Hello jah,

I do not remember if you exposed to the workplace, but you mentioned in your last message that the OM had an affair with another teacher at the school, and the teacher had to quit. Is the school HR aware of the situation with the OM and your wife? This is the school where your wife works? Even if not, is HR aware?

I think you probably see how this could help you if they were made aware and they were forced again to take action. If I was an HR Manager or the Board of Directors' HR Committee Chair, I would look very negatively at a teacher involved in 2 affairs with fellow married teachers. That is a pattern of negative behavior and the school cannot condone it. It sends the wrong message to parents and the community.

And if the school HR admin does not tale action, I would go to the corporate governance body and complain loudly or to the local school board, etc.

Yes I took your advice and notified the superintendent, basically the head of all the schools here. He is a good friend of my dad actually; he was the principal at my dads school for 8 years. I made sure the point of it was not my affair, but the fact that the OM has targeted two married women at the workplace, and that it sends the wrong message to the parents and community. I don't know where this will go, probably just a more stern warning, or maybe a kind of probation, but I'm not holding out hope they will fire him or anything.

Currently I am in plan A, but it is obvious my wife only wants cake eating. All my exposures and actions so far is not preventing this OM from leaving my wife. So I am in the planning stages of plan B. There are lots of details I need to work out, and I will put them here once I have given it a good thought. This is much more complicated than the last time I did plan B, as we have more finances to discuss and also the kids, and my wife is in fantasyland, but hopefully we can come to an agreement.

I assumed when you answered "yes" to reading Exposure 101 that you had learned from it and would be implementing its suggestions. I should have realised when you suggested plastering the neighbourhood with flyers that you had read it and disregarded it.

One of the key recommendations it makes is that if this is a workplace affair - which it is - if your spouse does not agree to leave the job with immediate effect, you should swiftly inform the employers that the other person is having an affair with your spouse. There are specific suggestions for informing HR and demanding a response.

Informing the superintendent of the whole district is not good enough. In the case of a school affair, you need to target the head teacher, HR, and the Board of Governors - and you need to ask what they intend to do about the situation.

Posters are specifically warned about inadequate exposures that only serve to tick off the spouse, little by little, each time you expose a little more.

With your wife working with this man and living close to him, and having your financial and parental support, it's no surprise that the affair will not end. You seem to be reluctant to take decisive action because you hope she'll grow to love you and then she'll leave him. That won't happen if the job situation and the living situation do not change.

As well as the advice in the Exposure 101 thread, here is Dr Harley's advice on exposing a workplace affair:

"While I unhesitatingly recommend immediately exposing the affair to friends, family, clergy, children and the other person's spouse, I'm not so quick to suggest immediately exposing it to an employer. That's because such exposure could have unintended legal and economic consequences. For example, the affair might constitute grounds for a sexual harassment claim by the unfaithful spouse's lover. Or it might trigger the outright firing of the spouse, making it far more difficult for them to find another job.

If the unfaithful spouse has separated, in spite of my reservations I recommend immediate exposure to the employer. But if the unfaithful spouse has not separated, I advise the betrayed spouse to warn the unfaithful spouse that if he or she works there one more day, the affair will be exposed to the employer. That gives him or her an opportunity to use vacation time to look for another job and make a graceful exit. If a new job is not found by the time the vacation time is over, I recommend applying for an unpaid leave of absence or a resignation to avoid returning to work.

If the unfaithful spouse becomes angry upon hearing the warning, making it clear that there will be no resignation from the job, I encourage the betrayed spouse to expose the affair to the employer immediately."

According to this advice, you need to ask your wife to leave her job (which I don't know that you have done yet). You need simultaneously to get her agreement to moving far away - letting out your house this very week, if need be. If she refuses to leave her job, expose to the relevant people, all at once and with them all copied in, the day after her refusal.

As for childcare in Plan B, I know single parents here in the UK who hire a live-in Au Pair to cover after school care and on-call care. You need to find a trustworthy person with good references, but being an on-call doctor does not make child care impossible.

Dr Harley advises the husband to move out when he is ready to go to Plan B, and not to "kick out" the wife. You should see a lawyer first about your legal rights and responsibilities. For example, how to stop OM from moving in.

Full article here: When should an affair be exposed

I know I haven't written for awhile; part of the reason is that I'm not sure if they (wife and OM) are reading this, and I have also been having counseling with Dr. Steve Harley to guide me. I did expose to the principal, my wife direct supervisor, the superintendent, and HR. There is no school board. All they did was have a talk with him and her, that's it. Unions . . . they protect the teachers very well.

Currently my wife is basically cake eating, and I need to get her out of the house. It is too painful to hear her talking and laughing with this OM, leaving at night to go to his house, spending so much time with him. Meanwhile I'm doing the great majority of taking care of the kids, I'm cooking, washing, cleaning. She does hardly anything. She started getting counseling via "better help" at the suggestion of her doctor; she states it is helping her. If anything, its good because they tell her to focus on her kids, which she has been doing a little better job of now. Recently she tells me she is also more torn than ever, does't know if she wants to be with me or this OM. At times she wants to hug me, she asks to do activities with me and the kids as a family. I hear her arguing with the OM occasionally now. And two or three times she has these moments where she is out of the fog, she apologizes for not being strong enough, for not realizing the relationship that was building with the OM was wrong. But these moments are very few and far between. The next moment she is back in his arms and at his house.

I tell you, this OM is no good. Last year he went after another married woman at the school where my wife works. He went after my wife knowing she is married with kids. He is contacting this 25 year old lady from the Philippines for the past 5 years, meaning it started when he was still married. (OM divorced in 2021). He sent 900$ to her recently, and told my wife its just a friend an nothing is going on. The "better help" counselor tried to get my wife to realize that it's crazy to think she is 'just a friend'. His ex-wife is a lesbian, and this is how screwed up his whole past life is. When his ex-wife started dating this other lady during their marriage, he himself started flirting and sending provocative pictures to this other lady. His ex-wife found out and was pissed about it. Currently, his ex-wife and ex-wife's wife wanted to have another child, and wanted the ex-wife's wife to experience being a mother. So they asked the OM to get her pregnant the old fashioned way. He declined, but offered to give his sperm. My wife is pissed about it, saying that if the OM did that, he will be closer than ever to her and to the child since it is his. The OM said no way, because he is not close to his own 4 kids, which is why he gave up custody of them in the first place. He finally admitted he is not close to his own kids. What is it my wife still sees in this man???

Honestly, at this point I don't know why I am hanging on anymore. Seeing just how naive my wife is, I just want to divorce already. I've kept faithful through all this, and I plan to until the day the divorce papers are signed. I don't want to date anyone anyways, I don't think I can trust anyone again. My whole life has been nothing but women cheating on me. I don't know what it is about me, nice guys really do finish last.

My wife can barely take care of herself, never mind the kids, and I don't see this OM helping my wife at all, no matter what she thinks. I think I can raise my kids so much better on my own, with my family who are all here with me supporting me. Currently the plan is to go into plan B, but I think it's more a plan B for me to heal and get over seeing my wife everyday and all her interaction with this OM. I want to protect my kids too from seeing what is going on, even though they do know since I exposed it to them. Separation will help me not hear her sad story about how she cannot decide what to do, who to choose. I can't be hearing her say she still cares about me, asks me if I still would love her and would be able to trust her, hear her say she wish things could go back to how they were. I can't keep hearing this, keep trying to do my best in plan A and be respectful, loving, and kind and then see her do this to me. It's just too painful.

The plan right now is at the end of the month she is going to move into our other rental house. We have a rental house, a kind of triplex (three - two bedroom units), where she will occupy one of the units. The other two units' rent is enough to pay for the mortgage and property taxes. I'll stay in our main house. Im working on the details of the separation, the plan B. But I don't know if I want to work on this marriage. I just want to be separated enough so that I can stabilize myself and my emotions, work on taking care of my 9 and 5 year old boys, take enough time so that I can say honestly to myself in the mirror that I worked as hard on this marriage as I possible can, and then be ready to just let go. In my mind, even if she finally comes to her senses during plan B and leaves this OM and wants to work on the marriage, I don't know if I want that anymore. I can take care of our kids by myself better than both of us together.

I might come back here for get more advice on the details of plan B; the last time I did plan B 12 years ago I didn't have kids and it was much easier. It's going to be tricky this time around.

Did Steve tell you time frame to go into Plan B?

Steve actually told me almost two months ago to get into plan B. He suggested that if we could afford it, that I have my wife move out (rather than me). And back then, my wife agreed, she looked for a place and was about to move in when the owners suddenly decided to sell the house instead. After that, my wife dragged her feet looking for a place, and finally a month ago she decided to live in the triplex that we rent out ourselves. But that involved moving our tenant out, and they will finally be moving out at the end of June. Yes, being exposed to my wife's infidelity has chipped away at my love for her day by day, its just about gone now. I'm staying faithful, finding happiness in my kids, but I don't know why I am hanging on anymore. . .

Ok so you plan to go to Plan B at the end of June? Are you in individual therapy to help you though the stages of ending this relationship?

Is there a thread regarding the states of ending a relationship? Is it like the typical grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance? I think I'm in the anger stage, but other days I feel like I'm in acceptance. I would guess Steve Harley will help, but I"m also going to use my workplace provided therapy to help me through it.

I think I have been accepting mostly after I started to realize 2 things: that I can take better care of my two kids then together with my wife; she is over protective and impatient. You might think I'm biased because of the affair, but my parents, siblings, family, friends have all told me the same thing. My wife actually told my older son, "All my life I have been putting you and your brother first. It's time I put myself first in my life." Its true you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others, but that sounds like a selfish statement to me. And through this affair I just see her being so less caring and available for our kids. Plus, when I have my two boys, I can dedicate 100% of my time to them.

The other thing that helped me into acceptance is when the OM admitted that he gave away custody of his four kids because he doesn't feel close to them. They were born and raised here in Hawaii, and all he needed to do is say he wanted them, and they would stay, since the judges always favor the status quo and keeping their situation the same. But he insisted they go. For awhile, it was making me go absolutely crazy to think that my two boys would be under his care, that the OM would possibly be their stepdad and he would steal them away from me. It was making me even more depressed than my own wife being with him. Obviously my opinion of him and his values is very low. But since he is not close to his own kids, I highly doubt he would be close to my kids.

I also already talked to a divorce lawyer to give me some advice, and it has been helpful as I go into plan B. I'm curious what other people here think of my situation. It should ultimately be based on me, but do some people think I should be giving up yet? To try and hold on in plan B? I don't know.

I think with the history of your WW’s affairs and in her current state it would be very smart to go into Plan B. I think you have done way more than you needed to and I think your kids will be better off. How sad for a mother to tell her kids that “it’s her time to put herself before them”. That says a lot about the state of mind she is in.

I think you should follow what your lawyer says and serve her.

I totally agree on plan B, it is way past time. Plan B will protect you from all of this and you will begin to find your emotional equilibrium again after some time.

On giving up too soon, frankly you have been on this roller coaster now multiple times in your marriage. You saved it last time, now you are trying again. You are working your plan and working with the best in the marriage saving business, the Harleys. You have legal counsel. At the end of this you will be able to say to yourself and your kids that you did everything you could to save the marriage. Your wife though has to get out of the fog and also want to save the marriage and also change her personal boundaries around men to not repeat this situation again. This may happen later rather than sooner, hence plan B to protect your love for your wife and your own sanity. Or it may never happen, you will not know until some time in the future. From your wife's comments, she is only thinking about herself since she is in the throes of the affair, classic behavior and I saw it in my own situation.

Divorce - if it comes to that - also will protect your assets and stabilize things. Maybe it won't come to that. But I would follow the advice of your legal counsel and protect yourself, your assets, and your custody. Divorce is not the end, but another step, and remarriage is possible in future if the affair dies and she comes to her senses. Or it may not be possible or for you even desirable in future after plan B.

Something I learned from my own situation and work with Steve is that these things take place over time, sometimes a lot of time. Think of John and Sue in Surviving an Affair. But in the end it is two people that must collaborate to rebuild a marriage from an affair. Your wife must join you. For now, the best thing is to work the MB plan.

I know I haven’t updated my story for quite awhile. It’s because of two reasons: I’ve been phone counseling with Steve Harley, and because I went through marriage builders with my wife before and she knows this forum and I was afraid she might be reading it. But it doesn’t matter much now.

A quick update in the past 5 months. At the end of June she finally moved out. She was hesitant because she was used to cake eating, but I pushed on anyways. She moved only two blocks away, far enough that I don’t see her, but it makes it easier to drop off the kids back and forth. As a pediatrician, it also helps since when I’m on call I can drop off the kids emergently if I’m called in. There is no intermediary this time, because there is nobody impartial we know who could do it, and also because we have to frequently update each other regarding the kids, and school, and sports, etc.

I still have to see her (at a distance) at school and sports events, but that’s about it. She is now severely depressed. I think she realized this guy isn’t everything she thought he would be, she struggles now since I don’t provide childcare or help around the house. She sees how great a father I am with the kids. She realizes how the community looks down on her.

In the past month about four times she had asked to work on the marriage and come back. She knows the drill because we went through all this before; I haven’t even given her a list of requirements but on her own she said she will write a non-committal letter, quit her job where she works with the OM, stop seeing the OM, be completely transparent, update me where she is at all times, etc. She will do whatever it takes, but she also wants to move back to the main house. I haven’t agreed yet because honestly, I’m leaning towards divorce at this point. I told her as a start, stop seeing this OM because no matter what, he is no good for our kids, and she agrees. But after only 2-7 days she is back with him. He cries and she gives in. This has happened 4 times now.

The most recent one, she begged me that she will stop seeing him. She said that he also told her not to see him unless she is finally divorced. But again it didn’t last, they were back together again. It hurts a bit each cycle, and I’m pretty much done with it, I don’t believe anything she says. But I do know she is depressed, severely depressed. She even once told me she was suicidal, but I wouldn’t break the separation. I told her to see her talk therapist, gave her a hotline for choosing a psychiatrist, told her to talk to close friend, and I gave her the suicide hotline number. I wouldn’t console her - I feel it would lead to cake eating.

I am at the point where I want to move on. I hold no resentment, I can find that I can forgive her and even forgive the OM. Why is this? Because being angry and vengeful will only hurt me in the end. Forgiveness doesn’t make what is happening right, and it doesn’t mean I accept it. I means I have come to a realization that my wife is an extrovert, she is not strong, she loves me but not enough to be faithful, and she doesn’t know how to set boundaries so that she doesn’t fall in love with another. My wife is a wonderful mother, and we both take care of our children very well. They have adjusted to the separation and are excelling at school and in sports these past few months.

Do I still care about my wife? I care very much for her, she is the mother of my children after all. Do I love her? I little, but not like before. Do I think I can ever love her the same as before, trust her like I did before, be close to her like before? I do. I know that following the marriagebuilders guidelines, spending enough time together, meeting each others needs, avoiding love busters, I know we can be in love again. And that is the whole problem.

I am afraid to love her again because I know it’s going to happen again. Those of you that know my story know that this is the fifth time she is cheating. After the fourth affair, we came upon marriage builders, and so we learned together about emotional needs, love busters, spending time together, etc. We learned about the love bank, how affairs happen, how to protect against it. In 12 years after that we were happily married and had two kids. And when life started putting a strain on our marriage, she went and cheated again. At this point, I find no reason, no reason at all, to believe she will be faithful if I went back.

And yet I find reasons to go back. Sometimes I think I’m just rationalizing for the sake of my heart what my mind already knows won’t work. But here are the top three reasons I’d consider going back:
3) I could protect my assets and the kids. If we went back, I could make it a requirement to have a postnuptial and also an irrevocable trust. The trust would put money set aside, protected for the kids only. The postnuptial would make sure I keep my substantial retirement (she makes 5x less than me, but also has her own retirement).
2) I cringe at the thought of my kids being around this OM. My wife so far has agreed with me to keep him out of their lives. Divorced, he could see them half the time. It would eat away at me to know that my kids, who have nothing to do with the situation, would be around this OM. I have no reason to think he does drugs or is abusive. But my opinion of his values is very low, and I don't want my kids influenced by him. I also worry that my kids will blame me for the divorce, and that the OM/my wife might plant this idea in their heads
1) The main reason to go back is because I miss my two boys. I want to be able to see them 100% of the time. I want to be able to make major life decisions for them (which would be harder once divorced).

My wife wants to move to Germany with her mom for two months to be separated from the OM since she cannot do it alone here in Hawaii, and because I refuse to let her back home. I still don’t know what I want to do, but I'm leaning towards divorce. I know the decision is ultimately mine alone, but any insights/advice you all have would be appreciated.