is obvious their relationship is not a relationship. It never was anyway.

I just want to emphasize that there is nothing we can do for someone who won't expose. You will be spinning your wheels. I personally will not waste my time with someone who won't because I know it is hopeless.

You need to expose to KILL the affair. Expose on ALL sides. You need to expose to OWH so you need to find some info on him. Also, you want to expose to OW too. Does OW still work at their old workplace? If so, you need to expose to their workplace as well. This kind of behaviour opens them to a world of lawsuits.

How old are your children? COM? Have you exposed to them?

Exposure needs to be done all at once. Do you think you could have all of the info ready by tomorrow so you could start exposing?

I begin to see your point Mel. If someone is not willing to do something as simple as telling people the truth, what hope is there for the future where ther are much higher bars to jump and where the exposure has laid an essential foundation for each new stage.

I didnt find exposure difficult at all. he77 it was fun.

Dr Harley's radio show on the benefits of exposure [Dr Harley speaking to a betrayed husband who DID NOT expose the affair and his wife was now leaving him for the OM]: click here

I view it like this, indiegirl. If someone asks me to help push their car up the hill, I will be glad to help them. But lets say they put on the parking brake and refuse to take it off because they are lazy, scared, whatever... That is not fair to ask others to push the car up the hill with the brake on while they sit there twiddling their thumbs. If you really want help, then take the damn brake off.

I feel that if someone is not serious enough to take the tough steps, then why should I be more serious than them? It's not marriage to save. I saved my marriage.

Look at it. You have been sharing all these things with him, and where has it gotten you. You are probably right, that eventually won't be enough to sustain the affair. But what makes you think that the only option is for the affair to end. She is just 23, so that means it is probably easier for her to move. You are avoiding the issue.