The only pitfalls is a waste of time

The biggest reason I see is that there is no reason TO go.

You don't need another supporter of your WW working to influence you to be the nice guy and submit to her affair like a coward. You don't need to hear negativity about your valiant effort to fight for your marriage.

Since you can assume this is the purpose of the meeting, to try to persuade you to do things differently than you have been, and not to applaud you for your efforts, why subject yourself to this.

You are fighting like a champ ax, but this is a very emotional and vulnerable time for you. Many of us know because we have been there. You do not need to surround yourself with people who are working against your efforts, but rather keep them at arms reach.

Axe,

Obviously, this man will present to you a different agenda, but I think you are okay to meet with him as long as in your meeting you stay grounded in the principles and framework that Dr. Harley has in place to save marriages and make them better than ever. That is your end game and nothing should take you off course. Dr. Harley knows how to save marriages. He's saved tens of thousands of them, and the man you are going to meet cannot compare to that, nor can any of the other in-laws.

So when you meet with him, suspend all disrespectful judgments if he challenges you, but do share with him that right now your marriage is under assault, and you have armed yourself with the very best, time proven tools to combat the forces that are assailing it. I would ask him respectfully to pray for your marriage and to be a ally in fighting for it. You have consulted with the a nationally recognized marriage therapist who has unparalleled success and who has saved marriages that most people would consider totally hopeless. Many a marriage has risen from the ashes thanks to Dr. Harley. I would also stress that Dr. Harley has a Christian background.

I would keep the meeting short and sweet. You might print out materials from this site and share with him. I would print out the articles on this page: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3000_intro.html. Include in your print outs all the links on the page, especially the "How Dr. Harley Learned to Save Marriages" one.

If you end the meeting on a different page, that's okay. Listen to what he has to say, and at the end of the meeting, ask him to read the print outs so that he will have a better understanding of why you are doing what you are doing. If he won't agree, that's his prerogative, but you have do what is best for your marriage.

Looking forward to hearing what happens with the other man. I think you should confronted him a long time ago, but I'm glad you're finally taking care of this. Good luck today. Go Eastwood, and by that I don't mean engage him in a fight. Rather, I mean take a cool, laconic, tough, all-business approach to the conversation. Make him shake in his boots without becoming violent.

I would not go. And I would Plan B your in-laws.

You need to save your emotional energy - not let it get drained trying to convince people that you are not the one with a problem.

I would not go.

If you go (please don't. trying to appease the inlaws is not where your energy needs to be right now) DON'T share Marriage Builders info. You don't want to hand your wife your strategy.

You shouldn't be in a position of defending your approach. Her family is being gaslit by her...heavily. They are buying her crap about being unhappy for years and blah blah blah. Sounds like you're about to walk into some lecture about letting God take care of it or something.

I know you're a fighter but you might want to consider what it would be like to move forward without her. You don't have the 'glue' of kids and recovery is very challenging. You have every right to move on and get out of this marriage.

Just something to consider.

Update on this. Got together with a few friends and a VAR but couldn't find OM today, his stand was nowhere to be found at either of the local farmer's markets. Curiously nothing on his business Facebook about today's market either. Since this guy doesn't work a regular job my other options are tracking him down at his/a family member's residence and I feel that is unwise. I drove by WW's work and she wasn't working (unusual unless she's changed her work schedule) so I assume they were somewhere together today. Kind of a letdown, I was ready to go. But this guy will hear from me and I'll try again next week. At this point even if WW files, I would regret not confronting OM, I am certain of that.

As for the meeting...there's more to this guy's relation to her family that I don't want to get into, but which makes his position less certain than it would appear. I'm genuinely interested in what his take is. I do confrontation a lot in my line of work so it's not something that bothers me. I don't intend on getting into MB principles too much as overall I intend to stick with brevity. The more the words the less the meaning.

This course of action is on my mind daily, to be honest, and most of my own family is urging me to do this, so it's hard to get away from thinking about it right now.

Since WW refuses to have any contact with me it's actually been pretty easy to emotionally compartmentalize this for whatever reason. Thinking about seeing or talking to her is a pretty big trigger and I think if she started resuming contact with me it would rewind me 2 or 3 weeks to when I was in the midst of depression about the A (and being abandoned). I'm not "over" it by any means now, it's just not a constant grind of clinical depression (anxiety, nausea, insomnia, etc). I just have moments at this point where I get some or a few of those things, and less frequently with each week. It is hard to anticipate what will trigger it (sometimes an old song we liked on the radio, sometimes just being around family and feeling odd to not have her with me, sometimes driving by an old dating spot). But it's getting easier.

I have no idea what will happen but my honest prediction is that she will not file (I think she expects me to now that I'm aware of the A), I will get into a different house in the next week or so, move forward with most of my life practically assuming she's not coming back (since I cannot control what she chooses to do), and wind down the rest of my 6 months of distant Plan A. That doesn't really bother me to think about, and I just look at R as being a matter of how she comes back, if she comes back. If I can't get agreement on EPs and honest effort into the MB program, I'm not going to consider R. I'm going to consider Plan B/D. And if I get nothing after 6 months, I'll probably consider Plan D unless I feel led to do otherwise. The course WW has put herself on will lead to burnout, I just don't know how quickly and if I'll still be open to her by the time she gets there.

I'm pretty much at peace with that at this point. I've got a lot things I can work on that will be good disciplines (e.g. getting back into weightlifting) and will make me a more attractive partner, and I'm ready to get focus on that. Lots of areas I can grow/mature/improve in that are good for me regardless of what WW decides to do. Also grateful for having found MB because I see a lot of things in Dr. Harley's stuff that can make me a better husband. Wish I would have found this 6 years ago.

I wouldn't go, ask yourself this - what is to be gained? Nothing!

So as Jedi said, it is a waste of time. As others have said, more emotional draining confusion.

Axe, when I went through the Jedi Training Academy one of my instructors kept telling us to not waste our time.

WW apparently deactivated her old phone so there goes that line of communication.

Good. That way the OM must meet all of her emotional needs and they will experience conflict sooner (since she cant blame you for her problems now)

Meeting went well, I think I found an ally. Details are things I can't mention but the friend of FIL has experience with similar circumstances. There was a bit of jousting about exposure but after I explained the scope (close family/friends) there weren't many objections. His recommendation was basically Plan A, and he was there to encourage to me not give up and that while he disagrees with FIL/MILs handling of WW, he has discussed the topic enough with them to know their desire for the situation is R, not D. Wouldn't be surprised if he leans on them a bit after talking to me and discovering I'm not on the warpath to ruin WW's reputation. Very supportive, overall.

Also met with SIL's husband at a different time/location. He and I are friends and he had reached out to me via Facebook wanting to see how I was holding up. Very much the same sort of conversation. He told me that last week MIL told WW point blank she needs to end the relationship with OM regardless of what she claims it is, and that WW agreed to do this. He acknowledged that WW may not have done this, but wanted me to know they were pressuring her. He's had a friend in his church that's overcome a very similar situation with an A and wanted to encourage me not to give up, and basically suggested Plan A.

This all probably sounds counter-intuitive to my statements earlier about keeping in-laws at a distance but I had a hunch after I got both of these invites that I should follow up and I feel very encouraged. I'm wondering if news about the restraining order had alarmed people on that side of the family about how it would affect my disposition. Lots of good spiritual discussion as well, which is important to my resolve. People with realistic takes on the situation and how to proceed, not people who are terribly fog lit. I'm still avoiding FIL where possible, however.

Sounds like it went well, although what was truly gained by you? You also gave them info that they can share with WW.

You need to be very careful with these people. They have already shown to be at the least passively supporting your waywards actions.

It is good if they are truly allies, but subterfuge is also a very real possibility. What if one of them picks a fight just to get you arrested? It has happened before!!!

I'm glad you met with them. They are your family still.

And you've showed that you have a healthy skepticism and a strong commitment to following the MB plan. That's why I was not against you meeting with him.

What Plan A activities do you have in mind?

There's not really anything we discussed that WW doesn't already know. There wasn't any grand strategy unveiled as much as them providing examples of how I could demonstrate affection or openness at this point, and me filling in some blanks on making those examples specific to our situation.

If the point of exposure is partially for the BS to gain support from the family, this was it. My family has been very supportive of me, but very tepid on the viability of the marriage. FIL and some of her siblings have been the same way except with her.

These people showed up to tell me they were in support of the marriage and not one or the other of us, and that helps me tremendously to feel like there's people close to me who are rooting for us to survive this rather than looking at the marriage as damaged goods. Feeling like you're the only one who can conceive of recovery gets lonely pretty quick. After the restraining order I began to wonder if I'd made a lot of enemies on that side of the family because of exposure, and this helps to dispel that notion.

I do think there are some individuals I cannot trust right now, but the overall climate is still that people want to see the marriage survive.

Well....I still do have WW on Facebook. She hasn't changed anything about us on Facebook, still listed as my wife with her married last name, etc. She doesn't really post anything though she does get on every few days and has PM'd some people in her family from what they tell me. I kind of wonder if she uses it to try and keep tabs on what I'm doing/saying. I know all of this could change in an instant, but that's the way it is currently.

I'm going to send her FB private messages to do Plan A, and I'm going to ask for her new cell # today. Worst she can say is no.

I've also thought of having flowers sent to her work with notes.

SIL's husband suggested sending notes or letters through her parents until I get her new address. He thinks MIL would relay those for me. Both men last night seemed to understand FIL has hang ups about this situation, they both acknowledged indirectly that MIL is the stronger ally here.

I know this will sound absurd but I still don't have my PI report. He was working on compiling a surveillance report and trying to figure out the exact nature of WW's and OM's current living arrangements, but I have no idea what is taking so long. I'm going to contact him today to find out what the hold up is. I should at least have WW's current address from that. I think he was at least partially hung up on not getting his GPS back, but WW returned this to him over the weekend after he threatened to press charges against her for theft.

Are these good ideas? Anything I'm leaving out?

That's funny.
The PI threatened to file theft charges for his GPS?
If I found a GPS on my car I would smash it and return in in pieces to the PI

Well unfortunately she now knows she was under PI surveillance and must have met him when she returned his GPS

I'm not very impressed with your PI.
If I lived near you I think I could have got you a lot more info and found out who was staying in the house etc in a couple days