You mean it is going to stress *YOU* all out to expose to the OM's wife? It is going to depress *YOU* to expose to the OM's wife because it will interfere with your affair.

BECAUSE I considered the infidelity stuff behind us. You know, some people don't even believe in emotional affairs. I'm not trying to belittle the damage that they inflict on a relationship because I am fully aware of how it changes the mind and affects one's feelings for their significant other, but it's not something that is talked about except on forums like this. I don't even know if our counselors understand it.

Also? I'm just learning about MB's too. I will keep reading here and try to get a better understanding. I know that absolute zero contact is the best case scenario. I know that drinking is bad for me. I'm doing the best I can. Geesh. Why so hateful? I can get that from the other forum.

No.

The number one boundary is: NO CONTACT with your former lover for LIFE. It's non-negotiable.

Because you wanted to continue your affair by sweeping it under the rug.


There is no "best case scenario;" there is recovery and there is failure to recover.

No, you are not doing the best you can when you place your affair with this OM before your marriage. No, you are not doing the best you can when you make excuses to avoid talking to your husband and gaining his alliance in telling the OM's wife the truth. You are not doing your best when you connive to keep the OMW oblivious to your affair.

Is it a coincidence that both forums are trying to tell you the same thing? Don't you think it's worth listening when an army of people are trying to tell you something?

This 'friendship' is a cancer in your marriage. Clearly your husband doesn't understand the threat because if he did, he's snap into action and inform the OM's wife and push for complete no contact for life.

This program won't work if you're in love with someone else. You can lie to yourself and your husband and the OM's wife but it's clear to see...you're in love with this toad.

You have been on the forum today for TEN HOURS making excuses about why you can't end your affair. In that time, you could have written out the truth for the OWM, asked your husband to call her and written and mailed a no contact letter to your OM. AND sat quietly while your husband exposed your affairs to your kids.

But continuing your "inappropriate relationship" [aka AFFAIR] was more important than taking the necessary steps to recover your marriage. You have spent 10 hours defending your affair today.

Oh. My. Goodness. I am not defending an affair! I'm just a little taken aback by the barrage to expose, expose, expose, when I thought this whole issue was behind us. I was not prepared for this.

The only way for you to wake up and really start working on your marriage is for you to tell the whole world what you've done so you can STOP minimizing it. Bring your misdeeds into the light so that your family can heal and you can heal.

you don't want to bring it to the light because:
a. you don't want it to end
and
b. everyone would be horrified and you'd have to get a lot more honest with yourself and everyone around you.

But you were prepared to produce endless excuses about why you can't end your affair and expose it. So far, all I see here is an agenda to protect the status quo.

We seem to be in disagreement with the semantics of the word "affair". I don't consider myself to be involved in an affair because I'm not sneaking around and I'm not spending time with him alone.

The issue of exposure. I told my husband about my transgressions as well as our pastor. That was SIX months ago! Forgive me if it seems odd to go back and revisit all of this now.

I also dropped out of our small group at church which we were apart of together. I have to face people in church every week. So you see, there WAS fall out for my bad choices.

An issue on the other forum is the NC length of time, and yes, that I still see him to this day. I'm guessing this is because of how it messes with my brain and the whole dopamine theory.

But I wasn't trying to deceive anyone here about an ongoing affair and I'm not trying to be devious about keeping him in my life. I was honest when I said that he has been a huge support to me during some tough times and I didn't want our friendship to end.

I have considered moving away from everyone to solve the problem, but that would not be right, especially for my kids. I only recently made a decision to stand and fight for my marriage. I still waiver on that, because look at the odds! It doesn't look good. But it seemed like the path God wanted me to be on which eventually lead me to seek more information here.

In order to recover from your affair, no contact needs to be strictly observed. You can't continue your affair and just change the name to "friendship." Recovery of your marriage is impossible unless all contact ends for life. And the way to make sure that happens is with the aide of both the betrayed spouses. They both have to know. Your kids need to know and your family needs to know. You have a serious cheating problem, Madam, and the more people who know, the more people to hold you accountable.

I accept that you didn't know all this morning, but you know it now.

So what are your next steps? Are you going to take a serious approach or are you going to continue to waste our time?

You already knew this was a problem and came here in the hopes we would be too stupid to know it was a problem. This is why you minimized it and glossed it over.

That didn't work for you, did it?

I don't care WHAT you call it. STOP DOING IT.

Well, because I obviously didn't agree with them either about the no contact and didn't consider it an issue. I felt like it was something I could handle.

I was here specifically for information about the MB tools because we already have the His Needs Her Needs book from our marriage counselor and because it has been highly recommended by people on the other forum too. There is a lot of information on this site and it goes deep. Sometimes I think it's helpful to ask specific questions, which I did. And that lead me to this point, unfortunately. And now I'm in the Surviving an Affair section and that's taking me way off of the course I was on last night.

You are now ON COURSE; you are in the right forum. If you are serious about saving your marriage, you need be reading Surviving an Affair. The steps to affair proof your marriage have to be taken BEFORE you can start on His Needs, Her Needs.

You are in the correct forum. You need to end your affair FIRST and affair proof your marriage. That has not happened yet.

Okay, I need to think about all of this. I will read some more of the articles here. We also have counseling on Wednesday.

I assume you all won't help me with any of the other stuff - the questionnaire's, etc., unless I do exactly as you say regarding the NC and exposure.

And somehow, all of the other issues in my marriage got lost in this mess... I still don't trust my husband. He's a loose cannon.

That's right. Your marriage has to be affair proofed FIRST before recovery can begin. That stays on the front burner until it is resolved.


The other issues are not lost. The most important issues are being addressed FIRST.

We can give you what you want: a romantic, passionate marriage, but you are going to have to take this program seriously. Corner cutting will avail you exactly nothing.

If you will work hard and do the right things, you will get ALOT of support here. I will be the president of your fan club!!

Please read. What is an Affair?

I wish we knew the BWs names so we can tell them the truth about their WH's affairs. So they aren't living in a life full of lies.