I discovered 8/14 my wife was continuing an affair she had said was over. I read texts she deleted from iphonethat were copied through icloud to her ipad.

Affair is with our son's former swim coach. He has some freedom between practices during the day, and my wife works part time. I am airline pilot sometimes have a reserve schedule where I stay home a bit, but sometimes have 3-6 day trips away from home. Our marriage survived this for many years without problem, but wife revealed she didn't feel emotional connection to me about 5 years ago.

She admits the affair, and has dropped hints about physical but not admitted the physical directly. She has said, "some honesty might be too much" etc. But I have very good evidence using software to get deleted texts talking about "don't wear perfume next time" etc.

We haven't had the "all cards on the table" discussion yet. Probably will happen Saturday morning.

I believe she is genuinely sorry, says she wants to work on the marriage, and has written a no-contact text at my insistence. She was willing, but procrastinated a little bit.

She will be mortified with idea of exposure, but she has promised in the past to stop and has let it go on some.

Me...I was stupid, not looking for signs of her affair, etc, because I was smitten with one of her good friends/neighbors.

I admitted being attracted to OW about 1 year ago. I wasn't yet in full EA mode then, but more like ok friends. My wife reacted almost positively, in that she liked the idea that I had feelings of some kind...as she says I'm not emotional at all. That night she said she had ended an emotional relationship with the swim coach. She said he had romantic feelings for her, but she did not for him. She said it was over, and I believed her without doing any snooping (what a dope I was)

So there's the big complicating factor. We've socialized in a small group for over a year (my AP and her husband, dad, other neighbors), having intimate conversation usually at parties, dinner, etc. I also carried on a texting relationship with wife's friend. A little inappropriate, but not romantic. She never shared romantic feelings with me, but I had feelings for her. She did share intimate thoughts about her life, sometimes her marriage. Sometimes these conversations took place with her and my wife present. I spent virtually no time alone with her.

The swim coach is outside our normal circle of friends. We had some friends with other families whose kids swam with him too, but all kids we know are now older and not involved with this guy. We have no involvement with the swim organisation at all now.

I did not hide well my feelings for my EAP. My wife called her my "girlfriend". I said I tried to be friends with her, but my obvious feelings for OW were hurting my wife deeply. I was addicted to the contact though. Tried to tone it down some, but didn't work very well. As I said, most contact with OW was with my wife present, even a 4 person trip to NAPA (me, my wife, OW, OW dad) TO OW, she and I are friends, but she doesn't have strong boundaries about sharing intimate details about herself. But no romantic or physical advances toward me whatsoever.

Only recently did my EA end, by me calling her and saying our eating out in group (me, my wife, her, her dad) were bothering my wife. She blew up because she said this was inappropriate, she would speak to her husband and I should talk to my wife. I did that.

My wife was upset with me for not talking to her, and concerned that her friends in neighborhood will find out. I have found that I inadvedaantly exposed my own EA. It, along with my wife reviewing numerous texts I shared with my OW, finally lifted the fog from me. I have not contacted her for about 3 weeks now, save one apologetic text. Mistake, but my wife knows about it.

Other big issues in our lives...Our 20 year old son fathered a baby out of wedlock. He is married to mom now, and they are doing well raising the 6 month old. Both sets of grandparents are supportive of them. Baby is joy of my wife's life.

Also 16 year old son had a drinking incident where police involved. He is under severe restriction from us now. His grades are good and he seems willing to go on straight and narrow.

So among these stressors, should I expose my wife's affair now? Even though she has written no contact message, and seems to be willing to work on marriage. I'll see tomorrow if she is willing to fully own her behavior. She will point to my EA and not having her emotional needs met. Those are valid reasons. Lack of EN was partly my reasons also. But not excuses.


Sorry for long post, willing to answer questions...We love each other and neither want to leave.

Hi flyingguy, welcome to Marriage Builders. To answer your question, yes you should expose the affair. The purpose of exposure is to a) end the affair, b) keep it ended and c) splash some reality on the affairees.


Your traveling job is one of the major contributing factors to the problems in your marriage. [not the biggest, but almost] Your marriage is now on serious life support and it can't be recovered unless you are home every night. If you are not meeting each others EN's every day, you can't create a romantic, integrated marriage that is necessary for recovery. Your wife will always be vulnerable to an affair if there is no emotional connection. And you can't create that connection if you are not together every night.

The biggest reason you and your wife have affairs is because you both have extremely poor boundaries around the opposite sex. You could be a pro at meeting each others EN's and you would still have affairs if you have poor boundaries. That is one of the problems in your marriage.

Since the affair is with your son's swim coach, your children should be informed and your son should drop find another place to get swimming lessons. The OM's employer, wife and family should also be informed.

Thank you for your quick reply. My son nor any of the children are now involved in swimming. But he remains acquainted with the coach.

Should I share details of my EA (which was arguably one-sided) in any of the exposure messages

No, I would not. While yours is a dangerous relationship, it wasn't a romantic relationship, which is the definition of an affair. You have feelings for her and you rightly backed away from this person.

Is the OM married? Does he have a Facebook page?

Staying home every night will be very difficult, but I will look for ways to try to make that happen.

I agree with the poor boundaries. We both know better, but I think we both became poor at meeting each other's EN's.

Having discovered this site and approach, we are both genuinely willing to start, imo.

This exposure bomb...wow, just trying to wrap my head around it. It makes perfect sense, but its going to be awfully hard.

Yes, he has a facebook.

OM is married, with two young children. He says that is wife in an alcohol who is emotionally abusive. My wife and he have talked about that.

Don't believe anything that the OM says about his wife.

Flyingguy,

You wrote, Affair is with our son's former swim coach.

At the very least the OM must be massively exposed, this man is not suited to a position of trust and authority and should no long be involved with families as he is an enemy of marriage.

Your children also need to be told that their swim coach has betrayed their family.

Whatever you do, do not warn or threaten exposure, especially to your WW.

Post OM picture to www.cheaterville.com as well.

God Bless
Gamma

Flyingguy,

You wrote, He says that is wife in an alcohol who is emotionally abusive.

If this is true, it's more likely that his wife drinks because OM is a serial cheater who moves from one woman to the next. However as a trick to pick up women claiming that your wife is abusive is an easy way to get sympathy from their victims.

Textbook OM playbook.

God Bless
Gamma

Have you read Surviving an Affair? If not, you should read it together asap. It will lay out Dr. Harley's plan to recovering your marriage post affair.

In addition to exposure, and writing a formal NC letter and implementing precautions so that your wife does not have the ability to contact her OM, or him to contact her, I would suggest you request that she take a polygraph. Many people here have been trickle truthed information for years about their spouses A's, it is easy for a WS to tell themselves that they are 'protecting' their BS from painful truths. In fact this just make recovery impossible, and adds further damage to the marriage. It sounds like you are already being trickle truthed under this rationale.

You can ask her to write you out a timeline of the events of her A, and then you can use that timeline to ask questions regarding the A. A polygraph will just confirm that the information she has told you is accurate.

I would also suggest YOU take a polygraph. Even if your 'almost EA' was not completely an EA, you yourself did have a wayward mind and if I were her, I would be wondering just how much she is being trickle truthed about that relationship. Maybe she isn't, but does she know that. It will give you both a way to start fresh, with both knowing that all the cards are on the table. This is a strong footing to go into recovery with.

Also, you will need to move out of that neighborhood. It is clear the your neighbor is a threat to your marriage. You should have no further contact with her and neither should your wife (she is not a 'friend' btw).

When will you be telling the OM's BW?

If that is true then why doesn't OM get his wife to AA? It doesn't make sense that OM would leave two young children home alone with an abusive alcoholic.


Sneaking around and talking about his wife behind her back is pretty abusive in itself.


I think it is the most common thing we hear WS's say about their BS and it very often is not true.