When a family is blown apart by infidelity, the costs are devastating. Losing the in-laws who you have come to love and who have come to be your own family is more than just "collateral damage." And so this thread addresses one of the important, if underrated, casualties of adultery.

Melody Lane is so very right. I exposed almost immediately to my in-laws. I shared with them the whole truth. I told them about my 2 month online emotional affair, the state of our marriage leading up to it, and everything I knew about my wife's affair. The results were I was supported by my in-laws (in spite of my mistakes) and my wife took a lot of heat. At one point my wife was so frustrated she said, "You're considered a saint, and I'm considered the worst person of 2011." This was around New Years.

I don't post this to gloat. There is absolutely nothing to gloat about. I'm still sickened and disconsolate about my failure to take proper actions to improve my marriage before my wife's affair started, and I'm hurt beyond measure by her betrayal. But at least I have a good relationship with my in-laws, and that is so important for my girls. The in-laws have softened up on my wife and she is back in the fold with some of them. But because I exposed early, they know where the blame rests and we still have a very good relationship.

So it is very important to expose early and get your story out first.

I was just thinking yesterday about the far reaching impact of my wife's affair. She is in denial and won't allow herself to see the hurt this has caused not only her children and husband, but all the members of both of our families. She told my cousin's wife a couple of months ago that she is "at peace" with her life. I threw up in my mouth when I heard that. She has wrought destruction on her family with a fallout tantamount to that of a nuclear bomb, and she is at peace? Waywards. You can't live with them, and you can't play skeet with them.

Thanks for that. That's the best laugh I've had all day.

How long has your FWW been in this fog? For me it has been 15 months and only just now subsiding a bit.

Starfish: I don't have a link but it is currently on pg 9 of SAA Forum.

Marksaysay: Thank your for sharing your experience. That must have been very tough dealing with a PO and the "justifcation" for it. I suppose if they are so willing to sacrifice everything for their addiction and destroy themselves in the process they aren't going to care how the denigration hurts the BS.

Justthe3ofus: Infidelity is devasting to the immediate and extended family. I exposed to my inlaws within a few days of D Day and WH moving out. MIL (retired pyschologist) called OW a "floozy" who seduced her son and that it would not last given her history and she would repeat behaviour patterns of the past. I was very close to my inlaws, they hoped for reconciliation and supported me.

Having said this they are conflict avoiders and were unable to stand against the A. They even tolerate OW for the sake of their son. I'm sure they are in denial b/c its too hard to face. I'm sure they believe the story "we've grown apart, having nothing in common etc" and want their son to be happy. Even recently MIL stated how hard it must be for me given there was no inkling of separation, I replied yes I never thought WH would have an A and leave the marriage.

It hurts that they won't stand for our marriage or family, their inaction is enabling the A and condoning the wayward behaviour. I feel in a way betrayed, that it is ok to discard me after 20 yrs to feed his addiction.

Here it is In-Laws after the affair

Thanks BH I should have known I could rely on the Queen on Links I have to learn how to link.

No problem, my friend.

Thank you!

Keep in mind this was 15 months ago -- which now seems like an eternity. The short answer is no, I did not contact all the people in question after D-day to tell them specific details of my FWW's affair. Why? Two reasons: 1) I'm a very private person and I HATE my wife's destructive habit of communicating our most private business to friends, family and clients. Her insatiable habit of blathering our most confidential matters has been a HUGE source of pain, destruction and financial hardship for our marriage since inception. As a result of my/our personal history, I was extremely averse to telling everyone around us what was going on. 2) She used an extremely effective tactic: She turned the whole thing around and made it about me by broadcasting a bunch of half-truths and lies about our financial affairs and unresolved tax issues. In short, she vilified me in a way that would have required me to spend 5 hours of dedicated time with each and every person to explain the details of a highly-complex chain of events which were in no small way caused by my FWW in the first place. She KNEW I would never do that.

She was also extremely bold about telling her friends and family about her affair and the incredible guy she had met (the 19 year old child). So I assumed a long list of people already knew about the affair. What I didn't know is that she was telling them he was 22, or "in his twenties" etc... It wasn't until weeks, months later that I began to discover how little her friends and family actually knew about the affair. For those that haven't read my story, I was effective in killing the affair almost instantly upon discovery and the entire thing lasted only about 25 days.

Back to the fog... Now that she is beginning to come out of it after 15 months and I'm just now trying to get her on board with talking to Steve and the whole MB philosophy, do I go back to the poisoned friends and family members to tell them the whole truth? If the recommendation is yes, my hesitation is that I am over and done with most of them and hope they fall off a cliff for what they have done. Why bother to set the record straight if I never want to speak to them again?

Random thought, but it seems to me that this very real "wayward fog" phenomenon needs to have a legitimate, clinical name in the psychiatric world (inclusion in the DSM). It's a debilitating illness as real as any other mental health problem and needs to be recognized as such. It destroys lives, marriages and families. And as I have personally experienced, a very, very short, seemingly trivial affair (by comparison) can result in a very long period of "wayward fog."

This discussion is super helpful to me. So many times during my WH's 2.5-year EA (probably 4.5 years is more accurate, but it was obviously an EA for the second 2.5 years), I just want to say, "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"

He would threaten to divorce me if I wouldn't stop "nailing him to the wall" about the EA, but when I would ask why he would want to leave me, he would say, "Because of the way you're treating me!" I would ask what he meant. He would come up empty and then yell at me for being a lawyer, a prosecutor, he was on trial --

I would try to answer his fog statements from a basis of reason and the whole thing would become a stupid, very destructive battle of idiotic hops from point to irrelevant point. I learned to keep quiet when he entered the fog and let him talk himself into a corner.

I only exposed the EA enough initially for an incomplete recovery. Lagged 9 months in uncertainty and finally entered this forum. June 12 I started exposing to kids and friends. Lots of progress. Still fog to cut through.

Thank you -- this thread helps incredibly to gain perspective.