MelodyLane,

You wrote, This is not an affair, though. You were not married. And for the life of me I can't figure out how you imagine finding out about the sex in her previous relationship with this guy is going to help your sex life today? How did you ever come up with that rationale? crazy Finding that out will not help your sex life.

Alright then call it a betrayal, but for myself, it feels the same.

I don't even know if they had sex, my W keeps that locked up like a safe, they may have had sex once, one hundred time or zero. I've never got a convincing narrative from my W.

My W took 20+ years to tell me about a guy who fondled her breasts a few years before she met me. The story 20+ years ago was they just kissed. It took her 20+ years to correct that story I had no objection to and was very ashamed when she corrected it. I don't care one bit about that relationship, now how much less is my W likely to tell me about OM2!

God Bless
Gamma

TheRoad,

You wrote, She knows she can not remember the fibs that she told you. So to prevent from getting caught she will no longer allow herself to be questioned and refused to answer.

Interesting insight, possibly means OM2 is the only one who even might be willing to talk.

God Bless
Gamma

BH,

You wrote,Are you ever going to contact Dr. Harley?

After I have spoke with OM2 again.

God Bless
Gamma

Indiegirl,

You wrote, The description of the chat with OM is another classic example of a love bank strip down. The OM believes it is just an innocent chat with an old friend, but Gamma's wife has been led to believe they are discussing her and must have been shedding love bank units throughout at an incredible rate.

I had not planned that part, it happened accidentally when my W called me. Much was planned or at least thought out, but not that detail.

God Bless
Gamma

mrEureka,

You wrote, There is nothing for him to learn about the past that will make any difference

The exact sexual details would likely make the difference between divorce and continuation.

And I can't tell you exactly how I will react until I get the truth.

God Bless
Gamma

It won't matter. With all the love busting you are doing, someday your wife is going to look at you and realize that you are just not worth all the trouble to her anymore.

Gamma were you and your wife in an exclusive dating relationship or did she date these guys before you?

I do not remember.

TheRoad,

Yes we were in an exclusive relationship, we never at any time even "broke up" before or after the marriage. I was working long hours when this happened.

Had OM2 occurred during a break up I might be able to let this go now.

God Bless
Gamma

You have completely missed what everyone is trying to say to you Gamma and the key is in what you just posted....OM2 occurred while you were dating - yes in an exclusive relationship, but dating nonetheless. You knew about OM2 BEFORE you married your wife. The time to made decisions about that indiscretion was BEFORE you married her. When you married her, you essentially said what she did was not important enough to you not to marry her. You need to let go of this and move forward.

BritsBrat,

You wrote, You have completely missed what everyone is trying to say to you Gamma and the key is in what you just posted....OM2 occurred while you were dating - yes in an exclusive relationship, but dating nonetheless. You knew about OM2 BEFORE you married your wife. The time to made decisions about that indiscretion was BEFORE you married her. When you married her, you essentially said what she did was not important enough to you not to marry her.

I completely understand that the affair, or whatever you want to call it, occurred before my marriage. The issue is my W lead me to believe it was not physical.

However when the preacher asked, "If anyone knows of any reason these two should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace", that was a opportunity for my W to make her confession. By not speaking , or not telling me later, my W invalidated the wedding agreement.

God Bless
Gamma

Gamma,
I understand. You have good reason to suspect that your wife lied to you about her past.

Have you asked her to complete the Sexual History form in Surviving an Affair?

That is poppycock!

It was your responsibility to perform the due diligence in discovery of all relevant information about your wife PRIOR to marriage. Once you married her, you accepted her "as is", potential lies and all. You can not weasel out. You have no moral standing for your behavior now.

It seems as if you are intentionally delaying speaking with Dr. Harley until after you cause further irreparable damage to your marriage.

What valid reason is there for you to avoid speaking with him until after you further attempt to confront this alleged Other Man 2?

Why don't you contemplate seeking his advice beforehand?

LTL

Gamma likes the drama. THAT is why he keeps this alive and THAT is why he wants to confront OM2. If Gamma would let go of the drama and realize that his wife must love him and only him very much if she has stayed married to him all these years. There is someone from my young adult years who I loved very much. If you had asked me at the time, I would have told you I would never love anyone as much/the way I loved him. 25 years later, I'm married to the man of my dreams and realize that yes, I damn well could love someone MUCH MUCH more and differently than I thought I could/would at age 23 or 25 or even 35.

But when you did find out - you decided to keep the agreement.

So that doesn't fly at all

Gamma, how you do distort things to try and make them fit your case.

The question from the wedding official is "if any man can show any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.

In all countries and states, there are circumstances in which a person may be lawfully married and circumstances in which they may not. The question is not an invitation for the bride to stop the wedding and confess that she lied about having sex with someone - always assuming that she DID lie, something which you have only the scantiest of reasons for suspecting. The invitation is for the Jane Eyre disclosure; that one party is already married, or that they are not of legal age, or that the bride and groom are actually brother and sister, and so on.

If this is so important to you that if your wife "held her peace" this invalidates the marriage vows, then I believe you are entitled to live by those standards. If you would divorce your wife on finding out that there was an unacceptable level of sexual involvement between her and that man, then I think that's your prerogative. I wouldn't take that view if I find myself in similar circumstances some day, and I think, judging from the posts here, that hardly anyone else would, either. However, you have never seemed to care whether you gain approval for your methods and you have never deviated from your path in over four years of posting about this issue. You have had ample opportunities to listen to many people here telling you that in their view, it isn't worth harming and possibly ending your marriage over this. They have tried to show you that you can have a fulfilling marriage by working on your interactions with your wife today, and that focusing on the past before you were married is an unnecessary distraction from the work you should be doing to make you marriage happy today.

However, I can see that they have not persuaded you to shift your perspective one iota, and I do think that everyone is entitled to live by their values.

What I do find despicable about your insisting on living by your values is the cruelty that you have shown towards your wife, by setting her up to meet this man twice in just over a year. She had a serious crush on him and seems to have made a fool of herself over him, and I can't see how being made to face him again after 25 years of marriage could be anything other than traumatic to her, and you should NEVER cause her trauma.

Also, I know from doing the online course why Dr Harley asks spouses to complete the Personal History Questionnaire. He does this because he wants each spouse to know the other spouse thoroughly, warts and all. He writes

"When a couple first see me for counseling, I have them complete my Personal History Questionnaire, which systematically reviews many of the significant events of their past, and some of their deepest emotional feelings. After I have read through their answers, and have had a chance to ask them questions that their answers suggest, in many ways I come to know them better than their spouse knows them. And that's very sad. In less than three hours I can know more about a person than the one who has lived with him or her for a decade or more.

I don't want you to be as ignorant of each other as so many of my clients were when they first came to see me. I want you to know as much as possible about each other. So I am offering you the same Personal History Questionnaire that I created to help me get to know my clients.

Make two copies of this questionnaire, so that you can both get to know each other better. Leave nothing out and be willing to pursue any line of inquiry that will help you better understand each other's past."

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4503_phq.html

But most importantly:

"I agree to consider this information confidential and will not share any information revealed in this questionnaire to anyone without my spouse�s permission. I also agree to reward honesty and not punish my spouse for revealing any new information to me that I may find upsetting."

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forms/phq.pdf

You have systematically drawn upon Dr Harley's ideas of personal, sexual and historical honesty to justify wanting to find out the full truth about this pre-martial relationship, but you have never intended to use the information ONLY to get a better understanding of your wife. You have, on the one hand, hoped that the revelation of wild sex will be cathartic to her and will improve the sex in your marriage, while on the other hand, and more seriously, holding on to the trump card that if the details were too upsetting you would punish her by divorcing her.

The (unspoken, to her ears) divorce threat is a misuse of Marriage Builders and not what Dr Harley created his methods to achieve. Neither would he approve of your pursuing this matter for years when your wife clearly does not want it to be spoken about or investigated further. You are being the cause of her unhappiness, which goes against what you should be trying to do.

It doesn't make any sense because Dr. Harley also states that we should have NO CONTACT with former lovers, yet you have worked to encourage contact.

I wish I could stand up and applaud this post.

Writer1,

You wrote, 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.

Perhaps if we had moved away from the drip drip triggers, and if we had used marriage builders 15 years ago, I would not need resolution. For some people memory fades with time for others it accumulates like interest on a bank account. I suppose for some folks the interest is negative.

God Bless
Gamma