Thank you so much for continuing to respond.

He came back to the house but was surprisingly calm, so my fears about violence were unfounded. I cannot emphasise enough how impressed I am at the effect of exposure - and how it is so right to tell people not to be scared of the anger aftermath. The exposure to OW's facebook friends was the absolute best thing to do. I would never have had the courage to do that without MB.

I think he will agree for me to leave with the children if this mood continues. I am responding to all his anger and nastiness with kindness and calm. I realise it is very difficult for anyone to continue to boil with anger when the person in front of them is not fighting back.

Did you do this?

Are you leaving with your children?

By virtue of my exposure to OW's facebook friends, a couple of whom were co-workers of WH and OW, the notification was forwarded round their entire company locally. WH called me screaming about receptionists and drivers all knowing everything and telling me it went viral (we live in a very small country, the capital city is like a village, everybody knows everybody), so the exposure objective was definitely achieved. I am very impressed with the power of exposure.

I am trying to sort out a rental house for the kids and I that we can move to ASAP. But realistically, I cannot take them to another country until the end of the school year on June 15 - but since my husband is due to move to another country on May 1, I think it might be the most sensible option for us to stay in our house and take his departure as the start of Plan B. Now that his initial anger at exposure seems to have subsided, the immediate worry of violence has dissipated.

I have a question about how to identify how destructive exposure has been to the affair, since it has an effect like throwing a whole deck of cards in the air. While before exposure, I had spy software on his phone, I was checking certain patterns of behaviour, I had access to all his social media accounts (previous FR) etc, and could see what was happening, but now he has removed the software, changed his passwords and has abandoned any attempt to pretend he is being honest with me. However, he is also hanging around the house like a bad smell, so I am wondering if that is either 1) a territorial thing now he is suddenly worried he might lose his family, 2) an aggressive thing to show me he is in charge or 3) a sign that he actually doesn't want to spend time with OW when it is not a secret pleasure anymore.

Dr. Harley recommends BW only to do Plan A for a maximum of 3 weeks. May-June is way too long. If he won't leave that job you need to prepare for Plan B. Will he leave that job now?

I am not sure he can. He is the director of a country office. He has signed the contract for the new job and arranged the transition for end of April. He is travelling from next week until mid-March to three different places - which takes him away from OW but also provides the opportunity for hours of romantic skype chats, so not really a good thing. I think there is a possibility that I could ask him to take leave from mid-March onwards, and perhaps move earlier. But at the moment he is not even at the point of pretending to be remorseful or entertaining negotiation about the way forward. The last thing he wrote to me by text message last night is that we should consider ourselves separated because of what i did with exposure. The exposure anger and shock is very raw, especially the embarrassment of all his work colleagues knowing, along with all other people the company has links to in this country (as a result of facebook exposure to OW's friends). I don't think it will last more than a day or so more, but I can't yet predict when I will be in a position to make a request like that.

A question: how do I stop enabling the affair if I don't currently have the power to negotiate to keep him in the house? Is there anything I can do? From what I can gather, the times they have been meeting up are either during the working day (8am to 6pm, although they don't physically work in the same office) or when he goes out to do a chore like picking up some bread from the store on a weekend. The rest of the time he was generally at home. He comes home every evening to eat dinner with the family and is just at home all weekend watching TV or doing stuff with the kids and I. Although I now understand affairees don't need loads of time together to establish and continue a relationship. I was giving myself a false sense of security in the past by thinking if my husband is at home every day from 6:30pm onwards, only going out on Friday nights with his guy friends, then he couldn't be doing anything. Now I know that with texts, flirting, and calls to establish an intimate connection, physical meetings don't have to be that frequent or long - and the rarer they are the more special I guess - and he can easily say he is going out with male friends but then leave them part way through the evening to meet her.

With this new perspective, I think the only way I could stop enabling the affair is to demand to know where he is 100% of the time and to actually be with him as much as possible. But how do I do that when I have a job, four kids, and he stomps around saying I am controlling him?!

It will take a big shift of his approach to life to accept that being married means accepting to do the things that currently feel to him like excessive control by his wife or limitations of his freedom. And I am not sure that will happen without a long, dark plan B - and even then I am not optimistic at this point.

Dr. Harley says to only take a husband back hat in hand. You will have to stay in plan A while respectfully asking him to end the affair. Be polite to him, but don't be complacent with the affair. And don't forget to expose to your children.

Thank you happyheart. That is such good advice. My mistakes in the past are all related to allowing him back without REAL change. This time i am prepared to go forward alone. I want my marriage, but not if it is not a real marriage.

You mentioned that you had a child from a previous affair. Was it your affair or his?

You also said he was a serial cheater. Can you give us a history of the infidelity in your marriage?

You should not be planning to stay in Plan A until April. Dr Harley does not recommend that women put up with affairs that do not end almost immediately. He points out that this has a deleterious effect on their physical and mental health. You are not required to find inner the resources to put up with this just because you live in a foreign country. You need to find a way out of this.

He wrote that you should consider yourselves separated. Can you take him at his word, and ask him to move out?

You did not address my point about asking your embassy or consulate for advice.

And you can do this, also. Ask him to give you legal permission to leave with the kids.

We should not be encouraging you to stay with a man who blatantly conducts an affair in front of your face. You are not a prisoner in the marriage, and you need to bring this situation to an end.

I agree. As I said earlier Dr. Harley only recommends a maximum of 3 weeks of Plan A for BWs. You need to get him to let you take the kids and leave if he won't quit that job.

The child was from another previous affair of his. We brought him to live with us so that he could be raised with his two brothers (one older, one younger) when he was 3 years old.

He has basically been cheating on me the entire time we have been together. But he lies about everything so I only know the things I have found evidence for.

Initially, he used to say it was because he was struggling to come to terms with giving up his single life to become married; then when he got the other woman pregnant, it was because he was scared on embarking on a life with me since we are from different countries; then it was because I was angry and in pain and obviously not being fun around the house; then it was because we brought his other son to live with us and I was "too good" as a partner which made him feel bad about himself while I was also in pain and struggling with the emotions so still not fun to be around; then i had three miscarriages followed by a successful pregnancy so I was tired, gained weight, could not go out with him etc so he started socialising totally independently of me; these days the reasons seem to be a combination of 1) me being hurt and angry for all the pain he has caused me, which he says he can't stand to see in my face 2) me not respecting him as a "man" and 3) this idea of him being a "bad guy" and me being a "good guy" because the entire world can see that I am raising a child that looks nothing like me but exactly like my husband........

I will try to do that. I am worried already that the dramatic impact of exposure is dissipating so quickly and if i don't try to move things to resolution nothing will ever get resolved.

There is no embassy in the country. It is in the neighboring country. But i will contact them now and find out about my rights.

He has now totally calmed down from the exposure anger and says he loves me and just wants to move on (while also saying he is incredibly angry about what I have done in a cold anger way) - but he is saying that while not having done anything concrete AT ALL to make sure the affair is over. He says the exposure killed it and that the OW has told him to leave her alone so i don't need to worry. I keep on pushing saying "it is not over until the opportunity is removed. You are like an alcoholic working in a bar trusting yourself to not drink". But every time i ask him to do specific things like change his phone numbers, take leave or work from home, etc, he immediately comes up with some reason why that is impossible, which causes an argument even though I am really trying to avoid AOs, DJs and be a calm as possible.

His resistance to doing anything at all to fix this situation - even after exposure - shows me he doesn't have any remorse at all. It is making me feel so hopeless. He is also extremely resistant to revealing any information about the affair, demanding that i delete all evidence from my computer ("why do you want to keep those things so you can look at them every day and hurt yourself?) and saying he thinks allowing me to ask questions is not right because I will only get more hurt.

He is doing the absolute bare minimum he thinks he can do to pacify me "so that we can just move on". So that leaves me feeling completely helpless. He is putting me in a situation where i have to constantly make demands, follow up, ask what progress has been made on xxx and yyy, and then he responds with hostility.

I think he is trying to manipulate me and the situation so that he avoids any sort of accountability. And I don't know how to respond to that in a way that changes our interactions with each other permanently. Thank you so much for all this really valuable advice. I am in a different time zone, so I know there is a delay, but I am finding such strength in reading others' experiences.

He is totally focused on getting me to delete the pictures and videos I found on his phone. As if by deleting my them, the affair would cease to exist. Have you seen that kind of behaviour before? I feel that I need to keep evidence so that I have a reality check to guard against him persuading me that everything is fine. He is very charming and persuasive so I have to make a really conscious effort all the time to tell my self "it really is as bad as you think it is. Don't forget that!!"

Save your evidence somewhere he can't get to it. Can you do that?

Did you ask him to leave?

Read this.
Please Explain Gaslighting

Hi Brain Hurts,

I didn't ask him to leave after he calmed down from the hot anger. Instead, I organised a weekend away for us alone without the kids doing fun stuff we haven't done in years. We are supposed to leave in a few hours. I have arranged for the kids to stay with a friend of theirs until Sunday. Was that the right thing to do? I will do my best to be a great partner. We get on well, but I feel as though he just takes that as a sign that I have tacitly agreed to ignore everything and move forward. So is it constructive?

I have saved the evidence in multiple places. He got into my computer on exposure day because I was silly enough to let him take my phone - and I hadn't put a password on it. I now changed all my passwords for computer, email and phone so even if he has my phone and computer he wouldn't be able to get in to destroy evidence. I also sent it to one of his best friends from childhood and told his family about the evidence.