I am at my wits end and need support.

Me: BW (49) married 17 years found out about WH (47) PA one month ago. OW (42) married with two small kids. She was his student in grad school in the spring. They started EA in spring, which after the end of the semester and summer break away from campus, transitioned to PA in the summer when WH returned to campus. He works in a city 200 miles away and for the past 3 years stayed away from home in hotels for 3 - 4 nights due to the long commute. We couldn't move due to being upside on our mortgage ans son in high school (should have known better and should have moved anyway).

When confronted WH claimed OW was his solemate, mentor and friend and true love. After my ultimatum of NC decided to stay in the marriage but "didn't give any guarantees" beyond our son going off to college . After 2 weeks of trying to work things out, I sensed his distance again. In week 3, he admitted to seeing her again (couldn't help -- sees her in at the school every day). I gave him another ultimatum: he stays or leaves and I will tell son. He chooses to leave. Stays in the hotel near campus for two weeks comes to visit son on Sunday at our home (I try to stay away). Next week the semester will be ending for him and he wants to come home to stay with our son for part of nov. and entire dec., provided that I am not around - he doesn't want to give son or me false hopes of reconciliation. He plans to rent an apartment for the entire semester starting in January. He claims this is not trial separation but a stepping stone to divorce. Claims to respect me but is not in love with me.

Please help what to do next. Try to compel him into Plan A while he is in the home? - although he claims he will not stay if I am around. Try Plan B?

I started IC. My therapist wants to meet with WH for one session to better grasp the situation to help me gain closure. WH is on the fence - wants to help but does not want to give false expecation or be railroaded into MC.

Hi quovadis, welcome to Marriage Builders. Sorry you are here.

I believe you have the power in your hands to kill this affair and save your marriage if you will use it. You are holding a very powerful weapon right now and don't realize it. Exposure would ruin this affair. If not kill it dead immediately, it would certainly hasten it's death. See, affairs thrive on secrecy, so by keeping it a secret you are inadvertantly enabling it.

If this affair were exposed to the OW's husband, her parents, her facebook friends, your son, all of your family and friends, the Human Resources department at school, it is very likely the affair would be killed. It is like bringing in a crowd of people to the crackhouse to watch the crackheads get high. It is no fun to get high when everyone is standing there watching you with disgust on their faces!

Dr Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders, has saved thousands of marriages over the years and here is what he says about exposure:

here

I would develop a killer exposure plan this weekend and do it all in fell swoop to get the maximum effect. For example, I would make up a list of targets and notify them all on the same day:

1. the OW's husband [ call him up and tell him all about the affair]
2. the OW's parents and facebook friends - send them a private message on facebook - sample letter posted below
3. call up your husband's parents, your parents, family and close friends. Tell them all about the affair and ask them to use their influence to persuade your husband to end his affair
4. Send a letter to the Director of Human Resources, a key board member and your husbands supervisor telling them about the affair. We have a template below. Be sure and cc them all on the letter so that none are tempted to toss your letter
5. tell your son all about the affair. Kids can deal with the truth, they can't deal with lies.

I would start by going to the OW's facebook page and copying all her facebook contacts into a word doc for safekeeping. Try and ID her parents.

1. Facebook exposure letters to OP's FB contacts:
2. FB letters to family members of your WS that you don't reach by phone:
3. workplace exposure letter:

This is a waste of time if you want to save your marriage. The IC does not know what she is doing. And that is ok, she is not a specialist in infidelity. But you should not be getting "closure" if you want to save your marriage. And your marriage is very salvagable. I would skip the counseling and focus on trying to save your marriage first. There is no need to go to counseling for that.

Doing this can actually damage your cause if your IC endorses your husbands plan to abandon his marriage for the affair.

Welcome to Marriage Builders, quovadis. I'm sorry you've had to find us, but you've come to the right place for help.

One of the best tools you have for busting up the affair is exposure. It sounds to me like you've been enabling your WH to continue his A by helping him keep it quiet. As you have seen, that only serves to allow the A to continued unchecked.

I would suggest that you expose this affair to your son if you have not done so already. You should also expose it to your WH's employer, especially if he is in any type of mentoring or supervisory position over OW. Your family and WH's family should know, as well. Does OW have a FB page? Go to her page and copy all of her friends to a Word doc. Many of her friends may make good exposure targets. Last but definitely not least, does OW's H know? He is more than likely your strongest exposure target.

The point of exposure is to bring the affair out into the cold light of reality, where decent people will see it and be repulsed by the wayward's actions. You want to ask these exposure targets for their help in persuading the affairees to end the affair. We have sample exposure letters at the top of this forum.

Do not threaten your WH with exposure. It is to be done without warning, to all exposure targets in one fell swoop. It should be accomplished within one day. Do not trickle out exposure.

Try to contact her H by phone. He may become your best ally, as the two of you will be able to compare notes and keep an eye on the waywards.

Expect your WH to be furious after you expose. That is normal. Waywards don't like their nasty actions to be made public.

There's more you can do, but I want you to read and absorb the info about exposure for the moment. Others will be giving you more info shortly.

One of these days I'm going to learn to type faster than MelodyLane.

You dont think she has form letters in word now that she can just copy and paste?

quovadis, you have 2 of the best working with you. Listen and act. You cant go wrong with these guys behind you.

You gotta be quick to outdraw the TEXAN!!!

You got that right.

Listen to these two......they will help you more than any IC...!!

Thank you, guys, for the posts. I exposed the affair to our son. This did not deter WH from leaving. In fact, just a few days prior he was begging me not to expose this to our son -- he loves him more than anything and is an excellent father. However, it feels like he is under her spell -- he lost all reason. So two weeks ago, I gave him an ultimatum (for the second time), stop all contact with OW or leave and the son will know. He left,

I am afraid to expose him to OWH he might harm her or the kids, or in the very least would kick her out. She needs someone to support her financially while she is in school. The exposure would drive her to my WH and she would move in with him. I also fear to expose him at work because this could be considered a firing offense. I am not financially independent and rely on his financial support. Now, he is ridden with guilt and is willing to agree to financial terms that are very generous to me. IF exposed (and had to support OW), he may not be so agreeable.

Do you think I have a chance to revert to Plan A without exposure to see if this would help? He is firm about not wanting to be in the family home while I am there for fear of sending mixed messages to our son.

No! Expose far and wide, especially her husband!!!

I need a plan of action for the next month - when he is away from her and the campus and is staying in the family home with our son. He is willing to accept that I cannot be driven entirely from our home and would accept a couple of days of "ovelapping" presence when both of us would be at home, but he is determined to move out immediately if he sees that I am planning to stay longer. I have lined up visits with relatives to accommodate him. But would still like to have a chance to do plan A for a few days while I know he is not physically with her. He will still be probably on frequent e-mail exchange with her like he was during the summer when he was away from campus which ultimately lead him to insist that they transition to PA from EA. Apparently he did all the insisting and she resisted, but not for too long.

[quote=quovadis

Do you think I have a chance to revert to Plan A without exposure to see if this would help? He is firm about not wanting to be in the family home while I am there for fear of sending mixed messages to our son. [/quote]

NOPE, simple as that.

No, you should give up because this is hopeless if you insist on enabling the affair by keeping it a secret. You don't have a chance.

If you allow fear to drive your actions, you will lose. You are headed to divorce now and if you won't do anything to help yourself, we can't stop that. There is nothing we can do to help you that would compensate your enabling of this affair.


She is already "driven to" your husband. You would not be here if she was not driven to your husband and he to her. So it is insane to say you are afraid he would be "driven to her." You are already there.

As far as him "harming her," if she is not worried about it, then why are you? She knows him better than you obviously.

This OW is not going to leave a husband she is dependent upon and abandon her children for an affair. She will be highly motivated to dump your husband and drop out of school.



If he keeps the job, you will not have a marriage because you will be divorced. And when you are divorced, you won't have benefit of the job anyway.

He HAS to leave that job in order for your marriage to survive. You can't save your marriage if he works 200 miles away.

You are wasting your time.

You will not be able to rely on financial support when you are divorced. Do you have training? What is your plan to support yourself when you are divorced?

Since you won't do anything to save your marriage, you seriously need to start thinking about the future and how you will support yourself.

Ok. Excellent arguments! So when do I expose? He is still on campus for the next week. Should I wait with exposure when he is back in the family home and away from her?

I have her home phone number. She and her husband do not have FB or any Internet presence. Do I call their home number hoping that the husband picks up the phone?

Also, he is willing to sign a post-nup. Should I wait with exposure until the post-nup is executed so that he will be obligated to fulfill the financial terms of our separation/divorce?

I would expose this weekend. BEFORE the holidays. Now is a perfect time to do it. I would make up a list of all your exposure targets FIRST and discuss them with us. We want to make sure you don't do a trickle exposure with a little dab here and little dab there, because that will be a DISASTER.

Are you sure they are not on facebook? Are you just blocked?

Can you find her parents?