TypicalMan, 50 is not too much, just be sure that you have the important ones, Friends, Family, Mentors...Also, you DO need to expose to your kids. They are old enough to understand and learn from this. You will do them no favors by "protecting" them from this. Your wife WILL go ballistic and accuse your actions of hurting them, but Dr. Harley advocates telling children of sufficient age to understand. Remember, your exposure is not hurting anyone, the actions that need to be exposed are the ones that hurt these people. Exposure helps to reduce the chance that these people will be hurt by such actions again.

Also, on a side note, I was at one time married to a serial cheater who was quite good at browbeating me into being afraid to execute Dr. Harley's plan fully. She kept on cheating and I ended up divorced.

I experienced a lot of self doubt when I listened to what my XWW said, sounds like you do too. My advice would be for you to write down your plan to break up this affair (which is ongoing even if it is dormant), your plan to Plan A, your plan to care for yourself (exercise, family time, renewing hobbies) because you are going to need to recreate your emotional energy after each encounter with your WW.

Then WORK YOUR PLAN. Do not listen to the hurtful crazy-talk, just work your plan. You will find yourself clear headed and feeling in control because YOU will be determining your actions, not allowing your actions to be dependent on your WW's warped view of reality.

Once you are in that place and YOU KNOW you are doing a good job because your can see all the checkmarks on your plan. You will have the confidence and surety to offer your WW a choice...she can have her boyfriend(s) and her affair supporters, or she can have her family. You are right in your previous posts that you cannot MAKE her listen, but you can LURE her in with the changes in your attitudes and changes in your actions that make you into the man you want to be. I know you do not want to be a sniveling coward who is afraid of his emotional destroyer of a WW. You want to the be man that has set his course and executed his plan.

Is there any example script for talking to young children about affairs?

"Mommy has a boyfriend. Married people are not supposed to have boyfriends, and it hurts your Daddy a whole lot."

When moms and dads get married they do not have BF/GF and go on dates with them. Well mom has a BF his name is ____ ____ and mom is going on dates with him. What mom is doing is known as having an affair.

Don't underestimate your childrens' abilities to understand. I have children about the same age, and I am amazed sometimes how well they understand what an affair is and how wrong and hurtful it is. Children understand a lot more than we give them credit for sometimes.

Update.. still getting ready for this, compiling contacts, drafting letter etc...

I stepped up the snooping with VAR's etc.. Truth is that she seems very clean now; no secret phones or underground. The occasional contact with the OM seems to be very incidental only. What really bothers me is that she outright still chose to refuse to cut off contact with a "friend" over saving her marriage.... The extreme anger continues.. there are OK times and really bad times.

Question.. how do you respond to the numerous people that will say... "this is only a friend".. which is my WW's primary defense. In an emotional affair with a long time friend... how do you prove with out a shadow of a doubt that it was more than just a "friend" coming to the rescue at a time of need? I want to be a well armed as possible because this is how she will defend herself and her friends will also defend her.

An "incidental" affair? I don't think so. That is like an alcoholic changing the name of his drinks to "business drinks" and pretending to be sober. Any contact is a resumption of the affair. I suspect her "incidental" contact is a show for you because she knows you are snooping and she knows you will brush it off as a "friendship" as I see you doing on this thread. So her ruse worked!!


When you expose, you send them your evidence so they can SEE it is not a friendship. Do you tell your friend, Joe, at work that "you love him and miss him?" I don't think so.

Is there a reason you are taking so long to expose?

Sir, a proper exposure can be done within 24-72 hours after reading the Exposure 101 thread.

Two things:

1. "This is a MALE FRIEND who she has exchanged texts with saying X, Y and Z. This is an affair."

2. "I am her husband and her relationship with this MALE FRIEND bothers me greatly and is a romantic relationship. This is an affair."

You are her husband! It is NOT up to other people to decide whether or not her relationship with this man is OK. That is YOUR call, just as it would be your wife's call on a relationship you would have with another female.

I've been in your shoes because that was my WW's defense as well. Do not debate this point with anyone. Be firm about your position, stick to your facts, and speak to them like a broken record.

Stop for a second, and think about how absurd it is that anyone you expose to would presume to know more about this than you. Do they live with your wife? Have they been married to your wife for 8 years where they can read her behavior the way you can by this point? Could they possibly be able to pick up the subtle clues you can on her behavior that has changed? Have they consulted with a support forum based on the works of a PhD psychologist who specializes in infidelity and marriage crisis and has written some of the most prominent and respected books on the topic?

I had all of these thoughts in my head when I was in your shoes but didn't have the words, and in retrospect I've thought all of those things so I'm passing them along to you. Not necessarily to say to these people (because with many of them it won't help) but for you to think about so these people don't throw you off balance.

Some people are just going to stick their head in the sand. That's just how these things go. Expose to those people and let the cards fall. If they want to turn it into a debate about what's happened, I'd be like a broken record. Some people will just get angry and stop talking to you. They'll be in denial. I can't even tell you all of the nonsense I heard from religious objections to exposure to people trying to say my wife "wasn't that kind of a person".

If you've heard the term "the **** hitting the fan", that's what is about to happen here. Don't be scared of it. Somewhere in your gut, I know this whole deal makes you feel angry and hurt, because it is very wrong! You need to channel that a bit here and do not worry about other people.

It's your marriage on the line, not any of theirs.

Do not worry yourself how they respond. What's important is that they know. You don't need to debate them.

Is there a reason you're taking so long to expose?

I have a full time job supporting a family and my WW is with me/ knows what I am up to every other second. I am targeting more than 100 people and searching for email addresses etc... I know that my WW's family is completely dysfunctional and won't help.. so I need to target everyone else I can think of and I want to make this big because I only have one shot. I don't have a facebook page and never have... so as soon as I go on facebook, she will know that something is up.

You don't know who will respond and who will not, at the least it will surprise you.

I would expose to WW's family anyways, even if you do not expect support.

Any ideas on how to get email addresses from high school class other than facebook?

Facebook is usually the best tool for finding email adresses

100 people? You don't have to expose to the whole town or her entire high school class. People will gossip anyway. Get it done.

Your exposure targets should be family, friends, clergy, and employers (if it is a workplace affair). These will be the most effective, even if they don't "support" you.

the only people my wife cares about now are high school friends and the OM is from her highschool class.. so I figured this was my target audience

I would expose to her family, close friends, the OM's family. Get a Facebook page set up so you can do this. This was all in my instructions. You don't need to expose to 100 people.


You don't know who will or won't help.

It's also important to give everyone the CHANCE to help. If they decide to support the A, then you then have good reason to exclude them from your lives.

Definitely the most useful part of expose was the very neat 'friends' and 'enemies' list it created. Like ML says I couldn't have predicted it beforehand - although I thought I knew these people, exposure usually has some surprise reactions.