I do have her phone # and email. My cousin has wanted to call her and keeps asking when I will give her permission to do it. I'm passive when it comes to conflict, so I've not allowed anyone to do it. Plus up until now, I've been so worried about making my poor H even more mad at me. However, I no longer care what he thinks about what I do.
My take on this was always to neither ENCOURAGE nor DISCOURAGE my friends and family from making their feelings known. I neither whupped them up in to a frenzy about my wife's infidelity, nor did I discourage them from speaking their mind to my wayward wife.
Interesting, you agree with Penny on most other points. ah well, I guess that just makes for interesting discussion...
Is tehre a specific reasoning as to why you would opt to not advocate your family or their family pressuring spouses to end their affairs?
Is it becuase you aren't sure how it will turn out?
I can't see mb28's husband filing for a divorce becaus his family is pressuring him about cheating on her... I just can't see that happening... if anything I can see him having a HUGE FIGHT with OW about it...
A few reasons, Allen. One is the "I wouldn't attend a summit unless I was assured of its outcome in advance" thing, yes. People that SAY they are going to be supportive of your marriage aren't always so, and I found "blood is thicker than water" to be usually true, on average.
A second reason would be that it can come across as sounding forced, contrived, orchestrated (by you) to get YOUR desired outcome. When it's sincerely initiated by someone who just loves you, and wants what's best for you, and who's PISSED that you're being cheated on, I think it's much more effective. If everyone goes to the cheating spouse, using the same words and phrases, it's going to be like a politician getting the same blocs of text in e-mails to her office, versus heartfelt phone calls from angry/concerned constituents.
A third reason would be that I wouldn't want these intermediaries THEMSELVES to feel used or manipulated in any way. If I can say to someone (like I did to my daughter) who asks "Give me his phone number, I'll call him AND TELL HIM WHAT i THINK OF HIM!", and I can reply "Look, honey, I appreciate that. You do what you feel you need to do, I'm certainly not asking you to do that," then -- later on -- she will see that I allowed her to make her own decisions on the subject.
There may be one or two other reasons, but those are the main ones. I do think it's best, that if you ARE going to ask for support, to keep it general and say "anything that you might be able to do to support our marriage, and bring some pressure on (Wife) to hopefully end this destructive behavior, I would forever appreciate it. I love her very much, I DON'T want a divorce, but I'm also not going to tolerate this kind of disrespect forever, I hope you can understand."
Yup, fair enough... I pretty much only advocate exposing to people I would be sure will supoprt the cause anyhow...
I find if you expose to someone and they turn their head away it just takes the wind out of you.. so I really just reccomend exposing to people you KNOW will help you
I too am confused, it obv didn't work in my sitch, and in some of MWD's lit. it says, not to include family, or look for support, also no snooping...
I know that you advocate a diff approach than MWD on A's, and I do believe it was better for me to do something than not do anything at all...
I wish it were a science.
It really depends Maynard
The desired outcome is
1. End of the Affair 2. Reconcilliation with Spouse
In some cases, exposing to family members and such WILL HELP this come about.. in other cases, it will just do damage. I really depends on the situation.
It's not an exact procedure not by any means...
It's more like a political campaign
That's why its so ugly when affairs hapepn.. .if forces friends and family to make a partisan choice between the two of you...
It is more or less a declaration of war...
Most people prfer to take to Switzerland and hide until the war is over...
SOME will help you, some will help the other side.. its a VERY ugly business
So, ONLY include family and friends if you are sure they will HELP YOU
There's no point in exposing an affair to someone who is just going to cheer them on.. you rally have just dug a deeper grave if you are merely recruiting divorce cheerleaders
"What, oh, she's having an affair? She's happy again? Oh that's great, I will call her and congragulate her!!!"
If THAT is the response you think you might get from exposure, do NOT do it.
Its an ends justifies the means thing.
I don't advocate snooping for the sake of knowing what's going on no...
I DO advocate collecting INTEL so you can be properly prepared to deal with the affair...
If you snoop and the result is you just BLASTING yoru partner then don't waste your time, you are just doing damage
if you snoop and find out yoru partner will be meeting up with thier affair partner at place x... then use that .. send a marriage friendly friend there to "accidentally" meet up with them and surprpise them, embarass them, and basically run their plans... THAT i advocate
The objective is to RUIN the affair, make it NO FUN at ALL for them.. if you can collect INTEL that produces THAT result, then do it.
The only person I have adviced to say or do anything is my friend that he talks to. The rest of the family/friends that I have told, I have not advocated for anyone else to say or do anything. And of course his whole family seems to want to enable him. They don't approve of the A, but they don't want to drive him away either.
I have decided that I am no longer going to keep my mouth shut to protect my H. If someone asks what is going on with us, I'm telling them what I know.
Together 16 years Married 12 years Me 36 H 34 D9 & S6 Separated 12/3/09 Confirmed A 1/25/10 Exposed A 1/26/10 H hired L, but not filed yet 1/27/10
I have decided that I am no longer going to keep my mouth shut to protect my H. If someone asks what is going on with us, I'm telling them what I know.
Perfect! My position was, "I have decided that I'm no longer willing to lie to cover up your affair."
It's really hard for them to say anything to that.
