I think this has been covered before on Gamma's thread, more than once, but basically Gamma needs a list of EP's that his wife agrees to follow, including O&H, in order for him to stay in the marriage. If he feels there is information he doesn't have that he needs, he can set up an appointment for a polygraph and tell his wife that she needs to take the test or he is filing for divorce.

The problem is, Gamma likes to follow "Plan Gamma" which basically consists of a lifetime of Playing '007, trying every underhanded trick in the book to catch his wife in numerous lies so that he can spend the rest of their lives punishing her for things she did many, many years ago, before they were even married.

Stalking some guy his wife had a relationship with 20-30 years ago, before she was actually even his wife, trying to get him to spill the beans on events he may or may not even remember, so he can then use whatever information (reliable or unreliable) that he's able to gain so he can taunt his wife with it and make her miserable, insuring that she will never be in love with him and that they will never have a happy marriage, isn't the answer.

But so many people have told Gamma this, for years, and he doesn't seem to have any intention of listening. I have no idea why he continues to post his own plan of action here, when it has little to nothing to do with MB.

Gamma, I completely understand your need for O&H. Completely. It's my top need and I can't feel happy with a lie in the way. It's like grit in the eye.

However. It's a need that only your wife can voluntarily meet for you. I think she should, but I also think no one should force her. You can't force someone to meet that need, or any need , any more than you can enforce sex on someone.

Right now, she won't meet the need. If you crowbar info out of OM, then go home and force her to admit it, she still won't have met the need.

You want her to enthusiastically meet the need so you can have faith in her honesty. This way won't work.

It's likely she doesn't trust you with honesty because of your enforcement tactics. The phrases you have planned for OM are really scary. As is making it an annual date. That's like saying 'I'm not going anywhere, bud'.

It's all pure vengeance and will achieve nothing.

And this is exactly why she will never be Open and Honest.
The need for Openness and Honesty cannot be met if there is a threat of punishment hanging over her head.

x 100

Seems like since last year, you've been obsessing over this year's visit...tick, tock.

Is this really how you want to live your life, Gamma? I seriously hope you get some counseling. Stalking an old flame for info that is 20+ yrs old is disturbing. He did not have an adulterous affair with your wife. Like SC, I would think you are a nutjob and stay away.

But you are in strife with your wife with no end in sight. You've created a stalking anniversary as the tentpole in the centre of your marriage. MB makes it so disputes are settled and never mentioned again.

It's the 'that time of year' attitude which really haunts me. Not even an interest in ending this - just dead set on 'rebooting' and renewing the problem.

You are dead set on keeping this problem alive as it give you an upper hand and moral superiority in the marriage.

Gamma REALLY REALLY scares me... I wonder if his wife stays because she has become and abused wife....thinks she cannot leave. I don't know why she stays with him..

I'm curious...we always hear from him. Have we ever heard from his wife. I'm thinking her side would be very different. We are dealing with mental illness. I think Dr. Harley needs to really look at his thread. Contact him and then he needs to stay off the forum unless his mental illness has been addressed.

bv, you are not in the same boat as Gamma at all. Your H had affairs in the proper sense of the word - relationships during your marriage.

Gamma's wife had a relationship with this man when she and Gamma were not married. Gamma knew about the relationship and was unhappy about it at the time. He asked his girlfriend about it at the time, and she admitted strong feelings for this man and said something to the effect that these feelings had changed her. Nevertheless, once that relationship broke down, Gamma went ahead and married her.

In marrying her knowing about the relationship, and his wife's prior feelings for this man, he accepted the relationship and wiped the slate clean, symbolically speaking.

Years later, his marriage has not been satisfying to him. One area in which satisfaction is lacking is SF. His wife is not interested in it. Gamma's search for answers on this has led him to believe that his wife never got over the deep sexual relationship she had with this man before they were married - a sexual relationship that she has never admitted to. Gamma is now trying to find out the depths of this relationship. He seems to feel that either his wife's admitting to a satisfying sexual relationship with that man will be cathartic to her, relieving and purging her of her guilt and allowing her to experience sexual freedom with Gamma, or that if catharsis does not happen, he can conclude that his wife will never get over this man and he can dissolve the marriage.

There is NO comparison between Gamma's situation and yours, or with any married person whose spouse had an affair. Gamma was not married to his wife at the time of this relationship, and he knew that it was a deep relationship at least from his then girlfriend's point of view (it might have been a one-sided infatuation on her part, with the man merely enjoying a fling; he "dumped" Gamma's girlfriend to marry his wife), AND he went on to marry his girlfriend with this knowledge. There is simply no comparison.

For Gamma to think that the sex his wife might have had with this man is the reason that the sex life within his marriage has been poor for 25 years is profoundly to misunderstand the nature of women's sexuality, and the role that sex plays in a woman's love for a man.

For Gamma to think that the love (rather than sex) that his girlfriend might have felt for this man 25 years ago is the reason that his sex life is bad today is profoundly to misunderstand the nature of the love bank in his relationship with his wife during their 25-year marriage.

The problems with sex in Gamma's marriage are problems created by their relationship today (and each day in the past), not by problems created by his wife's infatuation 25 years ago.

This is not to say that the problems are of Gamma's making. For one thing, his wife appears to have had poor boundaries among men during her marriage. Her last known breach was a relationship with a man over 80 years old, whom she allowed to send her gifts. It does not appear that this relationship was sexual and I don't know how romantic his wife's feelings were for this very old man (and neither does Gamma, which is a problem), but it was still inappropriate for her to allow this man to court her as he did. Another issue is, as you say, her lack of honesty; not with the relationship from 25 years ago before she was married, but with relationships she's had during the marriage. She also appears to be happy for Gamma's need for fulfilling SF to go unmet, as long as he treats her well, which apart from making her meet this man last year, he appears to do. It is wrong for her to refuse to meet his SF need and refuse to seek solutions for the problem.

If the problem for his wife is Gamma himself - that he turns her off in some way - then she needs to tell him. They need to work on problems within the marriage together. There could be a love buster that Gamma is committing that he is completely unaware of, because she is not honest with him about it.

It is not clear from my readings of Gamma's posts over the years that he has ever used the MB skills of respectfully complaining and negotiating, keeping a problem on the front burner and using POJA until it is resolved. Instead it seems that he has tried to dig out the sexual details of this pre-marital relationship from his wife, and when she has not been forthcoming (fearing reprisals, perhaps, or simply wanting to put the humiliation of her younger behaviour behind them - remember, he already knew about her infatuation when he married her so she might not feel that he has any right to torment her with this now), Gamma has tried to get the details by contacting this man.

His relationship with his wife is indeed problematic, but he needs to deal with this with his wife, not with this man from 25 years ago.

The relationship from 25 years ago - before they were married - is a red herring, and it is one that Gamma is pursuing to the detriment of the marriage. Gamma "forgave" that relationship. His problem now is his daily interactions with his wife. He needs to begin using MB properly to build the relationship he wants, and not cherry-pick concepts like transparency and honesty about an affair that was never an affair, to justify leaving his wife, or to make her do what he wants.

Having experience in the mental health field, I'm going to guess that gammas wife is generally unaware of any of this. Maybe a question or two on a yearly occasion but it seems the vast majority of all this is a construction in Gammas mind. Good luck to you gamma but its clear that you might be suffering from illness. This is distracting you from solving your real issues with your wife.

To correct an error: I have been saying that the relationship was 25 years ago. It was between 1998-2000, so 14-16 years ago.

Gamma has been married since 2000.

SC,

To correct an error: I have been saying that the relationship was 25 years ago. It was between 1998-2000, so 14-16 years ago.

Actually about 25 years ago is correct, although for anything between 10 and 30 it makes no difference.

God Bless
Gamma

Indiegirl,

Sorry I don't have time to respond to all your points, perhaps next week, same for everyones else's posts.

Right now, she won't meet the need. If you crowbar info out of OM, then go home and force her to admit it, she still won't have met the need.

At the end of the day I just want to know what happened, so I can make a decision on my marriage.

A simple outline from my WW would do, I understand the limitations and distortions of memory, perhaps some of my questions could not be answered.

In all these years I've gotten perhaps 10 sentences from my WW about what happened, each said with extreme reluctance and shame. Many contradictory.

God Bless
Gamma

I don't know what was wrong me me earlier. I wasn't reading straight! 25 years it is, and you've been married since 1990. I took 10 years off the whole thing for some reason.

This timeline was posted at the beginning of this thread:

So how did the confrontation go, Gamma? What was your opening line? Did he spill the beans? What are you going to do now?

SC,

The event has not happened yet, I will try to post afterwards.

There is a bit of a sharp edge perhaps to your questions in that last post. I understand why, but there are reasons people remember being cheated on for decades.

God Bless
Gamma

I think most of us are just saddened by the fact that you've chosen to live your life consumed by the past, unable to move forward, forever mired in things that happened decades ago. I can't imagine how terrible that would be and I don't think anyone has ever found true happiness by choosing such a path.

There is indeed a sharp edge, Gamma. You know that I disagree with your course of action because I spent a lot of time writing to you, and you have never responded fully to my points. You promised last week to get back to this thread and answer the recent posts but you still have not done so.

Of course "there are reasons people remember being cheated on for decades". You, however, seem determined to destruct your marriage because of a relationship you knew about before you married. You are a train-wreck in slow motion and I cannot take my eyes off the spectacle.

SugarCane,

You wrote So how did the confrontation go, Gamma? What was your opening line? Did he spill the beans? What are you going to do now?

Happened on Sunday, was a non-event, my W and another person ended up going with me, sigh, and I didn't get to speak with OM2.

My W wanted to keep her distance from OM2 not be seen by him, asking me "is that him" , the presence of the other person with us made it awkward for my W to avoid going where the OM2 was. I informed her that it definitely was OM2 as the other person there was OM2s son.

It's very clear to me that my W does remember what went on with OM2, but as some posters have suggested refuses to gamble on her marriage with disclosure.

I have one more shot to speak with OM2 alone coming up.

God Bless
Gamma

Moderators,

Has Dr. Harley seen this thread??? He is repeatedly being allowed to torture his wife. this is so incredibly awful...

SugarCane,

You wrote, You intend to hurt your wife with this information.

I don't believe that I do, but you are free to judge, I certainly do not want to coerce my W into having sex she does not want with me.

How do you suspect I will hurt my wife, by bringing it up continually, by divorce?

There is a sense in which you may be right in that no one knows how they will handle the truth until they get it.

I have not exactly been hounding my W all our marriage about this unfortunate affair. I would estimate I have mentioned it, and I do mean mentioned it, 5 to 10 times throughout our entire marriage! These conversations last half a minute to a minute at most. Her responses could occupy a few Haiku!

It's disturbing for you to be obsessed with what happened between them before you were married.

Had I not been exclusively dating my W at that time, or had we officially broke up there would be no issue now.

God Bless
Gamma

BrokenVase,

You wrote, I've highlited in red.

Unfortunately, there is no objective way he can determine this; he has to rely solely on her word, and her version doesn't make sense to him.

This is correct, and in going to OM2, it's a bit like going to the other perpetrator, if their stories do not agree that's ok because OM2 might remember what my W does not or suppresses.

I will NEVER know the truth about my H's affairs - partly because of the passage of time, and partly because I believe there's one (major) lie he "got away with" and he's decided to roll the dice and hope I never find out, as the odds are in his favor. There's no objective source - I only have his rwod and possibly the word of the OW, whom I have never contacted.

One thing about your WH is that the lies he maintains from the past make it easier for him to do more things he has to lie about in the future. Did you expose the OW, how many?, to their BHs or boyfriends or families?

Personally, it makes me feel like a POS that my husband does not respect me enough to tell me the truth. Maybe Gamma feels this way also.

Yes I do, my W has said a number times something to the effect that I could not handle the truth and would divorce her. Perhaps not a POS, but it makes me feel she is acting superior to me. There is also the related issue that my W would never tell who else knew.

The uncertainty, though, is what makes you a little insane. Perhaps Gamma feels this way, as well.

BTW, although some feel I am a kook, there are threads here which support my efforts, in some ways.

For getting the OM to talk "Codjtel",

For relieving the WWs guilt and improving their sex life. "Lightsout"

Dr. Harley did say during his analysis of "TheRoads" email that he felt his W should tell him because there should be no secrets between married people.

Additionally many ancient affair threads here support the contention that unconfessed cheating even from decades ago is almost always remember to the level of detail of intercourse YES or NO.

God Bless
Gamma