No.


I would be very brief and only include pertinent information about the affair. Say that your wife has been having an affair and has finally admitted it. "She not only involved our children but brought him into our home and had sex in our marital bed."



No, don't muddy the waters with irrelevant information. Keep it short and sweet and don't go over 3 short paragraphs. Please follow the format in my examples.


Tell them that their mother is having an affair with XYX. Tell them he is a bad man and explain why adultery is immoral. Explain that they want to break up their family so they can have an affair.

Hopefully you did not do this, because this is not a tactic that will help you save your marriage. This is abusive.

Don't play games. Did you do it or not?

I am not playing games, but I am also not admitting things that could be used against me. Some think such conduct could be seen as abusive. Others might see it as poor judgment taken before the H learned better from reading this forum and Dr. H's writings.

You don't sound very serious about Dr. Harley's writings, to me. First off, Dr. Harley would absolutely identify all of the forgoing as abusive. Second, Dr. Harley would say that the first thing you need to do about such a problem is acknowledge it, and your responsibility.

I don't know what you mean by "used against you." Marriage is not a game. Either you both win, or you both lose.

You are not going to come out of this recovered if you want to cover up your misdeeds and not talk about them.

If you are serious about Dr. Harley's writings, please read through this:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5067d_qa.html

While you are at it, here is Dr. Harley on the radio telling you some important things you need to know:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=2280

There's nothing to be afraid of here, Man_learning. We want to help you overcome ALL of the problems that can keep you from having a happy marriage, and a happy life.

Melodylane,

Thanks for the additional guidance on exposure.

I now understand how the alleged events above could be viewed as abusive. I deleted the post about it. Would you please delete the quote from your post?

Regarding exposure of the OM:

I exposed to his wife weeks ago, but learned they were divorced for over a year, so she is of little help. His parents are dead. He has one daughter, a senior in high school, I think she may know, but I would hope she could ask him to stop pursing my wife for the sake of my kids (I am sure she can relate to what my daughters are or will feel).

Not sure how or how much to tell his daughter.

He's a dentist. Should I expose to his office staff? (Can I do so via flyers or leaflets)?

The general public (i.e. actual or potential patients), this would obviously publicly expose my wife too. So would this be a bad idea? (Again flyers or leaflets?)

I don't think that asking people to sweep your abuse under the rug is addressing it. Nor do I think that continuing to call it "alleged" is addressing it.

Man_Learning,

I would wait and make sure the senior was 18 before sending her a facebook message. Just tell her the facts affair, selfish behavior, bad example for her, destroyed your family and hers etc.

Funny you should mention that, OM3 is a doctor, and besides going to the AMA and the hospital administration, I had thought about printing posters and putting them up in the cafeteria etc. Along with spray painting his car with cheater etc in bright orange. You could also picket during business hours.

Was your W a patient of OM? If so you may have a violation of professional ethics case to press with his dental associations?

It might not be a bad idea to tell his staff particularly since he likely hires good looking girls so he can have affairs with them. Make sure they know they are not special to OM.

God Bless
Gamma

Spray painting will get all kinds of legal and financial problems.

I was not considering any spray painting, but can you offer anything more in response to my questions about exposing the OM?

Man_learning,

Walk right into his office and speak with everyone, staff then customers.

Picket outside.

Facebook he might have his friends list open. He might also have a facebook page for his dental practice.

Linkedin your may need to create a fake profile. On his dental website he may have a list of social network links his practice uses often there will be a

Does he have a website for his dental practice you may be able to gather the names of his subordinates and then look them up.

Do a general and picture search in google for "joe scumbag" dentist etc. Using quotes will get you exact matches in the case where he has a common name.

God Bless
Gamma

My copy of Surviving an Affair arrived yesterday. Unfortunately it does not have index, and I have not been able find the section in this book that addresses exposure.

Does anyone know the pages that address exposure?

Did his ideas about exposure develop after the book was written?

Also it does not seem as though Jon used exposure to end the affair Sue was having? Or did I miss that?

Also during the withdrawal period when the WS is taking anger out on the BS, what exactly is the BS supposed to do? Just calmly put up with the abuse?

Still waiting for you to own up to this abusive behavior.
Planning on ignoring those of us who have called you on it in hopes that it will go away?
How do you plan on your marriage recovering when you will not admit to your part in damaging it?

Thanks for the input Gamma.

Is there a good place I can learn about boundary setting and appriate consequences when they are breached?

So I am prepared what should a BS do if WS has contact after NC in place? There must be a protocol and thoughtful response to such an event.

He is rewriting SAA to include his concepts on exposure. He already added rewrote HNHN to include it. He wrote these articles a few years ago:

When Should an Affair Be Exposed?

What Are Plan A and Plan B?

Thanks Melodylane,

I have a copy of HNHN and I just read the section. It also mentioned that NC and transparency may make the WS feel "trapped." My W used this word about a week ago? Can I help her with this?

I am trying to better meet her EN and gave her the questionnaire to help me with that, but she has not filled it out.

She attended a meeting yesterday with me and my therapist. I took this a positive action.

I have also done some thinking about the beginning of her A with new info I gained. As it turns out, it was not an EA which shifted to a PA. He was an old boy friend, who she dated briefly, but had not fallen in love with back then. Still she was attracted to him when she ran into him again about 5 years ago. He kissed her very shortly after he reconnected with her. The sex very quickly escalated and they became friends with benefits for 2-3 years, before it became more intense. (It became more intense when I was laid off, which to me relates to her need for financial security, something I am still working on)

So know I am thinking about how our marriage was 5 years ago. I did not think it was too bad then. I wasn't perfect, but I am now wonder if the A began less because of me not meeting her EN?

If an A occurs because a W runs into an old boyfriend is it typically less of a sign that the marriage had problems at that point?

I can see were my deficiencies contributed to an environment 2-3 years ago in which the A intensified. So I am not saying I do not have things to keep working on.

With a FWB relationship in place, she had less motivation to address our marriage when it declined. Indeed, over the years I asked her a few times if she felt like we should see an MC. She was never up for it. She of course was in a full blown A at the time.

You can't make her feel any way, though. What is important is that you create transparent lifestyles in order to recover.


No, not at all. You will know if the marriage had problems if the marriage had problems. Sometimes a problem marriage coupled with poor boundaries will lead to an affair and sometimes the marriage is in great shape. Affairs begin when spouses have poor boundaries around members of the opposite sex. It sounds like this is the case here.

Keep in mind that she would not have had an affair if she had good boundaries around men.

So, then, I have a question. Since Dr. H says that we would all have affairs under certain conditions, and none of us would have affairs under other conditions, is not the strength of boundaries only half the problem? The quality of your boundaries sets the level at which you will drown, but good extraordinary precautions will drain the pool so nobody, not even those with defective boundaries, will drown.

Extraordinary precautions ARE boundaries, though. For example, a good EP would be to avoid opposite sex friendships. That is a boundary. Dr Harley says that everyone is wired for an affair. The difference between those who do and don't is their boundaries.