Your wife could have told her senior manager that she was upset because YOU were having an affair, thus prompting the manager to send her relationship counciling information. I am just saying that you really have no idea how this story was spun at the workplace, which is why doing your own exposure is necessary.

Are your WW and OM lateral colleagues? Or is one superior to the other in their roles?

OK thanks again. To answer the above:

1. Who have I exposed to: her parents and family. Her university friends, her friends from her old workplace and the school mums. I can't think of anyone else that falls into these categories. For what its worth: the last one I sent was to the school mums and that has triggered a response from her. She thinks I am out to hurt her.

2. I have not told our daughters. I do not think I can do this.

3. On workplace, yes it is a fair point that she may have spun the conversation to her benefit. It seems that the main purpose of disclosing to work is in relation to possible breaches of work codes of conduct. I live in UK and it is different to the US. We do not tend to have any such rules on office relationships. In fact they go on all the time.

4. No I have not done anything on the OM's side. Primarily due to lack of info. They are not friends on Facebook etc as they see each other in work, so I do not have any details. However, I have asked his wife if she will give me the details of his parents.

5. Have I confronted him? I have contacted him by email, yes. I told him that I was going to tell his wife. But nothing since she has filed for divorce.

Why would you hide the truth from your daughters?

My mother had an affair and I can't imagine how upset I would have been if my father knew and hid the truth from me!

Don't expect this to work if you won't take this step. Quit looking for other ways to make it work without it. It won't.


Nothing's stopping you from telling his wife. Tell her.

Exposure doesn't mean make sure somebody has told them.

Exposure means YOU tell them, even if they've already heard from somewhere else.

Children deserve to know when their mother or father is having an affair.

If your husband or wife is having an affair, your children should know, and you should be the one to tell them. Do not leave your kids in the dark about their parent's affair.

Children as young as four years old can understand an affair � they can understand that mommy or daddy has a boyfriend or girlfriend other than daddy or mommy, and that this hurts daddy or mommy very much. They can understand that this is the most hurtful thing that has ever happened to the other parent. They can understand that married people have promised not to do this. They can understand that the other parents wants to stay married to the unfaithful parent (if this is so), and hopes that the unfaithful parent will end the affair Older children can of course understand more.

Having the truth does not hurt children. It is not having the truth that hurts children. It leaves them confused as to what is causing the turmoil in their lives. The foundation of their world, their parents� marriage, is being threatened, and they have a right to know what is causing it.

Trying to preserve an illusion for your children is damaging to them. Trying to convince them that the unfaithful parent is still okay, that everything is all right, will make them doubt their senses, since the person who they trust the most is telling them something that completely contradicts everything they are seeing.

Children as young as 4 years old can understand an affair

Do not tell the children with your spouse, or tell the spouse you are going to tell the children. They will try to spin the story to the children to make you look like the cause of the affair. People in affairs are high on a devastating addiction and are incredibly good (and devious, and vicious) at rationalizing to themselves and to others. Your children don�t need that kind of brainwashing. (You don�t, either, for that matter.)

I knew about my mother�s affair. It gave me the information I needed to make my own decisions about my life. Like every other child of an unfaithful parent, I deserved this. Your children deserve this, too. Adultery is one of the most devastating things that can happen in a child�s life. And the best way to make it worse is to lie to the children and try to pretend to them that everything is okay.

For the record, knowing the truth about my mother�s affair has not interfered with me having a very happy, well-adjusted, and successful adult life.

PLEASE TELL YOUR CHILDREN and if there old enough show them what God says about marrage and divorce. Children are not dumb.
If you want to protect them nothing is better than telling them. If you don't when thy do find out thy may never trust you or worse your WW turns them against you with their lies.

My WW hates I told my kids, but it has brought my kids closer to me. Thy look up to and respect me.

My WW really hates me for it and brings it up in her angry outburst. In the end she hates that her fantasy is not coming together.
My snooping around my WW sure sounded like she wanted to make the POSOM there new dad and push me out of the picture.

Remember a WW will stop at nothing to get what thy want.

OMG, this has actually happened to me, so please take it very seriously. (Thanks for reminding me, unwritten.)

When I finally exposed my H's 3.5 year PA to OWH, I managed also to get him to force OW to move back into their marital home. They lived in Belgium, but after about 2 years of the affair, OW took a job in Luxembourg - she worked for the European Union, so internal transfer jobs were readily available all over Europe. She did not tell her H that she really wanted to leave him for good and run off with my H; she told him that she'd done her time as a housewife, and this was something she had to do for herself. He owed her this. He was unhappy, but felt that he could not stop her.

She rented a flat in Luxembourg and stayed there from Monday to Friday, having complete freedom to screw my husband in various European cites (he travelled from our home in London for work) without her husband ever suspecting a thing. She told him she had no landline in her flat, and also she told him that her workplace, which was a European Union office, also had no landline - and he bought that. (I couldn't believe my bleeping ears when he told me that.) So that meant that when she spoke to her H several times a day on her mobile phone, he had no idea that she was not at her desk in Luxembourg, but was in fact lying in bed with my husband, in Paris, or wherever.

When I exposed the affair to her H, she told him that she still loved him (her H) and did not want him to divorce her. He demanded that she give up that job and move back home. She did not want to end her marriage without having a man to move in with - and my husband had thrown her under the bus and stayed with me - so she was willing to move back home to Belgium, rather than live alone in Luxembourg without even her affair to look forward to.

The problem was that she had been given an generous allowance to move to Luxembourg from Brussels, and if she moved back so quickly she would have to pay that back. Also, she was under contract in Luxembourg, and the office there had no obligation to release her from that contract so that she could take another EU job back in Brussels.

The point of this long story is that she had to come up with a reason for her EU employers to let her apply for another internal transfer, and not pay back the money. So the reason she gave? That HER HUSBAND was having an affair, and she had to go back home and save her marriage. They let her go. her husband told me this.

(She then moved home and had a lot more affairs, and finally, last year, found a man to run away with, and so they are divorcing now anyway - but that is another story.)

The point is that they lie.

Tell her employers the truth YOURSELF.

It is critically important that you expose the affair to her workplace. It doesn't matter if they have a policy against it or not. What matters is that workplace authorities know. Just having them know puts pressure on the affaireea. You can also ask them to help you keep them apart.

Your children over age 4 should be told the truth. Lying to your children about the affair will confuse and hurt them. Children are not made happy or secure by lies and illusions. It just leaves them open to the lies of your wife.



Does he have a Facebook page? Have you looked?

This is untrue. I live in the UK, and if I had ever posted here during my H's affair, and been told to expose it (they were linked through work, although they worked for different organisations in the EU), he would have had disciplinary action taken against him, and I would have welcomed that. I would have done anything, including losing his income for good, to have had that affair stop. I was not posting on MB at the time, and I did not think of doing this myself, but you are being given the best possible advice, and you should take it.

Many employers will turn a blind eye to rumours of affairs, but all of them will take action if one is formally reported. Where I work, we have to declare perfectly legitimate romances, just to discharge the employer against any liability should the romance turn sour, and one party want to claim that the other coerced them.

Affairs are a huge headache for employers, because of employment legislation. If an affair goes bad, one party can claim that they were sexually harassed, and you know as well as I do that employers will do anything to avoid those tribunal cases. They also do not want to get a bad reputation. Third parties can also claim that the senior affair partner treated the junior affair partner more favourably than other workers, or that their flirting, and having it away behind the filing cabinets, created a hostile environment for other workers.

You can't bamboozle the people on this forum by claiming that things are different in Britain. They know very well that developed nations have policies and laws about employment rights, and responsibilities (such as not being allowed to use office equipment, or office time, to run the affair). Affairs cost companies money and time (which is money), and they do not just turn a blind eye to formal complaints or reports. They might not feel empowered to act on simple rumours, but everyone here knows that there is a good chance that UK employers will act on formal complaints to HR and line managers. And if they don't know, I, another UK poster, will correct your misinformation.

Stop being a pansy about this and expose to the workplace.

A quick response to that. It is very different to the US. A large number of US companies have policies that ANY work place relationships result in an immediate dismissal. That is not the case in the UK.

In any event, I was trying to ask a question as to the purpose of workplace exposure.

If the reason is that it falls into (1) disclosing for conduct purposes or (2) the same idea of exposing to as many parties as possible.

If the second, then I can see the point. However, the suggestion is to tell someone in HR and a senior line manager. That sounds more like it falls into the first category than the second.

Please don't think I am second-guessing here or suggesting the idea is wrong. I am just trying to understand the purpose.

However, I will indeed disclose to her managers as I have their email addresses.

When you do Formally expose the workplace affair, you should C.C. each level of higher up management, otherwise just the direct supervisor may feel an obligation to his friendly coworker to just let things lie and sweep it under the carpet.

Also.....

Why wouldn't you let your children know the true source of tension in your home?

Would you rather that they be told that some marriages just don't work out and people grow apart.

They can be Very Influential in how she eventually reacts.

And be prepared, because Yes, She Will Be Ticked Off At You, but her anger will not last.

Eventually she will force herself to see things from her own childrens perspective.

LTL

And HIS wife does know about it. I have sent her correspondence between the two of them.

As to hierarchy between them at work, they are in different departments and they are the same level of seniority.

Sugarcane lives in the UK. I'm sure she's well aware of what it's like there.

It doesn't change the advice to expose at the workplace.

If the workplace has no problem with affairs, then what reason would you have for not exposing to them? It can cause no problems and is no big deal right?

From what you wrote I am wondering if you are fearing her loss of severance, it sounded like she might be getting laid off? But in November. Many people here can tell you how in one months time, their WW moved out and in with her OM, and filed for divorce. You could lose your family if you wait until November to act with her employer.

To hasten the demise of the affair.

I think you need to read more closely - SugarCane started out by saying she lives in the UK. If you will listen more closely and not be so quick to tell us all about why you shouldn't follow the advice, you'll be more likely to be able to save your marriage.

What, exactly, are you saying in your exposure? Are you following the talking points in Melodylane's Exposure thread?

Remember, exposure is not just telling people "my wife is cheating on me." Exposure is an attempt to kill the affair in order to save your marriage. When you expose to her employer, family, school mum, YOUR family, etc. you are telling them the facts of the affair AND how important your marriage is to you, and asking for their help and influence over your WS to help save your marriage.

Good luck - sorry to hear about your situation.

You do realize most of us on this forum are Americans, right? It is very rare that any US company will dismiss employees for that reason. That might an urban myth in the UK. We don't expose at work with that expectation. It is pretty much expected that the employee won't be dismissed. What typically happens is the affairees are spoken to and placed in separate workplace environments because they are walking legal liabilities. They are also closely watched by management because it is known they are misusing workplace resources to conduct an affair.


To kill the affair. Keeping it a secret at work hurts the affairees and makes it much more likely the affair will continue. Even if one is not fired, they are motivated to quit because they are being watched like a hawk and have lost the respect of the company. Few hiring managers want such a loose cannon on their team. Workplace exposure often gives the cheater the motivation to leave that job because he/she knows their actions have wrecked their career with that employer. Its never that hard to persuade a cheater to leave the workplace after it has been exposed there.


The affair should not only be disclosed to her managers, but to the director of Human resources and a key vice president. Many managers will hide the affair if you only expose to them. This needs to go to the highest levels.

I meant to say earlier.....the above is very worrisome. That is not a "typical" wayward response. When a wayward is angry and upset over exposure, that is GOOD - it means the exposure is WORKING.

We already know part of the reason for this is:
~ you are trickling out the exposure
~ you haven't hit some of the most critical exposure targets (workplace, OM side, your kids)

But in addition to that....what exactly did you tell people? Has anyone contacted your WW to put pressure on her to end the affair and leave the workplace? What exactly did they say to her?

Again, am really concerned you are not following the instructions in order to "soften the blow" to your WW.

That was the sense that I got immediately in the first couple posts of the thread and said "uh-oh" to myself. We KNOW this kind of BS - it's the one that doesn't want to rock the boat too much and wants to cut corners with exposure.

EJ, please understand we do not pressure you to follow through on these things because it is fun for us. It is because many of us, not only through our own personal experiences but by reading these forums for YEARS know what works and doesn't work. We truly want to give your marriage the best shot at recovery.

Please listen: Appeasing a wayward DOESN'T work - even when it seems like they are being nice and wanting to work on the M.

Regardless of a WS's apparent willingess to work on the marriage, they cannot be around the OP without putting your M at extreme risk. The longer you allow the affair to continue the less chance you have at turning things around.