H is Having Affair after all - Part 2

[Hope4us]

Well, lets see.

My children are sons, but they're coping as best they can. WW and I are still living together. She has said she's going to stay until at least DS16 graduates from High School and see if things change between us. DS19 is away at college which is hard because I don't really know how he's doing. He does have a large group of friends which is good. DS16 is having a tougher time as he's at home and witnesses how WW is acting. He's said to me a couple of times lately "why don't you just divorce her so we can get on with our lives"? He is the one I'm worried about. He's a conflict avoider by nature and he'd rather we divorce (and avoid the conflict) than put up with the stress, etc that is trying to save the marriage. They still love their mom, but they don't like her much. I've tried to use this whole mess as a learning experience for them. What's acceptable and not in a marriage. Truth is always best. DS19 has a GF that he's been seeing for almost 3 years and they've talked about marriage (but only after they both finish college and are established) and I've spent alot of time talking to him about boundaries in marriage, etc. Don't know if that's sunk in yet as next weekend he's bringing a friend (who is a woman) home with him because they're going to see a concert together with some other friends. Anyway....

As far as contacting OMW...I did it on purpose. In my sitch, OM worked at the same location as WW and then last Aug moved to a new job ~250 miles away. His wife and kids live ~1000 miles away. Been that way for years. He moves from job to job every couple years and they stay in place at "home". I strongly suspected he was a player even before the affair started and had repeatedly warned WW it was highly probable, but that didn't stop it. So once I found out for sure about the affair, I contacted his wife. I know many people on DB don't agree with exposure of the affair, but I strongly do. There is no way I would have been able to last "waiting" for the affair to end and
WW figure it out, so I set out to end the affair any way possible. And in my opinion, exposure is one of the strongest means to do it. I knew she would be livid, but i figured our marriage could take the anger, but would never survive a 3rd person in it.

In my sitch, exposing to OMW was the beginning of the end of the affair. But because of his serial cheating (which I learned of from OMW) it ended their marriage (in the process of divorce), so it didn't completely end the affair in WW's mind because now OM is free and she thinks he's going to "make her happy for the rest of her life". WW just hasn't figured out that he was using her as OMW has told me that she's pretty sure he already has another GF in his new town. And that seems to be the case as I've seen evidence that WW wanted him to come visit a couple times in Jan/Feb and he wouldn't.

So what does all this mean? Kids are dealing with it best they can. If there's anything good to come of this, the boys and I are even closer than we were before. Exposure has most likely ended the affair. When I saw where WW had tried to arrange another visit from OM back at the end of March is when I told the kids what was going on. DS16 pretty much knew already. And I had exposed my WW's STD to OMW and hence OM in early Feb. She hadn't told him about it and he was PISSED with a capital P. All those exposures seem to have ended the affair, but now I'm dealing with her anger over my "controlling" her by getting in the way of her "happiness" by screwing up her fantasy world.

I guess I accomplished my main goal, which was to make sure this POS OM was never near my kids. In addition to being a serial cheater, he's an alcoholic and was/is abusive verbally to his kids and verbally and physically to his wife. If my marriage doesn't make it and we divorce and WW moves on to another man, ok, but at least it's not this POS.

That was probably pretty long to say the kids are doing as well as can be expected and I contacted OMW on purpose, but I wouldn't change a thing about how I did it other than I'd have told the kids the same time I told OMW. I just wanted to see if I could avoid telling them and if my exposure to OMW would have finished the affair once and for all I wouldn't have told the kids.