Hi All

On November 17th I found out my wife of 8 years was having an affair. We have 2 young children, 1 disabled. It completely blindsided me. She has always been a fantastic loving caring wife. Always selfless and caring and that never really changed until DDay. I've looked back and there were no signs of unhappiness and she always seemed as in love as ever. Holding hands, looking at eachother lovingly, kissing, sex, chat, everything seemed normal, UNTIL DDay.

I found out after she had known the other man for 6 weeks. By that time they had 2 hotel meetings that I know of and however many car laisons. For a few days she was cake eating sayign she didnt know what she wanted but I in my hurt state forced a decision, so she chose him stating that she loved this new man and wanted a future with him.

I ended up telling her parents and some friend about it on DDay. Exposing so soon may or may not have been an error.

So yeah, the utimatum on day 2 after DDay was probably mistake one. After that she saw us as separated and made no attempt to hide her contact with him. She went out every other day to his house and often stayed overnight. IT was KILLING me to see it, so I made another mistake. I got her to move out to a rented flat and we agreed split custody if children.

I did try 180 while she was in the house, but i kept failing miserably. I did the rookie mistakes of reasoning, trying to point out good stuff in marriage, infact complete reverse of the 180.

She moved out 16th December. I'm rattling around alone and lonely in my house 4 days a week. Trying to stay busy, tidy up, work etc. Annoyingly I work from home so there is no escaping the house!

My question is have I made too many mistakes? Now she has moved out and still believes she loves him, have I lost her? She gave me the "i love you but im not in love with you" speech. I have tried NC since she moved out apart from a few times about the kids. When i dropped them off the other day afterm my 3 days she cried when she saw me. I fell of the 180 a bit with that and asked if she was still seeing him. She said yes, so right back on the 180 from there!

Any ideas on how to save my marriage? I dont really want to split my family up for good and lose my wife. Now she has moved out and is persuing this realtionship with otherman is seems doomed. She has now known him still less than 3 months. Broke up her family, alienated herself from some friends and her parents and me. She seems willing togive everything up for this guy she doesnt even know!

Do you know the other man's identity? You need to expose the affair to his friends and family as well.

Yeah I do, after DDay my wife obviously told him I knew. He then confessed to his wife. he has since left his wife.

Man, that was fast. I gotta tell you, I don't think there's any way that's going to work out for them. You could also post him on cheaterville.com

I know how you feel. My wife blindsided me, too. Hope you can enjoy the holidays despite the pain she's causing you.

Don't believe ANYTHING a Wayward says.

Did YOU contact the OM's BW?

Name who and how you expised to and what did your letters say specifically?

Have you read through the Start Her First sticky pist at the top of this sub-forum?

Have you bought Dr. Harley's book, "Surviving An Affair" and Read it?

How the He11 can YOU going No Contact so early with your Wayward Wife possibly achieve making any Love Bank Deposits. Sheesh!!!

Pick one program that works.

LTL

YOU need to contact his Betrayed Wife.

Read up on the Exposure Letter templates on this site in the Notable Posts section.

LTL

I have spoke to the betrayed wife, she messaged me when her husband left her. So I am sure.

My wife has been HORRIBLE since Dday. She has said she has been in a loveless marriage. She has been badmouthing people not supporting her saying this is not her fault and our marriage was falling apart anyway etc. which is just not true! Thats so bloody hurtful that she has convinced herself of these things

Literally 2 mins ago she turned up to collect kids presents. Ended badly. I fell of the 180, which is why I've been doing NC. I am not good at 180 when in contact!

I just told her than I dont want to talk to her, once her new love thing falls apart, which it will, then she can talk to me. Then i pretty much motioned her to leave.

It was just too painful her sitting there talking about how bad our marriage was and it was falling apart because that is utter [censored].

I will go read stickies

edit

I would add Plan A totally failed, hence she moved out. Avoiding contact with my WW obviously means no loveband deposits. At this moment I can barely look at her though. I am hoping NC will make her miss me, afterall weve lived together 8 years.

This visit from her today makes me think otherwise though, she is still very much in the fog and seems to think I should be ok with her new relationship

Everybody messes up at first. Pick yourself up and get back in the game. You can do this.

First read up on exposure and then expose far and wide.
Second, you can't do multiple plans, i.e. you can't do the "180 plan" from that other site and do a marriagebuilding plan.
I would stop doing the plan from the other site!!

You need to get an attorney, if she has removed the kids from the home, why did you agree to that?

Yeah, you made some mistakes, but you can clean them up.
You will have to be strong and committed.

I agreed to it because she wouldn't move out without some level of custody and at that time, seeing her every other day, go get showered and go around to his house was just too much!

I screwed up today, telling her I didnt want to speak to her until their affair is over. Her sitting there saying how our marriage was falling apart anyway as a means to justify this just really hurt me.

After she left I sent this message, probably another mistake

"You had a husband who was dedicated to you and loved you to bits. Coming here and saying our marriage was bad and falling apart anyway was really upsetting. We had a good marriage!!! You never once showed or communicated ANY discontent. Sitting there saying those things to me was so unfair and horrible."


I am getting that book, headed to amazon now. Not sure what I can do in the meantime to turn this around. I read some of the stickie but looks like i screwed up plan A AND plan B :-/

Just bought kindle edition so I could get it today, will read it tonight.

As for exposure, her parents, friends, and some of her family all know. It doesn't seem to have pulled her out of the fog though. I am worriedd even after she realises and the affair ends, she will have convinced herself our marriage was bad.

In reality I did so much for her, she never worked, I took kids away most of the day at weekends to give her a break, I loved her and she loved me. Gutted shes spouting this stuff about a bad marriage because we were solid

Everyone who has an affair says the marriage was bad. It's how they justify the affair. She will not think that if the affair ends.

Hi BewilderedBH, welcome to Marriage Builders. I would stop wasting your time with the "180 plan" because it doesnt work. The marriages that do stay together after using that plan took YEARS to even end the affair and are not recovered marriages today. The reason the 180 doesnt work is because it focuses on DETACHMENT. But DETACHMENT is what destroyed the marriage in the first place so it obviously can't be the solution.

Plan A is completely different in that the BS stops all lovebsuters, agrees to meet the WS' in the future if she ends her affair, and does an all out exposure. The strategy is to kill the affair via exposure while attracting the WS back into the marriage.

I would stop lecturing her about how "great:" your marriage was and start listening to her and promising to make it better if she will end her affair. Why would she come back if you keep telling her a bad was great? That makes no sense.

Instead, tell her you will correct the things that made her unhappy.

In the meantime, you need to rain holy hell on the affair. OM are cowards and worms who are typically easily scared off. That means you expose the hell out of this affair to his family and friends. Go read my exposure 101 thread and start making plans to cause holy hell in his life. I would also expose this rat on cheaterville. com and send out links to everyone.

Does the OM have a Facebook page?

I will read your 101, yes he does have a FB page.
I am reading that book i just bought right now.

So should I be going and speaking to my wife and explaining these things, that if/when affair ends I want to find and fix the issues we had? doing that THEN a huge exposure seems counter productive from her point of view

You need to calm yourself down. Six weeks is nothing in the lifecycle of an affair, and you have scarcely started to fight. You need to stop jumping to conclusions and start planning. Affairs are highly unstable, and you have an excellent chance of winning her back. You are not going to do it with ultimatums. You need to demonstrate in actions what a wonderful husband you can be. We can walk you through the steps. For now - no disrespectful judgements, no anger, no arguing. It is OK to say that the affair is hurting you terribly, but you need put together an effective Plan A that will make the OM look like the scoundrel that he is in comparison.

Stop measuring the affair in days and weeks. Fighting an affair takes months and years. You need to settle in for the long haul.

STOP saying stupid stuff like this and recognize that you are competing for your marriage. Do you understand that the OM is NOT lecturing her or fighting with her? Are you TRYING to make the OM look more attractive?

You need to change your approach entirely and work SMART. Working SMART will give her second thoughts about her affair and cause her second guess herself.

Send her a message and say: Dear WW, I want you to know that I dearly love you. I feel badly that our marriage was so bad for you. I am listening! I am willing to correct the things that made you unhappy if you will end your affair. Just know that I don't want the old marriage back, but a new marriage where both our needs are met and we are in love. I want a marriage where we are both happy and are in love.

All my love, BBH

See, when you say this, you take the wind out of her sails and remove her ability to demonize you. She is manufacturing grievances to justify her affair [we call it rewriting history] but if you tell her 'oh so sorry, I will fix all that" you take away her weapon!!

STOP handing her ammunition with which to shoot you! Do you see?

Go RIGHT NOW and copy and paste all of his contacts into a text doc for safekeeping.


Exposure might SEEM counterproductive, but it is ESSENTIAL to the goal here. Because if you don't kill off the affair, your Plan A will be WORTHLESS and the affair will linger for YEARS.

Ok, I copied his contacts, includes his kids. I will read the exposure document and send that message to WW

I see where this is going, stop giving her [censored] to throw at me (apart from exposure)

does exposure doc cover fb?

Waywards hate exposure but it is a must. She doesn't want her fantasy to see the light of day and be shown for what it really is. Just like a drug addict doesn't like an intervention. You have to expose as much as possible and as quickly as possible.

My WW gave me the same crap about how terrible our entire marriage was and how she was never happy with us. Then, a day or an hour later, she would tell me "I love you but I'm not in love with you". It's garbage, just let it roll of your back. Don't worry about what she says, recognize that all she is trying to do is hurt you and get you to react with Love Busters. Your LB reactions help her to justify her affair and leaving you. You need to be the better option when her new "soulmate" begins failing to be what she dreams he is. React to her complaints with understanding of her perspective and tend to agree.

I would recommend that you read the book "Love Busters". I didn't think I needed to read it but I finally decided to buy it and I greatly regret not doing it immediately. Even if you think you have a handle on LBs, the book will open your eyes to LBs you have used that you never would recognize.

EXACLTY! And you need to understand that no amount of REASON will help you. You are dealing with an addict who is high on an affair. So ask yourself if you think reasoning would be effective with a falling down drunk? No, it won't. So what you have to do is make her affair filled with conflict [exposure] while you present yourself as a very attractive, safe place to LAND.


YES.

And I would expose to all your friends and family members with the message in those exposure templates. That way, you are ensured they know the truth rather than the lies and spin presented by your wayward wife.

Have your kids been told about the affair?