planAprincess has posted her part of the sordid backstory to this. I have not (yet). This involves her WH and my WW, who were HS sweethearts, engaged, and until last week, had only gone as far as oral sex. They did have an extensive EA, with a couple of breaks done by pAp's husband, however my wife has continued to reach out to him. She was also involved in a separate EA, which had been the focus of my attention and when she told me she had a last minute business trip, I suspected the 2nd EA partner, not pAp's husband. It had been months since she had been in contact with him, and pAp did not know the particulars of his recent trip plan, neither of us considered his trip to my area to be of concern, since he has made this trip countless times in the last couple of years without incident.

I got an email at work this week from pAp, after not hearing from her since May. She advised me to check the email I use to share monitoring information between our spouses, and that maybe I should give her a call.

I called her up, she asked me, "where was your wife on 8/24?" I got that sinking feeling..."she told me she was on a last minute business trip a couple hours north of us."

"No, she was shacked up in a hotel room with my husband, two hours west of you..."

"Did they..."

"Yes, they did."


During the week, we have been in contact with each other, asking each other questions regarding what happened, here's pAp's summary to me.

Sorry to email you, but there is something you need to know. Our partners have managed to make their emotional affair into a full blown extramarital affair.

He came home from a �business� trip on Saturday morning. Since I have been suspicious of his actions/reactions over the past months with regards to contact with your wife, and I was very suspicious of this �last minute� change to his itinerary, I looked through his work bag and computer to see if there was anything to confirm or deny my suspicions while he napped Saturday evening. There was a valet parking charge on his hotel and he did not have a car. It was supposedly a last minute detour on his way back, but I found searches as early as Tuesday for restaurants in the detour area in his work computer history.

I confronted him Saturday night, when he woke up, concerning what he really did the night before. He almost immediately confessed that he was with your wife. Seems they have been in contact since the beginning of August. I asked for details of their time together and as of now, these are the details I have: She picked him up from the airport and they went to the hotel. They had sex (and supposedly did use a condom). They then had Thai for dinner. Then maybe a walk around the area (although there is a phone call to a Thai restaurant, so maybe they had them deliver? We�ve only gone through the play-by-play twice and it has changed a bit�) Then back to the hotel for sex again. They slept together and she delivered him back to the airport Saturday morning for his trip home before she came home to you.

You will have to ask her for the gory details, if you want to know. As of this morning we are in marriage counseling with Steve Harley of Marriage Builders. It was a good first session. He wrote a no contact letter for me to approve and a �No Contact Measures Plan� while I had my private conversation with the counselor. I will be taking the letter to the post office shortly to mail. He is extremely remorseful and knows that I am so incredibly disappointed in him and his lack of resistance to this addiction/affair. I think he realizes if he ever sees/talks/texts/emails her again that he will definitely lose his marriage and the relationship with his children.

If you want to chat, I believe you still have my phone numbers, but I urge you to work it out on your own with your wife. It is truly heartbreaking that they did this.

Please accept my sympathy as you deal with this latest blow �

planAprincess

Welcome to MB.

My former wayward wife reconnected with a high school/college boyfriend through facebook too...back in 2005. We are recovered. She posts here too (Mrs. Wondering). But her affair was only a couple months not years long and didn't involve other OM's. You've got a tougher nut to crack.

Whatever you do...out of respect for PlanAPrincess I'd recommend you don't bring your wife here at all and be very careful that she not find this on your computer. Neither of you need to lose the support of this place and having the other affair partner here would like ruin the safety feeling of being here.

So what is your wife saying today? Is she prepared to fix this? Do YOU want to fix this? Seems you have your proverbial get out of this marriage free card that no one would blame you for using. Your marriage MAY be savable and MB is the best chance you've got. Let us know what you want and we'll try to help you from there.

Mr. Wondering

My WW has been dismissive (and jealous) of pAp since the beginning of her EA. I wish I could take the email pAp sent me and show my wife I know what she was really up to, but she did a good job covering her tracks...no EZ Pass for tolls, pAp's husband (and his company) paid for everything but gas, there are 'fake' hotel directions and a menu from her 'business trip', pAp's husband even bought her a souvenier from the location of her supposed trip to show me 'proof' that she wasn't anywhere near him.

I do know that a NC is on the way from pAp, whether my WW tells me about it or not...well, I'm guessing not.

Right now I'm doing all I can to control AO, DJ, etc, and she's been extremely cold to me. Cringes when I touch her, even if it's just brushing past her in the kitchen. Won't kiss me, and as of yesterday, when I told her I still love her and want to try and work through this, all she could do is stare at me. I got a 'thank you' for telling her I love her. Granted, she hasn't initiate that phrase with me in months, but she used to at least say it back.

I believe she attempted to email pAp's husband from yet another new email address and got a NC response to not contact him again. That was Thursday, if I recall...Which has driven her further away from me.

So far in the last three years, it has been so easy to let her bait me into a fight, she even did that last Saturday...I'm trying not to fall for it anymore.

Last night when I told her I still wanted to work on our marriage, she said it's been damaged for three years. I've been home from an extended business requirement for a year and a half now, and I know this separation (I was 150 miles away, living alone for 5 days a week) left her EN unmet...when she said pAp's husband reached her via Classmates, I foolishly thought an online friendship with him wouldn't be a problem at all. Yes, I know they were engaged, but they hadn't fully consummated that relationship, and in the beginning it was all open. When I noticed a change in her, contacting him more than me for emotional support, it raised a red flag, but we still met (with and without pAp there).

After our first meeting with pAp's husband, it seemed like my WW was devastated that he was so different and distant (it's been almost 30 years since they were originally together). I reminded her I loved her, cared about her, and was there for her. She asked to meet with him alone, said it would be good for her, and like an idiot, I agreed. As this meeting approached, my apprehension grew, and she was growing more and more distant...I didn't realize at the time she was contacting pAp's husband secretly now.

Supposedly, nothing happened between them on this trip. pAp and I have our doubts. Still, we agreed to meet again, at their house about a month later. pAp was finally able to contact me (she had not been an active participant in anything) and asked me if I really knew what was going on. WW eventually found out that I shared the early emails between herself and pAp's husband, and to this day, she views this as the ultimate betrayal of her trust, and has stated to anyone who will listen that she stopped loving me and this is where she would consider our marriage over.

I've been reminded constantly by her that by asking her to stop contact with her EAs that I'm a jealous, controlling ape, and that for the entire time of our marriage, she hid who she really was and was done playing the part of my loving wife. This has proven to be a really good way to bait me into a fight...of course I'm only realizing this now after the EA has blossomed.

pAp has been WONDERFUL, sharing this site and it's resources with me. Right now I feel like I've repaid that by not managing my marriage to the point where it's caused serious problems in hers. I do feel that her WH is just as much to blame for this, blowing through NC after NC.

This must've come in while I was typing out the additional information that I just posted. My WW has been very dismissive of MB and other attempts at repairing our relationship (my mother tried using MB and my wife laughed at her letters). Counseling has been a complete failure.

I've become almost as good at hiding pAp from my wife as she has been in hiding her EA and PA from me. And I know if she saw pAp involved in any way, nothing I try would work.

Right now, she's not prepared to fix anything, or even try. She's even stopped giving lip service to the trying. With her PA fresh in her mind, I can understand this and know I need to have patience.

Despite everything, I love her desperately. I want to make this work, not just for the kids (which she has used as her only reason to try) but for me.

NoGoodDeed,

This must be heartbreaking for you and I am very sorry you have had to come here.

Your story immediately resonated with me because I have been the BS in a long-running affair, facilitated by both parties having jobs that involved international travel.

My H's affair started in March 2003 and I discovered it about 6 weeks later. I thought we had agreed for him to end the affair and for us to work on our marriage, but in 2005 I found out that the affair had simply gone underground and their commitment to each other was very deep and strong. (Indeed today, 26th March, is D Day.) I endured many false recoveries - about 6 - after that, until he changed jobs in 2006 and stopped travelling to her country.

In 2007 I began reading on MB and exposed their continued phone calls (via work, where I could not monitor them - he confessed these) to OWH, and the affair appeared to finally break down amid angry words between them about his unwillingness to leave me and his throwing her under the bus.

However, in 2011, I discovered that OW had been phoning my H (at work) roughly every six months to "see how he was" - and to see whether the door was still open for her. They hadn't seen each other for five years by then. The total time of the affair was 8 years - 3.5 years PA, the rest, the EA via phone calls.

My H has now taken early retirement. Only this gives me the assurance that contact via work can no longer happen. He has no mobile phone or laptop and our PC is monitored. Equally important, we are coaching with Dr Harley via the online MB course, and I am happy with my H's recovery efforts. Of course, I cannot guarantee that contact will never again take place, but we have taken all the steps that Dr Harley outlines in his articles on surviving an affair, with the crucial one being to change the conditions that made the affair possible. My H was able to run a secret second life through his workplace, and now that he no longer goes out to work, that particular avenue is closed.

It is only because my H is now at home all day and because he is working the MB programme that I feel able to work on recovery after all the false recoveries. I know you will appreciate how the false recoveries broke my heart.

I think that, until you have reason to be similarly confident that the conditions that facilitated the affair can be and are ended, you should not believe that this affair is over, even with the the other couple's coaching with Steve Harley, and the sending of NC letters.

From what I understand, your wife has had another affair. It doesn't seem as if she has much regard for you and being married to you. What is your WW's reaction to being discovered? What does she say about her feelings for OM, and how does she feel about your marriage?

Excuse me, NGD, but when you first posted here today your signature

Together 22 Years
M 16 Years, my 1st, her 2nd.

Also contained a statement something like "began as PA".

Could you explain this please, and why you have removed it? Did your marriage began as an affair in your wife's previous marriage?

Are you saying that you have not even confronted your wife about the affair?

This is the basic problem. By not confronting her, exposing her affairs and demanding she end her affairs, you become an enabler. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so keeping her secrets and being secretive yourself only fuels the affairs.

You can't save a marriage when you are an enabler. It is impossible. If you want to save this marriage, I would confront her and expose the affairs everywhere. To your family, her family, your children. Exposure is the most potent weapon against an affair.

The next biggest problem, besides enabling, is your traveling job. They are invitations to affairs.

Do you want to save your marriage?

No, you need to fight for your marriage. Patience has all but ruined your marriage. When the ship is sinking do you sit by and twiddle your thumbs or do you get to work to save the ship?

Have you exposed on your side. Sounds like these two need a nuclear.

Copy and save her facebook contacts.
Exposure 101

And hers. If I read him correctly, she travels constantly.

Will she quit her traveling?

Read this. Traveling Jobs

But you need to kill the affair first.

I think they are part of the same thing, Brainy. Having been through this myself, I don't think there is a "kill the affair first" that doesn't include getting her to quit her travelling as part of the "first". If she somehow did an about-face and agreed to show all her contact info, and send an NC letter, the affair would not be "killed" if she still had that job. Killing the affair involves removing the conditions that made the affair possible.

I need to know the answer to this because it changes the advice he needs DRASTICALLY.

If true...apparently he was 18 years old hooking up with a 27 year old married woman. It appears it was also his first relationship. As such (and considering her current behavior), I'd put most of the blame on her just as I put most of the blame on older married men that have affairs with 18-21 year old women.

If true...all the regular MB stuff won't work. Adultery works for her (for 16 years and 3 kids later). Exposure won't work....everyone already knows she's an adulterer (16 years) and no one in her circle of influence cares (least of all her). Entitlement at this point is so entrenched that the only way this poster could possible save it is to attempt to out affair the OM's. I think he should just divorce and end his affair with her but he was foolish enough to marry her ...he may be foolish enough to try to save it too. If she was his affair partner 16 years ago...it's not likely she's going to be repenting anytime soon. The behavior is her nature. Best you can do is work within the framework of her nature and accept YOUR consequences for extremely poor decision you made when you were 18.

Mr. W

Very true Sugar. I guess we need to find out what his siggy line means also because like Mr. W says everything else may not work.

OK, going to answer what I can here.

Yes, our relationship started as an affair. I could say that I was 18 and didn't know any better, but I was an adult, so I know it was wrong. If this is a delayed action Karma Bomb, then I guess I do have it coming to me.

I no longer travel for work. Got transferred back to the home office, so while it's 90 minutes each way every day, I'm more than happy to live at home with my kids and even my WW. She does not travel for work. pAp's husband (the OWH) does extensive work travel.

So far I have confronted about her EAs, but not the PA yet. While I have more than enough proof from pAp, none of it is in a format my WW will accept without it being starting an AO. Essentially, I'm going on pAp's word at this time, and my WW would likely laugh that off as a delusion.

Looking through friends who might be responsive to an exposure...the list is quite thin. She's alienated my family from her, so while they would support me, they have little to no influence over her. Same with hers, although they'd likely just support her. Her online friends, well I'm sure they'd just encourage her.

I have tried fighting for my marriage, so far has not worked, I honestly thought she'd be more receptive to a patient approach, but I do see your point on that Melody. Is trying to save a marriage that started off like this foolish? I have to agree. But if in the end it's a 'stable' household for my children, well then someone has to take the hit, and that will be me.

You don't need the "acceptance" or the admission of a liar to know truth. That is insane. All you have to tell her is that you know about the affair and that PAP's husband has admitted it.

Don't get mired in the tarpit of forcing an admission. Tell her you don't need the admission of a liar to know the truth. You already know the truth.

You then DEMAND that she end her affair or this will lead to divorce. If she won't end her affairs, then you should be asking her to move out.

I see your "patience" as part of the problem here. You have enabled her affairs for a very long time and allowed her to destroy other families.

Does your marriage have a chance? Not much. She is a long time serial cheater and you knowingly volunteered for this. This is not like she was a good person who just happened into an affair. She is a playah who is out trolling for action. BUT YOU KNEW THAT AND YOU HAD CHILDREN WITH HER.

If you have any chance at all, you are going to have to toughen up here and start fighting for your marriage. That means that you expose her affairs wide and far. Expose to all of her family, friends, your family and friends, the facebook contacts of her adultery partners, everyone. Don't discount ANYONE based on how you guess they will react. Just get it all out there in the open in one fell swoop.

And of course your family should be told. They can support you.

If you have any children over the age of 4, they shuold be told too.

And again, I don't have much hope for your marriage, but if you expose your wife wide and far, it might prevent her from wrecking other people's marriages.

Do you live in a state that has no fault divorce?

Please read.
Conflict avoidance is the kiss of death

Also you may not be able to control HER having an AO, but you most certainly may control YOU having an AO.

Having a cheater mother and a father who tolerates such abuse is NOT a "stable" household, nor is it good role modeling. Do you want your children to grow up to be little liars and cheaters too? Or worse yet, do you want them to tolerate the same kind of disrespect and abuse that you do? This is not a household of "stability" in any sense of the word.

Your kids need to see someone stand up to the corruption their mother has brought into their lives. And if you don't tell them the truth, she will tell them lies. ABOUT YOU.

The best lesson for them is a father who won't tolerate abuse, who is willing to remove them from an unhealthy, corrupt environment if neccessary.

I don't think your wife takes your seriously in the least because you have allowed her to roll over you for years. I don't think she will take you seriously until you file for divorce and tell her you are getting off the train.

If I were you, I would be filing for divorce on Tuesday on grounds of adultery. That would be the best thing for everyone. It would show her you are dead serious for a change. And if she doesn't make radical changes in the time it takes to complete the divorce, then you and your kids are better off without her.