Gamma,

Did you email Dr. Harley?

BH,

Did you email Dr. Harley?

Need an audience with OM2 first.

God Bless
Gamma

Dude, you are SO FAR off-track that you wouldn't recognize the "better marriage path" if you tripped over it!

But, in full disclosure, I'll keep reading this thread for the entertainment potential!

So, are you into Self Torture or what?

I don't get it.

...living in the past = Nothing good.

I can only speak for myself, but my affair ended over five years ago and if my H started asking for details such as times, places, a play-by-play of exactly what happened, I definitely wouldn't be able to remember everything. Five years have passed after all, and my memory just isn't that good.

I have no idea how you would expect your wife to remember every single detail of everything that happened twenty years ago. I would never be able to do that.

What's the point anyway? You know the important stuff. You know she had a relationship with someone other than you, which really wasn't an affair since you weren't even married yet when this relationship occurred. You know in the end that she chose you over him.

Why do you constantly need to pick at old scabs Gamma? What on earth do you hope to accomplish by doing that?

Didn't you already get enough of an audience with him?

Why is this necessary before you write Dr. Harley, especially if one of the questions he might answer is this one about talking with OM2? It's like you're giving pre-marriage OM control. If you manipulate another situation to bump into him, you'll start looking like a stalker.

Gamma,

I don't understand this.

Why the hesitation on contacting Dr. Harley?

Writer1,

I have no idea how you would expect your wife to remember every single detail of everything that happened twenty years ago. I would never be able to do that.

I'm not asking W to REMEMBER EVERYTHING, but at this time W claims to have FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING, even everything she told me before.

I don't know if it was kissing/oral/etc, I have a very difficult time believing she could have forgotten what kinds of activities happened.

Yes I believe if oral then she might not remember was it 11 or 13 times, or that she put on lipstick for him, or etc.

What's the point anyway? You know the important stuff. You know she had a relationship with someone other than you, which really wasn't an affair since you weren't even married yet when this relationship occurred. You know in the end that she chose you over him.

I think this is called radical honesty.

LOL no one gave me a single sentence of "what to say to OM2"!

God Bless
Gamma

If your wife already told you what happened previously, why do you feel the need to continuously rehash this for the rest of your life?

And what part of Dr. Harley's plan includes taking your wife to meet with the OM after 20 years?

Know very little about the whole episode. I do not know the OM name. So as you can see I never met the OM let alone seen him or a photo of him.

So your WW cheated on you with OM2 while you were dating her? I don't remember, you found out before or after you married WW?

That is because even if I could come up with the best questions for you to ask the OM. There is no guarantee that the OM would be honest and give you the full truth.

TR,

Know very little about the whole episode. I do not know the OM name. So as you can see I never met the OM let alone seen him or a photo of him.

And your W thinks that should sit well with you? He could be living in your neighborhood. Can you get her a polygraph?

So your WW cheated on you with OM2 while you were dating her? I don't remember, you found out before or after you married WW?

Yes while I was dating her, if it had be before I was dating her I would not have been bothered in the least, she never broke up with me either not even once.

She told me about it before we got married, actually from her emotional state I think she was dumped by OM for his now W, but never gave me the complete story, only fragments.

God Bless
Gamma

Basically, this wasn't an affair. It happened before you got married. She told you about the relationship with this other man after the relationship ended and you chose to marry her anyway. What's the problem?

I did not find out about my husband's first affair for 22 years; I did not find out that he had a ONS for 18 years and I did not find out that his third affair was physical for 4 years. Yes, I know "the important stuff," but I do best when I know DETAILS. Many of the details were lost over the decades; there are things that I NEED to know that I will NEVER know. I have been able to "let go" of the things I know and understand; the things I can never know haunt me, a quarter of a century after they happened.

A polygraph will not help, as my husband genuinely doesn't remember and my questions are not all "polygraph-able."

Also, I had an opportunity to speak with OW #3 while the affair was active, and I did not. I regret my silence/lack of courage to this day.

Now, I can't speak to her because it would be "contact."

So, I'm left to play the part of Joseph in the parable of the incomplete puzzle. My husband completed the puzzle, but tossed it away years ago, and now a significant number of pieces are forever missing or destroyed.

To continue the symbolism, I have enough pieces to realize the puzzle is a mountain, but I have no idea what characteristics the mountain has.

I think those of us who find out about affairs after many years have issues that not everyone shares, as we can never get the radical honesty many of us need and can never be sure where genuine forgetting ends and convenient forgetting begins.

No advice, Gamma, but I think I get what you are going through.

Best wishes -

BV

BV,

The difference is, Gamma's wife didn't have an affair. They weren't even married when this other relationship happened. And she told him about it before he married her. He decided to marry her anyway. Now, twenty years later, he wants to continually rehash an issue that should have been laid to rest decades ago. He obviously had enough information to go ahead and marry his wife and build an entire life with her. I'm just curious as to why he continues to dig up these closet skeletons after so much time has passed. I have no idea what he's hoping to accomplish by doing this. It certainly goes against everything Dr. Harley advises about not constantly bringing up the affair.

Gamma, two of the things that spouses owe each other are CARE and PROTECTION. Your petty little game of "Gotcha!" with your wife flies in the face of both of those.

This exercise was immature, cruel and damaging to your wife and your marriage.

You need not tell me you disagree with me; sadly, your twisted view of what you are "owed" has evidently rendered this action acceptable to you. More's the pity......

There is a movie that came out in the 90's called Strange Days that is about a drug dealer... the drug he deals is called "playback." It is used by one person attaching a device to their head which records all of their sensory input during an event. The "user" attaches the device to their head, and plays back the event, feeling everything the recording subject felt during the experience.

The dealer has a box of tapes he made while with his ex-girlfriend - even though she has left him for another man, he kept the tapes and plays them back continuously. He is paralyzed and unable to move on.

This really, really fits a part of why not talking about the affair, and no contact for life are so important.

Memory requires context for recall, and that context often has to come from the present somehow.

3 years in, I don't particularly remember what the OM looks like - I know general features, but I don't have a clear picture to recall.

So, any triggers are whatnot are somewhat blunted by the fact that I don't have a clear picture of his face anymore.


Going back to the movie, there is a point where the dealer, Lenny, is confronted by a friend about his addiction;

"Memories are supposed to fade, Lenny. They're built like that for a reason."

Stop the playback.

Cheating is cheating. You are in an exclusive relationship and you date someone else that is cheating.

To argue about that it is not an affair, not infidelity, because you were not married is baloney.

You promised and were promised exclusivity.

Just hiding behind words that ending an un born child's life is abortion not murder.

Actually, according to Dr. Harley, cheating before marriage is not considered an affair. He has stated that on numerous occasions. True exclusivity in a relationship only comes after the marital vows are taken. Prior to that, when dating, people are free agents. In fact, Dr. Harley encourages singles to date a lot of people, since that is the best way to figure out exactly who meets your needs the best and who you would like to spend the rest of your life with.

Dr Harley is right that people should date as many people as they like.

However once people decide to be exclusive then the are no longer free agents. The commitment is not for life but a commitment was made to be monogamous.

When the time to end such a relationship they are free to do so. It will be upsetting to the dumpee. Though the dumper never made a life time commitment. The Dumper did commit and pledge to be faithful for the whole length of the relationship.

However they are not free to start dating others before they end their committed relationship. That is cheating, unfaithful, infidelity, betraying, and any other word that means they cheated on their beloved.

**EDIT**