I think this has been asked about on other posts, but what's this community's view on what I would call, "Blowing the Roof off the Dump?" As in, I want to address both OM's personally and tell them that I know what is going on, and it is not OK. After that telling family and friends what the W has been up to. And then leaving. I've been doing a lot of negative thinking today
I guess I'm trying to figure out a) whether R is possible/what we actually want to do and b) what I or the W needs to do or see for that to happen 100%. I told her what I expected if there was ever going to be full trust between us again, i.e. she needs to devote herself to re-building our marriage, which would involve cutting all romantic/inappropriate ties to both OM's and proving it (full disclosure/access). Cue the wayward, "you're treating me like a child/being controlling," script. Fine, I went to the gym.
The only reason I thought about confronting the OM's head on is mainly because the W has always had an issue with me being passive in defending her against male advances, taking a laid back approach and rationalizing it with, "well if I trust my wife, I shouldn't be jealous," all the while dismissing huge red flag warning signs of infidelity. Actually, one of our neighbors messaged me during my previous deployment a picture of OM2's car parked in front of her house and said she saw a man walk into our house. The W and I laughed it off that she was the neighborhood busybody, slightly crazy, and that wasn't the OM2's car (I didn't know that is was). W revealed to me before returning home from this last deployment (almost a year later) that OM2 had stayed over that night, but had stayed in the guest room (lie). Another example: way back when we were engaged we went out barhopping with friends, and she complained that the brother of one of my good friends was making inappropriate advances and grabbed her backside. Not wanting confrontation, I said, "well I didn't see it," and never said anything to the guy. That night ended in a huge fight where she complained that I never defended her. So this issue has a history.
Anyways, maybe I've been doing myself a disservice in trying to psychoanalyze what my W wants to see from me to really commit to R, and defending our marriage from outside threats is one of those things that I've been mulling. Although as some have said, that could end very, very badly.
But, I think the reasoning behind no disclosure is that it makes it harder to reconcile if the A has been widely disclosed as it embarrasses the spouse to the family and makes for more discord within the family because everybody knows and they become hostile to the spouse for acting inappropriately. Although Starsky did disclose, as I rememeber, and it worked for him, it's just not DBing.
H actually exposed his affair to everyone himself, he introduced the girlfriend and her kids to his family immediately. It made things harder on ME when he wanted to try and work things out. I felt betrayed by not only H but by his entire family. Long story but his family is not welcome in my home now.
And my friends "informed" OW that H was married/told her to stay away.
It didn't stop/slow them down at all. So my advice to you is abandon that idea.
Last edited by twinmom; 10/05/1401:03 PM.
Me: 35 husband:39 Sons 16 and 11 from my first marriage Twins 5 (boy/girl) Daughter 3 Affair bomb 2/27/14 He moved in with ow 3/13/14 OW kicked him out 6/15/14 4/2016 he seeks help for sexual addiction
Ok I need input in the form of an answer to the question, "did I just do that right?"
W was taking a nap and the urge to snoop was overwhelming. I decided to take a trip to the coffee shop and do some reading to prevent checking her phone. Just as I'm about to walk out the door her alarm goes off and she wakes up, asking why I'm leaving without saying goodbye or where I was going. So I told her. I said I was going out for a bit because I hated feeling the desire to watch her every move and I knew she didn't like being spied on either. That led into a fight about how I had no reason to be suspicious and that she had told me everything. I told her I knew that she was not being completely honest with me and until she wanted to be then I wasn't going to devote myself to an M where I'm the only one in it 100%. If she decided that she could never be fully truthful then we would have to separate (no D word).
Engage spewfest. Right in the middle of her rant about not wanting to see me until we meet out of town in a few days I was out the door and am writing this from the coffee shop.
Man she's mad, and I notice that I'm detached enough to be ok with that. So...did I do that right?
Why would you raise all that stuff with her, esp with her just waking up from a nap? To my mind, unplanned and unscripted R talks are never a good idea. Why would you do it? I think there's some fruitful info waiting there if you find your answer.
Rev, I don't think you did it right. You should have just said you were going to get some coffee (hell! Starbucks is irresistible) or run some errands AND left off the part of keeping yourself from checking her phone. I think she may go into super ninja mode where it'll be hard to trace any dialogue she has with OM.
In my sitch, I felt an urge to check myself this past Fri. night after she got home from work like at 1130PM and was knocked out, but I didn't. I recalled a guy on these forums mentioning he failed in his quest to have his marriage work. Snooping and getting caught was a reason he felt contributed to his failure.
By the way, are you in a Signal unit? When I was in the Army I was in 11th Sig. Bde. back when they were in Ft. Hauchuca, AZ.
Last edited by Arcola; 10/06/1407:52 PM. Reason: added content
Me:30 W:34 M:8 T:9 D:9 D:4 D:3 S:4 S:1 D bomb: 8/2014 S 12/2014 PA Confirmed in 3/2015 if I recall correctly
Yeah, close but no cigar. I always feel like I almost get it, but I'm still bad at just going out on my own. I mean, I was just about out the door when she woke up, and for some reason I felt the need to tell her that I was going away to keep from snooping when she asked what was going on with me just doing things without her. I only ask because I was just sitting down with my coffee when she called me asking when I was going to be home. Still, even when she started crying on the phone about how hard all this was on her, I honestly didn't feel anything anymore. In the past I might have gotten up and ran back home to her, but instead I took my time to drink my coffee, and read a bit of, "No More Mr. Nice Guy." Just the first chapter of that book is revealing to me more things I've been getting wrong.
For example, being the guy that is more like a girlfriend than a romantic interest, i.e. I cook for her, run errands for her, and am just too anxious to drop what I'm doing to be nice that she may not find me romantically attractive. Thing is, OM2 is even more of a nice guy than I am (I know him fairly well) but she still had/has romantic interest in him.
Arc - No, I'm actually in the Air Force but stationed on an Army post. We work on close air support coordination through TACP's embedded with Army units when we're deployed.
