I was unfaithful

[Hope4us]

Hi Max. I think there are two schools of thought on exposing the affair at this stage. One, what would it accomplish? It may have the exact opposite affect your H wants. What if telling OMW about the affair ends their marriage and he starts making overtures to you again? The other POV is that his wife deserves to know. That right now her marriage is a lie. If it was me, I would want to know. But there are strong opinions each way.

I exposed to OM's W for two reasons. First was because of their living arrangements (they live 1000 miles apart) I figured that he was a player and does this sort of thing all the time and by me telling his W that he would cut tail and run. It was a way to put a little reality into the fantasy that my wife was living. And many times that reality is enough to end the affair. Second, I felt like she deserved to know. Did my exposing to OMW end their affair? I think for him it mostly did. That and the fact that I'm pretty sure he already had another GF once he moved 250 miles from us. So once I told his wife and would report back to her every time they got together (which was only once when she convinced him I wouldn't know) he realized that tap was used up and he moved on to his next victim. But in my wifes mind, the affair wasn't over. She tried many times after that to get him to come visit her and he refused, but he always had an excuse my W believed so the affair was never really over in her mind. So.....

I thought I would give my W some time and when he blew her off so many times she would figure it out. But she just kept trying. So I'd finally had enough and that's when I told my boys. They are both adults (well, the 16 yr old might not be one in age, but he is in maturity) and I told them for 3 reasons. First was I knew/know that my W loves our boys to death and if they found out and expressed their displeasure, that might be enough to give our marriage a chance. Second, I was preparing to file for divorce and wanted the kids to know that there was one parent that was not deserting them. Third, I would do everything in my power to make sure that serial cheating, alcoholic, abuser was NEVER in my kids lives. If it ended our marriage, I could live with that, but I was not going to allow this POS to enter my kids lives without them knowing just WHAT he was.

Whew. That was long to say, exposure now is a difficult thing. But I would say again. If your H decides to do it, that is his choice and both you and OM have to live with the consequences. I imagine your H is thinking....OM gets to F my wife and now there he is in his perfect little marriage and his W doesn't know and I want him to feel some of the pain that I'm feeling.