No trickle exposure. Just getting my ducks in a row. The OW BH is a key person I want to expose this EA to. I hesitate to mail the letter to their home for fear that she intercepts it and covers herself. Looked at the sample letters and plan to tweak them for our situation, get it all laid out and go for the exposure to his family, mine, his employees, our close friends, all within hours.

Did the "possible" BH answer you?

Good that you will do the exposure all at once. I would put all your energy in finding her BH and family and then drop the bomb.

Then you can worry about the EP's and conditions if he chooses to recover. If not then you go to Plan B and in your Plan B letter you give him your conditions.

So how's your Plan A coming? I worry that you've been in Plan A too long.

It is very hard for me to want to expose him when he is doing everything in his power to save the marriage and meeting my conditions. I want to believe that it is because he will never again have an EA and he is truly sorry for his actions. We had an amazing night last night.

But then again, he has said he is staying for the kids, so I'm wondering if he is just kissing up for a few weeks and then he's going to slowly slip back to his old ways, like history has proven. By old ways, I mean leading an independent life that never considers what my feelings are and one in which he expects me to agree with all his decisions with a smile.

As I listen to MB radio and learn the concepts more and more, I know that exposure is the way to go for my own sake, and his, to get the truth out and to help others keep him accountable. But I think he will see exposure as an attempt to ruin him and his perfect reputation. I know this in my head. But I know it will swing us back to unhappy and I just can't take that.

My thought in not exposing him is this: I keep telling myself that the texts with her were not "that bad". There were never any texts about sex. It was always her flirting with him, complimenting him and him eating it up. I do know that he deleted some of them since he jailbroke his phone and much of what he jailbroke wasn't on his phone New Year's eve. But what I saw that night that I saw the New Year's text, which was Nov and Dec (with some deleted though) were never sexual. So I feel like maybe I'm just over reacting.

Yes I have been in Plan A a long time, too long. I didn't find out about Plan A/B until about the time of my first post. Before that I had been doing everything I could to save the marriage and meet his EN. So Plan A has basically been going on since Jan. It has been an emotional roller coaster the whole time and I really wish I had learned about the carrot and stick of Plan A then and done it that way. Exposure back then would have been so awesome! I could have slammed him hard and he deserved it. But since I didn't do it right from the beginning I am just unsure what to do. Perhaps I just need to call Harley and get a counselling session or two so he can help me figure out a correct Plan based on my messed up situation.

Would it be wrong to make exposure to friends, family, and the other person's family part of the EP? I just need a plan. Limbo is wearing me down. My brain hurts, Brainhurts!

If you've been listening to the radio show then you know the answer. You need to expose. What about OW's poor BH?

Doesn't he have the right to know? Your EP's would not include exposure because you would do it before. EP's come after if he chooses to join you in recovery.

Your struggling because you're enabling his affair to start again. We call that Plan C which is not Marriage Builders.

Also read this thread BS's Plan C is not a MB plan

Listen to the radio clips I posted at the end of Dr. Harley talking about Plan C.

We've had posters whom also had affairs found out 15 years after the fact and they still exposed to the BS. Yours was just a few months ago.

Like Dr. Harley said your WH has a problem making you feel safe in your M. Exposure will help him "take responsibility" for his poor actions.

If he doesn't affair proof his M now he will repeat his poor behavior. Exposure will help him with this.

I am so broken right now. Afer a wonderful night of plan A and getting some needs met, I texted him and asked him when he was planning to respond to Dr. H. After going around with him, me stating my needs and my hurt, he says, I'll do it, but I don't think it will help and don't understand how going on a radio show will help our situation. So he will do it but doesn't agree to it. So basically he calls this a selfish demand and says he doesn't have to. So I tell him I love him very much, but this is hurting me and I need a safe marriage and cannot endure pain. He says he doesn't want to hurt me. Why doesn't he want to jump hurdles to fix this? Why won't he do this for me? I'm so heartbroken, again. When does this pain end? I have no Plan B!

If you won't hold him fully accountable (ie. hide his affair, including from the other betrayed spouse), then you certainly can't expect him to do the same.

You understand that "Plan C" for a wayward spouse means sweeping it under the rug and doing minimal effort to keep you quiet without facing true consequences?

You are not "broken" yet, but you will be when you endure false recovery.

This pain will keep happening until you follow a plan. You have only done the carrot of Plan A with no stick(exposure).

You've been in a semi Plan A for too long.

You need to expose
You need to stop all lovebusters and do a killer Plan A while you prepare for Plan B

We've had SAHM do a Plan B. You can do this if you follow the plans.

Feelings follow actions.

I would start your Plan B letter and get an IM prepared.

Here are the links
Carrot and Stick of Plan A
How to Plan B properly
Plan B letter samples
IM Training School

Any progress with investigations? Did you look into getting a keylogger or VAR?

She already knows who the OW is and I'm afraid she's not going to expose and make sure the BH of OW knows.

TinT are you there?

I appreciate your help, support, and tough love! I have been spending a lot of time digesting what you are telling me and trying to apply it to our situation.

My husband has finished the Love Busters book and instead of emailing the radio show, he has set up our first appointment with Steve Harley. This was a compromise that I feel will better benefit us long term as we can get an individual plan for recovery.

H has enthusiastically agreed to stop texting any person of the opposite sex due to the way it hurts me.

He has shown complete openness and honesty to all of my requests for extraordinary precautions and for the first time, I really feel I have broken through and he has seen the effect of his behavior on our marriage and the pain and suffering I have endured. The texting was just a small fraction of the dysfuction we had in our marriage. The main problem we have is that he does not "invite me into all the rooms of his house". He keeps me in one room of his house, the marriage room, and locks me out of all the other rooms. YOu can find this in the Love Busters book and here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8111_leave.html. For the first time in 16 years, almost 17, our anniversary is this month, he has seen the impact of his destructive behavior on me. The problem is also that I have endured this behavior in silence, thinking that it made me a better wife. So my thinking and dealing it was flawed as well. Because I hid my true feelings from him (protector liar), he had no idea there was anything wrong.

Perhaps this is the wrong way of going about it, but I have brought up why we need to tell everyone about the affair and the neglect. He has ended all contact with this woman and I feel that doing it this way, exposing together, will help us move through this faster and united. He has come so far already and is fully on board with all the concepts and is already incorporating them. I am helping him by providing the feedback and the biggest hurdle he has to overcome is his independent behavior. My plan is to try to bring this up with Dr. H in our appt Wednesday and see if this is an option based on our individual situation.

A second reason for this approach is that Plan B is not an option for me because my daughter has her 9th surgery in less than a month. I cannot separate from him before this surgery. It would be too much for her to bare. She has had surgeries her whole life and even though I am holding him to every EP I have listed, I can't do that to her. My dad will be having surgery within a month as well.

My Plan A has been top notch. I have been working so hard to eliminate my DJs and AOs that are a reaction to his IB and controlling behavior. I am very proud of being able to control myself. I am also very proud of my ability to now use RH to address these behaviors without DJs. I think this was my biggest contribution to our failed marriage. I never used RH and because I am now, he is seeing how specific behaviors hurt me and he is making adjustments and changes.

My biggest fear at this point is A.) That he will lose his focus and settle back into his old style, and B.) That once he goes back I will then have to Plan B him. The biggest thing that needs to happen quickly is I need to get at least a part time job. He has asked me to come work for him in his office. I think that this will help integrate our lifestyles, but I'm afraid it will make it impossible to Plan B him in the future. My other option would be to go back to work in my past profession that I left 4 short years ago to raise our DS3.(if there is a position open) So this is the big decision I need to make. I think based on the fact that his second life was his job, me working with him would be a great EP to prevent future straying. It would also enable me to be involved in our family business and be with him more and understand him and his work more. The other woman gave him admiration and they were able to "talk shop" and that is what he enjoyed with her. By me stepping into this role, it could eliminate that risk factor. What do you all think of this possibility?

Again, thank you for your support. I couldn't have made it through this without you all there. Getting my EN met for the first time in a long time feels so good! I feel we are on the recovery road.

TinT

Really?
What do you think is WH's biggest fear?

I have some ideas, but would prefer you to figure out the answer yourself.

This is not a rhetorical question.
Please respond and answer the question.
Thanks.

So after all this TinT you still aren't going to expose to this poor unsuspecting BH of OW?

His biggest fear is that I walk away. He knows I should have a long time ago.

Yes he agrees that this guy needs to know. I still can't find an email for him and no reply from his facebook message. So I can't determine if the FB guy is actually the BS of OW.

Why isn't WH 110% committed to keeping your love bank overflowing?

Did you try running a report on her to find out who exactly her spouse is?

Did you try this on him? Trying to Figure out identity

TinT,

This is eerily familiar to a time in my own sitch. H had just trickle truthed me for about 6 months, and finally confessed to an EA with an old high school friend. That, he said, was the big confession. I had been reading about MB online, and together we had ordered the home course and had our first session with Steve. But...something wasn't sitting right in my gut. I just felt like I had failed to read the end of the book. There was a chapter missing.

I don't know about you, but I was NOT OK with not having read that last chapter. I listened to my gut. I refused to work the program with him until he could be completely and totally honest with me, and of course he told me up one side and down the other he WAS being honest.

Fast forward several more months, months where my resentment built and my love bank diminished...and I finally demanded a poly. And then, he confessed to a ONS.

Now, we are working the program, with all the cards on the table. I shudder to think of how it would have panned out had I bought into his initial seemingly committed attempt at working the program, knowing now that we would have been recovering a marriage based on lies, and that he was using the program to distract me from finding out the truths about his life.

Eerliy familiar to your story. Get the poly. Let me repeat, get the poly. If your H truly is committed to this program, and he truly has had his eyes opened about how his behavior has affected you, and he truly has remorse and wants to help you heal... he will WELCOME a poly. If not, well, thats your answer. Get the poly.