Wow, three BHs with the most similarity to my own situation are all posting to the same thread.
My WW is having at least an EA with a divorced family friend. She is in the fog and won't go NC with OM. She thinks they can still be friends. The A has been exposed to her parents, his sisters and the leadership of our church. He use to worship with us all the while trying to destroy the family. He has been confronted by the leadership (Matthew 18:15-17). He no longer worships at the church. His kids go the same church affiliated school as ours and the leadership of the school knows of his hypocrisy. She used to teach part time at the school and was not allowed to teach this year because of this. Despite all this, she has not moved out and/or filed. When she was denied the job by the pastor, she was so mad that she said she would no longer go to the church. She attended the next Sunday and is still going with the family knowing that the church leadership knows what is going on. The pastor offered to pay of our MC, but she refused. She doesn't want to break OM's heart by working on the M.
We are pretty much roommates at this point. I've been on Plan A for 7 1/2 months now. I didn't want to Plan B on my own because my lawyer said it would be difficult to get my back in the house. I'd go Plan B if she left on her own. Evidently, WW hoped that I would leave the house and OM would move in. She is trapped now. She to too afraid of the stigma of moving in with OM and too spoiled to get a full time job and get her own apartment. Her parents have a condo she could move into, but they have sided with me and are working to destroy the A. They will be back in town for the season next week. I'm hoping that will up the discomfort level for the A.
I don't want to hijack this thread. Face1, Axslinger and nwmb77, I am in same boat and praying for us all.

BH: 47
WW: 41
DS: 13
DD: 9 (almost 10)
Married: 1999
D Day: 4/16/14
Exposures started in Late May 2014

That's a tough spot Spiff. I know that Dr.Harley does recommend an extended plan A for BHs, I think he says up to a year.(don't quote me on that)

Have you started your own thread on this forum? I think a lot more of the vets would see your story. The vets here have great advice and your situation seems complicated since your wife is still living with you.

I've been reading this forum (and others) daily since D-Day. I was on the Dr. Harley's radio show back in August too.

Hi spacemanspiff, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am so sorry for your predicament. I hope you will start a new thread so other folks can offer you some help.

face is correct, Dr Harley recommends about a year of Plan A with a WW and then going into Plan B. You would want to get your lawyer to draw up an agreement that protects you so you are not charged with abandonment.

Have you exposed to the OM;s side of the family? Exposure to the OM's parents and family is very effective in these affairs because it will cause your wife to be embarrassed to meet them. It really causes problems in the affair.

Have you exposed to your children?

I exposed to his sisters. They are both divorced at least once. One is remarried that other divorced twice I think. The twice divorced may be an enabler for him. I think he confides in her. I probably should have exposed to his parents, but his father is 90 years old. This was my first exposure. Note: His father is a pastor. His family is not in town and was a little too supportive of his divorce from his wife back in 2010. His XW used to be my WW's BFF.
I told now 13 yro DS back in June. He never liked OM and was suspicious of their friendship. Later, I told DD9 in more age appropriate way.

That is where I would expose. This father could be a great influence on his son. It will also make your wife think twice about her future with this man. Is his mother alive? If so, I would expose to her too. If he has a Facebook page, it is very effective to expose to his Facebook contacts. There are instructions in my exposure 101 thread.


Good deal! When you say "age appropriate" you mean you did tell him the truth, right? Does he know it is an affair, that affairs are immoral and that the OM is the enemy of his family? I mention this because if kids are not told the full truth, they get very confused and often blame themselves. Giving them false explanations for the source of tension is damaging to them.

I told that the friendship they had was inappropriate and that moms should not have boyfriends other they their husbands. I did not use the word "immoral". She too was suspicious of the friendship. She attends a Christian school and recently created a presentation on the Ten Commandments just for the fun of it. Now that is interesting.

I am considering further exposure, but don't want to turn it into trickle exposure.

All the exposure I have done started back in June. As a result:
- He has been run out of the church
- He was chewed out by my MIL over the phone. She suggested to him that she would never forgive him.
- He was called a phony is an e-mail sent by my FIL urging him to break it off.
- He doesn't feel comfortable at the school because the superintendent knows and likely many teachers know as well.

I do want to make finding someone else an option for him hence I haven't "Cheatervilled" him.

Dude, you need to Cheaterville him.

(1) It is effective and saving your marriage is more important than his future.

(2) You aren't helping him by sparing him that. If he's OK with messing with your wife (who was apparently his ex-wife's best friend!) you are saving other women a lot of grief and trouble by exposing his behavior. He's not anywhere close to marriage material, and if anything being exposed is the best bet for helping him understand how despicable his behavior is. You're doing a great disservice to whoever his next "someone else" is by not exposing what he's done to your family.

If you have missed key people in your exposure, you should go ahead and do it. We tell people to do a tsunami exposure versus a trickle exposure. That doesn't mean you avoid exposing to anyone who was missed in the initial exposure.


I would definitely suggest exposing him on cheaterville, because you can send the link around anonymously to others, i.e.: coworkers, etc. That will also give other women a warning of what kind of dirtbag he really is.

Exposure reminds of something I recall from my old high school philosophy class:

"Machiavelli advises that a prince should carefully calculate all the wicked deeds he needs to do to secure his power, and then execute them all in one stroke, such that he need not commit any more wickedness for the rest of his reign. In this way, his subjects will slowly forget his cruel deeds and his reputation can recover. Princes who fail to do this, who hesitate in their ruthlessness, find that their problems mushroom over time and they are forced to commit wicked deeds throughout their reign. Thus they continuously mar their reputations and alienate their people."

Exposure is a LoveBuster, but a very necessary one. Trickle exposure likely fails because of the same reason as in the quote above.

Right now, I want them to turn on each other all the while me being in Plan A with the "welcome mat" out. Further exposure may backfire at this point. Yes, I wish I could go back in time and expose to his mother and father, but I didn't.
They may have already started to turn on each other and things will be more uncomfortable for them when we start spending more time with her parents and they start influencing her more than they could from 750 miles away.

A good word to use is adultery. Most kids do understand that term and of course, they should be taught that adultery is immoral. If you don't teach her it is immoral, your wife will teach her the opposite. It is very morally confusing to children when one of their parents is an adulterer.

My own mother was SILENT on the issue and I grew up very confused. Kids have instincts about right and wrong and when they are not validated, it causes confusion and teaches them to DOUBT themselves.

Dr. Harley would suggest that you be as straightforward and honest as possible. If you don't tell her the full truth, your wife will be free to tell her lies.

I would get those exposures finished up asap. While it is not ideal to space them out, you can't afford to miss that critical exposure to his parents. That is a CRITICAL exposure.

My serial cheater father used to say "ML, you have to do what makes you happy." As a child that didn't make much sense to me but taken to its logical conclusion was the basis for a lot of my bad behavior growing up. But that is the kind of "moral" lesson that a wayward parent teaches children. When I grew up I was able to learn right from wrong on my own. My life was a wreck until I taught myself right from wrong.

Spaceman Spiff is undefeatable, ultimately, because he never gives up. Good luck!

tl

Have you finished exposure?