Well, I haven't decided for certain to end our marriage, can you ever with 3 kids involved? Although I'm sick of fighting...
He just called again, but didn't get through...I guess I should not call back, should I?

You can call him back if you like...you are not yet in Plan B.

Be pleasant with your voice...but if anything turns sour in the discussion, calmly reply that "this conversation is not pleasant and I need to go".

Didn't have to call, he tried again. Since the 5-year old is sick, I answered. The conversations are almost never sour, but I try to keep it as short as possible and ask for the kids. The phone is on speaker mode though (hope this is an correct english expression :-/)
I'm going to the gym and than I'll try to work on this letter...
I exposed to his best friend today. He didn't know anything (of course, he is a nice guy and wouldn't spend support to WH) Actually even he said he thinks we should move away from this mess...I have an appointment for photos for application tomorrow!
Wish me luck. A new job 500 miles away is what I want right now!

Miel, you have been trying to save your marriage for 7 months now. Dr. Harley has stated many times that, for women, the pain of such high stress while their husband's are having an affair can do long term irreversible damage to our health.

I feel confident that Dr. H would advise for you to:

1. EXPOSE as we've recommended - have you read the exposure info?
2. And at the same time make your arrangements to go into a dark Plan B as quickly as you can. There is a bit to it, because you will need to choose an IM who will have contact with your husband to arrange for children pick up and drop offs. Have you read all of the Plan B info?

GOOD JOB! Now please keep on going! Contact his parents and any siblings, contact all of her family and friends, contact his work. Trickle exposure isn't very effective...and if you do not keep going with exposure now, you will just be poking the lion.

Finishing your exposure would be much more valuable to you today than going to the gym, me-thinks.

And then after exposure is DONE, start working on your Plan B.

Going to the gym is my way to GAL. And the way not to need antidepressants! My parents in law and SIL know already, friends and colleagues are the same, so I might make some calls before he returns. I really can't find out about the OWs family and she is unfortunately single. Obviously she also doesn't care that the people at work know about their affair....

Good! I hope that you will. Remember to ask for their help...see who is willing to contact your husband and ask him to end his affair.

I hear ya on the gym!

How do you know that the OW is single? Do you have her last name and the city that she lives in? I'm sure that you've tried searching Facebook and linkedin already...another way is to search her phone number on FB or even simply whitepages.com...they often list relatives on whitepages.

Have you checked to see if OW is on any social media? You need to expose on her side.

No, she isn't on social media. The onl way to expose on her side would be to tell friends who are her colleagues. But I don't think that she would care. I thnk it would drive her further into the affair, because it's "real love"...and this is what would excuse such behavior the most...

You need to expose to her family.

So check and find some of her friends on social media. Then once you've found one, check all of that person's friends...look for this woman's picture, especially in liked photos. That is how I found the OWs family here...it took hours but it panned out. Once I found one (who had a fake last name btw), it was easy to find the rest. Sometimes we have to work the puzzle backwards.

Either that or you could simply hire a PI to find her family.

It is vital to expose to her family. You cannot afford to skip this step.

It doesn't matter if she cares, or if your husband cares...they are both high on their addiction and they don't "care" about much right now...what matters is that you bring their affair to the light of day for all to see. Once mold is exposed to sunshine, it dies.

It seems that this part of exposure has been avoided. From what I can tell, you have exposed to "colleagues" at the workplace, but you have not exposed to your H's and OW's line managers, and Human Resources, as MelodyLane told you to do earlier. You should never assume that you know what the outcome of exposure will be. In the case of a workplace, management are not happy when they learn that employees have been conducting affairs during work time and using workplace resources, and they also often fear a lawsuit from the junior staff member, alleging sexual harassment by the senior one. Also, many employees want to be known as supportive to their workers, and family friendly, and will not want to be known as the workplace that turns a blind eye to affairs that break up marriages.

You do not know what their response will be, and you owe it to your sons to do all you can to end this affair, even if you and your H never reunite.

It also seems to me that by refusing to use social media, you are refusing to contact people close to OW, who might be willing to put pressure on her.

We recommend that you send anyone that appears to be family or close friends with this woman a private message on Facebook. We have not, and do not, recommend pasting messages on walls.

By refusing to follow through on those two avenues, you are not doing all you can to get this affair to end.

Dear SugarCane, don't get me wrong, I'm really thankful for your post. Unfortunately I am completely sure that NOBODY will bother at the workplace. I'm pretty sure my WH's boss knows about it. It's not the first affair and it won't be the last...We work in a hospital and even heads of departments do have affairs and nobody cares (except for BS...) I live in Europe, really, the only ones who care are my friends and family and my PIL...

That's ok. Just getting the news out there makes the affair much less attractive. We don't care if "nobody cares;" we care that everybody KNOWS. Not that it really relevant, but you can't possibly know how anyone will feel unless you are psychic.

You misunderstand what we're telling you to do, though.

Official complaints, copied to the right people, can't simply be dismissed. I do know that hospitals are rife with affairs and that the culture is to just let them happen. However, writing to the Head of Department and copying to HR, and in your case, the hospital Ethics Committee and the hospital Trust, would have an effect. We are not talking about "telling his boss" - you need to kick this upstairs to a much higher level.

If nobody will care, what will it hurt you to do this? I really don't know why you are so resistant to trying. You should try, for your children - not to restore the marriage, if you don't want that, but to end the affair. You should try.

I would like to share my plan B letter that I think of sending (translated):

WH,
I'm sorry how far it went with our M. I understand that there were things and conditions that made the beginning of an A possible. You know that I would have liked to fight for a future together. For us and for our children.
As long as you stay in the A we can't do anything for our future.
The last 8 months were the most painful in my life. Please understand that, as long as you have contact with OW and don't want to take MC seriously, I won't neither see you nor talk to you. If you have to contact me concerning the children, please write an email. In case of an emergency call X(friend of mine).
I'm sorry that I have to take this step, but I want you to respect that I can't have contact to you under these circumstances. I have always loved you and I don't want my heart to suffer anymore.This step is not a punishment but it should save my feelings, so that one day there might be an opportunity for a reunited family. That would not only be my wish, but also the wish of our children, parents and friends. If we kept going like this, I'm afraid one day our love would be changed in hostility.
miel

and I had to add some practical things concerning his stuff getting out and the kids..

What do you think? Thanks for any replies :-)

@SugarCane: I have to work tomorrow, maybe I can find out where could complain. Maybe I could start at the point that our clinic is proud to be family-friendly...

Meil, this is not Plan B. Plan B means no contact at all. Any pertinent information should come through your intermediary.

Do you have the template Plan B letter from Surviving an Affair?

Yes, I do. But I think email is okay. We have 3 small kids. I think WH will get it.
If not I'll switch. Don't you think that would work?

1. You need to find someone to agree to be your intermediary, BEFORE you send this letter. You need to make your Plan B conditions airtight, so that you don't have to break Plan B because you have not thought things through properly.

Your WH must not send emails to you about the kids. He needs to always to contact the IM, no matter what the issue. The IM's job is to filter anything he writes, and only to pass on facts that are urgent; e.g. if he is run over by a bus. Nothing else that he does should be urgent to you. You need to know that there is a standing order to pay you monthly BEFORE you go to Plan B. Do you have any kind of legal agreement over maintenance and child support? And have you fixed the days that he collects and returns the children, and do you have a way of exchanging the kids that involves no personal contact whatsoever? Can he pick them up and drop them off from a grandparent's house, or from school and daycare?

How are you going to manage his phone calls to the kids, so that you NEVER answer the phone to him? Do you have caller display, so that your older kids can answer when it's him? Make sure that there are fixed times for phone calls. Do not allow him to call and chat when he feels like it.

What are you going to do about school events? He can't go to parent conferences with you, and you can't both attend the same sports days, etc.

Basically, in Plan B, you do not inhabit the same space, ever, you do not contact him about anything, ever, and you make financial and childcare arrangements so that he does not need to contact you, ever. Your IM would contact him if anything the kids do is urgent to him. God willing, that won't happen.

Emergencies should be real emergencies. I can think of about 1.5 emergencies that ever involved my 2 kids, in their whole lives. Make sure that you do not pass message through the IM for every little thing.

2. You need to stick to the Plan B letter template from Surviving an Affair. Dr Harley is a world-leading marriage expert whose advice is based on observing what works best. Don't try and adapt his advice or templates.

3, You are still neglecting the benefits of using private messages on social media to contact OW's circle. Don't underestimate how ashamed she would feel to know that her mother knows she is shagging a married man. Believe me: if the women on this board ever found out that their daughters were doing such a thing, they would drag them out by their hair for a public whipping. OW's mother might well be the same. Contact her family, by private message! Stop ducking this step!