Hello Everyone,
I have read this website from nearly top to bottom and and have a question about exposure.

Some background:

I'll "try" not to drag on with a long story, touch on the main points, and leave my question for the next post.

I am 45 and my wife is 42.
We have 3 children age 13 to 21.

She moved to her mothers home, around 10 months ago, with very little to no explanation, stating she did not know if she wanted to return.
For a while before this happened, and for some time after, she would make comments about "Not being happy".
I would plead with her on nearly a daily basis to open up on the problems she was having and got very little in return.
Basically repeated statements of "I am not happy" or would tell me of problems that in retrospect were minor
(really no larger problems that what [I believe] any other married couple have in their lives as well)

She would and still does constantly bounce back and forth from "We can work it out"... to... "I am not coming back".
With a lot of "I don't know what I want" statements in between.

I have gotten her to return home several times, and when she does, she becomes very close to the person and personality that I have always loved and recognized, and is (seems?) more open to talking and working things out.
But, for nearly this entire time, these returns to home would only last a day or two and she would come up with reasons as to why she had to return to her mothers.
(need change of clothes, forgot work supplies, mom needs help with chores... ect) and that she would return later.

But, later always becomes days to weeks on end and when I was/ am able to convince her to return, she is this other person again and I/ we have to start all over from square one. Up and down constantly.

We are both part of a large charity organization and for a couple years (2013-2014) held titles in that organization.
She was elected to the top position in this organization and able to appoint an assistant (considered the second position down), a man recommended to her by another person.

Although her and this OM live on opposite sides of the globe, a "friendship" instantly developed between them.
(Reality is, an affair instantly developed between them)

Just before, and several times after taking these positions, she started going on trips that were supposedly funded by promotional people that work with our organization. The explanation was always that because they held the top two positions, they were the two chosen to travel to various destinations for promotional work.

Over the last couple years, I first had people I did not even know within our organization contact me and say it appears they are more than friends. Later it became people we knew closer that would say the same. I would seriously question her on what if anything is going on and each time it was met with outrage and statements that I was crazy for even asking.

"These others did not know what they were talking about."... "He is my friend (later it became "best friend")... "He lives half way around the world! How can you think that is even possible!"

I believed it each time, trusted her completely and was never told of any serious problems between us, eventhough asking many times.

Later, after we left these positions, it was already "well established" that they were only good/ best friends... so (as I was told) there "should be no problem" the first (and subsequent times) I was informed that he would be flying in to visit her.

And because her mother has a million+ dollar home, (and of course we do not) there "should be no problem" that they stay there in a more comfortable environment for visitors.
In total, these plane trips by her out of state and visits by him amounted to two or three times per year, for the past three years.

I believed her because (1) The fact is... he does live on the other side of the planet. (2) He is also married with two small children. (3) The various trips were in the public eye. (4) They were staying under her mother's roof where an affair would not be possible.

I was wrong on everything.

- The get-away trips and visits overcame the distance issue.
- The fact 1000's of people know who they both are was actually used to hide the affair.
- While visiting her at her mothers, they would rent hotel rooms in neighboring towns, which overcame that issue.
- Him not caring about his wife overcame the married with children issue.

One month ago was the tipping point.
She came to me with last minute news that her mother and her brother were to travel to the other side of the country, to visit church friends that had moved there.
That her brother found out only days in advance that he could no longer go and that her mom asked her to instead take the other ticket and help her with the the trip activities and that is why I was only finding out days in advance.

This was so out of the ordinary that I could no longer bring myself to believe anything that was said over the last few years.
I had never known any of her family to ever travel, in the 25 years that I have been with her.

So, one night, about a month ago, I decided to investigate.
I instantly discovered that she had changed her passwords on all her accounts (Email, Facebook, Skype... ect).
But at some point in time she had logged in and out, here at home, without actually removing/ deleting the the log-out page.
Her password still in the open. It was just a matter of clicking "Enter" to start seeing the evidence, and the same password was used for all her accounts.

I first learned that the latest trip was in fact a week long vacation to Disneyland for the two of them.

Within only a couple hours, I found airline ticket stubs from several of the trips, rental car receipts, hotel reservations
* Always 1 room with 2 guests. I had always been told there were two rooms rented, Hidden Paypal account, emails, second bank account, Skype conversations.

I also found the entire Facebook chat between the two of them over the last three years.

(which often delved into their talking about their enjoyment of intercourse with each other).
Sometimes bordering on a juvenile online sex chat.

Just a large amount of evidence, including smoking gun, self taken photographs of themselves in bed together.

I saved, labeled and cataloged everything.

Like I mentioned I have read nearly this entire site, and in all of this time had only one angry outburst.
This happened the moment of finding out. It was coincidentally one of the times that she was at home.
I woke her up from sleep late at night, yelled, called names, said I knew what has going on and told her to leave.

Once she knew that I knew, it was somewhat of a splash of reality on her and she has actually spent more time at home in the past few weeks than in the last several months. Although it is still only a day or two at a time, before the excuses arrive to leave again, and the up and down cycle continues.

At the same time she is more easily prone to anger.
What were once normal conversations she somehow finds a trigger word to cause an angry blow up.
I have never raised my voice nor have I become angry even one time since that first night of finding out.

We do talk (briefly) every day, sometimes in person, but mostly by phone and I have gone to her moms recently to begin the explanation that I have a solid plan to heal us both.

She is more receptive in person, but every night she is not at home, she continues the online portion of the affair.
Like she has nearly every night for three years.

She has since changed her Facebook and Skype passwords yet again and I am no longer able to access anything.
She knows I have read the entire conversations they have had up to this point, and that I am aware of what has been and is still happening.

The conversations between ourselves still bounce from her apparently understanding that it is wrong and needs to end,
Where hugging, kissing, and "I love you's" are shared between us... to the opposite far side side of... "If I don't like it than tough for me"... "It is none of my business"... "She is not coming back", are things I am also often told.
Up and down constantly.
Sometimes even in the same day.

The most recent development is that one of the last emails I was able to see between them, talked about his plans to come again and visit her this summer.

Welcome to MB.

What is your question about exposure? I can't see whether you asked it in this post.

I do want to save this marriage.
She is the love of my life.
Together for 25 years, married for 23.
The mother of our children.


My current questions are these...

I am ready to expose this.

As of right now those who know are: Her, me, our children, and my parents.

I have cataloged all of the evidence and she has admitted to what is happening.

I have only shared enough of what I know to her to have her realize that I know just about everything
that is and has happened.

I found the OM's wife on Facebook, his sister and an unidentified older relative.

I saw the suggestion here to upload all the evidence and share the link with those individuals I can find.

The trouble is, do I limit it to that or go bigger?

We don't really have "close friends with influence", but due to our charity work, we do have 100 "close acquaintances"
that we see in person semi-regularly. A few of these could be considered "semi-friends".

Do I tell all of them?
Make a statement on our local private FB page ? (100 people)
Make a statement on our local forum? (200 people)
Make a statement on the local forum where this OM resides? (100 people on his side of the world)
Do I make a statement on the worldwide forum? (nearly 10,000 people)

* Both of them are well known by every individual whom might see it... no matter what choice is made

Do I share the evidence with all I speak to?
If I do post, do I include the link to the evidence within these posts?

Do I include the explicit photos?
(There is no outright nudity, but they are clearly naked in bed and making out after just having sex)

Beside those whom I've already told, my first targets are her mother and the OM's wife.

My wife has not told the OM that I know.
I am also unsure who will actually be on the other end of the line when I try to contact the OM's spouse on FB.

Hi PTSD, welcome to MArriage Builders. A bit of unsolicited advice, please focus on brevity. Your posts are so long that your story is very hard to follow. I certainly don't have time to read your initial post. I will address these questions and preface this by telling you that you need to go read my exposure 101 thread linked in my signature.


No, expose to close friends and relatives.


No


No


No


Go read the epxosure 101 thread.


Just include enough evidence to convince the exposure target.


I would make up a list of all your targets and get it done in 24 hours. Expose to the OM's facebook contacts.

Very sorry for the long initial post. I wanted to keep it direct, but while writing I thought perhaps some background info might help to determine the answers to the questions.

I would also like to thank you, SugarCane and other members like yourselves that endure a seemingly endless line of sad stories and still keep coming back to offer advice.


I have read the exposure 101 thread... many times.
The trouble is that will be a very small list.

Regarding the OM's facebook contacts, I can only see "Mutual Friends". These only include a handful of the same, local to me, close acquaintances that I mentioned up above.
He lives on the other side of the world so I have no idea whom his other contacts are, without sending him a friend request which will surely be denied.

It means the entire list consists of:

Our children
Our Parents
The OM's spouse
The OM's sister
"Maybe" one or two others who could be considered standard friends.

I'm not sure if that is too small to make a large enough impact.

The large impact is not made by reaching a large number of people. The large impact is made by reaching the right people. The most significant person on that list is his wife. She is the one with the power to stop the affair dead in its tracks. The typical married man who has an affair and does not quickly move out of his home is a cake-eater. He is offered a bit of free nooky - or Internet sex or whatever - and he takes it. He has no intention of leaving his wife and kids. The minute his wife finds out and issues an ultimatum, he will tell your wife that the affair is over.

He might then do as my husband did with his whore, and stay in contact, burying the affair even deeper. Your nightmare scenario after exposure would be for the contact to continue, and for you to discover this two years later - as I did. That is why you need to implement Extraordinary Precautions right away - your wife needs to be willing to do this with you. If she behaves like a belligerent child, it's a sign that she has not stopped contact.

But if you are in the lucky position of being able to expose to his wife, even though they live in another country (as in my case), you need to thank the Lord and get on with it. You've got one of the easiest situations to deal with, when your wife is involved with a married man on the other side of the world.

The hope is that the other contacts will give you both much-needed support to get through this nightmare and rebuild your marriage. They, however, have limited power to stop the affair (although, as I posted yesterday, we do have cases where the unfaithful spouse's parent ripped them a new one and brought reality into their fantasy affair). The person, apart for you, who can issue an ultimatum to one or other affair partner is his wife.

Send those messages TODAY. No more delay while you ask further questions, or imagine reasons why it won't work.

If your wife and the OM are still involved in the leadership of this charitable organization, the organization's board also needs to be be informed. Your wife and OM have misused contributions to the organization.

Actually, I just re-read your first post and some of these people have known for quite some time and were telling you about the affair.

AM

It is done.
Started writing the letters just after the above post.

Those now fully aware:
My parents
Her Parent
Our Children
OM's spouse
OM's sister
And, Three of what can be considered my wife's closest friends.

The OM's spouse was eager for me to send all the evidence I had and had suspected he had been having an affair for a couple years.
She thanked me for contacting her and was relieved that she was not in fact insane (her words).

She gave him a deadline to remain married.

Honestly, it felt pretty good to know they are both getting a shake up of reality. If not the same day, then pretty close to it. Just after clicking "send" on the last letter, I actually shook both fists in the air and yelled "F- yeah!"


I have developed a few more questions about this stage...

I am pretty level headed and good at playing situations by ear, but would like to know what experienced members might recommend.

At this imidiate point, do I go silent and wait for her to contact me, after learning that others know... or do I keep trying to talk to her about a plan for recovery?

When my wife finds out other people do now know, she will ask the names of all I have told. Do I list them or keep it vauge?

I've read another recent thread here of a person making the announcement on the OM's FB page, which resulted in the OM deactivating their page.

In that instance it appeared to make progress.
Is this action truly advisable?
Is it a decent alternative when not having the OM's contact/ friends list?

Thanks to all.

Good job, PTSD! If you can expose on the OM's fb page, I would do that. I would also recommend that you expose to the charitable organizations board like armymama suggested.

As far as speaking to your wife, she will probably find out today that you exposed her and call you up screaming. You can tell her that you exposed to many, many people and ask her to end her affair.

What did her mother say? Did you speak to her directly? And doesn't your wife live with her?

I did speak to her mother in person. I did so while my wife was at work (She works on weekends).

Her mother had no idea, and was also told many false stories of what was happening and why her daughter has moved in there. Her mother is deeply religious, referenced a passage in the bible about staying with your husband, and said she would lay into her heavy. That the OM would not be allowed to be there again, if he in fact shows.

I do know however that it likely hasn't happened yet, as my wife sent a calm text to me about another subject, well after I spoke with her mother.

Oh, just thought of this...

If I expose on the OM's fb page, my wife will be tipped off almost imidiatly. This will happen before OM tells her his spouse knows, before her mother talks to her, and before she learns her friends know.

Should I wait for some of these other avenues catch up, before doing so?

edit:
Actually, I would no be suprised if he did not tell my wife his spouse knows. She did not tell him that I know.

Sounds great! I would go ahead and do this.




I would also ask the wife to call your wife. Give her your wife's cell # and encourage her to call.

Hi, PTSD.

I've read your story, and will be praying for you!

I would also inform OM's W of this website. She is going to need help dealing with this and her M, too.

Usually you send FB friends a PM with the Exposure letter.
Expose on the page is too easy to flag and remove or bury. Or just shut down the page.

Did you read this?
He exposed to those mutual friends but he can't see any others.

Thank you OlderWiser. I have also sent out prayers to those here whom are struggling.

The exposure has already had an impact. Of course not a "Hey, everything is great again!" explosion. But by our brief conversation today... it was a bit more encouraging.

* I would be happy to explain what happened, if anyone is interested.

But I have have a more time sensitive question to ask...

* I did not expose to ALL of the "mutual friends", but did to the three I knew we were closest to (Two of the three have already stepped up to show they are true friends).


My question is...
By some reverse engineering, I found a few more of the OM's friends/contacts, which are specific to him alone. A couple living in the same town.
I would like to also send them a letter.

I did not provide any physical evidence to those I've already contacted (with the exception of his wife), because I fully knew they would believe me without needing to do so.

These others I do not know if they would or not. I have never spoken to any of them.

I read in the "Exposure 101" thread of the method of uploading a bit of proof and sending a link (So as not to force evidence upon them, but it is kind of irresistible not to click a link after such a statement is sent).

I believe that some clips from the chat sessions and a few hotel receipts (all of which are dated), when combined will show an example of the affair from each of the years, would be enough to show I am telling the truth.

But I keep struggling with these "caught in the act" photos.
Do I include one of those for impact? (perhaps cropped down to be less explicit, yet still clear enough to show what is happening in the image?) Or, just go with the written material?

Thanks again everyone.

You should not post pictures of your wife having sex for anyone else to see (except his wife). No one should see your wife naked. Why would they need to actually see this, rather than read about it? How is that different from pornography? Ask your self whether that is a step that would help with the rebuilding of your marriage. I cannot see how it would.

Also, you don't know what could happen to those pictures once they are on the Internet. Do you want pictures of your wife having sex to be in circulation for years to come?

It might also be an offence to post sexually explicit pictures of your wife in these circumstances. In the UK where I live, a law has recently been passed against "revenge porn", where people take revenge on another person after they have been dumped by them, by posting explicit pictures on the Internet. I know you are not doing this for revenge, but would a jury be interested in the distinction, if your wife took you to court?

I have only known of a few occasions on this board when it was necessary to provide evidence of the affair to people other than the other spouse. The other spouse has a right to a copy of every scrap of material that you have. If their spouse was involved with someone else, they have a right to that evidence.

The rest of the world...I'm not so sure. They can choose not to believe or support you. If you've told them that you have copies of explicit conversations, and photographs of your wife and this man in bed, and they choose not to believe you, then they are not the friends that you need.

You should give the other spouse everything.

You can copy the written exchanges to the board of the charity if they ask for evidence. Perhaps surprisingly, I have not seen many employers ask for the evidence, and they need to be very careful of employment law when they discipline the affair partners. If they don't need evidence, the charity might not either. they could deal with it by interviewing the two people. Would the affair partners lie, knowing that you have clear evidence?

Everyone else can get a description from you, if they are not convinced. They do not get a front row seat to the porn show.

The images are not "pornographic" Per Se, There are no privates shown, but they are obvious.

But, thank you SugarCane, those are the very issues I have been struggling with. No revenge intended. Impact yes. Revenge or unnecessary actions, not at all.

They will not see the light of day, beyond the OM's spouse.
In fact, I likely will not include evidence to this new set of contacts at all.

Just send the same type of letter I've sent to the others already.

Thank You.

You never do a partial exposure.

You must include those people that you left off the first round of exposure. Half mule exposure is never effective.

Must get work charity exposure done.

Latest development:

I am very scared and at a loss of what my immediate next step should be.

Her first realization that people knew, was pretty calm and not much of a change in circumstances... a hair better in fact.

But tonight was the actual "response call".
(Not telephone, but through texts)

I knew it would be bad, but not quite this bad.

* I am new here, so I am not sure if listing conversions is a standard procedure, or if I only need generalizations, but here it is as a condensed version...

Me: Perhaps we can talk later. Just regular talk.

Her: You have done enough talking.
People know because you went out of your way to tell them.
What other scumbag tricks do you have up your sleeve.

M: Not scumbag. It is a path to heal.
H: Healing comes from badmouthing us to anyone who will listen?
M: Not vindictive in any way, I promise you.
H: Looks like I am not the only liar, huh
M: It is a healthy plan.
H: You are a bad person. I don't want to be with you.
M: I did not lie to anyone about anything. I said "A healthy plan to healing"
H: You treat me like crap and think I am interested in anything you have to say?
[censored] off. I am done with you.

M: You are angry. I understand. I have a clear path to help the both of us.
H: Leave me alone forever.
M: I am sorry you are upset.
H: Like hell.
M: I am really and I do have a real and healthy loving plan for both of us.
H: You don't know what those words mean.
M: I am very honest about this. I spoke a bit about this plan to you before.
But, there is much more. All great.
And, I am sorry you are upset.

- end


The "bad mouthing" were the cut/ paste letters from the "Exposure 101" thread, and personalized to the individuals in which they were sent.

- No attacks
- No slander
- No name calling
- Thoughtfully written and asking for help.

The "plan" I reference is from here:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3550_summary.html

any advice on what is my immediate next step?
She will be here tomorrow dropping off our eldest child for a several day stay.
(Although I doubt she will even get out of the car)

Do I try to explain that exposing is actually a benefit to all involved?
Her, Me, the other BS, and even the OM. That it will prove there are friends and family on both sides willing to provide support?

Do I go silent and wait for the next contact (if any)?

Do I express again that I am not being vindictive?

I am also sure our children will be told I am a mean person who took revenge.
Do I let them in on this plan/ concept and explain the benefits of exposing?

At a loss of what to do next.

Thank you again to anyone/ everyone.