Pepper - I didn't intend on sending her here. I want to copy the post and send it in an email (removing MB name from it) as I think she may realize that she is not alone and that there is a way out - Just a thought... I would never send her here right now.

MrAmazed -

You cannot educate her out of her affair.
You have an agenda in this situation.
She will instantly recognize that you are providing this information for YOUR interests.
She would consider it manipulative and controlling.
Bad Bad Bad idea.

The information is good -- but you cannot be the source for it.

After exposure, it could possibly be delivered from one of her respected sources like her mother....

Did you?

OK - help me understand something: Isn't it, as some have advised here, demanding and controlling to request that she stop using FB, reveal all passwords and chat accounts, cell phone bill access etc.? I think she would consider that controlling and manipulative too. Or am I looking at that from the wrong perspective?

YES

No, I don't think it is.

You're merely stating that you require an honest relationship in order to stay married.

Would you think it demanding or controlling if you asked her not to cheat on you?

You're overthinking this and it looks like you're concerned that she'll leave if you push too hard (I think we've all done that) . She'll very likely leave if you do nothing, so, really, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain here.

I'll add that, yes, she'll accuse you of being controlling and manipulative when you ask for the passwords, etc. She'll be so convincing that you may start doubting what you just did and be tempted to back off.

Why will she get upset? Because it makes it harder to cheat on you, it's an inconvenience. If she can throw a big enough fit and threaten you with leaving, she's hoping you'll drop it and leave everything alone. You might even see tears instead--how could you be so mean to me!?!

It'll be up to you to decide what to do next, but you should just stress that you're not going to let her pull you into a fight and that these are the conditions that she must meet for you staying married to her.

Put the onus on her so that she understands that it is her actions and decisions that determine whether you'll stay in the marriage or not.

Sometimes (more often than not) the waywards who are happily having an affair are so focused on getting their "fix" that they ignore mild reminders that their behavior is wrong/painful/sinful/etc.

The adulterer may require REAL & SUSTAINED PAIN in the way of a wake up call.

The worse the pain (face in the gutter) the greater chance they will decide to turn their life around.

If your WW feels no pain/consequences from her affair, she will not stop. She has no reason to stop. She LIKES having an affair, especially a consequence-free affair.

Hence .... THE STICK of Plan A.

I think you need to understand something.

If you can't at least demand to be treated with respect, then you deserve what you get and everyone is wasting their time.

You can be her husband and she can be your wife, or you can appease her and lay down and she will not respect you and end up despising you, probably does already.

What you want to do will not work, and you will be miserable. I know from which I speak.

You have to have boundaries. You are correct, she doesn't have to respect them. Then the ball is in your court. You can pretend that they weren't really boundaries, you can move them to appease her, our you can enforce the consequences that you have laid out.

Where you end up is up to you. If you want to stay like it is now, then do it.

Your current plan = don't piss WW off

Your plan should be ~~~~> stop the affair come hell or high water

There are 2 elements that you are talking about her.

Killing the Affair.
Recovering the Marriage.

During your Kill the Affair phase, you will be implementing a plan. Part of the plan is the Plan A, Carrot/Stick, along with exposure and requesting her to end the affair and recover the marriage. You will be asking her to end the affair, and making it clear that you are hurt - and that this situation cannot continue.

If she does not end the affair, you will go to Plan B -- ending all daily communication and contact with your wife. This takes planning and proper execution.

If she does agree to end the affair, that is when you will request things like closing facebook, and she would AGREE to be transparent and build your trust.

Also, during your "kill the affair" phase, you are NOT sharing your strategies with her or making demands of her.

There is no point in demanding her passwords - because she will laugh at you and walk out the door to see her lover.

During this phase you should SECRETLY obtain her passwords and spy to know the status of her affair, and her actions and plans.
You need to know if she really has a business trip, or if its a cover story to go out of town with OM.

MrA, it makes you look foolish to make demands that you are not prepared to back up with actions. You cannot issue ultimatums if you're not prepared to follow through with your threats.
Women do not respect men that they can walk all over.

Do you work also? How much difference is there in your incomes? Does she make double?

Affairs are conducted in secret. You have to eliminate all secrecy in your marriage if you want any hope of recovering it. After killing the affair, the two of you need to establish extraordinary precautions to ensure that the A doesn't resume. Closing all avenues of past contact is one of the ways that is done. Secrecy needs to end.

So no. It's not controlling or manipulative to put measures in place to protect your M. It's playing russian roulette if you don't.

If your WW does not agree to sharing all passwords, etc, with you, and balks at shutting down her FB, there's a problem. Truly remorseful waywards often beg their spouse to check on them. My H fell all over himself, giving me all of his passwords and shutting down his FB account.

If she just can't make it through the day without blogging about her day with all of her FB friends, shut down her account and open up a new one for BOTH of you. Put a pic of BOTH of you, in a warm embrace, on your profile picture.

She makes about $25k to $30k more than I do.

Is it worth that to you to eat dirt?

MrAmazed, the irony of your first post on this website just hit me. How ironic that you, whose marriage is a wreck, signed up to tell people, who have saved their marriages that their snooping was not "marriage building." Did that irony ever occur to you?

It�s not controlling to have self respect. It�s the ultimate form of disrespect to have your WW engaged in an affair.

SHE is the one that has violated your trust. So if she asks if you trust her, the answer is simple: No.

She�ll say that you are violating her privacy. There�s a difference between privacy and secrecy. Secrecy is doing something you don�t want others to find out about. Privacy is closing the door when you use the restroom.

One thing is damaging to a marriage. The other is not.

But I�ll agree that demanding these things is pointless with a wayward.

Get the passwords by using a keylogger and start snooping. Snooping is self preservation.

Look, she�s lying. She�s had sex with this guy and I�d bet a year salary on it. Who the heck meets up, at our age, to just talk and hang out? What would you tell a buddy going through your situation?

Spy!

From the standpoint of building a case for proof for exposure I understand that now. From a mental standpoint, it sucks. Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is what it feels like.