Melody, I tried to PM you to share some of my wife's writing, but the site tells me that private topics are not available. It includes names, hence, not posting in this thread.

Are we able to private message here?

DrDetroit, private messaging is turned off for this forum. Can you remove the names and post it here?

Maybe I shouldn't worry about it. Only first names and if she ever found this forum it wouldn't be hard to recognize the story or the other info I have posted.

PLEASE remove the names and post it here. It is really important that you get objective feedback.

*EDIT**

Thanks. Now, back to your plan. What is the game plan for exposure?

**EDIT**

??? I am confused. Why did you want me to read your wife's journal?

May I have some help with that?

Plan exposure for this weekend.

Parents, siblings, and close friends. This is not work related, so no employers. No clergy.

Can't meet face to face with them all or even some, only a couple.

Parents: phone calls.
Siblings: phone calls.
Close friends: texts.

Message: Wife and I separated on Fathers Day. Wife and I talked about reconciliation and continued to attend marriage counseling. Following return from trip back home, I found out that wife was involved with another man, including expressing her "love" for him and describing a desire to be sexually intimate with him. Following me confronting both wife and OM together, reconciliation was replaced with divorce.

As wife has likely expressed to you, our marriage has been really hard for her given my issues around anger and withdrawing and isolating myself from her and our boys. She has described that my anger and withdrawals left her feeling lonely, uncared for, and unsafe in our marriage. I see and agree that these feelings are perfectly reasonable and I would likely feel similarly if confronted with the same behaviors.

Wife has also likely described to you that although I have made promises in the past to seek counseling to get help for anger and depression, I have let her down by not following through and remaining committed to the work and improvements that I started. Wife has been through several cycled where I have sought help, started making changes, and then stopped attending to counseling. I own that. I thought that I was over the hump and that counseling had worked and didn't need to attend. However, over time, wife and the boys would see the behaviors creeping back before I would revert to old behaviors.

Wife has told some of you about an inappropriate relationship with OM, however, this was not merely overstepping a boundary to share intimate details of the condition of their marriages. Rather, wife chose to engage in an extramarital affair with a married man that included expressing love for one another and sending sexually explicit messages to one another. This affair has been going on since at least March. And despite my confronting both wife and OM in August has continued albeit hidden while wife insisted that communication has stopped.

I am exposing this affair to you because I want to repair this marriage and keep my family together. I love your daughter, sister, friend. I married her and she is my wife and I continue to love her and am making changes to be a more caring, attentive husband and companion. This is not a naked request for your support. I am and have been seeing my individual counselor for 9 months. Wife and many of you have observed and acknowledged some of the changes I have made. I have and continue to confront then root cause of my anger and withdrawals which is a depression.

I appreciate your time and consideration of this message and request.

I had posted that I wanted to share some of my wife's writing and you suggested that I remove names and post here so I could get objective feedback.

I am confused now.

She is writing in a variety of places across several notebooks and email, etc. I saw this writing as I was snooping (again, continuing an activity that you encouraged me to engage in).

Gotcha! I misunderstood and thought you wanted feedback on your exposure letters. Good job snooping!

You do mean HER parents and siblings too, right? I would add the OM's parents and close friends.


Perfect. I like that you are being thoughtful about your delivery method. That means alot.


This is mostly good, but strike out the part about separation and reconcilation. That makes no sense to objective observers since you are not separated. The idea that you are "separated" is a delusion that others can't see.


Strike this whole paragraph. The objective is to expose the affair and ask for help, not to air your life story.


Remove this unrelated paragraph.


Here is what I would send:

Dear friend,

I am writing to ask for your help. Wife recently asked me for a separation. Upon investigation, I found out that wife is having an affair with a married man named Joe Blow, expressing her "love" for him and describing a desire to be sexually intimate with him. I confronted wife and OM together and she then asked for a divorce.

Wife has told some of you about an "inappropriate relationship" with OM, however, this was not merely overstepping a boundary to share intimate details of the condition of their marriages. Rather, wife chose to engage in an extramarital affair with a married man that included expressing love for one another and sending sexually explicit messages to one another. This affair has been going on since at least March. And despite my confronting both wife and OM in August has secretly continued contact.

I am exposing this affair to you because I want to repair this marriage and keep my family together. I am asking that you use your influence to persuade her to end her affair with this married man and to support our marriage. I love your daughter, sister, friend. I married her and she is my wife and I continue to love her and am making changes to be a more caring, attentive husband and companion. I appreciate your time and consideration of this message and request. DrDetroit

Try to get the phone # of the OM's PARENTS and give them a call. If you can't find their #, then see if you can find them on facebook and send them a message.

Dear OM's friends and family. I am reaching out to you because you are a friend or family member of Joe Blow. Joe Blow has been been having an affair with my wife since last April. I have the evidence and they both admitted it when confronted. We have been married for XX years and have 3 children. My children and I are heartbroken.

I have confronted Joe and my wife and asked them to end their affair in August. They have continued contact ever since. I am asking that you use your influence to persuade him to stay away from my wife and work on his own marriage. Thank you for your assistance.

It seems that you are connecting the affair with your anger issues, and they are not connected. I want to make sure you understand this. Sure, anger makes a marriage very hard to endure, but affairs are caused by poor boundaries. If you don't understand and correct this, she will have more affairs. You could have been the perfect husband but as long as she has poor boundaries around men, she would still have an affair.

OM's FULL NAME needs to be on the letter.

ALSO, did you read through my posts in the Exposure thread? Your wife will be furious when you do this so you need to be prepared. It is a very expected reaction.

I have and have read into other experiences related to exposure.

I know I dropped my wife's writing on you and you're weren't expecting it.

I know when I read it and combine with her words to me, well, I see no hope.

I do see hope. It is understandable you would feel this way because you haven't seen situations much worse than this take a dramatic turn. While there are no guarantees, your situation is hopeful. I promise I would tell you if it wasn't.

I need to read up more in Plan A and what it looks like in everyday practice.

Here is a good article on Plan A and Plan B Plan A and Plan B

Can you tell me what typically triggered your angry outbursts?