Well-said.


Okay, I've got a serious question there which I'll put in a separate post. I'm really not sure what to do.

(Regarding Exposure)

That's a relief. WW's family is good: I wouldn't mind telling them. I don't relish at all the prospect of broadcasting to our Facebook friends far and wide what's happened. Many of them are customers or suppliers (we both work in the music business) and nobody wants to deal with this crap.



My mother will be absolutely delighted when she reads the e-mail I sent WW.

My brother's wife's sister--we'll call her Nancy, she's 28--moved into the same general area where myself and WW live. It was a rather seedy affair where Nancy's H told her he was going on a long business trip for the military, and that she should go visit her sister while he was gone. Seemed great at first. He flew out to visit after a month. Then he stopped communicating with her. Turns out the "business trip" was an hour away, and all the other men drove home regularly to visit their military wives. She decided to drive back, and her car broke down. Now she's living with my brother and his wife with their two little girls, infant and 4. Currently, he claims he's filed for divorce, but no paperwork has shown up, so she's kind of in limbo. She'd like to reconcile things, but he's moved out of their former on-base housing, and tells her it's over. She calls him often, he doesn't respond. He stopped talking to the girls on the phone about a month ago. Her brother is a high ranking officer and has forced the issue for some basic contact about things like child support, which is in limbo too. I've become an extremely suspicious person, but I am certain the above is true.,

My brother and I are close, and are business partners. Our business is on his property, so I'm just plain there regularly. In addition, we all love the kids and take turns watching them. His home is also a social hub for one of the music bands I'm involved with, and we have many mutual friends, including our business partners. This whole arrangement was fine before my WW told me she wanted a divorce, and Nancy and I weren't friends much beyond "hello".

Cue my wife asking me for a divorce 4 months ago and her husband doing the exact same thing at the same time, and we've had plenty to talk about. She won't be divorced anytime soon; he hasn't actually finished filing anything, and she's busy with college which she just started. Our conversations have mostly revolved around talking about reconciliation with our spouses, the legal logistics of divorce, if it's morally right or not (both of us believe it is not), and the kids.

I haven't done anything remotely wrong, but as I write this out, I can see alarm bells going off everywhere. I have no plans to cheat on my wife, and I have no plans to cheat with another man's wife, whether I'm single or not, and whether or not he's abandoned her and his kids. There is zero alone time nor touching nor any talk of "us" between us, but I do recognise that the two of us have probably met needs the other has (if just for good advice) that we aren't getting from our spouses who desire to leave us.

But these kids are family, they matter to me, but I just don't know what the heck to do with my relationship with Nicole. I haven't spoken with anyone about it until someone casually dropped at lunch on Sunday that "You and Nicole should just get married." Yikes!

You need to back right out of that mess. You and Nicole are meeting certain emotional needs and this could quickly turn into a nightmare. Once one emotional need is met outside of marriage, the others are close behind.

I would just quietly ease out of this relationship and if you can't do that, simply explain you don't think its good for either of you to have a friendship when your marriages are in such trouble. Even if you are both divorced, you want to stay away from women with children. Marriages with step children have an 85% divorce rate!

Is it advisable to stay in the kids' lives? I'd like to be an uncle. The eldest is currently trying to figure out how daddy disappeared six months ago and it's plain as day that she really craves male attention. My brother's a good authority figure, but he's distant.

It'll be relatively simple to quietly scoot out of Nicole's life, as she's busy with school right now.

(I've been a foster parent twice before, been a prospective adoptive parent once before, and know all those risks. Fostering is kind of something I do--it's who I am. I also know how hard it is. As sad as it sounds, I never trusted my W enough to have biological children with her.)

I would back out of that relationship too since being close to them will mean being close to their mother. Since you aren't going to have a relationship with their mother, it is better for someone else to take that role.

Thank you for your sage advice.

I'll update this thread as things happen. By the way, you guys here are awesome. There's a stunning amount of accumulated wisdom here.

Thanks for listening and keeping an open mind!

This is a phrase that has been mis-used, along with all the other mis-used catch phrases that have taught us that complete trust is essential in a happy marriage.

Let me rephrase this to clarify the point those articles are actually trying to make: THIS is the sign of an abusive relationship, when a spouse is controlling the other spouse. The original phrase was written improperly and has taken on a life of its own. Pity. It's incorrect.

I like to know where my husband is and what he is doing. He always knows where I am and what I am doing. We are each half of a whole unit, so it's only right and natural that each half knows what the other half is doing. That makes for a healthy whole, KWIM?

So it's obvious to others, as well.

Step away from this, Q. You've unwittingly begun the foundation for an emotional affair. This is baggage that you don't need right now, and will definitely be an issue if/when your WW comes home.

None of these are compelling reasons to insert yourself into the lives of these kids. You're not their 'uncle'. You don't need to be their 'foster parent'. The fact that they are there doesn't mean you need to 'save' them. And I certainly don't think you should volunteer to be a male figure for a little girl who 'craves' male attention. It is the responsibility of their mother to address these issues.

Thanks, maritalbliss. I can't believe I've been inhaling the
carcinogens that would allow this kind of cancer to develop. I've been blind to what's been at risk of developing.

Thank God nothing's actually happened. I hope this whole thing has been entirely one sided. It's pretty easy for me to exit (I can act busy and avoid the part of the buildings Nicole's in.)


Agreed.

I'll post in a week or two with how things are going. Thanks again to everyone who's chimed in. You've helped me more than you know.

Whilst I've been waiting for Dr Harley's books to show up in the mail, I've been busy listening to some of the radio segments and some of his video lectures on the website.

One thing has especially caught my attention: if you're getting your emotional needs met anywhere else by someone of the opposite sex, you're at risk of an affair, no matter how excellent your moral character.

I've been taking stock of my OSFs (opposite-sex friends). Most of my friends are men; there are some couples my wife and I were friends with, but my strongest relationship in those friendships is with the husband. I've already identified OSF1 in my earlier posts which I've decided to avoid permanently.

I have two more OSFs I want to seek this forum's advice about. The first is an old friend from about eight years back (predates me meeting my WW). OSF2 and I live in different states, so we mostly talk via text or IM. Invariably our conversations as of late are about a love interest she has and seeking my advice as to my perspective as a guy. I've never thought about it before, but alarm bells are going off in my head as I write this. OSF2 is single and unmarried. I don't have interest in OSF2, although there may have been some unspoken energy between us eight years ago before I met my WW.

OSF3 is someone from childhood I reconnected with a few years back over a crisis where we had a shared interest. Our conversations usually involve politics, etc., but lately she's shared challenges in her relationship with her boyfriend with me. Again, alarm bells going off. OSF3 is obviously has a boyfriend and is into "open relationships". There is no romantic interest or attraction on my part to OSF3.

I feel like I need to clean house. Is it normal (or perhaps I should say, is it desirable) to just not have OSFs, other than if you're single and actively dating?

I would never dream of cheating or having an affair, but I'm disturbed that my lifestyle could have presented the slightest possible to me to do so.

Qoheleth, if you are talking to a woman about her personal relationships, you are making love bank deposits. So scratch OSF1 and OSF3.

If you have no real interest in OSF2, she should be easy to quit talking to as well.

Thanks markos. Time to quietly disappear from OSF1/2/3.

I had not thought of the perspective of NOT making love bank deposits to other women. Is that a good warning sign that you're at risk of going stray?

The Harleys will say on the radio it's OUR job to protect our own love banks from others (who shouldn't be) making deposits into our LB. That's what boundaries are all about.

Okay. My attitude before I rolled around here--I ended up here by Googling for "marriage success after affair" and "accidentally exposed affair" after accidentally exposing a tiny bit and dealing with how livid my WW was--was that this marriage is over, can't be saved, and my WW is consigned to a life of misery as an affairee.

It seems it's much more likely now that she has a chance, or that she might try to come back post-D.

I'm also getting ready for Exposure but do not have sufficient evidence to distribute yet.

So, my doctrine is to act out of unconditional love. I've been supporting her with half of my take home pay this year. It's not in our D settlement; it's just something I said I'd do to be nice.

I've made it clear my love/support is unconditional, but now that I realise she's slipping into a fantasy world of hanging out in bars, having an affair, not working, assuming I'm here for granted if she wants to come back, and drinking more and more. It's not love to enable someone to live that way. It's just setting them up for a lot of hurt down the road.

I do need to tread somewhat lightly until final divorce judgment shows up in the mail, but that should be any day now. (If there's some legal technicality and it's not finalised, I don't want to deal with her lawyering up.)

My next money drop to her is late next week (around the 15th). I've been in the process of moving out of one of our apartments with the intention of her taking over the lease. She couch-surfed for the first 4 or 5 weeks of separation, and since then has been living with her parents.

Advice? I'm waiting for Dr Hurley's books to show up in the mail and don't plan to do too much until I've read them. Hopefully this weekend.

Read these.
What's Wrong with Unconditional Love #1
What's Wrong with Unconditional Love #2

Thanks. I've got a lot of reading and learning to do.

What's right to cut off?

Q, you are making this WAY too damned easy for her, when you should be making her adulterous lifestyle a living Hell!! Why?

I can tell you're a very smart guy, but why are you aiding her? Doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

I would be cutting her off. Why the hell would you even consider financing her adultery?

Um, again, why? Your being nice to her is in return for her niceties to you? I don't think so. What has she done to warrant such generosity from you? I just can't for the life of me figure out why you're offering it.

Let her support her own [censored]. No wonder she has no desire to come back. She's had no taste of life without your support. Hell dude, she's got it made! All the guys she wants AND her husband is paying for it! Pretty good deal if I'm her.

Seriously, C'mon, you're better than this. She won't come crawling back with the way you're acting. Oh, and BTW, when it comes time to settle in court, you'll see some serious changes on her demands and wants(bet on it). You're rolling over right now and she WILL take advantage of that when it comes time for the rubber to meet the road. Why? Because you've allowed her to so far, so why should she stop?

If you want to make something happen, then make it happen now.

Just how much evidence do you have for exposure?

Just my thoughts.

Evidence for exposure currently consists of phone bills and videos of them playing love songs together. Not really a smoking gun.

It would be possible for me to get her to discuss more details of the emotional affair (I have no idea if it's physical) in person with me, which I could record.

With a little more time, I could get a bit more evidence. I've decided to expose, but would prefer to do so with better evidence and more people to expose to. I need to locate OM2's parents, for example.



We've already settled in court; I'm just waiting for the decree of divorce with the final judgment (which includes our settlement) to show up in the mail.

Thanks for your encouragement here. Once I've got that in hand, I intend to go full nuclear.