My first time here. Background. Affair is 4 weeks old, I knew on 1st day, confronted 4 days later, wish I found MB earlier. My wife is not trying to hide affair. Says she doesn't know if she wants to be married, etc., blah, blah. I said lots of dumb stuff, but didn't take any action yet. I am in this for the long haul. Married 13 years, 2 kids, and we still have fun together, when my head is in the right place. She will not cut off affair, so I guess I am plan A'ing. Latest, they were in the house 3 days ago, and might as well have put a sign on the door. No attempt to hide anything. I know his first name, work and home #, and am going to try to stop snooping after I figure out what direction to take. OM is married and I've heard that I should expose affair to his wife. Want to make sure before I do something stupid. I am doing the work on myself that needs to be done, have an appointment with a marriage counser by myself tomorrow.

She had sex in your house three days ago and she is not hiding the affair? This is unacceptable and totally disrespectful to you. She should leave if she is having sex in your home with the OM. You cannot accept this. I would inform immediately the OM's wife. Would you not want to know and he just might stop it if his wife becomes aware of it.<BR>You need counseling immediately. You cannot allow her to flaunt her affair in your face and have sex in your home with this guy. If she is not willing to seek counseling then you should contact an attorney immediately to know your rights. If you accept this behavior from her in your home she will continue to have absolutely no respect for you. I wish you luck.

Please tell the OM wife. Out of respect. That is how I found out, and I am so thankful. Do it for yourself even. Give her something that her own H is too selfish to give her... The TRUTH. She deserves to know.<P>~Heather

A little more background. My W has shown many signs that she wants this to work, I can only imagine what she is going through. I also have caused her lots of pain in the past, A 2 years ago and a recovering alcoholic (5 months sober). All I want to do is the right thing. I've been praying a lot lately. What is the most compassionate way to tell the OM W? Do I just give her facts, how specific, tell her about MB, give her a way to contact me, etc. I can do this, but I have to be sure first. Every time I think I have it together, I don't, although the emotions are not quite as strong today, I'm still scared to death. I spent my whole life running from problems and am in the process of doing lots of work on myself. I know my wife sees this, but the A and a lack of trust make it hard for her to beleive and/or even know if that is what she wants. I don't want to push her any more than is absolutely necessary.

Being in your home with OM only 3 days ago, not hiding anything clearly doesnt show that she wants to work things out. She needs to stop all contact with OM either by writing to him(by mail) or email. Also your A 2yrs ago doesnt justify her openess on her current A or its existence. Two wrongs dont make a right. As for the trust it goes both ways. You both have to learn to trust each other. I know your working on Plan A and thats great. However, it would help your situation if you both went to counselling together. This may help both of you address each others issues on trust and EN.<P>You also need to tell the OM wife of the A as she has every right to know. You need to give her all the proof you have of this as well as telling her about the incident at your home 3days ago, then she can decide for herself on how she handles it all. It would help if you mentioned MB website to her so that she knows there is support out there if she needs it.<P>Good luck<BR>TOS<BR>

Spirit,<P>I am sorry for the horrendous pain you must be experiencing right now. I am almost a year past discovering my H's affair and I promise it does get better.<P>As for tell OM's wife. You need to consider what you want to gain from it and what your highest priority is. Have you read all the material that the Harley's have put on this site? If you choose to implement Harley principles, there are many of us who have been here long term who can tell you that their method works very often. The Harley's advise against telling the OM's W or the OW's H as the case may be because it tends to backfire in your face. Your spouse is liable to see it as a very petty and hateful thing for you to do. If you are trying to implement a Plan A, that would be a big LB (love buster). <P>The Harleys do recommend that you tell the OM's wife if you move into a Plan B--no contact between you and your wife as you show her what life w/o you might be like and you prepare yourself for divorce in case she should not come back to you.<P>If you don't know what all the MB (marriage builder) lingo means please read up on the wealth of information on this site.<P>Affairs tend to fall apart on their own after a period of time. If you implement a good Plan A (figure out what your contribution has been to the breakdown of your marriage and work on being a better spouse) the affair is liable to fall apart even quicker. I know, Plan A feels like "The Doormat Plan" but in truth each of us have failed to meet each other's needs and can improve in some way. You only do a Plan A for a few months to show your spouse that you can improve and that you want to build a better marriage--one that meets both your needs for the rest of your lives. Please note: I did not say and Plan A does not say that you are in any way responsible for the hideous decision your wife made to have an affair and to break her vows to you. But each partner has a part in the breakdown that lead to a marriage that was open to an affair.<P>I always advise people to move very slowly in situations like we are in. It is very easy to make decisions that are mostly based on our hurt and anger. When we make decisions in that state we are less likely to make decisions that we will be happy with later on.<P>If you implement a good Plan A and she doesn't respond, you move to Plan B. If she still doesn't respond you move to divorce and even after divorce you can still let her know that you are willing to consider reestablishing the your relationship if the OM is out of her life. The Harleys feel that if you implement their plan you have a) give your marriage every fair amount of effort you can b) you can divorce w/ few regrets because you know you have tried your hardest and c) at the very least, you have prepared yourself to be an even better husband if you should choose to remarry.<P>OK, that was a primer on the Harley plan.<P>I wish you all the best,<BR>MJ<P>PS I am a year past discovering my husband's A (which he had ended a couple of weeks before I learned of it) and that he had a child with this other woman. We have our good days and our bad, but in general, our lives are improving and we are building a better, stronger marriage.

so sorry to here I am in the same boat with no one to talk to. I think my wife started her affair to make me mad enough to end our marriage but it back fired. And I have told her I will love her forever. I know I did not meet her emotional needs but am vary confused on the pain it brings. My wife says she loves me more than anyone but is not in love with me I have a 5 year old daughter and I do not believe in divorce I have just begged her to stay for our family I have lost all pride and self respect to stay with my wife. It is hard she will not quit her job or move away from the other man so what to do. I hope someone tells you so I can learn also. Plan A is hard and my wife is fighting it O believe in Dr. Harleys program and have a date at the seminar in SEPT. I hope he can save my marriage but I think it takes to to make this work. I tried just courting her and sending her flowers which she appericates but still I hurt who to talk to who to trust. I wrote the other man a letter and told him I loved my wife and If he was a gentlemen he would let us try to put our marriage back together. I do not think it worked. How do we compete with a fantasy. Best wishes I hope things get better

Spirit1,<P>Tell the OM's wife! The people asking what are you going to get out of it have never had to find out the hard way. This mans wife deserves the truth. I can see no reason to help him hide his affair. It is simply not fair to you or his wife.<P>She probably suspects as much anyway. I wish someone would have told me. It would not have mattered how gently I was told. Finding out as I had to (on my own) was probably the most painful thing I have ever been through.<P>Tell her!<P>Good luck to you.<P>Take good care of yourself.<P>Randy

Update. They were in the house last Wed., very hard weekend. Talked to counselor monday and confronted her that night, telling her this could no longer be accepted in my house (they were there monday also). Went to see lawyer tues. That night wife came home in tears, I haven't got whole story yet, but I know enough. He broke it off because he does not want to destroy his family. I don't know if his wife knows yet, and I really don't care, if it is really over. I know not to get my hopes up yet, I'm just glad it was me that my wife came to that night. Next day she e-mailed me how she was so sorry and didn't want to hurt me and doesn't know what to say. I didn't get until today and my reply was just that she didn't have to say anything right now. I think we will know when the time is right. I am willing to go to any lengths to save this marriage and become the husband that she deserves, and hopefully in time she will feel the same. I don't know what to do right now, so I will continue working on my stuff and keep an eye open for opportunities to communicate with her. Today I have a lot of hope for our future, might be a light at the end of the tunnel.(or a train) Thanks for everyone's feedback and any suggestions on what to do next.

Spirit,<BR> Wow how awful. I wonder more about the sober for 5 months thing. You know thats a really hard time for a codependant spouse, is she an alcoholic? does she go to alanon? She is married to a new(better) man, she will not beleive you for a while yet. <BR> Dont know whether you should tell OM wife. I spoke to OW and told her very calm and polite that I held my H responsible because he had made a promise to me, OW hadnt.<BR> She appologised and promised it was over.<BR> I told her ok now you have made a promise to me and I will not tell anyone anything but if you continue I will tell your H boss, church,etc.<BR> They continued contact.<BR>I called her H and told him, he laughed at me saying it was rediculous, he didnt beleive me and his W had told him I might call because I was crazy.<BR>Didnt do me anygood,but I do think she is scared of me now.<BR>Good Luck

How do you know they were in the house? My W/s told me numerous tomes her relationship with O/M was over. Only to be proved wrong in a matter of hours. It finally gets to the point that you wont let someone disrespect you indefinantly.I too want to save my marriage and loved my wife with all my heart. She finally broke my heart completely. You know you love someone so much that you are willing to forgive them. But they need to be truly sorry-not just the words. Is she remorseful? Mine wasnt. Also a word of caution. This was my W/s second time. I forgave her the first aas she wanted things to work out, This time she doesnt want to work to repair marriage not for our kids, not for us. At this point all she thinks about is herself. Good luck to you and I hope all woks out well for you. Just be cautious and dont build up any false hopes. Watch out for yourself.

Thanks for everyone's input. No big suprise to find out affair is back on, they never stopped talking to each other. I do still check her cell phone. There is no definite proof but the total behavior change is probably all the proof I need. I did not tell W of my suspicions, would that be a LB? I will snoop enough to make sure they don't come back in my house, but for now I guess I will let everything else go and plan A even harder. Any suggestions anyone? We spent some good time together in the last week and a half, together alone, with friends and kids, I guess that will be more difficult to accomplish now. I think I will wait until I am forced to plan B before I inform OM's W, besides I'm not even sure how to contact her yet. I'm trying to fight the urge to confront OM. I've already told my wife that I know who it is, that I talked to a counselor and a lawyer. I'm not bringing any of that up again until I have to. I think we will have to discuss $$, since I'm sure she is going to be the one springing for a room, as long as the OM's W is in the dark. One more question, how do you plan A while with W family and other work friends? We have a wedding coming up shortly, and I plan on attending, unless she asks me not to.