A message from Michele Weiner-Davis

[25yearsmlc]

I've only shared this once in my years here....RE: Exposure....

although I was an LBSer a few years back, there was a time LONG long ago, that I was almost a WAW. At the time, I was in what I now see was an EA. My h was quite busy, rarely home, and I worked full time with 2 small kids,in a new city, and I felt neglected, blah blah blah. The "EA" did not become totally physical but that was something that could easily have happened. However, I sought help from a minister (no priest available at the time and I was in the military) and also a shrink. I was very confused and in a combat situation (joined military b/c of h's obligation, and I was deployed not h). Long story short-- Eventually, barely, I worked things out for myself without going "full steam ahead".

I never told my h and never plan to. But here's the thing; I worked it out myself. At the time I felt pretty justified. I had never been very tempted before but h's schedule was wearing me down. For the sake of discussion, assume I'm "right" in feeling that I was neglected and h was so sleep deprived that when he was finally home, he was either irritable as he#$ or fell asleep within 30 min and this went on for a few YEARS...our d was afraid of him and saw him as a grumpy stranger. AND I worked around men and got a ton of attention there. And yada yada yada. Point is at the time, I felt justified albeit confused. I wanted to figure this out for myself and I called my sister and my father, of all people. THey helped me a lot. I talked to them about my sitch and they gave smart "think this through" advice, with thoughtful comments about my future self image and how I'd explain this to my kids down the road. And I imagined my h finding out and then crying, and I foresaw my kid's tears, and so, with such tremendous inner conflict, I sought out some help. And I escaped a terrible path, thankfully. (There but for the grace of God, go I.
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I can say one thing for sure. If my h had discovered my EA and exposed it or tried to shame me, I would have bolted! Why? B/C I FELT JUSTIFIED in the first place! So why on earth would I allow h to shame ME, when I felt he pushed me into the sitch??? (I am saying how I felt at the time, okay?)

Most of us do not do things we believe are wrong when we are doing them, so much as things we feel "forced" to do or justified. We rationalize. Yes There was truth to my claims of h's irritability and long term neglect, but they didn't justify an A. I see that now, but I was very lonely and stressed and felt unfairly burdened by choices h had made without my agreement....so at the time, for me, I can say that h shaming or exposing the "A" would have ended our M.


I cannot stress this enough. I would have been shocked and indignant if my h were angry at me or exposed me to go public, when at the time, I felt he had caused the sitch. And going public would make me want even more to be "right" and the only way to do that is to go forward with the A...I'd feel cornered. It's one thing to do as Dobson says, and confront the spouse, but 100% different from this whole "expose to the public" thing is and MWD has made that clear and this is HER Site after all....plus how on earth is the private shaming of a spouse, a matter for the public? I'm not talking about lying FOR the cheater, or cake eating. But the more people that learn of the A, the harder it is for the aggrieved spouse to feel they should or can forgive (as MWD says, others will hold it over the head of the cheating spouse) and the more impossible it'll look to the wayward spouse. I KNOW of spouses who wanted to make it up to their LBSer but felt the "mountain would be impossibly hard to climb" so they didn't bother and frankly, sometimes the LBSer made it too hard on purpose. Too hard to forgive I guess.

Finally, I think the bulk of those who expose, do so at their peril and are often not guided by the best of motives. And as angry as Antlers and others are when they are cheated on, understandably, I think unless there's a pattern of affairs, most "cheaters" have rationalized an affair, esp if it's their first and normally they might feel guilt. But often They feel the affairs were justified, or they were nudged, pushed or shoved into the sitch by their "neglectful, mean, drunk, distant, critical ---or whatever--"....spouse. AND THERE'S OFTEN SOME TRUTH TO THAT...So blaming them won't often work well.

Sure Antlers, there are some A's that are best ended by exposure. I get that. I don't think many. And I think Dobson's approach makes so much more sense to me. I can imagine that working if my h had discovered my EA and lovingly confronted me about what the heck was happening in our M, & I would have ended it sooner. Exposure? Um, no.

I might even have understood if he'd told a trusted confidante or a loved one who is pro m, like my sister. Beyond that, if he told others that I was having an A, I'd have seen him as a jerk who never found fault in himself but was quick to look elsewhere to blame, and I'd have felt vindicated in pursuing the A more. Maybe that's just me --and the 5 women I've known who've had A's. 3 ended their m's and 2 remain married today. Of those two, 1 h found out and forgave her but they worked intensely on the M together. They seem happy. The other wife worked it out privately the way I had, and ended it before it got too deep. She struggles with guilt but seems happy with the choice to stay.

Of the 3 who were discovered and ended their m's, they were either on their way out no matter what their h's said/did, OR as with the h in one case who totally blew it by getting so mad and made a fool of himself. Honestly, her h came to her work to publicly declare her a "whore",etc and of course everyone thought HE was a #$%^ and that she deserved better. Like "no wonder she's leaving him..." No one, and I mean no one, thought ill of her after seeing that display/temper. Fair? I don't know. But true, yes.

And there are couples who do make it after an A. But for some reason it's much harder for men to forgive their wives affairs than it is for women.

Sad for all. But not hopeless as some seem to suggest.
j-

LH-you will find your place. In time, if you act as if you can forgive your h, he might be able to believe it's possible (even if it takes much longer than you now see) and he MAY want to re-enter the R and piece together the M. It takes time. Boundaries will come but are not really an issue yet.He thinks he wants out and he is in MLC age. An A is typical of MLCers. GAL is what you should do no matter what and Antlers is right about that. It makes sense no matter what path the M takes, AND though detaching may seem to mean LESS chance of reconciliation, it's actually more likely. Plus your other approach did not.

Exposure has not worked. So try the MWD approach and she lists a few. You have options but IMO the more people you expose to, the fewer options remain and the harder it is to reconcile.