Good job.

You've taken the step to get fantastic advice. Please let us know when he answers you.

You have opened a door to an opportunity to make your life a happy one.

TheRoad,

Even calling him OM3 is not the best label. Your mind is out of control. From the little you said about OM3, divorced, shows up with new woman to talk about old affair, wants to blow your WW a kiss, all paints a bad picture of him. This shows your efforts to uncover the truth are not worth it.

My W was the one who mentioned OM3 some time ago, and then in a rare moment of honesty and understanding asked me which one of "them", the four OM, bothered me the most. It was physically and emotionally painful for my W to ask that question as is any admission of any kind of guilt or error.

I really don't know if OM had feelings for my W back then or not, but the evidence is weird and points to a continuing attraction by OM3 for my W.

OM3 didn't want to "blow my W a kiss", he leaned in through the car window to give her one, after he walked out of the coffee shop with me to my car where my W was sitting listening to music.

Have you gotten her a poly? Do that then put it to rest.

That may be in the future.

You dragging around your WW to meet XOM's. You would be better off once you have WW in the car to drive straight to a polygraph test.

This was a random meeting and not planned and executed like the last one.

If I could meet or call my wife's OM and I knew that he was to give me the whole truth.

So ask around your WWs family they know who he is and have been keeping it from you for years.

God Bless
Gamma

Gamma,

I remember it that you engineered a run in with the one you call OM2.

Regardless, with chances of meeting OMs so high it sounds like you should move away from there, move away from these triggers.

TheRoad, I've been waiting to read what your reaction is to what Dr. Harley said in response to your email. What do you think about his advice?

This what I wrote to Dr Harley:


Dr Harley,

33 years ago my wife and I separated. There was no affairs. I was having confidence issues. Eventually we divorced. Then we remarried. During the year and a half we were apart my wife met her OM. I did not know she was seeing anyone until I asked her to give us another go. She was not confident that I would stick around and did not want to give up her OM.

She agreed to come back but said not to ask or talk about her relationship with the OM. I asked why, did you go out long with him, do anything that I would not like. She said not long and did nothing with him that would upset me. Did I need the internet and MB back then.

So I never got to even know the OM's name.

Every three to four years for about the next 24 years my wife would do something that would bring up the past. A jewelry gift from the OM would resurface. My wife reconnected with the GF that introduced her to the OM. That friendship lasted
maybe six months. Her GF dropped her. According to my wife because I would not accept her GF into our life.

So every three to four years I would get trickle trothed. Over time the stories have changed. I would guess that she can not remember the damage control material. During the last trickle truth session it was admitted that they had sex once. I thing they went out for at least one year and do not believe the one time of sex.

It has been six years since the last trickle truth session. My wife has threatened to leave me if I ever talk about the past again. She claims it was not an affair. Though separated we were still married when see started seeing the OM. She ignores that.

I do not want to divorce my wife.

I am not mad at my with for her relationship with the OM. My separation put the wheels into motion.

Though I can not live not knowing the truth. I still do not know how the OM was. The real truth to how their relationship started or ended. No knowledge of the timeline. The OM's jewelry gift kept reappearing for 24 years until I taped it onto a rock and threw it into the ocean in front of my wife.

Years back I tried to explain that what has happened is old news for you and you have been able to leave it in the past. I have been not been able to leave it in the past because of all the mini D days. I have been left trying to figure out what happened. So how can I forget when everyday is a potential day to try and figure what happened.

At this point I am wanting to give her a copy of Joseph's Letter.

I can not rest without knowing everything.

So how can I get my wife to tell me all that happened?







Today

I know they are short for time in that the Dr and his wife have a lot of people reaching out to them for help. So they need to paraphrase the letters that are sent in. There is a WW recently posting on MB again. She has been separated from her BH. He now has a GF. She wants to recover her marriage. She may not hear from the Harley's until Monday. I understand her anguish. Constantly asking for help. It is coming in slow and not much advice that she can use. I would of gladly given up my spot for her because I have waited so long what is another week.

Though in listening to Joyce set up my story she made it sound as if I have been questioning my wife everyday for the last 24 years. That was not the case. I know I am not a skilled writer. Every new D day was brought about by my wife doing something to cause it to happen. There would be a 1 hour talk one evening. Clarification on what was said in the past and a crumb of new info. The questions were very hard for me to ask and hard for my wife to answer.

The jewelry when found again about 20 years from the first time. My wife said she would get rid of it. I said no. You got rid of it at least 4 times already. I am getting rid if it and I will make shore that we will never see it again. So we drove down to the beach and I threw it in the ocean in front of her. My wife walked off the beach as if we had done the right thing.

Side story. The first time we drove to the beach it was near dusk and the beach was closed the state worker said I can't let you in. I said we only need a minute. The worker then said, the park police comes and finds you they will give you a ticket. This happened in the fall. So the jewelry, taped to a rock, sat in my desk draw for about 6 months till the spring.

I then told my wife we have to get to the park and get rid of the jewelry. She acted surprised. Oh that. I thought that you had gotten rid of it already. I told her when was the last time we got to the ocean. You know that you or I have not been back there since the fall. I got the oh I did not think about it. I thought that you probably took care of it. So we went to the beach. If not that evening then with in a day or so.

So I felt that the Harley's did not get a good feel for my story. It would of been better to of given them my number but I do not know if I could of talked live VS write.

I asked about using Joseph's Letter. They did not address that.

I will have to listen again to the broadcast.

I can not see myself being able to handle asking every question in one sitting. I can not see not asking new questions based on learning new information. I can not see me re asking questions to see if I get the same answers.
Or not commenting on the answers impacts. Or a day or week later something new pops up and I realize that there is another must ask question.

Sitting all these years has left me wondering with to many who, what, where, why, when, and how questions. Then depending on those answers a whole new set of questions is ready to roll. I can see myself using a whole Saturday day and evening just asking about her GF's part in this mess.

The Harley's have said that tell her that I can not put this to rest without knowing what happened. I ma do as they suggest and write it. I gave her a long letter along those lines after the last D day. That is how I got the it was only one time that they did it.

I think I heard in Dr Harley's pause in his voice when he mentioned that sex was only one time, was him saying it was more then once but a good counselor knows better to not put gasoline on a fire. Funny, that the first time my wife said they did nothing that would upset me. I buried my doubts and believed her.

Then years later when it was just oral. I buried my doubts again. Then at the last time it was just once. I sort of buried those doubts again. Though I did not do as good of a job of burying at the last time as the other times before.

This time I know they had to of done everything there is and more times then they can remember. Asking to confirm what I know is hard.

Then with all of the trickle truth before how am I to ever know that I have been given the whole truth now from my wife? Even if my wife said they did it 100 times. Showed me motel receipts. How do I know my wife is only showing me half the receipts? How do I know they did another 100 times in his house?

I think I have lost my ability to bury any more of my doubts. My wife has told me that there was no more to tell to many times in the past for me to believe her then next time she says those words.

You can't get or make your wife tell you everything. Are you able to drop it and work on making a great marriage, or are you unable to drop it? If you are unable to drop it and you stay, you will have a miserable marriage and life. Those are your choices. What's your decision? I think Dr. Harley understood you quite well. I think his advice would remain the same even if you gave him a more in-depth explanation.

I listened to the show and took notes. This is my summary of what was said. First, I'll say that the email that Joyce read out loud was not identical to the one you wrote here. It was not a summary - it was just different in minor areas. Once it was read, these were the recommendations:

Dr H said that he encourages radical honesty between spouses, as can be seen by the fact that he has created a Personal History questionnaire for them to complete as part of the MB programme.

He said that it needs to be established whether being given this knowledge is a deal breaker for you. He said that you seem obsessed (but I don't think he was rebuking you when he said this; rather, he meant that you have been unable to let this go for over 24 years). Dr H said that his recommendation was for your wife to tell you what you have asked, but if she says "I'm not going to do that", you have a choice about whether to fall on your sword. Either you let it go and say "I'm never going to bring this up again", or you can separate from her.

(This is where I feel a clearer email from you would have been beneficial. if you had stressed that your wife has told you that she will leave you if this subject comes up again, and that you have no wish to call her bluff on this and no wish to separate, Dr H could then have addressed the issue of whether this knowledge is crucial to the success of the marriage.)

Joyce pondered whether your wife would be agreeable to a one-time 'getting it all out' session. Dr H suggested that rather than do this in a conversation, your wife write down the answers to your questions. She should tell you who the man was, what went on (by which I think he meant such things as trips away together and nights in hotels, rather than the details of sexual activities), and given that you mentioned the OM giving her jewellery, what other kinds of expressions of love were given. Joyce suggested that your wife might agree to write this out if, in advance, you make an agreement that your wife will write the details, give them to you and you will not act on them. You will not discuss them ever and you will not hunt down OM and try to sort things out with him. Would she tell if you if there were to be no repercussions from doing so?

However, Joyce asked - should you really commit to doing this? What if OM was still in your lives? What if he was your pastor or someone else close?

Dr H said that this was possibly behind your wife's reluctance to talk. She knows that a mess has already been created and, if OM is still somehow in your lives, she fears an even bigger mess when this is revealed. Dr H's answer to this was that if OM was gone from your lives, your wife should have nothing to fear by the revelations.

Joyce ended the segment by saying that if your wife feels that her perspective has not been taken into account on the show, she should email them to put her point of view.

Thanks SugarCane for the summary. I will post the clip as soon as it hits the archives.

TheRoad, what do you think?

I said above that I thought perhaps your email had not brought out the crux of the problem: your wife has threatened to leave you if you ever bring this up again. My own belief is that she she remembers everything that you want to ask her about, and she refuses to talk about it. I think Dr H understood very well the "Joseph's letter" view that you hold, and he did give you options for dealing with your need to know.

Dr Harley did not deal with your wife's refusal at length, but he did deal with it. He said that if she won't tell you what you want to know, you can either let it go, or you can separate from your wife.

I think you know the risk you face if you push this to its limits. If your wife won't tell you any more than she has done, and you threaten to separate from her, she might tell you, but she might also let you leave and never ask you to come back. If you separate from her, then she has the opportunity to think about whether she really wants her marriage badly enough to tell all, and if she has any problems in the marriage, then this might just be the push she needs to end it.

You cannot make your wife tell you what you need to know, and I very much doubt you can corner her into telling you by conducting a survey of FWWs on forums and presenting her with the figures. You can try once more to get it, with the promises that Joyce suggested - that you will not act on the information and you will never bring it up again. You can put your request in a letter and you can ask for her response to be written also, if you like. You can make the circumstances as comfortable as possible for your wife and hope that she has the compassion to see the torture you have been living with for 24 years, but there are no guarantees.

If she refuses still to give details, and if, as you have said before, you will not separate from her, then you have to look at the marriage you have and make it as loving and as affair-proofed as possible.

Are you and your wife spending nearly all your time together? I think you said somewhere that you are not in full-time work. Is she at home too? Your children must surely be off your hands, even if they are at home. Do you use your freedom from parental responsibilities to meet the intimate ENs and lead a fully integrated life? Alternatively, are you living fairly independent lives, in which there would be the opportunity for her to have a relationship with another man?

If your marriage is fulfilling (or you can make it so, by changing your lifestyle in the ways recommended by Dr H) and if you don't think there is room for her to be having an affair, then it is in your interest to let the past go, if she won't talk. If you don't want to end the marriage over this then you are ruining your marriage by keeping this issue on the front burner as a problem to be solved. You need to let it go.

You sound quite unhappy about what you feel was the incomplete advice given, so you should write to Dr H again, clarifying that you would like to know how to deal with the problem given that she has said she will not talk about it and will leave if you bring it up, and given that you don't want to leave her.

Here is TheRoad's question.

Radio Clip of TheRoad's question

BH,

Interesting that Dr. Harley mentioned that because of who the OM is, still somehow in their life or nearby, theroads wife is keeping the secret. This is something I've personally felt theroads wife uses as a justification for her silence.

I think this is part of the reason my W will not confess, she is terrified of what I might do to OM, and she feels a great deal of guilt whenever she wrongs someone outside the family.

God Bless
Gamma

I still can't believe that you did such a destructive, stupid thing, Gamma. You placed the man who, before you were married, hurt your wife - whom you claim to love - right in front of her face and made her speak to him. Quite apart from the risk to your marriage, that was an unspeakably cruel thing to do.

If my husband ever sought out a man with whom I had a relationship before marriage, which by definition ended because it was not good enough to lead to marriage, and made me see him again, there would be MAJOR love bank withdrawals, leading to who knows what level of marital breakdown.

Not to mention, why would you want to "ambush" your wife? The one who is supposed to be your partner? The one you have promised to care for?
I agree with SugarCane, I would feel horribly betrayed by this action if my husband did this to me...

SugarCane,

Quite apart from the risk to your marriage, that was an unspeakably cruel thing to do.

What about my Ws silence on what happened in that relationship, in fact she now admits to less than before, is that cruel?

If my husband ever sought out a man with whom I had a relationship before marriage, which by definition ended because it was not good enough to lead to marriage, and made me see him.

I've never pressed my W about relationships before we dated, but this relationship was while she dated me. OM knew W was dating me too, and had been a co-worker of mine.

God Bless
Gamma

Catwhit,

I would feel horribly betrayed by this action if my husband did this to me...

Did you date or have relations with someone else while you dated your H?

God Bless
Gamma

Dr. Harley talks quite a bit about how he and Joyce dated other people and broke up numerous times. It is OK when you aren't married because you haven't taken a vow of exclusivity. Is this hard to understand? Now, fornication is wrong on its own, but since you were not married, you really can not claim that the wrong was directed against you. There is a big difference between a dating commitment and a marriage.

MrEureka,

It is OK when you aren't married because you haven't taken a vow of exclusivity. Is this hard to understand?

This may be true, however there is also the fact that my W did not reveal what happened before we got married, and has essentially lied to me about it up until this day. Had I known the truth I might not have married my W.

God Bless
Gamma

Whether dating exclusive or married cheating is still cheating. It happens when people date they break up and get back together. Seeing new people during the breaks is not cheating. Flirting with someone new then getting them ready and in place to date that night right after you break up may not be technically cheating. Though attention that the person you were dating did not get all of you attention because you were lining up the replacement is cheating.

As to Dr H we do not know why or how they broke up before they were married. So to cite them as an example is poor because we do not know the facts.

What happened? If WW dated this guy before you it is none of your business. Prior BF's and who she had sex with is her business. Now a guy may not want to date and marry a girl for many reasons. He may only want to marry a virgin. Then he needs to know if she is or is not. Details are not needed. And, I hope that if she has to be Show room fresh that he is in like condition as well.

Or if a guy can not handle that his wife had a higher number then him. Again once the number is out there. There is no need to question further.

No need to introduce baggage.

I am sure there I guys out there that if they heard every detail of their GF/wives past it would not bother them. Though knowing such info would bother most.

Baggage

What Baggages

We don't need no stinkin' baggages

I think what Gamma is saying is his spouse with-held information, and that he feel robbed of the complete information that he would have used in making the decision to marry his spouse. Is this correct?