After reading conqueror's thread about telling or not telling the parents, it occurred to me that I may be enabling the ongoing A by not telling them or maybe enabling it by not revealing to my WH co-workers what is going on.<p>My WH is the boss of his organization in this state and is having an ongoing EA/PA with his much younger assistant. I would guess that co-workers probably know, but his boss does not. It is clearly against company policy. I have no idea whether it affects anyone's work there other than the fact that the OW got a promotion recently and my WH clearly plays favorites.<p>Am I being vindictive if I tell his boss? Is that a complete LB? I think probably yes it is both vindictive and an LB. I am pretty sure my WH would be fired on the spot knowing what I know about his organization.<p>Is there something specific the Harley's suggest here? It is a real nagging question for me. It is complicated by the fact that I have to do business every day with his co-workers in their small office and there is just no way around it. It is incredibly painful for me.

if you tell are you cutting your nose off to spite your face?<p>Do you rely on your husbands income? I am a BH and please dont be vindictive. It is a negative and a major LB. There are more contructive ways to deal with this. <p>You should try working on yourself. Read Dr. Harleys book Surviving an Affair or read "Relationship rescue" by Dr. Phil (the Oprah guy)<p>good luck

I wasn't suggesting that I was going to go and do this -- I really am concerned that it would be bad for me and for him. I was asking because in another thread it seemed to indicate that I was enabling the affair by NOT telling. Common sense tells me that I should NOT do this under any circumstance for a whole lot of reasons -- my WH entire identity is his job and I believe the A has a lot to do with some of his self esteem issues. I want to work on my M, not destroy it.<p>Please don't misinterpret my comments -- while I had an initial fantasy of going to his office and announcing he was a creep, it's not something I think I would actually do -- I was just getting the impression that I was supposed to do this. Maybe I am misintrepeting the other posts in conqueror's thread.

I see it primarily as a character issue and deciding who you are and who you want to be married to. Whether you want to be married to an honorable man or not and whether you want to follow the extraordinary precautions Dr. Harley suggests for marital recovery or not (specifically no more contact with OW for life).<p>If your H was an embezzler, what are some of the things you would see that would reveal he had stopped doing it, was repentant about it and had no plans to do it again?<p>This all fits in with Dr. Phil's examination of yourself and who you are and how you relate to others. That's why it's bothering you.<p>And my guess is that the other employees know what's going on. During my divorce, I got an earful from my ex-H's employees about what all went on there. They used to love it when I'd come in with all the kids and they'd get to watch the discomfort of the OW and my H. They were silently cheering me on, but were afraid to tell me what was going on for fear of their jobs. They started filling me in when he was transferred to another branch. They HATED the OW and how she got preferential treatment and company funds spent on her. THEY complained to upper management.<p>[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>

I think telling coworkers and family members are two different things. I "wanted" to expose my H to others but my motives were so wrong. I wanted his coworkers, who liked him so much, to see what a creep he was to do this to me. (wrong motive) I had to chose to tell others only when I saw that they would be a support for me. With some friends, I gave my H the option first to tell them about A but after they persisted in knowing why we separated, I did get to a point in telling them cause WS would not. It was not a LB for my WS. He is very passive but I would say evaluate your WS and to determine the effect this will have on his view of you. Ruining a career will probably bite you in the butt big time. I did not tell others that had no reason to support me. My H co-workers were not a support system to me. That was his arena to deal with not mine. <p>I do believe a WS needs to get to a place where they will acknowledge what they are doing and that is a part of the healing process for them so be careful you don't take that away from him. He one day might need to confess this to someone and a Male coworker might be part of his suppost system. My H is at that point now and he has, after one year, admitted to two friends that he is separated. Nothing about the A but that is a big step for him to confide in anyone.<p>Good that you are thinking things through. And you have a valid point in not wanting to enable this to stay in its little distorted scenerio. I believe, again, that we have the right to get constructive support and we should do what we can to get the help we need from friends and family.<p>TW

What I am specifically struggling with is that he is adamant that nobody (not friends, not family, not co-workers) know about this. I find this to be really difficult because we are separated and I am put in the position of lying when his parents call or his office manager (who I don't think knows, she is the sweetest most naive woman on the planet) or when people invite us somewhere as a couple. It is doubly hard because we work in the same profession and I have to actually see and sit in the same room at meetings several times a month with either WH or the OW. Our personal and professional lives are so intertwined that this is really difficult for me. <p>It is the one thing I really struggle with right now. I have been able to plan A the majority of the time, but then get put in one of these situations and go back to square one in terms of the pain in my heart and pit in my stomach.<p>Some days I really feel like throwing in the towel because I cannot see a resolution of any of this. He finally agreed to go to individual counseling and the counselor told him he wouldn't work with him unless he suspended non-work contact with the OW. He has not done this and is lying to his therapist -- how is he supposed to gain anything from therapy if he lies to his therapist (he admits to me that he is doing this after I ask questions about his continued late night phone conversations with OW. I haven't had the courage to ask about continued PA -- if I ask my WH gets silent and tells me I am making him claustrophic and he leaves).