As the story goes...I thought my wife and I had a great marriage. Though I often told her that I was "last". I came in behind our three children and her needs which I thought I was fulfilling. I looked at many challenges as though they were "phases". Looking back, I believed I didn't want to upset her. When our oldest son decided to experiment with drugs at the age of 16, we were unprepared as parents and my wife wanted to talk with me about solutions regularly. We were both upset and angry about the situation and we didn't research well or communicate effectively. My habit was to protect her from pain, even if that meant her children. My son disrespected our family regularly in those days and I would meet that disrespect with threats of kicking him out and verbal rage. I believed in time, God would help him heal. Partly because of the stress I sent my wife on a cruise with her friends where she met a much younger man who she was physically attracted to and later accepted his Facebook invitation. They soon began texting and talking regularly. She would later say that because I was angry, she couldn't talk to me about what was happening with our kids. I thought I was protecting each person in our family, praying and trying to make things work but I would cut people short. I was going to create some respect in the household (mostly for her). All the while her need for intimate conversation was being filled by a young man across the country. I never knew it was happening. They exchanged racy photos and videos of one another and talked of running away together. In fact, on another "girls trip", they met in Florida in July for four days and became physically intimate. This betrayal of my blind trust occurred for two years without my knowledge until two weeks ago. My wife made some kind of a change on her phone and ended up sharing an iCloud with my daughter (12). Unfortunately, she was being copied on all of the texts, videos, and vulgarities that were a part of my wife and her lovers relationship. Ugh! She was confused and crushed. She took the text trail to her brothers to get advice and they invited my wife of 28 years and I into the living room for a family meeting where they gave me a copy of what they saw in front of her as she frantically erased her phone. I have no words for how hollow everyone feels in our family. I told her she could not share another word with him and I believe she hasn't. In the past two weeks I have resolved to salvage our marriage. From a young age, God has given me a gift of forgiving quickly. However, our children are in disarray (imagine finding out this way) and I am concerned that the weight of my resentment may overcome me someday, destroying our best intentions. It's hard to know what to prioritize in this twisted mess.

Thank god you have the stand up BIL's that you do. Get the book Surviving An Affair by Dr Harley ASAP.

Welcome to Marriage Builders, and I am sorry for the reason that has brought you here.

Recovery from an affair involves following a narrow path that, in many ways, is counterintuitive. Your instincts are likely telling you that forgiving and forgetting are the way out of this mess. They are not. First off, your wife's affair is unlikely to be over. She is going to go into withdrawal, and the temptation to communicate with the OM so she can get her affair fix will be nearly irresistable. You first need to make sure that everybody who has any influence on your wife knows about the affair. Thanks to your kids, you have a good start on that already. Next, you need to identify the conditions that made the affair possible, and eliminate them. You have been an affair enabler up to this point. Your instincts tell you that your wife should have been trustworthy, but you all but intentionally set her up for this. Your lifestyle with regard to your marriage has to change. You two must never have another night apart ever, for the rest of your life together.

There is a great deal for you to learn. Surviving an Affair is a good start. Explore the Marriage Builders website for all the great information there. Download the MBRadio app and start listening to the radio program every day. Keep posting here and take the advice to heart. Many of us have recovered marriages after surviving affairs much like you are facing right now.

Hi 42nbone, welcome to Marriage Builders. There is a very narrow path to recovery and most do not make it if they don't follow very specific steps. They end up with a crippled version of the pre-affair marriage that is more vulnerable to affairs. Affording inappropriate forgiveness while sweeping this under the rug will not solve your problems, it will only kick the can down the road. You will be facing more affairs in the future if you don't take certain steps.


That is a very real concern and is likely what will happen if you don't a) affair proof your marriage and b) create a happy, passionate marriage in the present. When you are happy in the present, your mind doesn't tend to wander to the tragedy of the past. The difference between Marriage Builders and other programs is it restores romantic love to your marriage.

I would get the book Surviving an Affair and follow the program in it. In the meantime, please listen to the radio show here
and download the MB app on your phone.

Please take the time to read this article: Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

You should assume that contact is continuing unless you can VERIFY (not by taking your WW"s word for it) that it is not - meaning, you have spyware on her phone and you are spending most of your time with her. If you have spyware on her phone and computer and are coming up empty, you also need to look around for an "affair phone".

A WW who has been having an affair with someone for 2 years and is used to heavy contact via text isn't going to give it up easily.

Do you know who this OM is?

I see that this was exposed to your daughter and son but who else? This needs to be exposed to everyone and anyone who could have influence on your WW and also needs to be exposed on the OM's side.

Serial cheats and LTA (long term affairs) are harder to recover from than regular affairs. If you cut ANY corners, you are going to be hit by the train again...and again and have more d-days.

Don't feel bad, I was a fool for 17 years!

Make sure you install spyware ASAP and start very careful surveillance. Watch out for the hidden second phone and other ways your WW can communicate with OM.

Holy cow, you all are scaring the crap out f me! But thank you and bless you. I ordered the surviving affair book along with his needs/her needs and they arrived yesterday (I am out of town ugh.). She sent a photo of them to me. I did download spyware but have not yet installed on her phone (tomorrow). Should I do the same on computer for email? How is that done? I am a tech idiot. She may have a reserve phone already. Nobody else knows about this affair. It seems like that is important to expose it. Embarrassing. And potentially damaging? I will look for guidance in the book on that tomorrow. As for the checklist that you provided Melody, she has been a "somewhat" willing participant in the divulgence of details but yesterday said she has to stop talking about the past and her interaction with him. She said it is tearing her up and she can't take it. While I think this is understandable because of the pain she has caused, HR statement gives me pause. We're the shoe on the other foot I would do anything to satisfy her and keep her close to me. I would tell all. She seems to want to move on and has even said that she should move out so we can heal ( the kids and I). I don't want that. Is this behavior normal in these situations or am I blind to the fact that this communication continues. I feel as though my perspective is warped. Why am I working harder at this? She suggested counseling which I'm fine with but my understanding is that marriage counseling has a very low success rate and I'm not sure that we need to communicate better, we just need to trust again. Mostly me.

GPS her phone and her car. Key log the PC and whatever the equivalent for her phone. Better to confirm WW is not breaking NC and just as important that the OM is not breaking NC from his side.

By confirming that nothing is going on is how you repair the trust that WW broke.

As to talking about the affair. Once all of your questions have been answered and they make sense there is no need to talk about the affair.

Has she told you everything about the affair from beginning to the end?

Have you come up with new questions or have any of WW's answers that need clarification? As WW's reveal more info it quite often causes the need to readdress prior stories that she has told.

However once everything that you need has been told then there is no longer a need to keep the memories of the affair alive by still talking about them.

Okay. Thank you. Will do. As far as exposure, I haven't read the book just yet but from the articles it seems that is for those who do not admittedly want to stop seeing the other person. Do I wait to engage in exposure until I find evidence that she has communicated with him again or go through with it regardless? Thank you all so much for your insight.

I believe she has told me everything and is now just saying that it hurts too much to keep bringing it up. Like if she is quitting "cold turkey" then she needs to stop thinking about what happened. She says the thoughts of what she did now make her physically ill.

Go look on the operation investigate forum and we can help you with ideas.


Keep your eyes open.


Here is what Dr Harley says about exposure and I will attest to the fact that it is the most important first step in recovery. Please do not skip this step:



When should an affair be exposed?


Once you have all the information about the affair it should not be brought up again. Has she answered all your questions about the affair? Are you continually bringing it up?

Requirements for Recovery


She wants to move out so she can have her affair in peace. The affair is not over. Obviously you can't "heal" a marriage if you are not together. If your car breaks down, do you fix it or do you "separate?" Her desire makes no sense unless she is having an affair, which she is.


Your perspective is exactly correct. Counseling is a disaster when one spouse is in an affair because marriage counselors do not know how to save marriages and have no successful plan for saving a marriage from infidelity. As such, they tend to validate foggy, marriage wrecking notions from the wayward spouse. You WILL end up separated and probably divorced if you go to a counselor. They are little more than divorce counselors.

No, exposure is for every affair. I posted Dr Harley's quotes and a link to his article. Exposure motivates the WS to work on the marriage and gives much needed support to the marriage. The more people who know the more people to hold your wife accountable.

Why would believe someone that has been having an affair for years? That is plain reckless and silly.

She is moving out so she can continue her affair without your interference. Please wake up here.

She is almost certainly not being truthful about her plans for the future. She and the OM did not have contingencies for this sudden exposure, so they were not ready. Your wife is following the wayward script. Her saying she should move out is proof that the affair is active. You have a narrow window of opportunity to crush this affair, but you will not succeed if you indulge your desire to believe what you want to hear.

Furthermore, please stop trying to convince your WW to do what's right by the marriage by "talking" to her and stop trying to get her to convince you the affair is over by "talk".

Just stop the affair talk for now, because all that does is cause the WW to take the affair further underground.

Look at the actions - not the words. Moving out is a code for "I need space to have my affair". It's something we see on these forums thousands of times.

Oh my word - you haven't started talking to your WW about Marriage Builders, have you??

You don't need the book to expose. All the advice to expose is also here on the forum and it's a topic that is often discussed on the radio show - much of which is covered in depth on the Exposure 101 thread.

In fact, many people who have read the book will often come to the forum in order to get the support and tweaking that is often necessary in order to complete this step.

Your M is already on the brink of disaster - and your WW is planning to move out. You don't have any more time to waste.