Thanks, NW. I was beginning to believe Capt was right. Okay mmmm, no, not really.

What's your biggest concern RIGHT NOW Capt?

Capt,

Did I read that your wife has agreed to quit her job? How fast can that occur? Will she agree to never see or speak to this OM again? Will she send a NC letter?


BTW, this most certainly is a physical and emotional affair. Prepare yourself to deal with that.

AM

Your wife NEEDS to quit her job. M has no chance of recovery w/o it.

Don't be afraid of exposure, neither on you or her. Fight for your M, your kids will be glad for it, even if they're upset for a time because of the affairs. They'll get past that, they won't get past a broken M.

Get the goods on her, then expose...hire a PI if you need to, install a keylogger, and a VAR.

Holding back on exposure (particularly for your own secrets) is like holding a great big boulder above your head.

It just gets heavier and heavier. Feels like too big a deal to do anything about.

But things get much better, lighter and easier when you let the truth roll.

What's that little thing in your siggy again, indie? Yep, the truth does set you free.

Capt, I know you feel like you are between a rock and a hard place, but right now your wife is the hard place and you are that proverbial rock. You not exposing yourself when all your stuff happened 12 years ago is probably part of the reason for what's happening now. By not exposing yourself, and making yourself completely responsible and accountable for your actions, you essentially got away scot-free with marital murder. You suffered no real consequences for your terrible decisions and actions way back when. You see?

Now, what message did that send your wife when things got tough for her in marriage? Seems to me it sent the message what's good for the goose is good for the gander. What real incentive did she have for not taking the route she has? You suffered no consequences for this, so she probably feels whatever backlash she probably should receive for her transgressions are probably non-existent as well. All this may have been avoidable had you owned up to what happened back then fully and responsibly instead of just sweeping the whole thing under the rug.

Okay, all that being said, you are in no way responsible for her actions right now. She's a big girl, and she made her choices. She has a right to those choices, but she doesn't have the luxury of controlling the consequences of those choices.....but guess what, neither do you of yours 12 years ago. If you really want to repair your marriage the right way, it should be coming clear to you what you need to do to accomplish this.

It's time to remove that boulder that's hovering over both your heads.

I hope you come back and start to follow the plan. I do believe your sitch is fully fixable if you just follow the MB yellow brick road to a tee.

ETA: I'm not saying that this is exactly what happened, but a mere possibility, and certainly something to think about.

Viper, That all totally makes sense! I hope he continues to come here and work through this, I see this as totally fixable!

Right. I did my exposure of my ww while still of the popular belief that as long as nobody knew about my affair from 8 years prior, it was like it never happened. However, I was convinced after reading here and hearing all sorts of fun advice from posters that I was a hypocrite exposing her and not myself at the same time. So I went back out and explained to everyone that while my wife had been unfaithful, so had I, and in order to recover our marriage, I couldn't let that information stay locked up.

It was the only shot at recovering my M.

Turns out it was extremely important in my personal recovery from the mess that my marriage had become. The first step in really looking at myself and who I really was. In the full light of day.

No exposure would be very effective without an admission of the same trasgression, in fact it will be undermined by the ww. But with full honesty of the situation, there is hope that the ww will come on board with reconciliation.

Captain, I've checked out your thread since you started over there. I wish you luck and courage. Your history of infidelity will continue to rear it's ugly head; current or future relationships included. Radical Honesty is a principle you will want to employ from now on (as you've probably read by now), and so there it is in all it's glory; can't get around it.

Here's something to thing about. You probably revealed to your wife your infidelity in a.....non-MB way. I bet you would do it differently now; knowing what you know about MB. No?
hint: acknowleging any possible reasons, but not giving any credence to excuses...putting Extraordinary Precautions in place...giving Just Compensation.

opt

Has her affair been exposed to the kids?

Reply to:

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2666249#Post2666249


Don't debate it with her or tell her she brought this on herself. Just end the conversation or change it to something more pleasant. Be patient (but firm) while she decides what she is going to do.

Skip the counselor. Most counselors suck because they don't even believe in romantic love:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8118_real.html

Markos,

Skip the counselor. Most counselors suck because they don't even believe in romantic love:

Except with the affair partner, they just don't believe in it between spouses.

God Bless
Gamma

I don't know what to do.....

She's quitting her job, but keeps bouncing back and force about needing space to decide to continue the marriage. She had an EA cuz the marriage was in a bad place, right we all know the details....

She IS quitting her job because if she doesn't I told her the marriage is over, but whether or not to go to the counselor is another question. She needs to space to decide to continue with us. This is insane, is this the fog speaking?

I know we've always had problems but I've made a lot of changes over the years and I believe she refused to allow me to meet her needs. Not that I have been perfect and couldn't stand to make a few more changes but still...

I'm am totally baffled about what to do. I just want to go flip my wedding ring at her, tell her to rescind her resignation and then quit this marriage.

I figure have her keep her job, she makes pretty good money, my alimony payments will be smaller, I can just cut and run and not have to deal with this anymore....

Why are you following Plan let-the-wayward-call-the-shots? Even if you don't recover, do you want the mother of your kids left in an affair without a fight for money? Great stepdad material.

Just follow the plans. Waywards say stupid stuff. They vacillate. That's what waywards do.

You can't decide until action toward recovery has been taken. Push it through now. Decide later.



That is not why people have affairs.

My youngest is 18, they are all adults...

I just wanna squash my feelings for my spouse, just focus on all the bad things that have gone on and numb out... Eventually this just won't matter anymore. She'll be happy and I'll move on, she's told me repeatedly how she's wanted to leave over the years but hasn't because of the kids or whatever. I've heard it so many times so I'm just willing to accept it. This whole marriage should've ended years ago...

1. The affair is still active, that's why she isn't quitting the job.

2. The affair is still active, that's why she's back and forth about divorce.

3. The affair is still active and you are interfering with it. She needs space from you so that you'll let her be and allow the affair to continue uninterrupted.

4. You need to expose this to everyone, including, and especially, your children.

There, fixed that for you.

As someone else said, tell her to move into the garage, there's plenty of space there.

Northwood,
She's resigned from her job, she's in her last two weeks.

But did she quit because she wants to end it with OM or because you threatened her current way of life (cake eating)?

Ah good question,
I believe both, she's been trying to leave this job for a while. I also believe that she's been trying to leave this job to get away from this whole thing and not have me find out. It just so happens that when I found out the urgency was ratched up.

When I found out I told her to go in the next day and tell him I know what's going on and end it. She came home the next day and told me she had done so. She then told me that he did not show up at work for the next two days. Which I verified because I know where he lives and his car.

She says this EA has caused her to think that either our marriage has to change or end but the current EA was just wrong. So she's ending the EA but still unclear about whether the marriage can continue.

I would still expose this to your children and her employer. The letter to the employer and co-workers could be along the lines of...

my wife and OM had an affair, she is quitting as a result, you love your wife, want your marriage and family to thrive but must keep OM away for that happen. That you'd appreciate the recipient using their influence to make sure that OM stays away from you, your W and family, and that they can call you if they have any questions.

Clean it up, of course, but mail it to as many coworkers as you can.

Keep up on monitoring her via keylogger or cell software as well.

I wanted to quit a job once where some of my coworkers had become verbally abusive towards me for no particular reason, I didn't see an end to it in sight, and it was starting to affect my job performance.

I dropped off my ID badge and PDA with confidential company data with front desk security, notified my contracting agency I wouldn't be returning, and never entered the building again.

If your job is ruining your life, you don't need to give two weeks' notice. I've had plenty of employees quit on me for "personal reasons". Stuff happens.

Time to go expose, bub. Chances are her employer won't need two weeks' notice once they figure out what she's been choosing to do with her time at the office.