One of the reasons it is recommended to expose the affair in one fell swoop is so you get this over with so you can move on. By dragging this out, you have to deal with multiple ordeals and make this much harder than it should be. I would strongly encourage you to go tell your kids now and get this over with. If she is already angry, why not make it worth your while?

Who else in your family should be told? What about your own family? Any other close family members?

My parents know, she has not spoke to her father since she was 12 years old, so I would say the only people remaining to be told would be our children.

It is a bit of a strange situation telling now, because I do believe that last time they had physical contact was back in April. At that time she had text the OM and told him she would miss him and thanked him for everything. I continued to monitor the phones, computer, her whereabouts and found no sign of further contact unit August 12Th. When she sent him an email saying she wanted to call him all summer but thought it best that she didn't. This email and me calling the OM's wife is what prompted her to finally tell me the truth about the physical nature of the affair. My wife still maintains that she did not really want to contact him in August but was just checking to see if I was monitoring her email accounts. Again I think there is no more physical meetings between them, but DO NOT believe she is not still missing him.

Your WW was not testing you to see if you were checking up on her.

Your WW felt that enough time had gone bye so she felt it was safe for her to resume her affair with the OM. This affair is still on going. If not actual it is on going in your WW's mind. She is still pining for her OM. She is doing duty sex if you initiate. Though in her way she is still staying faithful to her OM because she will not french kiss you.

Expose to your kids today.

Many people here recommend that the OM's FB friends list be copied and pasted then the BH exposes the affair to the whole list. You need to get the OM so annoyed that messing around with your WW is not worth the hassle. He will be glad to find another WW to have an affair with.

SEJ, I am confused about what this has to do with telling your children? You do realize that your children should be told regardless of the state of the affair?


That is a huge red flag. Is she under the impression that there is something wrong with you checking? You have a right to know everything she says and does.

Are you still snooping on her? I sure hope you are.

She was trying to start up the affair again. I don't know if she is serious now about ending her affair, but she sure was not in August.

At the time of discovery yes she felt there was something wrong with it, it was exactly a week from the day that I purchased HNHN and we started to work through it. That is when she gave me her passwords and she told me about a secret account(which I already knew about from my spyware). To answer your question all of this really has nothing to do with telling our children, just thoughts that are running through my head.

It was probably your contacting the OM's wife that really killed this affair. Many WW's have said that the wife knowing discouraged them from pursuing the OM. With the OMW watching on her end your wife knows she would be busted. That is what likely made her give up on the affair.

But please go tell your kids and get that over with. The longer you let this ride, the harder it will be. Just get it all over with this weekend. Maybe go outside with your kids to play and tell them. Don't drag this out, my friend.

When you tell the kids, be sure and tell the name of the OM and ask if they have ever met him. They should know to contact you immediately if they ever see him.

I will tell them today. Do you believe as I do that my wife is still holding onto thoughts of the OM and that is why although she has improved many things she still is unable to be completely available to me?

I am not really sure about that. She might be holding out for the OM and because of that she might feel she is "betraying" the OM by kissing you. I just don't know. Your wife is hard for me to read. I do know if your kids know about the affair, that will likely dash any future hope she has of pursuing the affair.

If she is thinking of a future with the OM, part of the plot would be to find a way to end your marriage so no one thinks it was because of the affair. That might be why she is seeming to "work on" things with you, so she can say she "tried."

It is a popular tactic of affairees is to pretend the affair is over and act like they are working on their marriages for a while. Then they can say "see, I worked on the marriage for while and it still didn't work, lets get divorced." And the hope is that no one will point to the affair as the reason. She would rather blame YOU and be in a position to tell the kids it was your fault.

This is why it is so important to expose an affair. When an affair is exposed, none of these tactics will work.

QFT.

If this is not in the exposure thread (it's been a while since I read it), it should be added. Many BS's do not understand the importance of this..

She has denied they ever spoke of a future, I also asked this of the OM when I contacted him he said they were just f---ing. Of course when I told her what he said she could not believe he would talk about her like that.

I wouldn't expect her - or him - to tell you if that was the plan. But the fact that she was still pursuing him very recently and she won't kiss you tells me this might be something in her own mind. Either way, telling people about the affair will erase any future hopes she might have. It will help put the nail in the coffin.

It's interesting to speculate what's going on in your WW's mind, and it can lead to some productive thoughts.

At the same time,what she's thinking or not thinking now, has no bearing on your chances of R. Killing the A dead as a doornail and beginning R is how you'll cure the problem, regardless of whether it's Subproblem A or Subproblem B.

Fine to ponder, as long as it doesn't end up being a distraction from what's truly important, or a discouragement. Your chances of R are excellent, so keep on following through with your actions to finish off the A.

Yes we have seen it happen where affair partners keep the passion alive in their heads, even with no contact. Dr Harley has seen affair partners kept successfully apart for many years - only for the wayward to return to the affair partner as much as twenty years later, when the children are grown.

Even if the OM is not interested - it is entirely possible your wife still hopes. In her fantasy of getting back with him she will expect you to help her cover up what happened in the past.

This is for her future plan of introducing him to her children as a new boyfriend post-divorce (a divorce that was either your fault, or nobody's fault). She will not even consider the possibility of you telling them the truth. She does not believe children should be told the truth. Waywards never do. If they did, there would not be any affairs.

That's why exposure to the children is so important. It is actually more their business than it is yours. You can always get another wife - she is their mother for life. They have been somewhat ignored while she had another priority and they probably blame themselves for that confusing period of time. They need to know it wasn�t their fault, and ask for her promise that she will never do it again.

She also needs to know they will never accept an intruder as a replacement for their dad. Not now, and not even later on when they are grown up.

Once the fantasy is bust up by exposure, she will get through withdrawal quicker.

It's actually very sad that she is pining for this user. Exposure and a dose of reality will help her more than anyone, even if she does get angry. But what does she expect? For you to become a liar too?

It's a bit like a toddler getting angry when a soap bubble bursts.

It is so painful.

Just remember that she desired a complete illusion. A made up fantasy. He was lying through his teeth whenever they spoke. So was she. Not only are there no problems, no dirty dishes, no childcare or bills in affairs there is also no truth.

Affairs run on lies and the way to keep the affair running is to invent a personality and just say whatever the other person wants to hear.

However the glaring problem with affairs is they are shamefully embarrassing and degrading. That big problem trumps all the little problems experienced in marriage. After exposure, that big problem is clearly seen and it floods away any pleasure they invented.

That's the good news. that it's easy to bust up illusions using exposure.

Ok I told our children, my wife was so upset that she says is is just done. She slept on the couch last night. When I woke for work this am she came in and told me we needed to talk when I come home for lunch. She says she can't believe I did something so selfish. I had to bite my tongue to keep from having an angry outburst, but is she serious, I'm the one who was being selfish? Her affair was nothing but selfish.

That's a very standard reaction, SE. Keep your cool and be the lighthouse. Show her that no matter what, you will neither lose your temper or apologise for being truthful. Don't get drawn into conversations about it.

It's actually good news because her anger shows you hit the target. You're ruining her pretty fantasy.

I'm afraid her reaction shows just what we all feared. That she was more concerned with protecting her fantasy than being more honest in future.

I'm more interested in your children's reaction?

My oldest daughter seemed the most upset by the information. She was very quiet the rest of the night. I ran her a bath, and then read her a bedtime story and tried to convey that her mother and I are working very hard to fix this, but it was very painful to see her visibly upset. Please God just put my family back together, this is all so difficult.