SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So my wife and I have been in counseling for well over a year, but she has been having an emotional affair for about 5 or so months. I've known about it the whole time and continually asked her to cut off contact with the guy, instead she started lying a lot. She created an email address for him when I saw emails, used fake numbers to call, said she was going to the gym and met him for a walk (and then he kissed her). After that last occasion she cut it off for a few weeks, but he wouldn't leave her alone. While on a vacation for our 7 year anniversary, he emailed her and ruined our trip. He even showed up at our house to talk to me and her. We refused.

When we got back she continued saying she wasn't talking to him, but I found out Thursday that they were still talking. My wife explained it was just small talk but I was losing it, crying, shaking, etc. I went to work Friday and we were "ok". But Saturday her email was open and I did a search for the guys name and she wrote him an email Thursday night saying she hated me, wished I didn't exist, wished we didn't have kids so it be easier to leave. She even mocked me. I left and she left with the kids.

I've been trying to limit contact but it's so difficult, I love her dearly and will do anything for her. I miss her, our kids, our love. I was not "snooping" anymore either until tonight. I saw they had private Instagram posts to each other. I saw her iTunes downloaded an app to use data for phone calls and texts. Supposedly I'm getting a chance to work on our marriage, but I can't with him.

Friday we have a meeting with a priest and Saturday another. We also are being setup with a very well respected MFT. But I just want to call her, text her, see her. She wants to wait until Friday to make any decisions. I haven't had more than 3 small meals since Saturday and tonight I haven't slept nom so lost and losing hope in repairing our marriage.

Hubby..

Sorry you are here, but it's the best place to come in your situation. There is a library if you follow the links on the left. There is very good info that will help you navigate through this.

As far as your marriage. It's not over. When Wandering spouses do this it's like they brainwash themselves. It's referred to as the "fog". It usually takes quite a bit to yank someone out of the fog. They will stay there as long as they possibly can. Think of a drug addict. This isn't much different.

You need to limit your contact to finances and children issues. You WILL NOT be able to "nice" your wife back into your marriage. I have been on this board for two years and have never seen it happen. I don't think anyone else has either.

Sometimes the only way to save our marriage is to completely let it go. If she wants to be "alone" I suggest you give her a taste of what she is truly asking for.

I didn't do it until a few months in. The only regret I have is that I didn't do it sooner. The outcome would have been the same and it would have saved me so much pain.

I love her dearly and will do anything for her.

If you will do anything for her then cut her off from the comfort and security that you provide. The only way to "win" this game is to choose not to play. As long as you are playing the "game" it's by her rules and you can never win. You need to change the nature of the game and only you can do that.

As far as working on your marriage while she is still in contact with the OM. It's a waste of time. She is just placating you and cake eating to get what she wants. It's a ploy to keep you happy while she gets her "jollies" elsewhere.

The thing that keeps me up at night about my situation is the fact that I didn't file for divorce the day I found out. The outcome would have been the same but it would have been so much easier on me. For the record, I'm still married.

Good luck.

[This message edited by damaged71 at 7:12 AM, February 5th (Wednesday)]

And I pray that outcome was good?

This guy is undermining your marriage and taking your wife and children away and you are just allowing him to do this?

Discussed this with my FWH and his response was that if he was the BS the OM better have good medical insurance because he's going to need it. Now I am not recommending you do anything illegal, but this guy cannot be allowed to carry on blatantly doing this if you wish to save your marriage. Its a waste of time trying to nice your wife back into responsible, sane behavior and currently she is drifting away and taking your family with her.

You are going to need to be much tougher and harder to save your marriage. Get angry and mean; you can change your future, but not by crying and mourning your loss.

She's with her parents. Not this guy.

Hi, welcome to SI.

I have to agree with the others, you cannot nice your wife back into your marriage. This is the fight of your life, you need to step in with courage. No chit-chatting except for children and finances. Read up on the 180 here under BS Facts and implement immediately. Do not beg, plead, cry, show her that you can live life WITHOUT HER.

She's with her parents. Not this guy

^^I would bet $$ that your wife has already taken the A from emotional to physical by this time. She is out of the house and away from you. Perfect opportunity, sad to say. Just hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Understand that cheaters lie even when confronted with concrete evidence.

She wants to wait until Friday to make any decisions

^^She is driving this bus, she is making decisions for YOUR life, grab the wheel and take over.

You are meeting up with a priest and a counselor. In all likelihood, she is going to place blame on you for her actions. Never accept blame for her affair, she is a grown woman who chose to cheat.

I was not "snooping" anymore either until tonight

^^Again, do not feel one ounce of guilt for snooping. Your wife chose to cheat, she lost her right to privacy. I can guarantee you that if YOU decide to work on the marriage, you will be snooping for a long, long time. Here we call it "Trust But Verify."

I am going to bump up a couple of great posts for newbies, one is Tactical Primer, the other is Before You Say Reconcile.

If this other guy is still in her life, everything you are setting out to do is a waste of time. There is no room for three in a marriage, and you and your wife were in counseling, and she was still lying to your face and the counselor's face.

Continue to read and post, there is a great thread in the I Can Relate forum for Betrayed Men Only, a great group of guys down there who have BTDT and can help you navigate through this mess.

Put your bitch boots on...it's the ONLY way to get through to her.

Annb,

Thank you for your reply. She has not had any free time since moving out. Her brother, sister, mom, and dad aren't letting her leave by herself.

As for all the recommendations. I'm going to be strong. I will not talk to her right now. Regarding the priest and counselor, both are aware I neglected quite a bit when We were first married, neither will put blame on me. Snooping, they say I had a right to.

HBHubby:

So sorry you are here man. I feel your pain. However let me be blunt: GROW SOME BALLS and show her you are a man. Standing around waiting for her to stop will not work. Let me repeat: STOP ACTING LIKE A PUSSY!

There are several concrete steps you can do to stop this. You have a small opportunity to save your marriage. While it may seem counter-intuitive, it will likely work. Here is what to do:

1) Gather evidence of the affair: cell phone records, text messages, emails, pics. Anything that you have. Save them on a USB drive in a safe place. Create a couple of spare email accounts (Gmail and Hotmail) are pretty good. Upload everything to one of these safe places in case you need them later. Get a keylogger and install it where she uses email the most. You will need this later after the exposure. Get a VAR (Sony models work best) and plant a couple in areas where she goes quietly to talk to OM. Keep them hidden after D-Day to check on her to see if she is continuing to maintain no-contact. Don't ever divulge that you are using a VAR, keep this a secret, if she asks then say you got it from a PI.

2) Go see a lawyer. Find out your rights. Have the lawyer draft up D papers. You will likely have to file the D papers in order to get her attention. You can always withdraw the D later if she shows complete and utter remorse. Ask the Lawyer to put in details that you gathered in #1 above about the affair. If you live in a no-fault state, you can still probably put it under "mental anguish" instead of infidelity. If you live in a fault state, then file on the grounds of infidelity, and list the OM's name

3) Find out details of the OM. Where he lives, email, phone#. MOST IMPORTANT: is he married? Do they work together? If not married, does he have a girlfriend? Who are his close friends? Does he use facebook? If so create a fake profile and start friending his friends to get close to him. You will need to know who he is close to during exposure day.

4) Once you have enough details then expose. Don't warn ahead of time WW and OM that you are going to do it, just go ahead and do it. Plan it on a day where you will have maximum impact. Expose to close friends, OM's wife and anyone else close to OM. Expose to your pastor, family and her family. Expect them both to get angry. But don't react and simply go dark on them. Tell everyone that you need their help in saving the marriage, and that you are willing to do anything, but that you are not willing to be in a 3 person marriage. If they work together in the same company then it becomes more complicated as you will need to get HR involved.

5) D-Day: Plan d-day when you will have some support to watch the kids. Start exposing early in the morning (via emails, facebook, etc) and then sit quietly and wait for the news to get to WW and OM. They will try to contact each other, so keep track of what they are doing via keylogger and VAR. Then go and approach her. Act calm and collected, don't get angry. Give her a copy of the divorce papers and tell her calmly that she MUST STOP this affair and go 100% NO CONTACT else you are filing. Tell her to pack her bags and get out of the house.

6) Then go completely dark. Ignore her texts and emails. She will eventually come begging back to you once the fog has lifted. At this point you have to decide whether or not you want her to stay or not.

Sorry you are here dude. Stay strong. Keep posting and we can help

Hubby...

My outcome was good. Things are fine now with me and my FWW.

I hope you noticed that everyone is giving you the EXACT same advice.

One thing I want to touch on that has been said. You can be about 99.9% certain that this isn't just an emotional affair and they did more than kiss. Expect the absolute worst, because that's probably what happened. My wife admitted exactly what your wife did. "They only kissed". It was all a lie.

As far as the advice we are giving you goes... Imagine you are watching a horror movie for the first time. It's scary and you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know what the right move is that might save the hero in the story. Your decision about how the plot will go leads is filled with uncertainty.

Now imagine you have seen the movie 100 times. You know exactly what is going to happen. You know exactly what the bad guy is thinking and you know what's going to happen next.

All of the posts and advice above, although completely counter-intuitive to what you are feeling right now, is the equivalent to us screaming at the screen in a horror movie telling the hero how to save himself.

We are all correct. We can tell you with absolutely shocking accuracy what she is going to do next. Read through some of the previous pages. It's absolutely all the same and replays itself over and over and over.

If I had it to do over again and I was in your shoes, I'd do this. I'd text her that I won't be at the meeting Friday. I'd tell her that I've decided to file for divorce because I don't won't to and won't accept being the third person in a relationship. Tell her that you will ask her location in a few days so the process server will know where to serve her with divorce papers. On top of that, I'd follow through and serve her. You can always call it off down the road.

You might think this is risky. There are two possible outcomes to your situation.

1. You stay together

- This will happen even if you file for divorce, if she isn't too far gone. You filing for divorce will not make her any more apt to walk away from you. It will have the opposite affect, she will realize you aren't fooling around with her antics.

2. You split up.

- If this is going to happen, it's going to happen no matter what. You filing for divorce doesn't change anything if she is set on leaving.

The outcome of you filing for divorce is "forcing her hand". This will save you months of untold pain. As with my case, they only stop when you force their hand. You can do it now or later. On a long enough timeline you WILL eventually say "screw this shit, she isn't worth it" and at that time and only at that time will things change. Until then your destiny is totally in your hands, even though she wants you to believe otherwise.

What damaged71 said..Same situation for me..

For the record I am still married, but I have mentally checked out of the marriage..

My marriage was one of walking on eggshells.. 37 years married..

I cannot nice my un remorseful WH back, nor do I want to..

The quality of my life with my WH pre D -day isn't worth the risk, time, effort it takes to work on the M..

That is what an extended period of lies, gas lighting, TT does to a betrayed spouse..

The way your WW handles the aftermath of her A combined with the quality of the M and your life together pre A will probably be major factors in whether you will want R..

Again what 71 said..

I am gone from the M in mind and spirit, but filing for D is tricky for me financially, I am getting my ducks on a row..

If a WS is remorseful, one of the things he or she will consider is a post nup or D from the BS in order to keep the BS protected financially and to nail down custody of the kiddos..This is one major thing that WS can do for BS to show that he or she CARES and is accountable for the damage he or she caused..A D itself won't make a remorseful WS fall out of love with his/her partner...It is detachment/mistreatment that makes two people drift apart..

One of the things IMHO that makes R a genuine one and not a false one is making the decision to R based on love and history between the couple.. The WS has to DO WHAT IT TAKES to show that he or she will help the BS heal..

Fear of how the BS's livelihood / stability of family life will look post separation should not not be a factor in any decision the BS has to make about whether to stay or go..I think a remorseful WS will do what he or she can to protect the BS / family even if this has to be done from afar..

[This message edited by doggiediva at 10:23 AM, February 5th (Wednesday)]

Hubby.. there is something that I want to add that I haven't seen written elsewhere.

On a long enough timeline you WILL eventually say "screw this shit, she isn't worth it" and at that time and only at that time will things change.

I think the key to a successful R is making sure that she becomes remorseful and "does the work" necessary to successfully "R" before your "warm and fuzzy" feelings run out.

The two posters above me have hit the "indifference" stage of this. It's VERY hard to move away from that and the longer you are in it the more doomed the future outcome looks.

The clock is ticking on your marriage. You have an ever closing window to make your move. Once the window is closed this becomes infinitely harder. Please don't wait.

I love her dearly and will do anything for her.

I hope you can step back and see that it is not healthy to be willing to do 'anything' for a woman who is on her part willing to subject you to this kind of mistreatment. Instead, get a little--a lot--selfish. She certainly is! But I'm not talking about a bad selfishness in your case. You need to start defending yourself, looking out for yourself. Do anything you need to do for YOU, including seeing a lawyer and getting info about filing for divorce, custody etc. I imagine from your mentioning that you're seeing a priest together soon that divorce is not something you are very open to in principle, but unfortunately while you may still be honoring the principles of your faith, she is not.

Try and focus on eating and sleeping well, too. It's hard, but take care of yourself.

Thank you all for your support and suggestions. I do have 1 issue with some of the recommendations and that is that I'm morally against divorce and I will not be the one to file it. If that means the marriage is lost, it's not on my conscience and I can move on from that. But EVERY OTHER RECOMMENDATION I am taking to heart and she's already asking me if I'm ignoring her, I just said "we'll talk about this on friday".

Might I also ask, I don't recall reading it in the Library, what do you do if the OM is will refused to stop contacting my WS? How is this handled? I've emailed, talked in person, texted, called, he will not stop.

I do have 1 issue with some of the recommendations and that is that I'm morally against divorce and I will not be the one to file it.

Hubby: ALL OF US HERE ARE ALSO PRO-MARRIAGE!!!! You have to be willing to file for Divorce in order to clear her head. We certainly are rooting for you to reconcile, but trust the collective wisdom here. Your WIFE IS IN A DEEP FOG. It will not be easy to wake her up. Serving divorce papers is probably the best option you have left.

I don't recall reading it in the Library, what do you do if the OM is will refused to stop contacting my WS? How is this handled? I've emailed, talked in person, texted, called, he will not stop.

Contact the OM's wife and expose. This is the best way to ensure OM leaves your wife alone. Stop wasting your time speaking/contacting OM. He is a piece of shyte and doesn't deserve any further attention from you. He will not stop until your WW tells him so. She will not stop until you file for D and shock her out of the fog.

Hubby - Unless your wife is taking action for him to stop contacting her, there's nothing you can do. SHE needs to send him a NC letter and block him on her phone, email, facebook, etc. If she doesn't want to stop interacting with him, it doesn't matter what you tell him.

Contact the OM's wife and expose. This is the best way to ensure OM leaves your wife alone. Stop wasting your time speaking/contacting OM. He is a piece of shyte and doesn't deserve any further attention from you. He will not stop until your WW tells him so. She will not stop until you file for D and shock her out of the fog.

All fine and dandy here, if he didn't already leave his wife. She had originally sent him a NC along with OM's wife about how sorry she was, but he persisted and she broke.

its called a order of protection or restraining order...

if that doesnt work.....a bat to the kneecaps always works....

sorry......I take that back

its called a order of protection or restraining order...

So violence or personal interaction is not necessarily needed for these? He's a king of email, text, and phone calls.