I'm a health care professional. Research the laws in your state, as well as the statement of ethics by whatever state board monitors counselors. I'm pretty sure that having sexual affairs with married women you are pretending to "counsel" is severely frowned-on SOMEWHERE, if not outright banned!!!!

tl

I want to hit them before christmas, so they'll have to face family. Following MelodyLane's outline, I'm thinking:

1. Prepare my exposure letters today. I'll post them here.

2. Get up at 5 AM tomorrow. My wife will be asleep, hopefully I won't wake her. OM will not get home from work until 7 AM.

3. Message FB friends for OM. He is very private and only has a few so I'll hit all of them.

4. Message FB friends from WW. She has over a hundred, so I'll can be a little selective, but I'll try to hit everyone she sees or cares about.

5. Messageor email anyone not on FB, as well as my own family. I have to come clean too.

6. Email the counseling pastor at the church. Offer to meet him in person to discuss the issue.

7. Do not contact his work, at least for now. It's a juvenile detention center so he won't be working with couples, as far as I can tell they are hopeless cases and he can't harm them any further. This avoids the legal question and gives him a good reason not to escalate further.

8. Wake up the boys (age 9 and 13) and tell them we're going out to donuts. Explain the situation to them gently and allow them to ask questions to their satisfaction. Encourage them to talk to mommy about this if they want to. I think this will be the single most devastating an effective thing for her.

9. Come home and face the fireworks calmly. Wait a bit. When someone contacts her, and she then asks me, give her a list of everyone I contacted.

10. Try to contact his parents. I have their address and phone number, but not their email or facebook. I can try calling but he's likely to answer the phone. I could send a letter but he may check mail for a few days. He usually goes to sleep in the late afternoon before work, I could call then, but I doubt he'll sleep at all that day. I could ask my mother in law to call them, he may not recognize her voice and she may get through. I could even go over to his house and knock on his door. The house is partially in his name though so he'd undoubtedly meet me and order me off the property. I could wait in the street until his mother leaves for work, but I don't know her schedule.

Whatever, I can keep trying this and that until I get through. Sooner or later he has to sleep or go to work. Maybe if I'm lucky OM and WW will rush out to meet each other to discuss the emergency, giving me free access.

11. After things cool down initiate Plan A. First confess my own transgressions and ask her forgiveness for my part in this (but not for exposure). Second, tell her I love her and want to stay in the marriage and work on it, but I REQUIRE the following:

(1) End all contact with the OM for life. Likewise I will end all contact with the 'swinger' couple we befriended.

(2) No more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle. No more going out to lunch with anyone unless she clears it with me in advance and I know where she is and who she is with. I will followup with who she claims she was with. Our children will also be watching.

I will submit to the same rules. Whenever I am at work I will remain available on IM so she knows I'm there, and will be accountable via my boss that I am present and accounted for. (I will tell him, and have them exchange contact info)

(3) Complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc. I will install a keylogger (Spectorsoft) on the family computer and we will BOTH consent and submit to monitoring. If she does not consent, she is free to not use the computer. Point out that the keylogger will also be a valuable tool for the kids computer use.

I cannot install a keylogger on my company-issued laptop. However I will agree to only use it at work, and to confess the situation to my boss so he can keep an eye on me. The company monitors all traffic so I can't get away with much of anything at work anyway - no naughty websites.

I will avoid using the computer at home except for necessary company business, will do so only in the open, only while logged into VPN (company network), and she is free at any time to walk over and demand to see what I am working on, inspect the browser history, etc, no questions asked. For all personal business I will use the family computer.

Insist that she either open her private gmail/gtalk account, or CLOSE it while I watch.

(4) No more opposite sex friendships for either of us.

(5) Complete honesty about her affair and the open marriage. We talk about everything that happened, we can each review each others email and chat history and freely ask questions to our satisfaction.

(6) Commit to the Marriage Builders program for recovery as outlined in the book Surviving an Affair.

(7) Encourage her to write a dear john letter to OM, terminating the relationship permanently, and let me read it before she sends it. This will be the ONLY communication allowed.

(8) I REQUEST that we jointly and enthusiastically agree on a church and start attending again. We will be open about our past. If the church is stuck up and rejects us, we will keep looking until we find a body that will accept us with forgiveness and sincerity. We will join a home study group again. If she chooses not to go to church with me and the kids I will accept that, but I must assume at that point that she is turning her back on her faith and is not a beleiver. Nonetheless I remain committed to restoring our marriage, and commmitted to returning to God.

(Thank you MelodyLane, the outline is fantastic.)

Shouldn't this be done at the same time as public exposure? Otherwise they will contact OM and he will be warned, and the FB exposure will be less effective?


Hmm very good point. That at least doesn't have to be immediate (i.e. same day). I would prefer to get legal advice on how to do this safely, but don't want to delay general exposure with the holiday looming.

Good plan!! I have a couple of minor suggestions.

1. what if your wife wakes up? Where will she go when she gets up? Will she be leaving? You aren't going to get too far if she is in the house when you do this.

2. I would put off exposure to your wife's fb friends and focus on calling some very select family and friends. call them personally instead

3. While I agree with you facebook exposure of OM, I would CALL the pastor first thing in the morning and tell him what has happened. You want that all to hit that bast*rd like a tsunami.

4. DO NOT CONFESS YOUR OWN SINS IN THIS EXPOSURE! The purpose here is to kill your wife's affair, don't muddy the waters by hanging out your dirty laundry. When you speak to the pastor tell him that you stupidly AGREED to engage in a threesome at the urging of the OM and are now SICK about it. You did this thinking it would save your marriage becuase OM and your wife were pushing for an "open marriage" to save your marriage. <----put it that way!

5. Either personally speak to the OM's parents or drive to his house to tell them. Tell them about the affair and ask them to use their influence to persuade the OM to leave your wife alone. Having your MIL call them and perhaps even the OM is a GREAT IDEA!

6. Install the keylogger on your home computer WITHOUT TELLING HER. If she knows it is there, she will know to go around it. YOU SHOULD NOT EVER BE OPEN ABOUT THE KEYLOGGER.

7. "I will avoid using the computer at home except for necessary company business, will do so only in the open, only while logged into VPN (company network), and she is free at any time to walk over and demand to see what I am working on, inspect the browser history, etc, no questions asked. For all personal business I will use the family computer."

I would drop #7 and this offer to put a key logger on your computer. Sure she is free to inspect everything, but your adultery stemmed from a silly idea to save your own marriage ["open marriage"] and not from an addiction. Hers is from an addiction and needs to be treated differently. They are both bad, but they are not the same.

Your plan is great!!

Love the plan SMM

SYM, I know it is tempting to want to confess your own sins in your exposures in a tit for tat, but don't do that. The reason is because you are doing this to kill her affair. You are not having an affair and although, you DID have an affair, that is not the issue at hand. Confessing all your dirty laundry in an exposure is just going to make people think you are a kook.

And if someone asks what your role in all this was, you tell them the truth, you committed adultery in a 3 some at the request of OM and your WW becasue you were stupidly convinced this would be good for your marriage. BE truthful, but put THEM in the position of that finger pointing. If you bring it up, it just looks like the coo-coo clock review.

Just for the record, it wasn't quite like that. The 3some never happened, and a few weeks later they were badgering me to just go find someone and even the score, since they had been together nearly a dozen times. So finally I did (once), to shut them up and satisfy my curiosity. I was immediately sorry -- because of guilt, because it wasn't fun at all and I realized it was not what I wanted, and because I realized I'd hurt my wife despite her "encouragment". She consented out of obligation. What I really wanted and missed was intimacy with my wife, and fixing my marriage was the only way I'd ever get that.

Thanks for the advice, Melody Lane. I had just finished my exposure letters and logged on to post them. I'll rewrite them following your advice not to discuss my own sins while exposing. Plenty of time for that I guess.

Just change the details to suit your situation. Just as long as you get the idea here. The goal is to bust up her affair, not to confess all your past and present sins.

So, who was the woman you had sex with? And what curiosity did you have?

FRIENDS & FAMILY LETTER (draft)

Dear friends and family,

I am writing you this message because you are an important person in the lives of WW and myself. I have discovered that WW has been carrying on an affair with a man named OM since August.

Sadly, WW is unwilling to end the affair with OM. I love her very much and want our marriage to recover. I also fear for her soul if she persists in this.

As our friends and family, I am asking that you use your influence with WW to persuade her to end her affair and try to work on our marriage. Our marriage can be salvaged if she would only end the affair. Please support her and me in doing the right thing. Please support our marriage.

I would very much appreciate your support and prayers. (If I asked you to pray for us before, now you know why.)

Warmest regards,
BH

OM FACEBOOK LETTER (draft)

Dear friend of OM:

It grieves me to write this letter but I believe all of his friends should know the kind of person he really is. OM has been involved in an affair with my wife, WW, since August. I was shocked to discover this in November and demanded it end immediately, but they have continued to this day.

I believe that his friends should know this, so you can protect your marriage from him. My wife and I have 2 young sons and this affair has almost wrecked our marriage.

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

I would appreciate it if someone would notify his parents and ask them to call me at ###-###-####. You may also call me if you have any questions.

Thank you,
BH

I will plan to call the pastor instead, but here's the draft I wrote:

CHURCH STAFF LETTER (draft)

<Pastor>, and <Church> Staff:

I am grieved to have to write this letter to you.

OM and my wife, WW, have been involved in an extramarital affair since
August.

OM has been involved in the counseling ministry at <Church>. Therefore I feel it is urgent, for the protection of those seeking counseling, and for the reputation of the church, that he be removed from this ministry immediately.

Leading up to this, OM was not counseling my wife in an official capacity on behalf of the church. She did however know that he was a counselor, and asked him for marriage advice as a friend on various occasions starting in December 2010. I was aware of their friendship and lunch meetings, but he was my best friend and I completely trusted them both.

I learned of this affair in November and demanded it stop immediately, but they have continued to this day.

I love my wife dearly and want to restore our marriage. I cannot do that until this affair is ended.

Please call me at ###-###-#### and we can meet in person.

If OM wishes to challenge this, I can provide proof of these facts.

Sincerely,
BH

This is a GREAT LETTER and I would send it tomorrow in addition to calling the pastor and letting him know what has transpired and that you sent this letter.

During the "open marriage" phase we looked for some other couples in open relationships, sort of an exploratory move. We finally met one couple (not married) and made friends with them. We both liked them and met them several time for activities. We also talked with them about OM, and they thought he was a lowlife because he was a sneaky cheater while they were honorably consensual.

One night the four of us were at their house, they made no secret they wanted to take it further. I had planned not to, but WW said go ahead, and even encouraged me, and... I did.

My curiosity? I had only ever been with my wife, while she had been with dozens of people before she met me, and was also married once before. (Divorced for having cheated on her previous husband, though she didn't tell me that until AFTER we were married.) Not really an evening of the score, but I always wondered if it would be "different" with someone else. That, and I wondered if it would be more exciting and more fun to do something really naughty. And I guess I wondered if I could really go through with it. And if I'm honest, having seen that sort of behavior in porn made me curious as well.

Ugh. Yeah I've got a real history of making good choices.

SMM, BE SURE and tell the pastor all of this. He needs to understand the full story.

She sleeps in, unless a noise wakes her up. I should know within 10-15 minutes if she's been disturbed, and can just postpone one day if necessary. Otherwise she'll sleep for an extra couple of hours. Also if I tell her the night before that I might take the boys out to breakfast, she'll be expecting a little noise when I get them up.


This would be tricky, since I don't have a cellphone and would have to use the family phone while she is present. Very awkward, unless she runs off to see him.

Oh man, just went through her FB friends. That is a lot of friends. Feels like I'm stabbing her in the back. This is going to be really hard.

I would skip the facebook exposures for your WIFE. Just call her parents and close family when you are able. Even if you have to drive to another phone to do it, I would do it that way. Do the facebook exposures for the OM for sure, though!

When you start blowing up the OM's life with letters, I would expect him to try frantically to get ahold of your wife. How will he get ahold of her? Think of ways to block this so he doesn't rile her up and cause interference. They will go CRAZY and you can't allow them to manipulate you into stopping.

Can you unplug your phone so he doesn't call your house?