Falcon

NG just wants to save your marriage and has helped a lot of BS by being straight with them.

My POV is Exposing before Christmas is ideal because having your friends and family being angry with a WW or OM at this particular time is actually very effective and more eye opening than if it had been done at any other time.

The idea is to bust the affair. Well there is nothing like blowing this affair our of the water at Christmas time. Who wants to deal with angry family at Christmas??

I rather my FWH had an uncomfortable Christmas with the family than spend the holiday sending lovey dovey Christmas wishes with another person.

But in the end it's your choice and up to you as to how badly you want to save your marriage.

Stay up all night tonight and do it. You'll feel better taking action now as opposed to waiting, plus as NB mentioned, holidays really ramp up the exposure effect and make it impossible for the wayward to enjoy their cake.

She's in renewed contact! SHUT IT DOWN NOW.

Sometimes women will get on a plane and leave their family.
If that happens because she is in love, you will need to take time off work anyway.
It only takes an hour to expose.
You can do it on your phone at night when she is sleeping

Thanks for the advice guys. I know NG means well, but he's attributing his own beliefs onto me and that is something that always pisses me of. He doesn't know me. I have every intention of exposing. Perhaps a ruined Christmas would work to my benefit, but I don't know.

JK I can't do it in an hour the way I want to do it. Like I said, he alone has 86 friends on FB. My goal is to hit everyone of them, and that's an hour and a half right there. The other issue I have is I haven't been able to get the contacts setup so I can rapid fire this stuff off. Really, what I need is about an hour or 2 to setup on my PC (sorry, but my phone just won't cut it) and about 2 hours for firing off the exposure letters. I want to avoid, at all costs, another half-assed attempt. Amazingly, she hasn't contacted him since. I don't know why, but I sense she is having a lot of doubts has she keeps talking to her 3 time married co-worker (her third husband is a druggie - what a winner in life this woman is) telling her she doesn't know if she can hurt me like this. I think that is a good sign down the road as she clearly knows she is doing something wrong and doesn't hate me.

Since I don't see any chance of having enough time alone at my PC this weekend, I have resigned myself to wait until I have talked with Steve Harley on Monday. I just want to hear what he says since this would be the second exposure. I may go ahead and do it this week. I just really hate to spoil it a holiday like this for the kids as that tends to have long term repercussions (they will associate Christmas with this mess). It's really the only reason I have thought about waiting until after the holiday to do it. If this was October or November, I wouldn't hesitate to fire it off as soon as I had the opportunity.

We'll see. I'm hoping I can at least start working on some of the bits during this evening and next, but my PC is downstairs near where she sleeps, and right next to her computer desk. Like I said...it's difficult to doing any work on this without her seeing what I am doing, and I want her to be clueless. At the very least, I will try to work on some of it at work, but I am swamped, and we already have a bunch of people out. I've managed to bang out the letter to the daughter and the FB letter at work, though. So I am getting there.

I had my session with Steve today, and he was excellent. I think he understands my situation well and we talked about how to get her on board, and the merits of exposure at this point. He does tend to lean toward exposure before Christmas in a situation like this, but wants me to give some time to talk with her to see if she would be willing to learn more about this program and how it will benefit her. I have an action plan and we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't get there, then I have at least done something of a plan A action before doing something that will make her angry again. I don't want to detail everything he mentioned to me, but it was all very good.

I hope she is at least willing to entertain the thought of this after I talk with her. Her recent emails to her enabling co-worker continue to show that she is conflicted on causing me pain and looking for guidance on doing this, so I think some part of her may be willing, but breaking through the emotions she is addicted to may be tough. We'll see. I'm hopeful, and will continue to ask for God's help in getting her to take my hand and let me pull her out of the pit.

I ask for prayers that my wife will be open and willing to try to educate herself, and that I keep from trying to do the education, as I have been prone to doing. Your prayers are, as always, very greatly appreciated.

I have just prayed that God will touch your wife's heart

Thank you JK.

I got a chance to have the conversation tonight. She agreed with the concept that her ideal situation would be if she were truly in love with the father of her children. Of course, she can't envision being in love with me at the moment for obvious reasons. Found out she had, in her life before me, done some chasing of married men, ans she recognizes that's wrong, but clearly I am dealing with a character flaw I didn't realize she had. I did have a very good conversation with her about how God has helped me during this period, and she admitted that she needs to get more familiar with her faith and that we need to start getting the kids to regularly attend church.

Right now, I'm going to pray to God to touch her heart and bring her into the fold with Him. She truly needs His guidance right now. She's not willing to talk with Steve right now, and lied to me saying she hasn't had contact with him. She is still hung up on the exposure, and can't let go of the anger for me and her father. She realizes she's been wrong and acting like a teenager, but feels she's a grown woman and her dad shouldn't be involved. I did turn the discussion on exposure around and asked what would she do if she was in my position and she said she'd have to be in the moment to know for sure, so I probably placed some doubts there. Needless to say, the wayward fog is still there, and it will likely need some breaking, but she seems amicable to reading HNHN, and the LB survey I filled out from her perspective.

Oh the joys of the wayward spouse...not!

"I had my session with Steve today, and he was excellent. I think he understands my situation well and we talked about how to get her on board, and the merits of exposure at this point. He does tend to lean toward exposure before Christmas in a situation like this, but wants me to give some time to talk with her to see if she would be willing to learn more about this program and how it will benefit her. I have an action plan and we'll see how it goes. If it doesn't get there, then I have at least done something of a plan A action before doing something that will make her angry again. I don't want to detail everything he mentioned to me, but it was all very good."

Are you going to follow his advice to expose before Christmas?
This is the perfect time to expose

Additional side note...her psychiatrist (female) recommended HNHN to her during their first session. So I think she is getting this info from multiple sources now, so maybe that might break through at some point. Never know with a wayward mind.

Actually, his full advice was to see if she was willing to "research" HNHN or, even better, talk to him. She's not willing to talk with him (at least not yet), but and is willing to read the book. She also admitted that she thought the concepts in the 5 Love Languages was sound, so I think she will be open to this, but the question of the affair is still an issue. He wants to see if she can make some progress before exposing again, because of the anger that generates. So his advice was to expose if she refused to consider doing the research. He gave me about a week for her to be willing, and she apparently is.

I'm going to be getting back with him, one way or another, to determine where to go from here and when. It was interesting to hear her hang her hat on the fact that while I'm her type, I'm not her ideal type, and that she thinks differently of me since exposure. Fog talk all, but some bits of truth in there...that she is struggling with justifying what she is doing (seems some of my "teaching" moments, reinforced by others, may have seeped through).

Praying for your success!

Found out she had, in her life before me, done some chasing of married men, ans she recognizes that's wrong, but clearly I am dealing with a character flaw

I know it's going to be more of a burden on you, my friend, as I raise this, but my brain never ceases to play "connect the dots".

So, WW chases around after married men before she met you, then married and supposedly went 10 years without scratching that particular itch, until hooking up with exBF.

Maybe so, but not very probable. Unless there is an blatent indicator of a prior dalliance (a couple pulling away from contact, or somesuch), determining the truth in this matter may well have to wait until you have her undergo a poly.

I think you are making a terrible mistake in covering up her affair.
It may only be a matter of time until he comes to town and hooks up with her, or she leaves to visit him.

I'm doing what was suggested for me to do, and I think the reason why is because she was already exposed once. I'll talk to Steve and see if I should still plan to expose his side. Right now, I think he's working on having me set her up in the right frame of mind. She seemed a lot more sympathetic toward us than last time. I'm wondering if the bond with the OM has weakened. She was a lot more agreeable about what would be the best thing for her, but she has problems seeing that.

I'll trust Steve's sense of motivation and see where this goes. Like I said, she has her psychiatrist telling her to use HNHN also, and she trusts her, so we'll see if this breaks through. If 3 months of non-communication with the OM couldn't fully break her free, she's going to need to see a different path and become educated, which I can't do for her. I pretty much plan to expose his side irregardless, but will wait to see what Steve says. Ironically, we had moments where we connected with good laughter during our conversation and she sees the chemistry we still have, so I really don't know how foggy her thinking is right now. It's a lot less than it was, as her behavior has been much more normal during the last month, save the swing in happiness versus depression.

This affair has to die a natural death.
Exposure speeds up the death of an affair.

Since youre working with Steve I'm not going to post anymore suggestions about exposure.
I don't understand why he opposes exposure in your case (which you never really did on the OM side) because Dr Harley always tells people on the Radio Show to expose.

From what I gathered on his thoughts, he's not opposed to it, but since she was already exposed once, I think he's looking at her side possibly being more damage than it's worth IF she is willing to start looking at other possibilities. I think this may be a test of where her mindset is as well. She's still avoiding active communication with the guy, and it's really got to be putting a strain on this affair, and she appears to be really torn up about doing this to the kids.

I think he's going to tell me to expose the OM's side at some point in the near future to kill his end and drive a wedge through this, but I'll wait to find out. If exposure still needs to be done, then I will do it without hesitation. No lack of motivation from me...I want the SOB out of the picture. I did pray to God to help remove him from our situation. I really don't care what happens to the POSOM at this point. We'll see how things go the next few days.

Sounds if Steve was in that room instead of you talking to your WW.

That phone call was the best money you ever sent.

FWIW:

I would not wait to expose OM or OMs side. the only 'consequence' will be to speed up the death of the affair. That's a very good thing.

We also counseled with SH -- AFTER I exposed.

He was very, um...gentle regarding my W and seeing her through the fog/withdrawal. His stance on exposure seemed "softer" than his dad's, but he was supportive of my exposing -- and mine was a bit limited in hindsight -- and his only angle with me was that if I had any other exposing to do, get it done NOW so he could help guide us into recovery.

EXPOSE the OM/OMs side....it'll do wonders for you now (and speaking from experience) down the road when you're in recovery...

Yeah, I think the whole thing really did hit her (exposure through this). I did find out that she was mad at him for letting me and her dad drive him away for 3 months, so he LB'd her (HA...HA!! In my best Nelson voice!). When I talked with Steve he could tell I had done a lot of reading on HNHN, SAA, etc..., and said that I get it. So just telling her what he coached me on, and going a little further along the same guidelines seemed to have clicked.

Right now the real question is if she has de-fogged enough to take the life line and see where it goes. I guess I'll know sometime soon. Steve had me email my progress, but wants to discuss during our next session, which I will likely have either next week or the week after (I have to check his availability). I think I am, ultimately, going to need to at least go nuclear on his end and get him to at least cut off communication for a long period after. She really hates that he does that, and it clearly makes an impact on how she feels.

Steve is great. Wish I had taken up his counsel earlier, but some debt pay downs made it easier to do it now than then.