This has given you the perfect opportunity to insist she give you full disclosure about her affair. To clarify, don't allow her to trickle truth you. You need to control the conversation. While she may hang herself with lies, don't let it go on and on. Cut her off and calmly tell her you don't want to hear lies...that you KNOW she slept with OB. You want to rattle her and protect yourself at the same time. I hope that makes sense.

If she gives you written responses, that is a good way to go back to her answers vs wondering if you heard wrong, misunderstood, or giving her an opportunity to gaslight you.

You need to toughen up, Bill. Being weak will kill your marriage.

Hi Bill, there is not much we can do to help you if you insist on keeping the affair a secret. Like Dr Harley says, it is very hard to save a marriage when you are an enabler. I see this as a hopeless situation if you insist on enabling your wife.

Come back when you are ready to work on saving your marriage and we will be glad to help.

Given your approach of conflict avoidance, Bill, I envision the affair will go on for a few more years. There is nothing we can do to help you if you won't take the advice.

"This morning I gave her the policies of mutual agreement and total honesty to read so we can talk about them tonight. She is coming to meet me a work for lunch and to go for a walk."

This is a distraction at a time when you should be working to end the affair by exposing it. Step ONE is killing the affair. You have not done this. You cannot go onto next steps until you complete STEP ONE and fully affair proof your marriage.

Agree with the others. Your refusal to expose is symptomatic of your enabling and conflict avoidance exhibited the last ten years. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is lunacy.

If you don't drop the hammer of exposure on her, she will give in to the addiction of her affair. Your wife's waywardness will go undeterred unless you expose. Exposure is not designed to be punitive. It is intended to shed the light of truth on the evil deed so that the perpetrators do it no more.

You do know that she will just take this underground if you don't expose, right? She may lay off the crack pipe for a few days or weeks, but she will get back on it eventually because there is no consequence to deter her immoral choices.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but it is really frustrating to see a person just bend over for the last ten years of marriage...and then keep bending over.

What's it doing to the kids for her to carry on this way? Maybe they've seen it all along, and can't figure out why their dad never had the gumption to stand up for his own marriage. Maybe your modeling of that kind of conflict-avoidance will have some adverse consequences of its own throughout their lives. We all hope not, but hope isn't much of a plan.

Step ONE is killing the affair. You have not done this. You cannot go onto next steps until you complete STEP ONE and fully affair proof your marriage.

Bill,

Please listen to the vets. I putzed around for 3-4 months, hemming and hawing about exposure. What a mistake.

My W's affair ended the day I exposed...and then I felt the full weight of 'Doh!' for delaying.

Only THEN could we and did we move on to recovering our marriage.

EXPOSE.

X 1000, Bill. HelpForDad's story is common... BS's who don't follow the exposure plan early, always say later that they wished they had jumped on exposure right away.

EVEN FORMER WAYWARDS (like my husband) SAY EXPOSURE WAS THE THING THAT WAS NEEDED TO BREAK THEM OF THEIR ADDICTION. Though they don't see it at the time (and they usually are pretty teed off at the time), WS's will finally see exposure for what it is... an act of love on the part of the BS.

Your wife NEEDS you to help her break her addiction to the A.

Step up to the plate, Bill.

You can do this.

To that end...

My wife, helpformom, still, to this day, THANKS ME for exposing the A, getting the POSOM fired from the workplace and AWAY FROM HER, and for taking action to SAVE our marriage...and HER, from destruction.

YOU CAN DO THIS...and must, if you want any chance to save your wife.

Bill,

They are giving it to you straight. I didn't fully expose, and when I did it was a half-hearted attempt. Look at my sig line and see what happens when you continue doing things the same old way. It's scary as heck, but you can do this and more. Show that woman how much you really love her. Set an example for those kids. Show them what love really means. Standing up for whats right, asking for help when you need it, and going the distance to admit you've got a problem and will do whatever it takes for your family.

This may seem like a minor point, but even the acronym you use for your wife's adultery partner indicates that you are still in denial. This man is not your wife's "Old Boyfriend"(OB); he is your wife's boyfriend. He is not a part of your wife's past; he is part of her present. If you genuinely want to save your marriage, you'll need to stop hiding your head in the sand and face the facts. You have no other choice.

I can't think of any reason why it is ok to lie to people you love.

They probably already know, ir at the very least they think her bizarre behaviour is normal.

Plenty of children on here have responded well to exposure. They learn about affairs and ask their parent to be more responsible. Dr H himself learned about grandfathers affair at the age of four. Its how he knows more than anyone else about the nature of affairs.

In my experience its only grown ups who get all freaked out by affairs. Children commonly are very clear eyed and straight forward about it.

They expect the parent to stop it and make amends to them.

Dr H has plenty of experience with waywards who grew up around 'normalised' wayward behaviour covered up with lies. This only teaches children to lie and how to become wayward themselves.

Your own reliance on lies and discomfort with the truth is a bit concerning to be honest.

You are more worried about how this will affect you than explaining the truth to your kids, who must be very confused.

How on earth can helpful, useful information do anything but HELP their future relationships?

Scenario A) Your children learn that A's happen (in 60pc of marriages by the way). That good people have affairs. That the people we love are just human.

Scenario B) Your children follow the popular fairytale that causes all these affairs. That only evil demons have affairs. They use blind trust. An old boyfriend hangs out with their spouse and they don't see the danger. They keep in touch with old flames without seeing the danger.

I grew up around faithful parents. I viewed their protectiveness as quaint and didn't employ it in my marriage. I used blind trust.

After my H's A, I learned that years ago my grammie had an A and her children knew. A sweet, loving mother of nine and grandmother of 30. One who spent her last years with my grandfather totally in love.

I still love her. In fact more because of the lesson she learned and the recovery she made for her children. But I take a much more realistic attitude to A's than before.

I so agree with this. My children were relieved when I told them about XH's affairs. They said that they had assumed the stress they were sensing between us was caused by their behaviour.

Then I discovered from his sister that their father had behaved exactly the same way when they were growing up. His mother (my MIL) had pretended it was not happening leaving XH and his sister with the impression that his behaviour was normal.

Children know, they really know everything. Even when they don't know they sort of do. It is a survival mechanism for them.

Please read.
Infidelity: The Lessons Children Learn

You still out there, Bill/Dave?

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

Guys,

Reading your advice and.........................struggling. Lot more to unpack here than I am willing to admit. Your advice and comments are appreciated.

FYI, My name is William David N******. I go by Dave, not Bill, which why I changed it to Dave.

Have you also had an extramarital affair? I don't mean to offend, but your last post made me wonder if that could be the reason you turned a blind eye to your wife's affair for such a long time. And if you had an affair that was never exposed, it would also explain your reluctance to expose your wife's affair.