In the summer of 2011 I found out my wife was having an EA and used my unique way to bust up the affair and we �worked� on our marriage. The affair did indeed end and we made progress as a couple in recovering, to a point, but it was a false recovery. To the outside world we were a good couple, were socially functional, nice to be around and showed no real issues, but we never rebuilt the marriage by meeting each other�s EN�s. So both of us harbored bitterness and we both practiced marriage destructive behavior over the years in our uniquely recovered marriage.

Because I didn�t have the guidance of this site back then, I failed to get the no contact agreement in place and because the original EA remained a secret they faced no social condemnation or consequences, so they would continue their �friendship� off and on over the last few years relying on each other emotionally when things were not going good. Well a few months ago the friendship/EA evolved into a full blown PA.

Following Dr. Harley�s principals I was able to put an end to the affair and in the past 2 months my wife and I have made more progress in recovering our marriage than the previous 4 years of doing it our own unique way.

So you have a choice repeat my unique mistakes and be facing the continuation of this affair or possibly another one, or follow the principals outlined here and have a real chance at a real recovery.

Hi all
ThePhoenix - thank you for sharing your experience here... Thats interesting one.
Anyway, we re doing that a bit different way.

1st - i am here, and i have info about Harley's approach in those situations, which give me a bit benefit against your situation in past.

2nd - I am having commitment (and actions) from my wife about complete separation from him (even she finally agreed now to move to other city and find other job, if it will be necessary, but we decided to wait till OM leaves as committed by him as well). We already took a steps to separate them as much as possible at this moment - block his mail, facebook, phone and contacts all over, we get rid of all things which would remind him to us i.e all memories as pictures, work mails etc (i know hospital, where they can met is still issue for now, but we took steps there as well - to dont sigh nightshifts together, find other doctors if help is needed, lunches etc.. and both are doing that as i can see)

3rd we re working already on emotional needs with my wife together. It s not yet completely finished and we re still going through those and discussing one by one in details (as a base we use the EN's Questionnaire from Dr. Harley which we populated a bit with the EN's which are not listed there, and are important to me or to my wife, and also we re cutting off those which are not for us - i.e. the one about kids as we re not having kids yet)

The point about social condemnation and consequences is very strong, and it s logical. Because right now i am only one who told them how much cruel, stupid, selfish, risky etc it was. I am not entirely sure that either my wife or OM is 100% aware of how far, wide, and deep this betrayal is going and that it's not only me who is suffering, but also so many other people (if they would know), and because noone else knows, than they obviously cannot show/explain to my wife and OM their point of view and position and the condemnation of that act. (As we re all unique i guess some will say it's life, some will be completely devastated, some will dont mind, some will say we deserved, and some will stay behind me, and some will stay behind my wife... so i cannot be sure how much support i will really get - therefore i only told so far to those where i am sure i will get the support i need)
So now it s only me who can keep an eye on them which possibly may be / is not enough... And for them it would be clearly easier to hide and cover it (if it continues) only from me, than from all around who would know (colleagues, boss, family...). I got this.

Also thanks for pointing out the continuous "friendship" issue. I realized that i must force her to end that by herself (the ending letter sounds as great way to do so), rather than as i did it by myself (when i talked to him and explained him what i was writing here earlier, and that i am having all what he love - kids, life, wife - in my hands now, and that he must leave and NEVER EVER sees talk to my wife again ).

Affair as it used to be is not there any more ( i know you guys dont agree ) - simply it s not same, because both are doing all what is possible to avoid any contact, and in a time -May- they will not work together anymore (bcs he is moving out of the hospital - once again, he is doing that, because of my demands and his understanding what is in risk - dont misunderstood here, i am absolutely not staying behind him. I really hate him for what they did! But my opinion and deep feeling is that every human being should have a chance for correction, bcs we re just humans ... and not only those good people or people we do love should be allowed to correct their faults, drops... and its up to him to start correct life. To me it would mean - to tell his wife by himself and show and proof he is sorry and want to correct it).
I can imagine that you will post me back - that i am actually staying behind him, bcs i am helping him to cover it up from his wife - i dont , as i wrote above everyone has a right for correction and I must save myself and our marriage first before i can save everyone else! Thats what i believe right now, but everything is constantly changing right

But the good point which i realized is that my wife must end the "friendship" from her side as well. Completely kill it from her side - bcs life is not happy place all the time, and there will be hard situations between me and my wife in future of course (maybe kids, maybe some other hard stuff, misunderstandings, different positions and views etc). I think i was wrong to think that it would be enough to end that only by myself (mainly i didnt want them to talk again and see each other again). To write a letter or mail, and give him a strict knowing about what she really wants now is to be with me and only with me, and that she realized all what i talked about earlier, pain to OM's family and my wife family, betrayal, love to me, love to her family etc.. - is very wise idea. And my feeling is now that she must do that as soon as possible. He must read that from my wife's pen!

Just to mention i am going to talk to real therapist, psychologist (25 years of exp focused on marriage issues) about my situation and her opinion to my approach, and also about your suggestions here. So lets see what a real professional thinks about that. Please dont curse me, it s just i think that people on internet may be whoever with whatever on their back etc.. Since your signatures here doesnt really say who you re and what professions you re doing and if you re proffesionals in this matter or only fans.
So please dont curse me now, i am so VERY very thankful to you keep posting here your ideas and experiences (yes experiences as well as i see above just quick reaction to ML post )

Thank you folks a lot. I will let you know...

in addition :
I came to "MarriageBuilders" forum not because Mr. Harley's process primary (even it gave me a lot of good insights and ideas) but because this is first large forum and pages about infidelity which i found, where i think members and moderators are open minded to those issues. And not completely dedicated only to Dr. Harley's path of process... Maybe i was wrong and bcs it s Marriage Builders strategy you re simply following it as it is , without consideration of anything else...



You dont need to explain and introduce him again, i have read that before, and i can found similar comment at least twice in this thread already... The next sentence an above quotation is just not right, bcs some re really also sharing their own personal experiences ...


i know i dont have to take advice of course, we re all having free will to do whatever we think of. Important thing is to know and feel what is good and what is not and then behave in correct way based on that (thats hard sometimes, for someone more and for someone its less difficult). And i know the right thing is to let OM's wife know about it...I agree, that OM's wife should know - to have possibility to carry on based on her decision, as you said as well. And i am not refusing that, i am only saying how i am feeling it and that's of course only my opinion...it shouldn't be done primarily by me, but by OM himself. Of course i cannot anyhow force him to do so, so OM's wife may need a bit help from outside (exposure)


This is not what i kinda expected from here. As i wrote above. I thought this is forum about infidelity and how to fix it, not that there is only one ultimate way of doing that for all. Yes Dr. Harley's is great guy with lot of experience with thousands of couples - and it works for you, thats very fine, it may worked for hundreds or even for thousands couples, (i dont know what is the rating of success here, Do you?) But does that works for every couple on this planet? i doubt about that.
Therapist (not only in marriage) are usually carrying case by case if i am not wrong. And i suppose same should apply here. And i will found out from my appointment with professional which i am going to participate in upcoming week(s).. as i mentioned in previous post

If you cannot help me other way than pushing me (who you dont know) only single way which helped to You and dont step a inch aside with your thinking, than i think you should think a bit more how to help other people, if that's what you re doing in real life.
I'm maybe a bit rude here, and i additionally frankly! apologize directly right now if i touched you... But some statements sounds more "fanatic" then helpful , and as i read your older posts (8 thousands post back) it wasnt like this before...

Maybe i just need to look around for other similar forums as well, discuss with professional and keep eyes and mind open to see wider picture ...

Are you by her side at the hospital 24/7 checking what she is doing? I think not.

So what if she has blocked his number etc. She doesn't need that when she is working with him.

And you are trusting what an OM says that he is going to actually leave the hospital?

Your marriage is seriously doomed while she works with him and you refuse to expose.

And by the way Dr Harley is a REAL psychologist too.

I seriously don't know why you are here. Good luck with your own plan. I'm sure you'll be back when your plan fails.

And by the way waywards lie, gaslight and will do and say anything to make you think the affair is over. Now they know you are onto them, they will just find other ways to keep it going and go further underground.

and you re right i am not

bcs his leave is upcoming, OM will be on vacation 3 weeks in March, and my wife will b e not there 2 weeks in April...and OM is leaving this hospital starting from May.

it doesnt matter what i trust in this case i would say, he will leave and that will be the win i am waiting for, or he will not and i will go some other way, probably the way you re explaining here...So returning here

He is yes, i am not saying he is not, it s just he is not here..

thats also possible, lets see. I hope i wouldn't need to

Most BS's who are bit too scared to tackle the A head on and want an easy 'can I be just be generally nicer' plan want a lot of 'different opinions' they can pick and choose from.

However it would be incredibly irresponsible of us to do that. We have the advice of a 20-year clinical practitioner who has the successes of many post-affair couples ringing in his ears.

In addition, those of us who frequent these boards see the constant failure of anyone who tries to skip a stage. Just one stage. Most of us have tried that ourselves and it doesn't work. Ever.

In contrast when someone follows the plan exactly - it always works.

It is like trying to bake a cake and leaving out the flour.

I think it is quite simply unbelievable that you are helping the cheaters continue their affair at work and will not warn this poor lady.

We have had men fight to free their wives from the affair and who have also helped the BW and her poor children.

You do nothing out of sheer cowardice.

When the BW finds out and ends it (women do seem much better at this - except for a few rock stars - and many of our BWs find an enabling husband knew all along) your wife will come out of her fog. When she does , she is not going to remember you fondly. She will see you as someone who aided and abbetted the worst and most degrading thing that ever happened to her.

Affairs are addictions and do not stop while contact is allowed. When contact stops - they wake up.

One BW here discovered the other spouse had known for years! He thought it was over. She gave him a lecture about his secrecy and told him to expose to his kids.

Heartbreakingly they already knew and had been protecting him.

it doesnt matter what i trust in this case i would say, he will leave and that will be the win i am waiting for, or he will not and i will go some other way, probably the way you re explaining here...So returning here :)I hope i wouldn't need to
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By that time your wife will have concluded you are a pansy who does not care about her very much.

From her perspective the OM is risking his whole life for her at work and you do nothing.

Risking an affair resumption so you 'can come back here' is very uncaring.

Every time you wave your wife off you are sending her off to affairville.

I promise you that she despises your complacency and it will be hard for you to explain later.

Most men would rather die than comply with their wives spending the day with their lover.

This is silly. She goes to work with him EVERY DAY, so "blocking email, Facebook, etc" is nonsense. And if she worked overnights with him, she doesn't have to tell you that. I view the above paragraph as silliness.


A waste of time. You must first complete STEP ONE in order to go to STEP TWO.

Unless your wife ends contact with the OM and you expose the affair, you are wasting your time and ours. We cannot help you if you refuse to take the advice given here.

And I see that you have decided to help them hide their affair. We cannot help you if you enable the affair. Filling out "questionnaires" will not help your marriage in this situation.

What is your rate of success? Isn't it ZERO? How many marriages have you saved? Isn't it ZERO? So why would you take advice from a guy with ZERO success? Does that make sense? Does it sound to you like Dr. Harley thinks there are several ways to save a marriage?

here

Keep in mind that YOU are not a therapist. You are the guy who only knows how to wreck marriages. Have you ever saved a marriage? NO. So, you are taking the advice of a fool.

The advice we are giving you is from Dr. Bill Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders. He has saved THOUSANDS of marriages using these concepts. If you are not going to use them, there is no reason to come here. You are wasting our time and yours.

As an attorney with an LL.M. in Taxation I came to MB back in 2005 thinking I could use MB as a resource to develop MY PLAN to save my marriage. Sometimes our educations and just "being smart" gets in the way of relying on any one else's ideas. I imagine that's even tougher for a practicing physician who understands more clearly than anyone what "practicing" really means.

The problem with developing "MY" plan was I wanted to be way too nice. I feared upsetting my wife as I believed upsetting her was NOT the path to success. I also so wanted to trust her and each day of lies made that harder and harder (until I started snooping more effectively and then I didn't have to bother asking her for the truth since I already knew).

Ultimately exposure worked for us. I was hesitant as well and scared but it made all the difference in the world and I don't regret it one bit. OM dumped my wife and sent my wife an email telling her to leave him alone.

I see you've only been posting a few days so I hope in time you will reconsider as more and more persons tell you about their success AND you eventually witness that your wife is lying to you again. Contact is contact and they can't help themselves. It's like an alcoholic trying to quit drinking while working as a bartender. Even looking at each other across a parking lot is too much eye contact.

Godspeed,

Mr. Wondering

You are perfectly free to try a a risky 'I made it myself' plan - it is your marriage to risk. We always tell people to come back and tell us how it panned out.

No one ever says 'this worked for me' and so, so many people who refuse the advice come back to report Dday #2 and #3.

Your goal is to be desperate in your low standards - because affairs make us feel desperate and scared.

Dr Hs goal is to have high standards for the marriage and prevent another affair.


Does it make sense to you that she would place this affair over the work she loves? She risked her beloved job for a hole in the corner affair.

Now she says the job is more important than the marriage and you have to put up with contact with OM?

If she were really remorseful she would be sick at the idea of the place.

But you know she's not.

That's why you feel powerless and want a 'I have no power' style plan.

Maybe, but even without the guidence of this site some of the principals are so logical and intuitive like building a better connection and meeting needs that we did do that. But I never fully had her attention because I didn't expose the affair and allowed her to keep an escape clause (the OM) on the hook for when she need someone to turn to.

I had the same commitments, put all the same blocks in place and changed all contact information and I trully believe her intentions were sincere and she honestly wanted to recomit to me and marriage. As I said for a time things were really good, but because face to face contact was possible none of that mattered.

Also, We were going to relocate out state, but then he said his job was transferring him and was going to so we didn't. Well 4 years later we were both still in same town.

I will leave this to more experienced here to speak to this, but my instinct tells me with out exposure and true NC this will only lead to a false recovery.

Considering they both betrayed you out of selfish desires what makes you think your words carry weight with them now that you know the truth? The secret is still safe, more so now than ever since you the BS is one of its protectors.

Yes, various people will have different reactions and thats fine, you will then know who reflects your values and who doesn't. I will say many people knew or sensed the affair but didn't address it because as long as I the BS wasn't why should they. Once I attacked it by exposing it I got an amazing amount of support, even from places I didn't expect it.

Nice post, Phoenix.

Do you even have the book SAA?