SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've read through a lot of these posts. Not just mine, but others in similar situations. The one thing that sticks out to me is that you cannot " nice" your wife back. I feel like my wife sees my kindness as weakness. I have never been verbally cruel to her. I have never even called her a bitch, ever. I just have never seen the need. I've always tried to take the high road. I know, in my case, she's not going to expect me to be demanding of any consequences for her. I've never pressed her into anything. Ever since I talked tonher in general terms about our marriage a couple of weeks ago and told her I wanted to work on it and we both shed tears, she has treated me differently. Like I'm weak and she's in control. She doesn't know I only acted that out to draw a reaction/confession. I didn't get it and wish I never would have done it.

When I do confront I will not shed a tear. She will know I am not fucking around and will not even recognize who she's dealing with. I told her a long time ago that I can take a lot and hold a lot it, but one day someone is going to cross me one too many times and look out. Little did I know it was going to be with her. I'm not talking physical confrontation either. That's one of the reasons I'm going to lawyer tomorrow. I want papers drawn up. I'm just going to confront her and dropped the papers on her. Very business like. . I'm not going to give her all my info either. I want cards to play as the whole thing plays put over time. Every time she thinks I don't have any more I want to hit her with something else.

She's made the decision, not me. These are the consequences. It may even be what she wants. I hope so. It will make it easier.

All for the way you've set up D-Day. I think you are doing the right thing.

One piece of advice. Have a voice activated recorder with you. She is not going to be appreciative of the gift you are about to give her. Please be alert for a charge of domestic violence! Even innocent, there's hell to pay initially. With the VAR, she will be setting herself up.

Strength

Rocket:

I'm glad you're seeing the lawyer. Get everything ready for the confront this weekend. Things can get hectic, so make everything ready.

Get some cash and store it safely in case she decides to empty the joint banking accounts. Store your credit cards in a safe place. Get your son's passport and store it away.

On confront day, as soon as she spills the beans, go ahead and expose right away, without warning. Get some luggage packed for her and tell her she either stops contact with OM or she needs to leave the house.

MOST IMPORTANT: STAY STRONG!!!! Don't breakdown in front of her. No tears, no whining, no begging, no pleading. Show cold indifference to her. If she senses even for a second that you are weak, she will continue to walk over you.

We are here for you brother. Keep posting and let us know how it goes.

Ideally you can get to the OMW before the confrontation, but in some cases it just might not happen. As much as we have urged you to do so, tracking down the spouse can become somewhat obsessive at some point, remember that you aren't always thinking objectively after the smack upside the head this kind of thing hits us with. Try to keep an arm length perspective if you can. The VAR is always a good idea, and a hidden video recorder of some sort, or a witness is not out of the question. Even with no history of violence, a record of such serves only to convince the police that show up at your door that day, that you are innocent if things go south. Unlikely it will be needed, but you are backing a scared animal into a corner.

Plan your day carefully, be calm and matter-of-fact, present the facts, demand answers, never give away your sources. She is not allowed to ask questions, only give answers. Stay in control and don't be afraid to bluff that you know more than you do.

In my case, I had a lot of information and some details. I had about a hundred questions written on the computer I insisted I need answers to. I told her if I caught her in one lie, it was over. I gave her an hour to type out her answers. The questions had enough information that should knew I knew something, but she couldn't tell how much. Will you ever get the whole truth? Mostly likely not, and there will be white lies and omission, a lot of whitewashing, just expected it. Don't assume there has been only one OM

Only then can you make an informed decision.

I had a keylogger on the computer she was answering the questions with, and what she wrote then erased and revised told me a lot about how honest she was going to be.

It took three or four sessions over about a year till I was convinced I had about 70% of the truth. I figure thats about all I'll really ever get.

If you have an address for this guy, have you checked county records for ownership? If he owns it's probably in joint tenancy so his wifes name should be on it. If he's renting, get the owner and call to verify a reference for them like he financing a car or something through you. Unless the owner is personal friend, you might can finesse a little info out of him by telling him you're not sure about this guy and what he thinks about taking as note on a car from this guy.

Rocket you made me think of this:

Rocket, I hope your meeting today went well.

We are all pulling for you. I second the VAR at confrontation though. You absolutely have to protect yourself. Remember this person is not who you believed her to be, she could do anything, she is not predictable.

((((and strength))))

Okay. Went to attorney. Found out some things. Nothing I didn't expect. He says I can get joint / primary custody. I'm not trying to keep my kid from her. But I want him to be with me the most.

I have some thoughts about d day. I've read everyone's posts. Doesn't it make me look weak if I even ask for explanation? Or demand she give me OM info? That would infer to her that I'm open, or hoping, to reconcile. I don't think she should pick up on that at first. Then she's just going to tell me what I want to hear. She's going to know she can get back in. Screw that. I guess I need to figure out if I'm even interested in reconciling or hearing what she has to say first.

I'm thinking I'm going to just put a copy of the phone bill and a picture of him on the table and ask her if she's knows anything about this ? Im not playing my big cards first. If she lies or babbles, I set down divorce papers and tell her she decided this the first time he put his dick in her. I'm just following through and I'm done being her safety net. That's it. No big confrontation. She will probably run. She knows where to find me.

Am I wrong or what ?

That's entirely up to you Rocket. It IS your choice. I assume you've thought about the consequences for the kids, and the financial and possible legal mess you would walk in to with a divorce.

I had a few days to decide before I confronted the wife, and how she responded the first 10 minutes told me if there was any possibility. A different response would had me walking away forever. There are many days that I wished I had walked away anyway. I can tell you that I often wonder if I wouldn't have been happily re-married to good woman by now.

I'd say if she's more pissed of that you found out than she is remorseful, walk away.

Refusal to answer every single question, walk away.

Any contact what-so-ever with OM, walk away.

I'm not a big believer in no contact letters or crap like that, I explained it all to the OM myself so it was very clear.

In my opinion, trust is almost impossible to regain unless she is willing to put forth a huge effort to rebuild it. If she is not willing or unable to commit to that, you're just wasting time.

Life is too short for that.

Twisted. I 100% agree. Screw the nc letter. It's just bullshit anyways. I guess what she says in the first couples moments is all I need to hear to make my decision. I am all about being strong during this. She's going to expect me to cry. Not happening

Oh, take her phone. She'll be wanting to call and warn the OM. Hopefully, he'll call and you can answer, "Hello George, you're about to have a really bad day".

As shitty as this all is, don't lose your sense of humor. It's what get us through.

It's time to be a little selfish and take care of yourself for awhile.

Good luck.

And when you confront be very business like with as little emotion as possible like you are moving on.

It's actually my phone. I'm turning it off day of confrontation. She'll never have that phone number again.

The first 10 minutes might be completely defensive talk from her, which means nothing. I confronted with his name. Once I found out, that same day, I asked my wife to tell me about so and so. The look on her face was complete shock.

Then the "we were just friends" crap. And then when I told her I knew more, she become more defensive, which is a sign of lies and complete embarrassment, which is what you might get in the first 10 minutes. So you might expect it and disregard it.

Affairs are a complete fantasy fairy tale world, and that is why your wife has been walking around with a chip on her shoulder. And you are about to knock it off. And that is going to shock the stuff out of her and her world.

Forget about they whys at this time, usually the whys are the hardest answers to get and usually the WS doesn't even know why they did it.

Just the facts is what usually works at this time. What you should ask mostly are just questions to where only black and white facts are the answer. Emotional type questions like the why did you, usually take some time to get to.

When I confronted my WW, I had already exposed everything sky-high. So she already knew that I found out who the OM was. I royally skewered the OM.

Many months later, my WW confided in me that she admired that I stood my ground on confront day. The strength and resolve that I showed was impressive to her. The fact that I was fighting for her and the marriage later made her feel like she made the right decision to R. WW also told me that the fact that I was already 10 steps ahead of her on D-day made her completely cringe in fear of what I could do next. She was shit-scared no doubt.

This all boils down to a simple decision by you: whether or not YOU WANT TO R. This is highly dependent upon how she answers the questions in the first few moments after confront starts. If she starts to deny, gaslight or make excuses, simply hold your palm out and say "STOP IT. I know the truth. I know more than you think I know. Start telling me the truth or its all over." Keep repeating this line over and over, until you can say it with a sense of coldness.

Your WW will definitely freak on confront day. I suggest that you type out all of your questions on a piece of paper and hit her with the questions immediately after confront. Try to limit the questions to no more than 5. (Top on my list would be name, address and contact details for OMW). If she balks or refuses to answer, then here are some supplemental things to do:

1) Practice the line above with the extended palm

2) Get D papers ready and show it to her. Tell her that the attorney is ready to file them as soon as the county clerk's office is open.

3) Have some of your friends/family that you exposed to start calling her during the first 30-60 mins of the confront. Have them call and urge her to return to the marriage.

4) Get a suitcase ready and fill it with her clothes and leave it out on the front porch

5) Get her credit cards and start cutting them up in front of her

6) Get your wedding ring and start pounding it with a hammer. Next ask for her ring so that you can pound it and then sell it.

Hope all goes well

On dday my ws tried to blameshift.

He left blaming me for everything. I said bye.

Then I stayed REALLY strong. About a month later he said he was thinking about coming back home. (I later found out OW had dumped him). I told him ONLY with counseling. Period. He would have had to go for 6 months and own his own shit before he could come back.

Keeping his family together wasn't worth it, and my children and I are much better off without a false recovery.

Most all of us on this site are the "nice" ones in the marriages. The WS have crossed the line of respect over and over in our marriages. Standing up for ourselves is the perfect way to handle this.

Rocket,

Absolutely make sure the wife of OM knows about the A. It will help stop the A, and also she has a right to know! Also, you mentioned you can monitor her phone use bc you pay the phone bill. Keep in mind she could easily go out and get a secret phone. My XWH had several Affairs, one for about 5 years. The H of OW#1 caught them about 1.5 years into it. He told them he wouldn't tell anyone, including me, if they ended it. She went out and got secret phone and they continued texting/sexting/phone sex/secret meetings during and after work etc. for 3.5 more years until I caught them. XWH had a work phone so I never saw the bills. He showed me phone records during Trickle Truth, 80-100 texts a day. So it's not that hard to do if someone wants to carry on with affair. Hang in there!

I think some of us need to take a step back. Not every wayward spouse is a remorseful one. Only, you can tell if this is a deal breaker or not. But, at least wait till you confront her and decide from there.

You paint a picture of a woman that is using you as her meal ticket. Do you know if she is providing for him?

You really should find a way to follow her. I know you don't care about catching them in the act. Don't...just follow him afterward to see where he works and lives.

Oh...and keep the phone on. Intercept the calls. Tell WW if she wants the m. Take me to his house now. If not, sign the divorce paper. I would be afraid that she is drawing this out to come out on top if she did want a divorce. Save everything.

Rocket: I bring a different point of view. If you live in a no fault state, you do NOT need to confront your wife.

Most people confront because they want verification of what they suspect. Your wife already knows the truth and so do you. All you really need to do is to file for divorce. If she wants that, then you are ahead of the game and it will be over the sooner for it. If she doesn't want to divorce, you will be in a position to demand answers from her.

The only reason for outing the "lovebirds" to the OM's wife is to break up the affair. And it may not even do that. If you are set on divorce you do NOT need to talk to her at all.

If you want to reconcile, you understand that it takes two of you to do that. Right now that doesn't seem to be happening. Filing for divorce will force her to make up her mind about it. You can always cancel the divorce proceedings if you choose to.

Filing for divorce isn't always the right thing to do, but in your situation it seems to be a win for you either way. Just remember, you do NOT have to confront her with your evidence. Keep it to yourself. Just let her know that you do in fact have evidence. Confrontation will only lead to more "gaslighting". Divorce papers can't be argued with or rugswept. She may try to put the blame on you -- all you have to do is to tell her that you both know the truth and the time for fog is over.

Just my two cents.

[This message edited by sidney2718 at 3:42 PM, March 7th (Friday)]