Marie, the problem is when you have an exchange with your husband your objective is agreement.
Under normal circumstances this is a good thing.
When your spouse is drinking to excess, gambling your family savings away, or hoarding every lost item in town into your garage and your home to the point where you can't cook, eat, sleep, or clean the negotiations need to stop.
You confront with facts, and invite them to stop.
No threats, no negotiation, no argument. This is not a legal trial... you KNOW he's cheating, you don't need him to agree for you to ACT.
You confront and he denies?
OK, so, you now choose actions to show him you are serious :
1. Lock up your finances : He will not spend any household finances to support his affair. All monies you can track are tracked by you to ensure they are used for healthy activities only. 2. You put an exposure script together along with all the evidence you have collected (print out everything on the itnernet that they can delete.. don't just use urls they can take down later on you). You expose this to anyone who's KNOWING may INFLUENCE the affair negatively :
a. Does his parents know? How would they react if you revealed the infidelity and asked them to support your marriage and refuse to accept this OW into their social circle b. How about his brothers or sister? c. Friends of you and he to your family?
He won't like you exposing like this, and will likely run damage control...
Good. Let him try to tap dance... if YOU expose FIRST no one will believe him because YOU exposed he was keeping a secret... His secret romance now becomes a community scandal.
The affair thrives on three things
1. Emotional connection 2. Sex 3. Secrets
If you expose, you kill 3 and turn it into scandal instead. If everyone turns him and OW away and they can't socialize with anyone else they will start to fight with each other, 1 turns into conflict
1. Conflict 2. Sex 3. Scandal
Now, does THAT look attractive compared to the safety, security, and respectability of returning to a marriage and rebuilding it?
Exposure and basically RUINING the FUN of the affair is an effective and proven method to combat it head on.
Do NOT try to negotiate with your husband to have him agree that he's cheating. He is going to have an answer for every challenge you throw at him.
SO.... Don't wait for answers... you confront
ONCE, so he has a chance to stop.. Do NOT WARN him about your exposure plans or how you will handle finances... you invite him to end it and work with you and a Family Therapist
He says no - you start getting family and the community involved to support your marriage... It will make him furuious, but when you got to all the local bars and ask them not to serve your husband the alcoholic he gets pretty snarky too...
If you try to constrain an alcoholic from pursuing their addiction tehy will get ANGRY...
You just ignore it and keep attacking the affair, aim for maturity, respectability, and safety of your marriage and your home.. and sell it that way when you expose.
The OW is not a friend, she's an interloper and a threat to your home and family...
SHe is not welcome by you in your home and hopefully your friends will work with you to ensure OW is not welcome in your husband's ENTIRE SOCIAL CIRCLE as WELL
If it gets really ugly you can got o OW's workplace and make a scene... I know some here disagree with it, but I think it's got a lot of promise if done well...
I think you and I need to put a faq together for newcomers... I find I am answering the same questions over and over again... The responses get more refined each time, but my fingers are gettin sore lol
There isn't one central site that lays out the hardline tactics we reccomend here unfortunately... its scattered in forums and books and websites etc... unlike MWD's dbing tactics which are all in her books...
