No, of course not! But the consensus IS that reformation involves becoming open to having your deeds examined in the light of day. The consensus IS that the most important thing to do to reform and recover is to expose yourself, reveal yourself to your victims, and accept whatever consequences result. If that means the person wants to go get support by telling the world, then a reformed former cheater respects their need.

In general, one of Dr. Harley's beliefs is that we would all be better people if we couldn't keep secrets. We would be less likely to do hurtful and wrong things if we knew that we would be found out. He talks about this often - are you listening to the radio show? There's lots of great wisdom there.

Oh no. No one cares if rapists, sexual predators and johns are repentant or not. That is not the point of publishing their photos and names. And who would judge that anyway? Anyone knows how to claim to be repentant; doesn't mean its true. The point is to alert others to someone who may be dangerous to them.

That is certainly the case with adulterers. If others know what you are capable of, they can help hold you accountable and protect themselves from you.

But why would a repentant person CARE if the truth was spoken about them? That is the puzzle here. The only possible explanation I can fathom is that the person is in denial. If my victims want to put my picture and name on a website, why would I care as long as it is the truth unless I am hiding something?

Well, I can answer that question. I was formerly involved with some of the names that went on the list and its governed by law. As I recall, its 3 years in Oregon of the Labor Commissioner list.
In Kentucky case, its until the tax is satisfied.
In Ohio, we have a Plumbing License board that will publish the names of suspended licenses indefinitely because that is what the law requires.

There is no law with what a website prints.
It is freedom of speech.

That's not what the site we're talking about is about, though, is it? Did you read Dr. Harley's comment that if he was running the site he'd have a policy of removing names after affairs were ended and amends made?

I think some of you guys are really jumping into an emotional reaction and not taking in all these details.

Z I know that you had an affair, and I also know that was TWO marriages ago. For goodness sake, Z, I don't think of you as a WW or even a FWW. That was eons ago. It has no bearing on your current posting here - and it has no bearing on the fact that people whose spouses are in an affair have a LOT of benefit to gain from exposing the affair. We all ought to support them and certainly ought not to bring our own feelings in to deny them the support they need.

EXACTLY.

That's the hard part, Markos. I still think of myself as a WW. Yes, I am emotional about it because I can never, ever undo what I've done. It sucks to know that I destroyed my family - me.

Anyway, homewreckers includes affairs that happened years ago. And it doesn't seek exposure for the sake of ending affairs, nor talk about repentance and reformation. The feeling I got from it was pure anger and salacious content. If I saw people getting support for their marriages, gathering help by exposure, that would be AWESOME! But this was just venom - completely understandable venom of course - but that was all I saw. Maybe they just wanted to express their anger and this helps their healing? I guess I can understand that.

It DID help me see - again - how much pain I caused. I will give it credit for that.

And I'd be grateful if my name were removed because of repentance. I did read that part from Dr. Harley.

I think you are seeing it through the prism of your own guilt, though. Anger about injustice is a sign of decency and is very therapeutic. Would you condemn rape victims for expressing "venom" towards their rapists? Would you judge and condemn them?

I would surely hope not.

I would try and view this as Dr Harley does: as a lesson to be learned by those who committed adultery. That is a good thing, not a bad thing.

And most importantly, I would remember that they are the victims. They did not ASK to be in that position in the first place. The adulterers in their lives forced that on them against their will.


A good thing!

Yep - the anger was perfectly understandable.

As to anger at injustice being therapeutic, that's a good point - I don't really get angry at injustices toward me (something I'm working on, actually) so when I come up against it, it sort of freaks me out a little bit. But I like your analogy, really drives it home.

Angry people do freak me out, though. Has nothing to do with guilt feelings in me...more about a scary childhood.

This is hard to explain, but I'll try. I would like to think that I am not defined entirely by this horrible thing I did. I would like people to see me as a person. Fully human, and flawed of course. But if the first - the only thing - anyone sees when they meet me is a big red A on my jacket, then I will miss out on so many friendships, relationships, on the joys of connection. Sure, some people might see past it, but most people cannot. Even though I am NOT an 'adulteress,' any longer, if I continue to be defined as such, then I will despair.

Prisca, you're still married to Markos. You're lucky. Some of us are alone - rightly so - and all we have is the hope that someone will find us worthy of loving someday. I tell everyone I seriously date about my affair - this is only fair to them. But should I put it on my dating profile too? Should everyone know the details of my most shameful actions before they decide whether they even want to meet me?

Maybe you guys think so. And maybe I should consider it.

I am not in denial. I do not hide what I've done. But this world can be a very cold, lonely place. And advertising my past shame just ensures continual rejection, forever.

Yes, people will judge you by your behavior as they should. That is a good thing. How else would they judge you? My alcoholic past is a part of who I am. So are my good aspects. How else will we sum up a person if not by their behavior? There are people in the world who will judge me for being an alcoholic. As they should. That is the truth about who I am. And every person has the right of discernment when they choose their friends. Some people HATE alcoholics and that is their right. How will they know to avoid me if I hide that fact?

Victims of adultery had no choice in the matter, but you did. Any judgment that you receive is a direct result of your own actions. People get to choose their friends based on whatever criteria they decide. They are supposed to use discernment. Many people won't want to be friends with you, but some will. That is their right.

Put another way, when you hurt people they have a right to tell everyone and anyone they choose. Being exposed is a job hazard of destructive behavior. No one but you put you in that position.

Z, it's my job to oversee 'public shaming'. That's what it is called sometimes, by a select few. Only what I call it is the truth.

We truly live in a free speech society where people who have truthful facts about us can tell whoever they please. For as long as they please.

I gently suggest you wrap your head around that, because it is a basic fact of life and of reputation.

I get calls from remorseful people who are in my newspaper and online news site all the time. One lady who shoplifted was distraught I had covered her court case. She said she had repented as soon as she had done it and asked how long her name would be on our website.

I didn't take Dr H's 'prove remorse' approach. I told her forever. Forever - and I still don't have much sympathy with her over that. That's what happens when we damage our reputations. A criminal penalty lasts for only a time but any damage to our reputations always lasts forever.

That's how I feel about a misdeed like shoplifting! Compare the damage of that crime - which comes automatically with public exposure - to a deed like infidelity in which people bizarrely expect lifelong secrecy. Or for just a select few to know. Why would anyone who has wrought such damage expect such extreme favour?

Reporters and news outlets expose petty and serious crime. We also expose things which aren't illegal at all - just plain old immoral.

We don't do it because we take glee in hurting people, or as financial vultures of shame either. Two things the exposees are quick to accuse us of.

People knowing the truth about each other is a key cog in how society works. It's why the courts and laws not just allow, but ENCOURAGE, such truth telling. This is the UK. Aren't the laws in the US even more adamant about free speech?

I've never done anything I'm seriously ashamed of and I can't really empathise with your pain over it, Z. It just reads very oddly to a BS that you are trying to pick over and cover up the truth simply because time has passed. So what?

Particularly since a BS feels shame at what was did to them yet has to face it down publicly every day. Some people will always wonder what I did to deserve it. I will always have a failed first marriage and will have to put up with people wondering why or I will have to explain why. She won't.

Cest la vie.

If I did do something that truly shamed me, I would hope I could accept the damage to my reputation with grace.

One colleague of mine got busted for DUI. Driving is integral to the job and his future career prospects. When he went to court, and the story went online he did not object to his colleagues covering it; he said: "Live by the sword, die by the sword". I think that's when our boss knew that he was going to be OK in the future.

One heroin addict I put into the newspaper regularly now goes in of his own accord. He works with the police and with young people to prevent his downfalls happening to others.

That's how public exposure helps motivate people to grasp back their reputation and never let go. I still have the proof of my XH's affair but I won't be exposing the OW online as I am not really interested in helping motivate her in that way. It could transform her life but I did enough to help her at the time.

I think the concept surprised you, but really the concept is as old as free speech itself.

You should have expected it and that's why I don't sympathise.

When I first came here I heard Pepperband say: "Never do anything you would be ashamed to have go in the newspapers".

How true that maxim is. There have been many times when I have written about personal, private moments which happened between two or three people. They were not doing anything illegal. However it ended up in the press because it was a
fact and it got out.

The truth does. It is like a starburst that cannot be kept under anyone's hat.

If you really would "do anything" to take away the BW's pain how about the basic grace of allowing her tell the truth however and whenever she wants?

The fact they would object is irrelevant. Why shouldn't 'every' immoral mistake be told publicly, anyway? If there were more reporters in the word, it would. We are doing the best we can and with the internet there are more reporters than ever before!





I find it alarming in the extreme that you can define HER marital tragedy as YOUR privacy. It happened inside the BW's marriage, in her private space, not yours. It was her ox being gored and it is totally up to her who she tells.

Being in someone else's marriage is like being in someone else's house. It's like breaking into someone's house and expecting them not to tell. You don't have any privacy there!

Additionally, as all reporters know; privacy is a myth. We allow it, like a drawn curtain in daily life for each other as a courtesy but when something goes wrong your life is subject to public scrutiny.

One time I wrote about a truly private thing - the mistake of a 17yo girl. She decided to have car sex with her ex bf, who had put them on speaker phone so her current bf could hear them.

I told the world about that young girl's mistake online. It was not even my own, or my newspaper's decision to do so. The law decreed it should be publicly told because it was evidence in a murder trail. She did not know there would be a murder. Do you think she expected her private life to be broadcast in such a way?

What we do in this life, the truth about ourselves, is public property. Never do anything you would be ashamed to have appear in the newspapers.




Would you want to live in a country where you needed court-ordered approval to tell the truth? You would be living in a fascist state if you did.

When someone has wrongdoing to expose through my newspaper, I say: "Do you have proof?" If they do; job done and we go to print. I don't need a court's approval to tell the truth.

Neither does this, or any other website and I am shocked any member of a free society would suggest such a thing just because they are ashamed of their own actions.

We BS's know how easy it is to prove adultery and expose it because we have done it ourselves. We don't need to go to court.



Lets say this happened to me - someone who has never been an OW. Lets say the OW from my marriage were to try it as revenge for the VAST public exposure I did to her. This is something that could really happen!

What would I do? I'd laugh long and merrily at such a pitiful and short-sighted move on her part. Then I would call up the website. If they didn't take it down I would sue both them and the OW for a very handsome amount of money and retire on the profits, still laughing.

It would also destroy the website and they would deserve it for not checking heir facts and ensuring proof.

However since that is a very easy thing for any cub reporter to do, I suspect they do ensure proof.


You may 'object'(!?) but it isn't against the law at all! Why do people think so?!

Newspapers may ask your permission out of courtesy for features etc but they won't if they want to expose you for wrongdoing. Nor should they.

I would not need to protect my marriage or alert others to be aware of an attack on their marriage from someone shoplifting at Target. Adultery is not 'every single mistake'.

There is a real possibility that these 2 sites have allowed others to protect their marriages against these posted on the sites. If the POSOM in my situation was up there and I would have seen the same person on my FWW's FB friends (former FB acct that is), that would have been a huge help to me!

On the extreme edge of the argument...I know this is extreme..but if Hitler would have repented for the sins of his life right before death, should the history books be sanitized of his atrocities? Of course not. The truth is just that..the truth. Once history is written, it is cemented in time.

Huh? The very first post that I pulled up was from a BW in a case where the OW was refusing to stop contacting her WH after being told that the A is over they are working on saving the M. It's the very first story in the "Recent Posts" section that runs along side the page. She is very much trying to end the affair and save her marriage.



Not only is this a misrepresentation of the site -- there most certainly are BW's posting in an effort to save their M, and in their stories, they are of course, expressing anguish, disgust, hurt and outrage over some of the things the OW has done in an effort to destroy their marriage..."venom" is the last word I would use to describe the stories I read -- but this is the kind of garbage that many BS's are faced with in the aftermath of exposure....being told they are "angry" or "bitter" and "dragging people through the mud won't help" etc.

This is basically a form of gaslighting.

Exactly.

Too bad. Should have thought about the ramifications before you made your choices.

It's called accepting responsibility for your actions. Sometimes the ramifications can not quite what you expected. In this case, Adultery is the most harmful thing anyone can do to a spouse known to man. People want to commit disgusting acts, I say let the full weight of the fallout land squarely on their shoulders.

Trust me, having a photo published on a website pales in comparison to the humiliation, shame and pain that adultery brings to the BS.

This. Is. Gaslighting.

x10000

To me, this is really the point of the website.

The problem with the argument that a FWS is not a threat to anyone is bogus. Here is why. You are judging yourself as being harmless based on your INTENTIONS. Others on the outside can only judge you by your ACTIONS. No one can climb into your head and judge your intentions.

This site protects folks from what others actions/choices were. Not their intentions.

I have briefly considered posting the OW3 on this site...I don't know....I have mixed thoughts and feelings on it.

And you know what?? Honestly, I don't care very much if she has worked on "improving" herself or is "repentant".

According to some on here, I would be spewing "venom" and "hate" and be "vengeful".

I am in disbelief over what I am reading on this thread!