I have a note because I am at work but I can elaborate more at a later time.
First, my suggestion to expose the affair(s) is not in the effort to "get back at him" or "hurt him like he hurt you" or any of that stuff. The GOAL--the reason for it--is that your marriage may or may not be "save-able" but I can GUARANTEE you it won't be saved as long as there is an affair going on! So for the best chance to maybe be able to save it, goal #1 is to end the affair.
So, you tell
your family and
your pastor and any "church friends" who are pro-marriage because you will want and need their support, emotionally and spiritually. The hope is that the pastor will tell your hubby, "MAN! Leave you mistress, stop this unfaithful pattern, and put that effort into making yourself and your marriage better." But I'm warning you now, that may not happen. You would think it should, but pastors are humans too and sometimes they are afraid to lose a member of their congregation. Then you would tell
his parents and
siblings because the hope is that they will tell him, "Man, honor your vows and go home to your wife!" Again, just a warning the families will rarely do this. They usually "support" the unfaithful one because they are afraid to stand up and say the right thing--or they mistakenly want to encourage the unfaithful one "to be happy." BLECH!
The end-game GOAL of exposure is not to embarrass them or show someone else their confidential stuff--it's to end the affair!
You know how he as been unfaithful for some time now but he had slowly-but-surely sort of convinced you it was YOU with the problem not him...and slowly-but-surely sort of convinced you that YOU wanted to leave not him? Yeah--this is a pattern that unfaithful spouses will do if they are the ones who "tell" people like the pastor or the family. They will GRADUALLY point out to individuals how YOU have a temper, and YOU constantly nag and criticize, and how YOU aren't mature, and (blahblahblah) so that they are justified and even sometimes SUPPORTED in leaving you because you are just too unstable to stay with! (BTW--completely forgetting to mention that the reason you were in a rage was because you just found the mistress' undies in his pocket..or that you were nagging and criticizing him for spending family money on another woman!
) By saying something now, you can put a stop to all that. And exposure now would not be forwarding his sexy emails to another woman or the pastor. That's ewwwwy!
No it would be more like this:
"Hi <name> this is me, MP. Hey I am just contacting to let you know that <spouse> and I are going through a really difficult time in our marriage right now. I have found physical evidence that proves to me that he has been sexually involved with another woman, and I'm just not dealing with that too well. I would like to ask you to join with me praying for our marriage, and to please help me help him to do the right thing and honor our commitment to each other. As you might imagine, finding out that my spouse has been unfaithful is killing me, but even though I'm upset about it I would like to give us every possible chance of recovering and I want to at least try! I'm not sure what the future holds but I would sure appreciate your support, encouragement and prayers."
(Please note, don't say "he's cheating" because that could be unfaithfulness physically, emotionally, etc. Nope, this isn't a "crush"--it's a physical AFFAIR and explicit sex with someone else.)
(deep breath)
Second, I can almost guarantee you that if you get up your courage and do expose, that he is going to be mad as a wet hen (and that is MAD!
). Here's why. Envision a drug addict. How do they react when you cut off their supply? Raging and frantic? Uh huh. Infidelity is actually a LOT like drug addiction because the person becomes addicted to the "high" of the chase, the "high" of the secrecy and sneaking, and the "high" of the goosey in-love feelings. So when he rages and carries on, just envision a drug addict and you just cut off his supply. Okay? He's going to say stuff like this: "HOW could you do this to me? How could you break my trust and sneak into my email?" You get the drift right? Now, that kind of talk is what I call Infidelity Babble. If you actually look at it, it's ridiculous! How could you (his wife) have the nerve to look into a life he is purposely hiding from you? How could HE break YOUR trust and have sex with someone else? See how silly his blame is? Seriously--it's just blame SILLY!
So ignore all that bluster and blowing and chalk it up to Babble. If he says, "You have embarrassed me! I can't believe you put our private dirty laundry out there for everyone to see! This is between us!" just don't let it sink it, because in real life, his choice to turn to someone else for sex is the embarrassing behavior. His choice to DO IT is what is causing his embarrassment, not your honesty about what's going on. So see what I mean? It's just BABBLE and trust me, unfaithfuls are FULL of it!
Okay--more thoughts later, but for now I say take the explicit emails, photos etc. and save them to a safe HD outside the house -and- print them and keep the copies outside the house. Here's why. My ex found out I had copies of his cybersex and he broke into the house and did delete *.* on my C:\ drive in an attempt to erase the evidence. Too bad for him, I had the evidence printed and stored outside the house--plus since he broke in I also had reason to mention to the judge that he broke into the house and damaged property.
So (breathe). I know life inhales in a vacuum-like way, but you can do this! And you will survive too!
~Faithful
P.S. If you expose, and on the occasion act a little nutty, people will be able to say, 'Well of course she's a bit frazzled--her husband is cheating!" If you do not and you act a bit nutty ('cuz let's face it, when you first find this out you are NOT yourself!) people will say, "Wow what's her issue? Man she needs a therapist!"
So see? It's telling the truth IN LOVE--not revenge, and not exaggerating--just say what is TRUE.