SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

777

Friend, it seems to me you are being way too timid about this. Your wife betrayed you.

Tell her you've been monitoring her emails. If she doesn't like it, tough. Tell her you've been monitoring her emails because you're having a hard time trusting her. If she doesn't understand that, then she's not remorseful.

Dictate what you need to forgive her. Don't be namby, pamby about this. You have rights.

Then tell her that you don't want this jackass emailing her all the time. Tell her she needs to tell him to knock it off or she'll get a restraining order. OK?

The time for secretly monitoring is over. She says she wants to reconcile. Tell her you simply can't have him constantly contacting her.

And I will tell you something, IMO, if she continues to let him contact, there is a very real chance she will succumb again. Remember when she went to watch his pets? She said she couldn't tell him no. What bullshit is that? Do you want that to happen again?

Wayward women have a tendency to give in to persistence. You've got to stop this nonsense.

In The Healing Library(the yellow box in the top left corner) has a list of abbreviations. Also, in the General forum, at the top, is a thread with more abbreviations.

It took me a while, because I am not a social networking guy. This is the first, and only, online forum that I participate in. I am sure that it will come to you quicker.

Her giving you a timeline is definitely a plus. Also, if you choose not to contact the other guy's wife due to her perceived instability....that is your choice. But I would trust NO OTHER information about her unless you spoke with her yourself. I think that it is worth the time---she has not harassed you or your wife by the description you have given.

As for the other guy's fishing expedition for your wife? That shit has got to stop. He has to know that there is no fucking way on earth that you will tolerate it. And if you need to go to the police to do so? So be it. I like trynhard's suggestion.

Keep gathering any data that you can use against him. I know that you want to "trip up" your wife by seeing if she responds to his emails, but you stated that you believe that she doesn't even see them. Maybe it is time to discuss this with her.

You don't know what goes on in your WW's mind. For all that you know, she may not even see the other guy in a bad light. She definitely doesn't know how much damage she has caused to you--because YOU don't even know that yet. I said before that working through infidelity is a process. Unfortunately, you are still in the early stages.

[This message edited by jb3199 at 6:16 AM, November 7th (Thursday)]

Again, I appreciate the insight. I'm not sure I'm ready to let the wife know. I believe that if my wife was to spot the e-mails on her own, she would tell me immediately, then I wouldn't have to blow my cover. (She let me know initially when he contacted her work e-mail.) And, if she doesn't fill me in, then I know that this isn't going to work out. Yeah, I'm being timid with this, but I'm not ready to hash this all up again if my wife isn't currently doing anything wrong. The last thing I want is to bring these 2 back into my life, which is exactly what would happen. As far as she knows, he hasn't made contact in months. I also do not want to come face to face with the HW. Have you had the fear of coming home to find that person at your house? It took me weeks to come home without that thought in my head...constant anxiety. I'm just not ready to jump the gun. It's easy to say, "Yeah, we'll slap a restraining order on him and if he contacts you or comes around we'll call the cops or I'll kick his ass" but is it really as easy as that? Until my wife makes movement, I'm going to leave it be. Besides, he may drop some information that could be useful in those e-mails.

@ethm777 I just had a therapy today and I took the opportunity of it to ask about telling one of my friend. She said that it would relieve me for sure, and that I need to talk about this so I can find a way through. I had a conversation with my wife tonight, and she said that she would think about this and I think that she will tell me that if it help me, I can talk about this. I told her that it was pretty hard for me, as I did nothing, but I have to live with this secret.

One thing I find really hard is when we are together with other friends or family. When it happens, it is draining all my energy. Last saturday, we hade over 20 friends at our house, and when the last one left, I just felt on the floor. I find it hard to look happy when it's not the case, and I find it hard that I know the truth and everyone find her so nice... When I think that Christmas is coming, I fear that I will have a hard time. My therapist said that maybe I should consider that we won't go anywhere together to make sure I can go through that.

I asked my wife to look for a new job, which she's doing. She's not working with the OP anymore, they're not even in the same building, but I need her to be away from him. However, she's going through a hard time on therapy, and the therapist said that she had to understand why she did that in order to rebuild herself. Right now, it appears that she did that because of a real lack of self esteem which is going back from her childhood, and kept secret all those years. She's trying really hard to rebuild our relationship, herself and she feels deeply sorry. The therapist said that if she get a new job right now, she may lose everything because it is the last thing where she has a little esteem from people (She has none from me right now, and our kids don't know what she did, but they know she made me terribly sad).

My wife also made a timeline. It was hard at first, but it is helping me understand what happened. It is turning out there was no love in this, and it was purely mechanical. They was no passion as they were also talking about their job before and after they did it.

Every time they did it, she had no intention of doing it, but couldn't say no. The last time they did it is the saddest of them for me. She said "yes" to him only because she didn't want him to be sad. I told her this was sick, it was her coworker, she didn't want him sad, but didn't care about her husband and kids? That's totally messed up for me!

I also had constant anxiety, especially on Monday. As they did this lunch time, at his place, I was totally freaking out around noon. As time is going over, I feel less and less anxious. She is sending me emails 2 -3 times per day, and always calling me around noon and 13h00 so I can know she's not away from work.

It is really helping me writing this stuff, I'm glad I found this place!

greengiant, I know you are hurting. I'm sorry you're here. You might want to start your own thread unless you can relate your experience to help ethm777. This is his thread. We're trying to help him because he started this thread asking for thoughts.

777 - I understand your reticence, and you have to make the call. But I want to tell you from everything I've experienced and read, taking a passive role is bad. You have to remember, your wife already succumbed to this guy once, maybe for a year. She obviously likes (or liked) him. But she also obviously wants to try to fix things with you. Letting this guy fish for her may cause her to reminisce. It may cause her to falter. True, you will then catch her faltering. Will you D? Is this what you want? She has already faltered/betrayed you. I think you should try to help her eliminate this guy from your lives. Not test her to see if she falters. You don't have to reveal that you have all the email access, you can keep your knowledge of his secret email to yourself. But I really think you need to head this off before something bad happens.

My two cents. I know you have to do what you think is best. Good luck.

@mike7 you're right, I am new to the place and didn't want to hijack this thread, I'll pay attention next time

@ethm777 Sorry!

@greengiant No problem. It helps to know that you feel the same way around friends. It sucks to have to retain this terrible secret when, at times, you want to just tell everybody so everyone knows that wifey isn't as perfect as everyone thinks.

Update: I talked with my wife today about the e-mails. She was shocked and swore that she had not seen them at all. She didn't resent me for looking either...she just didn't know that I had access to that account. She immediately apologized and asked what I wanted to do. We just finished sending him an e-mail to stop communication immediately or the authorities will be involved. Any more contact and we're going to the courthouse.

Since she hadn't read his messages to himself, I let her know that he had been stalking her FB page...or at least her profile pics. He has commented every time she changes it, even commenting on how big my son has gotten. Ack. Hate this POS. She seemed genuinely sickened that he continued to pursue.

Hopefully this will stop the contact.

Hopefully this will stop the contact.

Yeah...does his wife know about the emails?

Bufffalo

Crappiest part was that was a really successful part of my life. I had just been promoted, we had just had an amazing vacation, and all was great in our lives. That stings, for sure.

Ethm

What you are going to realize in time is that you are not responsible for your wife's decision to have an Affair.

Her reasons a re pure BS.

The issue is within her. And she needs to address that.

Now.

Glad you confronted her about the emails. You most likely will need to go legal.

Remember, it only takes one spouse to cheat. But it takes both spouses to clean up the mess and repair the marriage.

Glad you are trying and I hope your wife one day truly realizes how she lucky she is to have you......

HM

Hey Brother,

I tried to send a pm not realizing I couldn't...reposted below.

Our stories share quite a few similarities and I have also gone into detective-mode overdrive. Thank you for sharing. I don't have any great advice to help you, but you should know that you have helped another.

Stay strong...or break down in tears. Both options are right.

So if I understand this correctly, OM gave your WW his email and password and is attempting to communicate with her via his OWN email??

If I were you, I would do him a favor and delete said email address entirely, since he obviously is using it to his own detriment. Just sayin'.

E.

[This message edited by Edith at 11:35 AM, November 15th (Friday)]

ethm- I'm pretty new here too. My D-Day was 10/30/13.

I'm having a hard time with the secret too. Sometimes I feel like I'm keeping it for HIS sake, even though he was the one who cheated. Just within the past few days, I've been playing with scenarios in my head about what would happen if I did put "He cheated on me" on facebook. Not really my style, but I'm alarmed that I'm thinking these thoughts.

I too am watching emails, mail, etc. He isn't on facebook or social media, but I am considering getting one of those keystroke loggers. I think he has to earn the trust back and I still feel like he is deleting web-history, emails, etc. I still feel like he is hiding things, even though he is saying all the right things.

Anyway, good luck and I'm sorry you are here!