What is his reason for wanting to keep it a secret? Just explain to him that this is an important first step in recovery. Letting your friends, family and children know gives your marriage the support it needs. The more people who know, the more people to hold you accountable.

And most certainly, the wives of these OM have to be informed. If your husband won't do that, then the job falls to you or perhaps a close friend. These women have to know so they can protect themselves.

...he does not want it exposed, he does not want ANYONE to know. So, what should I do in this situation?

Unfortunately, until he understands the wide-ranging benefits of exposure, you have to abide by his wishes in this matter. (You've already damaged him enough by giving him an "emotional cancer". Though it would be best for his recovery, you can't grab him, slap a mask on him, and subject him to an operation he does not want.)

Your humiliation is not the primary goal of exposure. These are much more the salient reasons for the action:

1) It makes amends in a small way to the spouses of your affair partners. They were injured, and you have the ability to repair some of your damage by pointing out where it occurred.

2) It enlists all your family and circle in keeping an eye on you in the future. This will aid BH somewhat in starting to trust you again.

It is NOT good that BH does not want to pursue exposure, instead wallowing, privately, in his own humiliation. (I know of this effect, as I also failed to exercise a full exposure.) When those sieges of memories, doubts, and resentment re-arise (watch out for d-day plus six months) hee will have no scaffolding of support to turn to, and you, with all your best intentions, will not suffice. (WW: I promise I'll never stray again! BH: You gave me that same promise at our wedding! What else ya got?)

Get him here, regretfull.

(BTW: Much better moniker...)

I would just add that she has an obligation to make sure the OM's wives know whether her husband agrees or not. That is part of extraordinary precautions.

...which again speaks to the importance of having BH join us.

Sneak this idea up on him, regretfull. Suggest he just read some of the content here. When he sees the logic and value of this program, he might want to join us.

I agree.

Both of the OM are M and their BWs are victims also, and have a right to know about the assault on their lives.

What we have in this question about whether to expose is an intersection of two MB principles. It is true that "Extraordinary Precautions" would say to expose, regardless of BH's opposition. However, "Just Compensation" which includes the BS setting parameters about what WS must do for recovery, would say that exposure should NOT occur, if the BS vetoes same.

EPs are vitally important, but haven't the sequential primacy of yielding to the newly bleeding BS's needs/desires in the shakeout after discovery. I could envision BH feeling and saying, "First she betrays my trust, and then she betrays my desires and blabs about my shame." And kid yourself not at all, BHs feel an intense SHAME at their WW's infidelity, at least immediately.

I would hold off on exposure pending BH's acceptance.

There is nothing in Just compensation that would prevent the exposure of the affair to to the other BS's. Nothing. In fact, Dr Harley is quite adamant that the affair be exposed to the other BS.

Perhaps a case could be made to not expose it to the family and friends, but most BS's understand this is a bad idea when we explain it to them. The solution is to get him on board with this idea so their marriage has that support.

And just think, if the affair is not exposed to the other victims, this foggy WS is not going to recover. She can't exactly recover when she compounds the crime by not alerting the other victims.

regretfull,

This statemant has everyone's endorsement:

The solution is to get him on board with this idea so their marriage has that support.

Let's concentrate on that, before all else.

Regretful,

After D-Day about 4 months ago, I was on line with your husbands wishes of not wanting to expose to anyone, except I did expose to his girlfriend immediately. And my wife's family, not mine. Since then, I have exposed to a couple good friends, one who it turns out has been through this. But I have not exposed to my family or anyone outside of the couple friends.

I believe at least having a couple good friends know has provided me with support from those friends in times that I need it. At first, before anyone knew, there was no one to talk to and it resulted in angry outbursts as I kept everything bottled inside with no outside support. My wife would try to help, but it did more harm than good. She was the last one I wanted to see, let alone talk to, at times when I would hit a trigger.

Jennifer talked me into creating at least a small support group.

Fast forward 4 months. It gets a little easier, but the initial shock had me in almost not being able to believe what happened. This is the worse of the pain, and support of some kind is essential to getting through this. As the months pass, the reality of the whole thing starts setting in, and there are still trying times and the support is still needed. Life is going to be day to day for him for quite some time. Still is for me 4 months later. I would highly suggest creating some sort of support system if you want your marriage to have a chance. Without it, mine would of failed without question.

But I agree with NeverGuessed. He absolutely has to be on board. If not, and you go against his wishes, he may just leave without trying, feeling he has been disrespected once again.

And for your marriages sake, reveal EVERYTHING. It WILL come out in time, and the longer it takes for you to reveal anything, the harder it will be for him to regain any sort of trust for you. My wife exposed almost everything until I found out about 1 encounter right before the poly, where they didn't even have sex, but did mess around, and that set me back to the beginning. Knowing I had drilled every question and she still didn't expose one incident that was very small in the grand scheme of what happened. It was the lying, not the encounter, that almost ended any attempt I was willing to try to save our marriage.

It is important to emphasize that when any spouse is reluctant to take any steps towards recovery, be it exposure or ending contact with the OP, the solution is to STAY focused on persuading them to do that, NOT to just give up and say "oh well, he doesn't want to do that." It doesn't work like that. When someone is reluctant to take a step, we stay there until the step is done.

Exposure, for example, is a very important step towards recovery. When couples over on the private forum resist this step, Dr Harley doesn't say "oh well," he tells them to get after it. As in this post:


He wrote in his exposure article:
And this is the very advice he gives to those even in affairs that have ended for the reasons above.

As far as exposure to the wives of these OM, that has to be done regardless. If her BH will not do it, she needs to find a way to do it - ideally - without contacting these couples herself.

here

..any spouse is reluctant to take any steps towards recovery, be it exposure or ending contact with the OP, the solution is to STAY focused on persuading them to do that

Once again, we are banging the same drum, regretfull. Putting it in the easiest terms, the odds of completely affair-proofing your marriage, and giving it the optimal chance to heal, rise dramatically with exposure to the OMW and your family and circle of friends.

Given the unlikelihood of your personally persuading BH of the advisability of consenting to that exposure, your best chance of effecting that change, and accruing the subsequent benefits would be by having your BH join us here.

As for arranging for an accidental or surrogate exposure, given that without some sort of highly specific details to demonstrate competence of the affair story, and such details most certainly leading back to your origination, such a move is highly risky. Instead of investing time in devising such a ruse, you would be much better advised spending that time reviewing and "selling" the MB program to your exposure-resistant BH.

Have you had any success in talking to your BH about MB?

While I do agree that an "accidental" exposure would not be appropriate, [and not something I ever recommended] a very purposeful exposure to the OMW[s] has to be executed regardless of whether her BH agrees or not. That is the obligation of the WS to make certain this is done. THAT exposure is part of extraordinary precautions to prevent another affair and is not negotiable.