That is good news.
Put a bow on the Doug's collar!

Check the links Melody gave you.



This is your shot Lost.

You have to kill this A off.

Even if the school peeps might try to turn a blind eye at adultery, when one of their teachers is committing adultery with a felon, they'll have no choice but to pay attention.

Mel has some great exposure letters. In addition to detailing OM's record, I would suggest adding this bit. "For my wife's sake, and the sake of the good reputation of the school, I hope this situation can be handled administratively. However, with something so important at stake as the safety of numerous children, if no action is taken, I will have no choice but to take this information to the community as a whole."

The threat of having a flock of irate mothers and fathers descending on them, demanding to know why a dangerous felon is connected to the school their precious babies attend, ought to give the administrators some serious pause.

GREAT news about the incarceration! Why can't more OM/OW be locked up???

Here from the Exposure 101 thread is your workplace exposure letter.

I know I am going to get a rash of crap for saying this but I am going to say it. After finding this out and having OM out of the picture for three months I really feel exposing to work I s bad idea now and will only backfire.

I feel like this is my best window for Plan A and reconciliation. I don't want to anger WS anymore during this time I want to draw her back paint the picture that the door is still open. I think Plan A should be at its strongest right now.

I am thinking about sending another dozen roses to her work this week. If I do on the card I am going to say, "Because I love you, Because you are my best friend, Because we can get through this. Always Will!

I am also going to send another text this afternoon about her keeping our dog this weekend. "Hey WS, just wanted to see if you wanted to keep "Dog" this weekend. You don't have to watch him here and I can leave a key for you if you would like. Just let me know for sure so I can make other arrangements if not. Thanks."

L&S

It's ok - we all have our limits. Personally, I don't think your at that point of desperation yet - and that's ok.
Your not going to get any crap from me because I understand - I feared my wife's anger. I feared her reaction. I wanted her to only see me as the good guy. I felt I would loose her to the OM if I ruffled too many feathers. I felt I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. It took me 2 1/2 months to expose to her workplace - but I did it only because I was desperate. The fear of her anger, the fear of a divorce, the fear of loosing her forever, the fear of her never loving me again, the fear of not reconciling was far less than my desperation of ending the affair.

While the roses and an invitation to watch your dog is very generous and transparent, but this is what you can expect:

1. The roses will be delivered, but the message will not be received - she is not in a place to accept any acts of love from you.

2. She won't watch your dog. If she does it will be to gain entry into your house and obtain whatever sensitive documents she may need - it's why you are trying to coerce her by "leaving a key".

This is not a prediction, but a fact:
When you return from the weekend, you will notice things missing - if not personal documents, it will be items from your home.

The affair will not end. Because he is locked away, the distance and forced separation will create an even deeper longing in your wife for him. The 90 day sentence actually creates a locus of focus (a point of focus if you will) which they can rally around and support each other. She will (and this is a guarantee) visit and support him, talk to him, provide financial support for him while THEY are going through this disaster together.

Your username is very appropriate lost_scared. You are definitely lost and scared. I deeply urge you during these next 3 months while you don't expose the affair to buy and read Surviving an Affair. It will help you immensely. It not only gives you a direct path to recovering after an affair and the best shot to getting your marriage back on track - it also details why you are doing what you are doing and why your wayward wife is doing what she is doing. More importantly it details what doesn't work and why. The "why's" is very important.

Best of luck.

From a former poster named, Chrisner.

Does the 3rd from last paragraph sound familiar?

LTL



Quote:
It�s interesting how many men react to their wife�s adultery with such trepidation and fear. They simple don�t understand the dire emergency and threat adultery is to their marriage. It�s always about the fear of their wife. Fear of her anger. Fear of �pushing her further away�. Fear of losing their precious adultery stained marriage and perhaps if they do nothing it will all go away and maybe they won�t even get a disease.

In other critical situations most men will act quickly and decisively. A sort of intuitive understanding to �assault the ambush� mentality. Don�t hide behind a stump until they pick you off. Charge! Hey, they might get you anyway but at least you have a chance. Right?

For example you are up in Alaska and suddenly are confronted by a Kodiak bear. And he�s hungry. This also qualifies as a dire emergency and threat.

Fortunately you are carrying a .300 ultra magnum caliber Remington Model 700 BDL rifle with a 26 inch barrel and gloss walnut grips and your collection of trophies from NRA competitions in you den back home indicate you know how to use it.

The 1,400 lb. bear wipes away his drool and charges.

What-ya gonna do Bubba? Negotiate? Hide behind a stump? Not likely.

But when your 125 lb. adulterous wife tells you �If you (fill in the blank with an action that stands up to her adultery), I am going to stomp my feet and put on a super pout!�, you assume your fetal position on the floor of the guest room.

�You�re right honey. I�m sorry. I just don�t want to push you further away. I�ll be in the guest room if you need me for anything as soon as I'm done arranging the flowers I bought you.�

I don�t know guys. This gets embarrassing sometimes.

Where has all the testosterone gone?

I totally understand your reason for not exposing. I also totally disagree with that course of action.

Exposure is such a powerful weapon that if I had known to use it early on in the A (I only found MB toward the end), I could have killed it so much sooner, and saved myself months of heartache and stress. It was so powerful that it continued to rock the affairees after the A itself was.

We recovered from the bomb of exposure, where we would never have R'd from the A until it was over. Had much more time gone by, I wouldn't have wanted to R anyway.

Even though I did an amazing job dealing with the A, I wasn't perfect. Now that I have the value of hindsight, I do my best to help other BS's avoid some of the pitfalls I blundered into.

Which is why I vote expose, and soon.

I'd advise you to toss this nuke in NOW, and have 90 days with no OM around to let the fallout land, and for WW to see what it's like trying to date an incarcerated felon while facing the disapproval of others.

Meanwhile with you doing a stellar Plan A.

I think you're underestimating the strength of the A, and taking a trowel to a gunfight. Exposure is still your best bet to level the odds.

Lol, if that Kodiak charges, and you look down and see a Remington in one hand, and a butter knife in the other, are you going to pick the butter knife so you don't provoke him?

The thing people need to get is that making their WS angry does not mean that they made a mistake.

Very true! In fact, the angrier my wife got I realized that I was doing the right thing - with respect to exposure, and reconciliation.

Anger is progress over full withdrawal.

The sad truth is that I can admit now that i was like lost_scared - I was afraid of my wifes anger. I'm not proud of that fact - but I honestly cannot tell you what specific thing I feared. I wish that I had found this forum sooner. I wish I would have followed what I read and understood to be true right away.

I look back and I realize that my goal of getting my wife back wasn't the main goal - it was a hybrid of her not being angry and accepting me again. Sad. The key was waking myself of up and remembering that I had a spine.

Lost_scared will get there. I have faith he will. So long as he reads Surviving an Affair - he will get there.

You guys are totally right I am scared right now. I fear so many things that might happened if I do something. I am an over thinker. I think about everything and the consequences before I react. I have always been like this. This is why I was on the fence about my first exposure and this one.

I am not saying it is a bad thing it has kept me out of a lot of trouble in my life, but it has always been an issue for me. I have faith I will get to that point where I can stand up for myself again. It is just hard when I think about how many love bank withdrawals this is going to cause.

I need more deposits so we can get on at least speaking terms again. I just have to muster up the courage to do it. I hope I do before its too late.

One of my fears is that I don't have enough time to break through to WS. WS has already filed for D and I have taken the paper to my lawyer. He said he will drag his feet for me. But I feel like I should be making more deposits than withdrawals at this point. This is exactly how I reacted to my first exposure.

I finally grew a pair and did it though. I hope I can this time as well.

L&S

Look at it like this.

As you stand right now, there is little chance at recovery.

Because the A is still ongoing.

And

Recovery can't happen until the A is dead.

You could make a strong argument for yourself on non exposure if your plan was to wait for the A to die a natural death.

Which is typically 2 years, a far cry from 90 days.

But from the sounds of it your WW has filed D and wants this all to be done with as quick as possbile.

So we don't have that two year time frame.

Exposure helps speed that general 2 year window up as fast as possible.

It (exposure) can only help you at this point.

If you would buy Surviving an Affair and read it you would know that you can't make any love bank deposits to get on talking terms while she is actively having an affair. Ending the affair is the only way to enable you to make love bank deposits. (it even will take some time after her withdrawal for that to happen).

Buy the book and read it - your actions, though well intentioned, are actually uninformed. Recovering after an affair is not intuitive - you can't think your way out of it.

I totally agree. The exposure is the only thing that can help him right now - because it will snap her back into reality and out of the fog. No flowers, text messages with promises of keys to watch a dog, or long session of logical discussion can help him.

But, its his decision. This will all be over and moot in a few months and good learning process for future relationships.

I waffled like you are doing.

I didn't know this program, but i have seen how it shakes an affair up from reading every thread from beginning to end over the past 4 months.

When i bought flowers for my W while she was in Withdrawal and likely a current A, she complained to a neighbor that, "The A-Hole Just Doesn't Get It".

My continuous acts of affection wound up being unwanted pursuit and probably caused LB Withdrawals in her mindset.

Stop doing what is Not working and try the tactics suggested by those wiser veterans.

Anger IS better than Withdrawal.

LTL

What is it that you fear? That she'll file for D? She's already done that.

Are you afraid that she was just playing around, filing for D, and if you make any noise, she might go forward with it? Lost, she has filed to divorce you.

And now you're thinking "If I'm agreeable and don't get demanding, she might change her mind." Lost, she has filed for divorce! She's already dropped the bomb!

I'm sorry, but I can't remember - did you expose the affair? Is it too late to expose? NEVER. You have an 11th hour salvo you can throw into your WW's affair. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO? WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN'T AFRAID?

Dude, your marriage has an adulterous cancer within it.

• The operation to remove the cancer is difficult, painful, and not 100% certain to succeed.
• The prognosis of NOT taking action is a long, lingering, agonizing death.

What will you choose, friend?