SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Your making all the right moves. Hire a P.I. if you have to to find out who the OM is an out him to his wife if he is married. Again dont tell your wife you are going to do this.In most cases this is the single best thing you can do to knock her off the fence an get her out of the fog of the affair, even more so than handing her divorce papers.Like an earlier poster said dont be surprised if the OM is in fact a co-worker. Expose an stay strong.

I know you have probably thought of this but have you checked her phone records? Even if she has a work phone I bet she has called or texted him from her personal phone.

I'm betting it is someone she works with not a stranger from a bar. Pisses me off for you that she doesn't think you have a right to know who your own wife is screwing.

As far as her wanting to talk tonight, you need to remember one thing:

Cheaters lie. She is a liar.

If her lips are moving, it's almost certainly a lie.

Consider everything she says to be a lie until proven with verifiable evidence to be the truth.

Use a VAR. Then take notes afterwards. You can use your smart phone recording app in the interim if you don't have a VAR yet.

To protect yourself in conversations like this, try to not look at her. She will catch your gaze and use her bond with you to manipulate you. If she is emotional, you will react to her emotionally more if you are looking at her face. Do not sit directly across from her. Do not hold her hands. Turn sideways and try to find something in the room to look at other than her face.

She will probably push crumbs at you and try to get you to believe some sort of bullshit to keep you from proceeding with the D, with telling the kids, etc. She might tell you she is going to break it off. Don't fall for it. Until her actions consistently align with her words, she is just blowing hot air.

If she throws you some little bone, let her know only 100% will be enough to change your mind. You're not going to stop the D because she is willing to give you 10% of what is needed to save your marriage.

If you respond to anything she says, just limit it to asking her to demonstrate in actions any supposed changes on her end.

If she says she is going NC with him, she can write the NC letter and send it to him in front of you. She can provide you with his contact info so you can track him down and inform his BS. If she wants the marriage she is going to have to go through personal hell to save it. This includes all manner of embarrassing disclosures. If she won't ID the AP, she isn't serious about staying in the M.

File

Given that your wife was so bold as to refuse to stop seeing the OM and even let you know that she is going to do it again, that paints her as incredibly aggressive and disrespectful. She is EXACTLY the type that would try to manipulate the situation for her own benefit. Prepare yourself now about how you will exit the situation should she try to insult you and rub her behavior in your face. Watch how much you drink and know how it impacts you. You need to be fully in control for your conversation tonight.

The emotional aspect to being betrayed is incredibly volatile, so put yourself into as much as a protected, controlled mindset as you possibly can. It only takes a split second to have some targeted, vicious words trigger raw emotion and a corresponding action that could result in serious legal trouble. You don't need a DV charge, restraining order or arrest.

My SIL (sister in law) was discovered having an affair with a man that her husband knew. She, like your wife, refused to give up the affair and was nasty and disrespectful in her comments to her husband. Her husband ended up going to the OM's office to confront him, gave him a push and a talking to. My SIL's husband ended up being visited by the police, threatened with assault charges and informed of a restraining order. When my SIL defended the OM, her husband became very angry and then she threatened a DV charge. In fact, at one point, my SIL got a restraining order under false pretenses and had her husband thrown out of the house. The police and courts don't seem to care when betrayal is used as a weapon.

Be strong tonight with your wife. Certainly be clear with her, but be in control. Record everything.

Let the PI do the job you hire them for. There is no need to confront the OM -- you already know that he is a dishonorable POS that doesn't care if he is killing a marriage and hurting two innocent kids through his actions. After you let her know, his wife will take care of him.

[This message edited by Crushed7 at 3:53 PM, January 20th (Wednesday)]

Mate your getting loads of good advice here ,

Just to sum up the way I see it

P.I

Expose ( his wife and your kids)

Divorce

Read walloped's threads

Take his advice

Any order you like.

Hello, and know that we understand your plight.

Right now, I'd advise trying to stay in control but resolute. You are the one making the decisions, she has have proved incapable in that area.

What others say about OM is likely right. He's married, and she's covering his butt. On the "exposure" issue: once a affair has the light of day shined on it, suddenly it is no longer thrilling, exciting, edgy and romantic. It becomes what it really is. Dirty, disgusting and low class. Its just no fun any more.

So, if the cessation of the affair is most important to you, blow it up. Tell whoever you like. Its your right. She can go lay in a hotel with some stranger, you can tell people. That's the way it goes.

To find out the other man's name, you'll have to be similarly up-front. She tells you or you nuke her life. Still refusing? Phone bills, emails, messages, etc should do the trick. Still having problems? Start calling her coworkers to ask them if they have any idea who it is. They should get a reaction out of her.

Most importantly, remember that you call the shots right now in this marriage.

If you know you will not be able to reconcile--and given her refusal to cease the affair how could you--then use your silence of her sins as leverage to seek a favorable divorce.

If you wanted to 'shock' her a bit, tell the children (or tell her you're telling them) and say that you will be getting them DNA tested . . . since you and the kids can no longer trust her, and you have no idea how many others or how long it's gone on.

It doesn't really matter, you're their father no matter what, but point out for health and genetic purposes of course, it's important to know the sperm donor(s).

If she insists it's you, you can then ask how you and the children could ever believe that. She can't even stop what she's doing now. The only sure way now is testing. If she continues to insist there were no others, you can say it's best to be on the safe side, and how many others won't matter as much, since you'll soon be divorced, so hopefully the hurt from that part will fade as your love for her fades.

Also, if she says it's just sex, point out how much worse that is, since that means for her, sex is obviously much more important than love or family.

I'm not sure if this would have any impact or not . . . others could probably tell you better, and you might know best.

[This message edited by c24j at 7:07 PM, January 20th (Wednesday)]

You've been getting pretty solid advice and you have been handling this very well so far.

Be very careful with alcohol and anger. Don't give her any ammunition.

Be very careful about bringing your kids and her family into this too. One of my good friends in college had a very rough year when he found out his parents were divorcing. It really, really bothered him and he did some stupid stuff. So tread carefully there. In my case, my ex-wife's parents certainly weren't sympathetic to me. Let the P.I. do his job and then expose to the OM's spouse.

And unless she fesses up completely and agrees to end the affair, I'd advise filing ASAP.

Good luck.

I predict she will give up on him but she'll try to get everything she can from you before that. Do not compromise, you need unconditional surrender.

If you try to R you both will have to work on finding and contacting OM's BW. If you D you'll have to do it by yourself.

[This message edited by nuance at 8:59 PM, January 20th (Wednesday)]

Timetoact - Thinking of you. Hope your conversation with your wife is going as well as it can possibly go given the circumstances.

Not sure how it is going tonight for you.

Please tell the kids, it works.

You can contact her employer. It is a company business trip.

I would send a certified letter to her HR.

My wife is having an affair on business trips for your company. If she falls to any harm while on these trips I will hold your company liable to the full extent of the law.

Please file and be strong. She may try to separate to continue the A. Do not let her and just file and expose.

First again I want to thank everyone for the advice. I am reading it all, even some that contradicts what others say.

Whatever I have done or not done to this point, it appears I did get her attention. Of the three REFUSALS I got initially, she has caved on two of them so here is what I got from her

(1) some of you were right. This OM is a co worker, not a guy she met in a bar. He has the same position as her travels as much as her. I now know exactly who he is, I know his name, and I know he is married with three children, and is about 10 years younger than us. There is no doubt I can probably get them BOTH fired. She coughed that one up when I told her there was nothing to really talk about unless something changed on her part. She had a hard time coughing it all up. There were a lot of tears and she had to stop a couple of time.

(2) she has agreed to stop fucking him, but balked a providing a lot of details on specifics I asked. This one is not over. I am not satisfied with the simple "I accept that I am wrong to think I could continue to do this" So progress here but as lot more work to do on this one.

(3) this one is the elephant. This OM is in all staff meetings of folks at her level, There are ten of them and they do meet monthly in the home office. Her not attending is not an option.

For some reason, probably delusion, I actually think she thought that she was going to fix everything with this discussion. In actuality, I asked her to leave for the night and either go vto a hotel or to a girlfriends. Right now, I do not want her around. I told her to let me know where she is for safety reasons, and that we would talk again tomorrow night when she gets home from work. She was not happy about it but she left and texted me she was at her girlfriends, who is divorced and a true piece of shit.

I am very tired but rest assured of the following

I do not believe a lot of what she told me

I know this POS knows by now that I know who he is

I said nothing about contacting him or his wife, but believe me his wife will have the opportunity to get acquainted with me.

I made no commitments to R or D

I am NOT at this point going to get their HR involved- yet

I did not have a VAR on me but I took some notes and I never raised my voice.

It still feels surreal that my wife basically sat down a short time ago prior to tonight and aSKED ME TO Accept her having a boyfriend. Still shaking my head on that one.

Thanks again. I have LEARED and listened and respect greatly the advice from everyone. My feelings do not get hurt so if I am a dummy tell me.

If you R she'll gave to give up that friendship as well. Also, someone will have to quit her or his job.

There's no way some random guy in a bar was so enamoured of her (no offense) that he is willing to risk his own marriage to fly back and forth to a particular city just for sex. No way. I'm thinking that this guy IS a coworker and most likely lives in another state. Perhaps they are assigned to the same region and they have managed to get their trips to the home office to coincide? OR he could live in the city where the home office is making it easy to hook up. <---- Actually seems most likely. The time they got together when you were out of town could have been because he had business in the office that your wife normally works out of. But I do caution you that she may have actually brought him to your home.

I hope that your talk is going in your favor.

Timetoact,

Nice job handling the situation. You are doing very well.

It will get even more surreal as your feelings start running on the infidelity roller coaster you never wanted to ride.

Remember to eat, drink lots of water, try to keep a regular sleep cycle, and find a positive outlet to channel the emotions as they cycle through. It can get overwhelming. Post here. Find an individual counselor (IC).

Start listing out exactly what you will need from her to even consider R. Many suggestions in this thread- Take what you need and want. Once she has the list it is on her to follow through and do the heavy lifting of proving herself worthy. Your focus will be on your own healing. It will take a long time. Standard wisdom around here is two to five years whether you reconcile or divorce.

When you tell the POSOM's wife, be prepared for your wife's reaction. Make sure you have a recorder of some sort on you.

Keep posting. Keep your resolve.

[This message edited by quedagh at 11:47 PM, January 20th (Wednesday)]

You need to act quickly on letting her lover's spouse know. He and her are spending the night today inventing a cover story...you're about to become the 'crazy jealous husband'

Hit quick and hit hard, you need to break up their affair now.

I've noticed that besides immediately filing for divorce, the best way to get someone out of the fog of an affair is exposure. If the kids are old enough to understand what is going on, tell them the reason why you're divorcing.

My mom told my sister and I (15 and 17 respectively at the time) that our father was cheating and most likely had been for years. I was grateful because a lot of things came into focus for me. You should expose to her parents as well as yours too if they're still living.

You also need to contact and expose to this guy's wife ASAP. It is not umcommon for OM and OW to throw their AP (in this case your wife) under the bus in order to save their own marriage, family, and lifestyle. Also, if he knows that you know, it's possible he's already trying to get ahead of you to his wife and paint you as some psycho jealous husband who undeservedly suspects him of having a thing with your wife. Seen it before. The longer you go without exposure, the more time you give the OM and your wife to protect themselves. Which is usually by lying to everyone even more than they already have.

.

Affairs are like cockroaches. They thrive in the dark and can't handle the light. The longer you let her hide her activities from everyone, the longer she'll continue to continue her behavior in relatively unjudged secrecy. But when EVERYONE knows what they're doing and it all comes to light? Suddenly the affair isn't some secret, exciting side sex. It's no longer fun and for many it's no longer worth it. Especially, if as you say, she probably doesn't love the guy.

Besides that it sounds like you're doing everything right. Because your wife is not remorseful. There's no way she would be if she's asking you permission to fuck this guy on the side, not to mention how reluctant she is to giving in to your perfectly reasonable demands, questions, and expectations.

If you are set on divorce, I wouldn't bother exposing to HR. But if you think you might possibly want to reconcile then she'd have to quit her job or you'd have to expose them to her HR department.

One last thing, if you do expose make sure you have proof. Don't tell this guy's wife he's having an affair if you have nothing to back it up with. Having a VAR on you at all times when you're around her if you have nothing concrete/physical would take care of that.

Sorry this happened to you, but you're handling it a lot better than most men do when they find themselves in your situation.

One last thing, do not feel obligated to tell your wife what you plan on doing before you do it (I'd say the one exception is maybe telling her if you plan to tell the children).

But telling her parents, family, her job, etc? Give her the same heads up she gave you about her cheating. None. If she refuses to sign the divorce papers you drew up, have her served at work, again without giving her the heads up.

[This message edited by JS84 at 11:42 PM, January 20th (Wednesday)]

I'm sorry I was a little harsh or blunt before, but I have read a lot here and this stuff is fairly predictable. The other man being a co-worker was easy to figure out for the nature of the affair and the way she tried to cover up.

You are dealing with maybe your first infidelity but I and many others here have read hundreds, and like I said, it is all so predictable.

Cheaters generally will take whatever you give them. It was not just sex, she is deep, deep in love with this guy. This is her behavior, her actions, you might as well just ignore her words, those are so easy to lie. Crying is so easy to fake, never let that affect you or make it seem she is being truthful because of her crying. It means nothing, or it means something nothing to do with you, maybe it is about her crying about her, or her other man. Just focus on her behavior and actions.

She'll have to leave that job. How will you be able to stay married and stay sane knowing the man she is in love with and has sex with are seeing her whenever she wants? Why would you even want to try?

You did good tonight, you made real progress, but now you might be having a setback tomorrow. You shouldn't let her be with toxic friends who are not friends of your marriage. There are three camps - friends of the marriage, not friends of the marriage, and neutral. She should stay away of people who are not friends of the marriage.

It is better to keep her home with you than with the toxic friend. The toxic friend will give her a pep talk on "keep cheating, you deserve to be happy, and OM makes you happy." Trust me, this is how it goes. So add that to the list she's got to get rid of, the job, and the toxic friend. Both a fight for another day, but tell her to come back or to stay with a relative tomorrow night.

Just because she "agreed" not to have sex with other man, doesn't mean she will actually live up to the agreement. She is in love with the guy and she is hot and bothered for him, too. Even if she truly intends to not have sex, she might fall to temptation if he pushes her. The sooner you can tell other man's wife, the better. Having other man throw your wife under the bus really helps dampen her desire and love for him. That is job 1 for you right now, tell other man's wife.

Job 2, get a voice-activated recorder in her car. Despite her "agreements," this affair is not ending easily. Like you said, only a couple days ago she was telling you she would flaunt the affair. If a cheater doesn't go all in to the marriage immediately upon being confronted about the affair, then it usually has some level of affair going underground. It is almost certainly it will continue with your wife because of her still recalcitrance on being "all in" to your marriage.

She still is in camp of other man, she is just placating you with easy words until she can figure out how she can keep her soulmate other man. She is having a war strategy tonight with her toxic friend of how to go forward.

Besides a voice-activated recorder in her car, get one for your person. Record it when she talks to you, on phone or in person. Toxic friend was divorced, she may know some tricks, like falsely accusing on domestic violence to get you out of the house. If nothing happens, it is a small inconvenience of recording it. If something does happen, it saves you months or maybe years of frustration dealing with a false accusation. Don't underestimate the influence of toxic friends.

Consider the toxic friend as an extension of your wife's own character. Why would your wife want to be friends with a toxic person who thinks cheating is a good idea? Doesn't this make you think that your wife has the same outlook as her friend on the subject of cheating?

Tell the other man's wife. Put a VAR in her car, and one on your body.

After that, you'll need to get her have STD testing, get her out of that job, get rid of toxic friends, get her a polygraph.

After that, you can work on your marriage.