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My wife and I are about two years post affair discovery. Here's the brief back story.
Wife had a EA with her former boss. It had likely been going on for years before it hit my radar. We were friends with him and his wife and did couple things together from time to time, but my wife and him starting to run together and that's when it started. In hind sight I feel a little stupid not picking up on it much sooner than I did, but I completely trusted my wife and believed she was telling me the truth. It was a deep trust, which wasn't typical for me with previous partners.
Their relationship started to bother me but I kept it to myself. I didn't even know about the concept of an EA at that time. Around the time it started bothering me we decided to move out of state across the country to be closer to family and for a better place to raise our young children. I felt better about the situation because they would not be working or running together. Again at this point I was worried only about a PA with no concept of a EA.
After we moved they continued to message each other and talk on the phone from time to time. I was ok with that only because I thought it was accruing a lot less than it actually was. Fast forward a couple years and we are in marriage counseling. The reason for the counseling was we were having a recurring argument about her not living up to her end of the agreement to resume working after the kids were in school. During the counseling she brought up that she missed her old friends, she listed female friends, but also listed her old boss. She said there was a half marathon coming up in his town and she wanted to go run it with him and his wife. I agreed, we resolved the before mentioned argument and that was that.
She flies out there for the race and I call her the first night. Turns out his wife was not in town, but was out of town on work for a last minute project she had to take care of. My wife knew about her not being there prior to going, but never told me about it. I started to dig that weekend. Everything you would expect to find. Phone calls well in excess of what I knew about. Tests at all time of the day and night.
When she came home I confronted her with the phone calls and asked if they were having a PA. She denied it, just friends, im being controlling and paranoid. Classic playbook stuff. This was the beginning of a year and a half of hell which I could have saved myself from if I had been more educated about affairs and how they work. Deleted messages, no contact agreements broken, gas lighting, a couple marriage counselors. I became an expert affair investigator or as close as you can get. I work professionally investigating child abuse cases, so I had a lot of tools in my tool bag to work with. Every time she went underground deeper I followed and uncovered the deceit. Confronted her and she would get mad that I had spied on her. I never uncovered any evidence of a PA, although I've always suspected it. I found a lot of information though and feel like there would have been some indication. I think she rationalized them being just friends because there was not a PA.
Eventually I figured out I was just pursuing her and trying to control what she did. I looked at the unhappy person who spent the majority of my day thinking about it or spying and I said enough. I told her I was filing for divorce. I didn't say I was filing unless she did something, I just said I was.
We decided give marriage counseling one more shot. My counselor made a recommendation and hit a home run. This new counselor was great. In counseling my wife refused to characterize her relationship as an emotional affair, just friends. During that session I asked my wife if she had communicated with him recently and she said no. I took a pile of email printouts dated from the last week between her and he man and handed it to the counselor. The emails weren't damming except they proved she was actively lying to me and the counselor. The counselor confronted her somewhat aggressively. She said the man was aware of his impact on the marriage and if he were truly just a friend he would back off not have secret phone calls and emails. That visit ended with the counselor telling my wife there was nothing she could do for us unless my wife accepted it was an affair and wanted to focus on the marriage. We stopped counseling.
That's where I made my next mistake. I had met with an attorney and was starting the process of divorce. I started to have conversations about division of assets. Turned out she thought I was going to go live in a shack and she would stay in the family home and live life as normal. I spelled out the financial situation to her and she started to do the math. Crap, all the sudden her affair was going to cost her something because my pain didn't seem to have any cost to her. She came to me in the month following and said she chose me and wanted our marriage to be rebuilt. She agreed to the NC (again)and to let me see her devices any time I wanted. The thing is, I had to fight her on that even. In reading other posts I see the best cases are ones where the betraying spouse in proactive about wanting to rebuild trust out of a feeling of remorse. She reluctantly agreed to the bare minimum. I should have realized in the moment how empty those agreements were for us.
Since then things have actually felt pretty good. Sex is good, time together seems meaningful. I had initially asked to see her devices a couple time and she complied. I eventually decided to resist asking her to see devices. If she was going to cheat again I couldn't stop that and I knew that if she started up again I would figure it out eventually even without spying. I didn't want to live a life being a full time investigator at home.
2 years since I discovered the EA and I started to get that nagging feeling. She was visiting my mother with the kids in California. I couldn't go because of work. I messaged her and asked for the login information for her work computer. Keep in mind it had been a good 9 months since I asked to see anything and maybe 4 times total since she agreed to let me see them. She went into a dialog about how me asking has triggered her and made her feel controlled... She said she wanted to be with me when I looked at it, which was a week away. I figured since she didn't have possession of the laptop it was secure. I figured I could wait a week. What I didn't expect is the emotional creep that's occurred during that week. I feel like I did during the bad times. She's home now, I haven't seen the computer. I asked for permission to hold onto the computer until she was ready for us to look at it. I didn't want her to be able to do clean up. I'm assuming she has accessed the work email remotely since it's strange she hasn't wanted to attend to work emails.
I don't want to go through the dance again, but I don't want to jump straight to divorce without new evidence. My thought is to start the 180 treatment and begin moving on. If she approaches me to reconcile I won't do it unless she is taking proactive steps, basically chasing me.
Please don't speculate on if there was a PA. I've gone round and round with that one and in my case I feel that the EA component was much more damaging than a PA. I've been tested and include it as part of my regular physical each year.

[This message restored by Webmaster at 11:28 AM, Thursday, July 22nd]

[This message edited by Legatus at 9:46 PM, Wednesday, July 21st]

I'm not going to speculate about anything but instead give it to straight (assuming you came to SI for actual advice): you would have to be the first betrayed husband I've ever read about here with a WW who conducted a years-long affair and it remained “EA only.”

The first.

Maybe you titled this “Resisting Transparency” because you know your WW is actively lying to you. In which case a better title would be “Remorseless WW Still Lying to Me”

People in highly limerent years-long affairs have great difficulty maintaining NC with an AP

[This message edited by Thumos at 12:23 PM, July 21st (Wednesday)]

but I don't want to jump straight to divorce without new evidence

You realize that you don't need evidence of infidelity to get a divorce. All you need is to not want to be married.

You tell us not to speculate about a PA, and yet your post screams out the subtext that you realize it most likely was. There have been dozens of threads here involving running/training partner affairs. That type of affair, more than just about any other kind, is almost always physical, and torridly so.

You've been playing marriage cop, living in some version of infidelity (her persistent, chronic dishonesty is itself a form of infidelity) since your initial Dday. If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting.

If you're looking for a Hail Mary to try before pulling the trigger on a D, have her read and implement everything in "Not Just Friends" and "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair".

First step: She has woven a cocoon of intimacy with her AP, and has obstinately protected that against you and your marriage. Bottom line is that, as long as this persists, you will have an incomplete, unhappy marriage. She's had lots of opportunities to figure that out. Calling you "controlling", that's the cri du couer of a person intending to continue cheating.

Does the OBS know?

There's no need to speculate on PA because you know there was one. There are several maxims here. Adults don't just kiss, they have sex. Cheaters lie. Trust your gut. EA for any significant amount of time (weeks not months) with physical access between the partners = PA. Going to run a half marathon which you only agreed to because the OBS was going to be present. Your WS knew she wasn't going to be there, but let you believe that. Why?

In reality, whether this is a PA doesn't matter. This friendship is so deep that she has made numerous decisions that risked her marriage to protect it. This "friend" is more important to her than you. Every action she has done since confrontation supports that line of thought. Until your wife takes actions to prove otherwise your marriage is doomed to fail. She has done just the bare minimum to keep you, while she expended considerable effort to remain in contact with a "friend".

You were arrogant to think that you will find evidence if she cheats again. You've been teaching her how not to get caught every time you worked harder to catch her. Unless you are running key loggers on every device she uses, there are too many ways to communicate without detection if you put in the effort. Even if you went that route, she still has the option of a burner phone. What you are left with is your gut reaction. Wasn't that the trigger that led to this post? She's resisting transparency for the same reason she lied to her therapist. You do not have a WW in R and her "friend" is more important to her than your marriage. She doesn't want to lose the marriage, but that comes in 2nd to the friend. You have suffered enough that you do not need more information to make a decision.

Have you spoken with the OBS directly?
Have you tested her version of the A with a Poly?
Have you demanded NC with the AP?

Those are all things that are kind of mandatory for successful R.

There have been dozens of threads here involving running/training partner affairs. That type of affair, more than just about any other kind, is almost always physical, and torridly so.

Running can increase sexual desire because of the confidence that a person feels after running. There are even studies that show that running is a natural and potent aphrodisiac, with men driven by the energy the boost they feel after this physical exercise.

Yup.

She has woven a cocoon of intimacy with her AP, and has obstinately protected that against you and your marriage. Bottom line is that, as long as this persists, you will have an incomplete, unhappy marriage. She's had lots of opportunities to figure that out. Calling you "controlling", that's the cri du couer of a person intending to continue cheating.

Please listen to this. My WW has been the perfect Stepford wife since about a year after D-DAY (Funny side note: many here on SI tagged my WW's behaviors as "Stepford wife" and this week I was talking to a friend of mine and he immediately described my WW as "Stepford wife" without any prompting).

But while my WW has done everything to show me the kind of wife she intends to be going forward, she has also done just about everything a WW could do to avoid transparency about her affair. She destroyed the texts, destroyed physical evidence, refused to write down a timeline for three years and refused to do a polygraph until I made it an ultimatum (a polygraph which she then promptly failed).

So how do you think the Stepford wife routine is working out for her and for me? Oh sure, I enjoy having my whims catered to, an espresso brought to me in bed every morning, being showered with gifts and attention consistently, constant physical affection, sex on tap whenever/wherever/however I want it, all household tasks being done by her. Sure, I enjoy that. Of course I do.

Who wouldn't? But do you need the answer beyond this? Do you think it has fixed anything, really, fundamentally?

This shit does not go away.

Also, honestly, I don't know why this kind of thing keeps showing up in the reconciliation forum. You're way far away from reconciliation. I am too, and that's how I know.

[This message edited by Thumos at 2:31 PM, July 21st (Wednesday)]

You've been pretty passive in the aftermath of finding out about the A. You talk about D, but you're not actually filing.

So you're ambivalent. I understand your pro-D thinking ... at least I assume the betrayal is at the bottom of it.

What's keeping you from filing. You say you know it is a PA, so that box is checked. You know she's holding back - lying by omission (lack of transparency) and commission (lying to you and MC about contact with om) - and I suspect you know you can't R without total honesty.

You have to be honest with yourself, too, so what's holding you back from filing? If you don't know, I strongly recommend talking to a good IC to get help finding out where your resistance is.

I'm not going to speculate on whether your wife's affair was physical.

If you believe that your wife was meeting with a man in secret numerous times, over years if I understood correctly, and that it was not physical then that's what you believe.

If you believe any man would meet with a woman in secret and put all this effort in without fucking her, then that's what you will believe.

***

My question is you're posting in reconciliation - do you believe you are or ever have been in reconciliation?

It appears your wife wants to "stay married", but without truth, and especially while she has a current boyfriend, you are not in reconciliation.

Do you think your wife wants to reconcile, or just "stay married"?

**

If you do decide to seek the path of reconciliation, are you able to ignore the possibility of not just a physical relationship, but a lengthy and highly intimate physical relationship?

Or can you just let it go?

No transparency, no M.

You aren't jumping straight to D. You are making a list of demands for R to be possible, and she is saying "no". She is choosing not to meet your needs for R. What will you do now? D is reasonable, and not a "jump".

Thanks for all the comments. I was mainly after comments which would help me come to terms with what I knew deep down. Yesterday, after I posted I reviewed her computer. Before looking at it I asked her if there was anything to know before I looked at it. Surprisingly she said there was something and disclosed she had emailed the man while she was on a work trip a couple months ago. She said they exchanged a handful of emails and then she said she felt bad and ended it with "no more emails, well for now". Really?! left the door open did ya? I want to say unbelievable, but it's what I've come to expect. She also admitted to sending a non sexual selfy. Just a head shot, but I think any picture could be considered sexual in these cases. She deleted the emails. I attempted to recover them without success, but found that she had actually had to contact her companies IT department to permiantly purge them since they by default save purged messages in case of data breaches. This goes hand in had with what was said by a couple of you. She is making extraordinary efforts to communicate and hide contact and the marriage and me are secondary at best.

Sorry about posting in reconciliation, I wasn't sure where my situation fit in.

To answer some questions.

No Poly

My wife and her AP got to his wife before I did and spun a narrative that I was a crazy spouse. Both my IC and the marriage counselor believe they have an open marriage.

A clear NC was agreed to two years ago. My wife drafted an appropriate NC letter and it was sent to the man. This is the first communication I am aware of since the NC. I would be stupid to believe it was the only communication.

She can see that I'm upset in a different was this time. Normally I would have gotten really upset and demanded a list of things she needed to do moving forward. I'm over telling her what she can do to try to fix things. Besides, I am at a loss right now and don't think there's anything she can do. That seems to be freaking her out. D is the only option left on the table at this point. I mean I need to get off this roller coaster at some point.

Thanks again for the posts. Like I said, I was hoping you would tell me what I already knew, but needed to hear from someone else, especially someone else who has been through it. Very helpful, :)

[This message edited by Legatus at 8:19 AM, July 22nd (Thursday)]

My wife and her AP got to his wife before I did and spun a narrative that I was a crazy spouse. Both my IC and the marriage counselor believe they have an open marriage.

This is quite a leap to make. If they had an open marriage, the AP wouldn't have had to conspire with your WW to concoct a great deception about you. I'm part of a subculture where polyamory/open relationships are common and I can tell you that this is not normal. Open relationships require MORE honesty and transparency. AP was absolutely cheating if he needed to lie to his wife about any aspect of his relationship with your WW.

The fact that your WW had to go and have the emails permanently deleted from the server tells me that she's still lying to you. She threw out just enough to make you think you have the truth. However if she was being honest, she would have shown you the emails herself to prove it. She didn't because they reveal a lot more than she's admitted to. I'd bet dollars to donuts that the A continues.

Anything she has admitted to you should multiply by magnitudes.

If she admitted to sending a non-sexual selfie, that likely means she sent him a very naughty photo that she would have never sent you, and her face was visible (That last part was the true part.)

She might be scared now that you "mean business" but - what does that mean to you?

And is she just "scared straight" for the moment? This assumes she is not acting in order to "get out of trouble", which is what I would assume.

If you even want to try to reconcile, I highly recommend you get to the bottom of what you are really dealing with with regard to this multi-year affair. I think you know what I mean.

P.S.I wasn't getting on you for posting in Reconciliation, it was more to point out you are in no way in reconciliation with your wife.

Listen to faithfulman. He KNOWS the mind of a cheater. Clairvoyant-like, knows. It's scary.

nekonamida - ding ding ding, you win the prize. Since my earlier post I did a deep dig on her work computer. They had set up a shared document that they could communicate with. Apparently he set up something where the folder name would change automatically. Anyways, the folder was clean, but I was able do find a series of deleted files. It was as bit fragments and looked like computer code, but there were sentences and paragraphs embedded in it. This has been ongoing. Interesting enough they are still referring to themselves as friends in their messages. She complains a lot about me being suspicious. She is both worried about being caught and annoyed. My favorite one was when she was complaining about me being concerned about a new male coworker because of what happened between him and her. The data recovery mainly picked up her messages. I can see a deep emotional dependency. I have what I need now. I feel a little relieved that I don't have to dig for information anymore. So much work and it's emotional draining. We are in a no fault state, so I don't need to build a case on that.

She was upstairs and I texted her that I know everything. She came to my den and asked what I knew in in a way that showed me never thought I would be able to recover anything. I had a printout stack an inch thick (mostly gibberish code, only 3% of it was usable) I started reading one of her messages out loud and she freaked out. She started bawling and making noises I've never heard before. She begged me to tell her what she can do to fix it and maintained that she ended it again in May of this year. I told her I didn't believe a word coming out of her mouth. She asked me what she could do, adding that she would do anything. Normally at this point I would have agreements I'de want to to make like NC and complete disclosure. I looked at her and said I couldn't think of a single thing she could do to fix it. She said a lot and I said a little. She offered to sign a post nup where I would get everything. That would never stand up in court. I haven't told her I'm doing anything yet, but since I can't think of anything that can be done to rebuild trust, divorce seems to be the best option. Also, I deleted my initial post and lost the copy and have been too lazy/busy to redo it. Does anyone have any objection to me editing this post to include it again and leave this chat in this forum?

Just a head shot, but I think any picture could be considered sexual in these cases.

And this is probably another lie, too. But it looks like you are already coming to terms with that.

Yesterday, after I posted I reviewed her computer.

So after all this time. Damn. I'm really sorry. Always trust your gut. You posted here on SI this week because your gut was gnawing away at you.

She begged me to tell her what she can do to fix it and maintained that she ended it again in May of this year.

Lies, lies. Lies.

She offered to sign a post nup where I would get everything. That would never stand up in court.

You're right it wouldn't. In most states, post nups are worthless. I'm surprised it is so often still recommended here on SI. I researched and talked to attorneys after my WW offered to do one after her failed polygraph.

I think you should:

1. go see a divorce attorney if you haven't already.

2. stop any and all sex with her. She's a physical danger to you. You have no idea how many times she's been with this man, even recently.

3. Implement a hard 180 and consider a therapeutic separation (read the book "Cheating in a Nutshell" - it will open your eyes and the authors recommend a therapeutic separation of a minimum of 30 days).

---

EDIT TO ADD: Sorry, we didn't mean to berate you about being here in reconciliation. I think most of us were just walloping you with a couple of well-intended 2x4's to help you see the reality of the situation. Now you're know what you are really dealing with. Move forward with conviction and strength, brother.

[This message edited by Thumos at 5:44 PM, July 22nd (Thursday)]

Thomas- I knew the reality of my situation deep down. I got the tough love I was looking for posting in this forum. It’s much appreciated. The messages showed me she want her cake and she wants to eat it too. She wants him emotionally and me to be a provider and father. What I found interesting is she was complaining about all the anxiety of hiding it from me in a tone that made me out to be the bad guy. She’s not even self aware enough to take ownership that she created this dynamic. I really don’t want to end a 17 year marriage with kids. Each of my parents divorced multiple times. No one has to explain how hard it is. Hardest on the kids. I thought about divorce to split assets and then cohabitation for the kids sake, but there’s no way I’m capable of that.

Legatus,

Sorry you are here, work affairs like these have very deep roots since it's so easy to hide a work affair.

You wrote, My wife and her AP got to his wife before I did and spun a narrative that I was a crazy spouse. Both my IC and the marriage counselor believe they have an open marriage.

Then both OM and OMW are in your crosshairs for retribution, if OMW gave tacit approval.

Did you try to get OM fired since he was her boss?

I really don’t want to end a 17 year marriage

What marriage?

I'm sorry you're here, do yourself a favor and end this farce of a M immediately, life's too short to be the M police for a grown woman who keeps betraying you over and over again and again. Expose her huge betrayal with all family and close friends without warning and file for D.