This is my first post, though I've been reading through the site for many months.

Quick history: I had an EA that lasted about 8 months and became PA on one occasion in Aug/15. Dday was Oct 24/15 - my best friend and her husband disclosed to my BH. I moved out Nov 15/15, returned to the home Jan 15/16 as BH and I were both committed to working on our marriage (or so I thought). I went full NO Contact with my AP and have been working very hard in IC and on my own to heal, become a better person, and get to the root of why I engaged in my A. And I'm stronger for it. I was doing ALL the work. Dday for me came March 1/16 after many months of suspicions about an recent employee hired for our company. It was clear from Text messages that BH was having an A, and this had been going on almost since I'd moved out in Nov. I told BH to end it or he would have to leave our home. He refused to implement NO Contact with her so he moved out 2 days ago and is staying at his parent's house while they are out of the country for a few weeks. He seems to not know how long this "exile" will last. He is in DEEP denial and vacillates between admitting to the A, denying it, and minimizing it.

I see the value in the idea of exposing both BH and his AP....but I am conflicted for a couple of reasons:

1. I feel like a hypocrite. I had an A. Do I disclose this in my exposure letters (at least to our side of things)?

2. I feel like this takes away BH's (highly valued) freedom of choice to choose for himself what he should do.

Anyone here deal with this situation? I feel like it's a total mess.

Expose. If you want to save the marriage, expose both affairs.

And I do this in one email/letter? Any suggestions as to how I do that? I have the template for the letter(s). I am struggling to add my affair info in. At the beginning? Do I name my affair partner? He and I are NC and he lives halfway across the country - we have no common friends/contacts.

I know these must sound like stupid questions.

I would expose your own affair and his affair to your OWN family and friends using the exposure letter template in my exposure 101 thread, naming both affair partners. IS the OM married?

Is the OW an employee?

Dear friends and family,

I am writing you this message because you are an important person in the lives of xxxx and I. I am asking for your support in our troubled marriage. As some of you know, xxxxx has recently asked me for a separation, which has shattered my heart. I am saddened to have discovered that the reason is because he has been carrying on an affair with an employee named xxxxx xxxxx who resides in xxxxxx.

In the interest of transparency, I must also be honest about my own poor behavior last year. I had an affair with a man named XXXXX. I ended the affair, ended all contact, and have taken steps to make sure this never happens again.

As our friends and family, I am asking that you use your influence with xxxx to persuade him to end his affair to work on our marriage. Our marriage can be salvaged if he would only end the affair. Please support him in doing the right thing. Please support our marriage.

I would so appreciate your support and prayers.

Warmest regards,

I wanted to address some of the comments below:


Can you explain what you had to "heal" from and what this has to do with your affair? An affair is not a disease. Nor is it something that is done to you from which you need to "heal." That is like saying the bank robber has to "heal" from his life of crime. No, he does not have to "heal" he has to change his behavior. His victims do have to "heal" from his destructive behavior.

In the case of affairs, what has to change is the poor boundaries that led to the affair in the first place. WE know why people have affairs: they have poor boundaries. Have you stopped allowing men to meet your needs? Have you cleaned up your poor boundaries, ie: eliminated opposite sex friendships? Stopped having personal conversations with men?

If you have taken the necessary steps to clean up your boundaries, then yes, you will have learned from your mistakes.


He is enjoying his affair. This is not about denial, but about an addiction.


You do not have the power to take away anyone's freedom of choice. All you can do is expose the affair and hope he ends it. Keeping it a secret only serves to enable him. That does not help him or you. When someone you care about is making reckless choices, a caring spouse does what she can to stop him. But ultimately, that choice lies with him.

No. He is divorced, currently single (I think). He lives halfway across the country from me. There is zero chance I would ever see him again unless I sought him out. Which, of course, I have no interest at all in doing.


Yes. But was hired, as far as I can tell (as BH is very sketchy about details of the business and won't share anything with me) AFTER their affair was already in full swing and we were *supposedly* both invested in working on our marriage.

When I refer to my healing, it's in the context of my untreated depression related to the death of my parent at the time the affair partner came into my life. Healing for me, is not about he affair (directly) it's about my own issues that I left untreated prior to it.



Yes. I have absolutely worked on this. In depth. It's important to me never to repeat these choices again...regardless of who my partner is.


I agree with this completely as I came to realize this about my own affair. But couldn't see it when I was still involved.

I feel so lost. I don't know if this is the right thing to do. When I think about it, I get sick, and scared. I don't know if I'm strong enough to do this.

I am contemplating contacting the OW directly and asking her tostep back and cut off contact with BH. ??????

You know as well as I do that that won't work.

I am completely dependent at the moment on BH financially. I am VERY afraid that this will send him over the edge and he will divorce me and do all he can to strip me of my ability to survive on my own until I get on my feet. I left my job over a year ago due to severe depression and anxiety and, while I've been actively looking for work for many months, the job market here is very difficult to crack and I haven't received any offers.

It's just devastating to me that we both admit we still love each other and both still have some hope for our marriage....yet he insists that he's somehow owed this affair because of what I did.

Do you want to help your husband? Do you want to have a chance to save your marriage? Then expose the affair. Don't contact the ow; that is a useless step. Exposure is therapeutic, not punitive. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so keeping the secret only enables the affair.

You also need to devise a plan to get rid of the OW. He can't work with her and have a marriage. That means that one of them will have to leave. How is the best way to make that happen?

Your marriage is headed to divorce RIGHT NOW because you are enabling the affair. If you won't do anything to save your marriage, you will soon find yourself competing with the OW for his income. And your H will make sure the OW gets most of it, leaving you a few crumbs. The longer the affair goes on the more entrenched it becomes and the harder it will be to bust up the affair.