However, I suggest that instead, you work on yourself get yourself to a place where you are armored and can react clearly and without emotions running your choices, once you are there. Then confront.
At what cost? Sure, you can hope that you are stronger then (more on this below), but the affair only deepens as the emotional attachment grows stronger. For every week and month that an affair continues, the greater the drain on the family's finances, on the betrayed spouse's emotional well-being, and that doesn't even address the greater exposure to STDs and worse.
Reasonable people can disagree about confrontation and exposure, but if you're going to confront, do so EARLY, I say. More often than not, the delayed timeline DOESN'T lead to the betrayed spouse getting strengthened and armored. Usually, it leads to emotional defeat, emasculation, confusion, questioning, weight loss, poor job performance, depression, behavioral problems among the children, and a host of other symptoms. That's been my experience in studying affairs.
Quote:
IS there an affair going on?
So you snoop, you discover it and then what?
How do you react?
Like everyone else. Yelling, fighting, begging, pleading, exposing it to everyone, labeling her a harlot...etc. ad nasuem. You lay down a boundary that goes something like this: "I demand you stop seeing him." and ...what? She stops? She tells you she stops? Lets just cut all the lying crap out right now...she lies to you.
This reminds me of the old joke:
"Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this (some physical gesture)."
Dr.: "Then don't do that."
"I demand you stop seeing him" doesn't work -- it's an ULTIMATUM. One should assert a BOUNDARY, rather than an ultimatum:
"Wife, you can do what you will do, but know this: I will not live again in an open marriage."
