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I knew something wasn't right - just knew it. I had insomnia when he was out-of-town with our teenage child, while I was home managing a job and taking care of our younger child.

It was really freaky because I was watching a late-night Lifetime movie (a channel he always blasts me for watching)... Nonetheless, the wife in the movie was suspicious of her husband and checked his home computer when he ran an errand to see why he was constantly obsessed with being "on-line".

It was after midnight, and something inside me told me to do exactly that while my WS was out-of-town. First, nothing...... Then, I couldn't believe my eyes when I scrolled through his G-Mail inbox..... One, after another after another.... The first one that freaked me out was where she stated that she couldn't wait to "hold his hand in hers again, kiss him, etc, etc, etc"..... Signed "Love forever.... <her name>... Of course, I kept scrolling down and saw more and more and more, where they mutually "signed" their e-mails as "Love" and addressed each other as "Sweetie" and "Honey". She referred to him as her "boyfriend" in one of the e-mails, when she thanked him for the "lovely roses". I was crying beyond belief at this point, and immediately "acted" before thinking things through, as I sometimes do.... I sent an e-mail to her asking who she was and asked what she was doing with my husband and why they were sending "love" messages to one another?!? (cc'd WS)....

I couldn't leave it at that and actually saw plane ticket confirmations (at least 4-5) - just in her name only, but why was she sending these to him if they weren't meeting, traveling or what???? My jumbled mind put the timetable together, and he had "meetings" during many of the dates of her plane trips (but where were his tickets - tWas he too smart to keep evidence of this?)....

OK, as if I couldn't leave well enough alone at that point, I found an e-mail in the electronic trail that she forwarded to WS from HER HUSBAND. It included his e-mail address, so what did I do? I sent hi an e-mail stating that I found "disturbing" e-mails b/w his wife and WS. He was actually as freaked out as I was, and he started asking me about travel dates (I guess he knew something was going on, too??), and I was able to confirm spot-on all of the dates he said that her "travel stories" didn't make sense. Of course, I didn't know this man from Adam, so I really needed to be careful (20/20 vision tells me that now), but he said he was "sick to his stomach and betrayed". She confessed EVERYTHING to him, which he passed along in e-mails throughout the day to me. (I only conversed with him that one day - truly awkward, but I think we were both in shock)...

When the WS finally came home from his vacation with our older child, I waited until both children were in bed until I confronted him with the stack of print-outs..... He had an excuse for everything, Am I stupid for even giving him the opportunity to "defend" any of this? He said that he never had an intimate relationship with her, and that calling her "Sweetie", "Honey" or ending an email with "Love" or "I Love you (too)" is just a "Southern friendly way of speaking"...... When I told him that this woman "confessed" everything to her husband and that he filled me in on the details throughout the day, his excuse was that "He's an abusive husband - she is just scared of him"..... Why would anyone make up such graphic details of an affair???

I want to give trust a chance because I truly know a "split" would devastate our children. I'm new here, so I'm sorry for being wordy but could use some input from anyone who may know what I'm feeling or has/is in this situation (before)...

ADDED:

You are all so kind & I'm full of tears, but I need to hear this or I wouldn't be here....

I also neglected to mention that we gave our son his first cell phone when he was 10. When I was "dissecting" his hard drive that night - I looked up her contact information on his computer address book... Low and behold, under "other" phone numbers, I saw my son's current cell phone number!!! Time-lining again, I was able to put 2 and 2 together to realize that she had this cell phone number and WS has the gall to give it as a "fresh number on a bright shiny new phone" to our son - for Christmas, nonetheless??? When I confronted him about this, he pulled the "she has an abusive husband" card again, and he wanted to give her a way to get in contact with him (because her dad was terminally ill).... OK - my calm questions back to him were: a) Why would you add another woman to our family cell phone account (and pay for her bill too??) without consulting your WIFE???? b) When did it become his responsibility to take care of counseling women with "abusive husbands" (if that would have ever even been the truth?!?!?) - Wouldn't that be a licensed therapist's job? And, I'm sorry, but I may be naive, but the man that I spoke and e-mailed with that day about this affair didn't seem abusive or hot-headed.... but, once again, I didn't know him at all, either.

And, only because I was sitting over his shoulder the morning after being confronted, he told her not to text or e-mail him again because he was "terminating" communications with her and would not reply if she contacted him.

WS is a "PhD"... I think he's smart enough to set up another e-mail to continue this. He knows I will look at his computer again, and he's still urgently texting at meal-times and times he is SUPPOSED to be looking after the kids.

I want to trust, but I just don't know what I don't know, and that is what is scaring me!

ADDED (on 8/9 - afternoon): this to the thread below, so sorry if my posts are duplicates - I'm new to the forum here...

The printouts I have - black & white LITERALLY - are all from an e-mail account. Does anyone know if Verizon provides text message transcripts? I am now "authorized" to obtain info on the cell bill account...Finally... WS always "took care of the wireless bills". Come to think of it, I've never seen a Verizon statement and have had this cell phone for 10 years. I feel so stupid... Haven't eaten for 2 days and actually show a 6 pound drop on the home bathroom weight scale.

[This message edited by kaylee711 at 4:24 PM, August 9th (Saturday)]

I'm sorry you had to read those emails. I also found emails and they were very, very damaging. I'm fairly new here as well but I can tell you with probably clear certainty that he is lying and they have been engaged in a physical affair. I'm so sorry. Read the articles and FAQs in the "Healing Library", take care of yourself, eat food, drink water, try to sleep and rest. Take care of your kids. Unless your WH is ready to offer full disclosure with honesty and remorsefulness then you should be ready to distance yourself. He needs to be completely transparent. Also you should head to your doctor to be tested for STDs. Hugs to you. Keep reading and posting.

He is full of crap. Would not be shocked if it was a PA. Some of the wiser folks will chime in but read the healing library and the 180. Sending you strength. This is a long hard road and sorry you are here with us. Just make sure you are eating, sleeping, drinking water. Take care of yourself.

He is lying. Tell him you want a polygraph Monday morning and mean it. Trust me, he'll sing or lose his shit because he knows he is caught.

I'm so sorry.

There's lots of evidence he's lying. The innapropriate emails, the trips/meetings matching up, OW's confession...

There's only one that really matters. He hid this. If it was innocent, if this wasn't a threat to your M and something he didn't think was wrong, why did he hide it?

Cheaters lie.

Our stories are so similar is scary. He's full of it. Mine was too. Swore he was just being friendly. Swore nothing ever happened. Guess where he's at now? Living with her. He was buying time until they had money and a place. He lied to stay with me long enough for them to get their ducks in a row.

I'm sorry. But don't buy his shit. Why didn't she respond to you?

I'm sorry but he is lying. If she were afraid of her so called abusive husband she would have told him the same thing your husband told you. She would not have lied and made it more than it was, she would have made it sound way less. Your WH is covering his ass by minimizing it.. Don't let him get away with it.

You are all so kind & I'm full of tears, but I need to hear this or I wouldn't be here....

I also neglected to mention that we gave our son his first cell phone when he was 10. When I was "dissecting" his hard drive that night - I looked up her contact information on his computer address book... Low and behold, under "other" phone numbers, I saw my son's current cell phone number!!! Time-lining again, I was able to put 2 and 2 together to realize that she had this cell phone number and WS has the gall to give it as a "fresh number on a bright shiny new phone" to our son - for Christmas, nonetheless??? When I confronted him about this, he pulled the "she has an abusive husband" card again, and he wanted to give her a way to get in contact with him (because her dad was terminally ill).... OK - my calm questions back to him were: a) Why would you add another woman to our family cell phone account (and pay for her bill too??) without consulting your WIFE???? b) When did it become his responsibility to take care of counseling women with "abusive husbands" (if that would have ever even been the truth?!?!?) - Wouldn't that be a licensed therapist's job? And, I'm sorry, but I may be naive, but the man that I spoke and e-mailed with that day about this affair didn't seem abusive or hot-headed.... but, once again, I didn't know him at all, either.

And, only because I was sitting over his shoulder the morning after being confronted, he told her not to text or e-mail him again because he was "terminating" communications with her and would not reply if she contacted him.

WS is a "PhD"... I think he's smart enough to set up another e-mail to continue this. He knows I will look at his computer again, and he's still urgently texting at meal-times and times he is SUPPOSED to be looking after the kids.

I want to trust, but I just don't know what I don't know, and that is what is scaring me!

I want to trust

You can't trust him. He's destroyed your trust in him and has to do the hard work of earning it back. Continuing to lie to you isn't doing that. Right now, he's only concerned with covering his ass. Until you draw a line in the sand and stick to it, he will continue this behavior.

Do you have a clue who this woman is ? Where did your WH first meet her ? Does your WH honestly believe that YOU would believe he and/or she flew to meet one another because they are 'just friends?' No way ! He's lying. And her husband is abusive, mean, doesn't understand her, treats her like his sister instead of his wife, blah blah blah. Believe me, your WH and the OM are following the cheaters' handbook line by line. I heard the same stuff about the bimbo's husband and he was told I was a crazy woman. Well, gee, it's 5 years later, we still talk occasionally and he's a nice guy and I'm not a crazy woman.

Put those copies you made in a safe place, either with a friend or in a lock box to which only you have access. Continue gathering information and continue communicating with the OW's husband. Do NOT let the cheaters gaslight you because they'll sure try. After D-Day, pretty much all of what my xh said were lies. The sky could be bright blue and he would declare it was definitely black. They lie.

I'm sad you're here but you need to understand their emails and texts were not innocent and their meet ups were definitely not innocent. You also need to begin protecting yourself financially AND emotionally because, chances are, your WH will not protect you. Read up on the 180 NOW / ASAP (yellow box, upper left screen) and post here often / ask questions / Si'ers, sadly, have dealt with pretty much everything and will have wisdom and direction for you based on personal experiences. Above all, know you no longer know your WH. He is no longer the man you married. Sadly, you will never be the same, either. (((())))

WS is a "PhD"... I think he's smart enough to set up another e-mail to continue this. He knows I will look at his computer again, and he's still urgently texting at meal-times and times he is SUPPOSED to be looking after the kids.

I want to trust, but I just don't know what I don't know, and that is what is scaring me!

My xh is not a PhD but he sure knew how to set up multiple email accounts to continue communication after going NC several times over the course of several months after D-Day. Of course he knows you'll look at his computer again and again so he's in 'duck & cover' mode and will hide everything. My xh bought the bimbo an iPhone, charged the phone & her monthly charge to MY business acct, listed her on his contacts lists under some of his various business associate names. I could go on and on and ON. Do not believe a thing he says because you can't. And don't think you did anything to 'cause' him to have an affair because you didn't. He chose to do it and there are NO excuses for it so don't buy into that line. You're in for a very bumpy ride, Kaylee…. hang on to your hat and PUT YOURSELF FIRST for awhile. Let him stand at the end of the line, behind you and your children, for awhile. Again, read about the 180, implement it and focus on you, keeping yourself emotionally & physically healthy while you wade through the infidelity weeds. He just blew up your marriage; he's in damage control mode right now then he'll become very defensive. Don't fall for any of it.

He actually knew this person from high school (30 years ago). Before I confronted him, I asked one of WS's friend's from HS via Facebook if he knew who this woman was, and he said he did...... They "reconnected" at the 25 year reunion, which I wasn't able to attend....

I'm sorry you are going through this. My WW lied and lied, and then lied some more. Only when confronted with hard evidence, did she reluctantly and angrily admit the truth. I would deliberately withhold everything I knew to give her the opportunity to come clean on her own. She never would.

I'm sure there is much more to the story I'll never know. She supposedly didn't want to hurt me any more than I already had been, so lying was justified to protect my feelings. BS. It was only to protect her, and allow the As to continue on in secret.

You are doing the right thing in fully exposing the A. Keep digging. You are lucky to have an ally on the other side. Listen to your gut.

Wow, I think you did such a fantastic job of pinning down as much truth as you did when you originally discovered what was going on.

You have enough proof that he both physically and emotionally cheated on you. It would be nice if he just admitted it, but if he doesn't, you still know what you know. Don't let him make you feel crazy for knowing what you know. Even if the emails talked about how they had wild sex and couldn't wait to do it again, he could still lie and say "it was all just a joke" and didn't really happen.

Plane tickets. Roses. Sweetie and Honey. Boyfriend. This isn't a court, you don't need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but I think you might just have it anyway.

Don't make any threats, don't give any ultimatums, that you aren't willing to follow through with. But if you want the truth (my guess is a 5-year affair beginning at the reunion), then you might consider telling him that you want a story that makes sense, and without one, you will just fill in your own blanks. You can tell him you are giving him one day to come clean, if after a day you don't have a story that makes sense in light of all of the facts you know, you will just consider that he doesn't care enough about you or the marriage to tell you the truth and you are filing for divorce. You also might mention that, at that point, you are going to let his family and yours see the emails, so they know you are telling the truth and not him.

One thing is for sure, if you are willing to accept his lies, he has already proven, he is more than willing to go on telling them.

Recovery of your marriage starts with the truth, at least enough of it that the story of the affair makes sense to you. At the same time, you need him to cease contact, and he has to be willing to let you verify that he is not in contact to the extent that you can. Tell you all of his communication accounts give you passwords to all his accounts and devices, not delete any communications. There are always ways to get around this if he wants to, but then there really will be no denying and no question, say if he uses a burner phone or a messaging app and you catch him.

You see him texting away still, can you match up the texts to the phone bill and see if it is her who he is texting?

Read about gas lighting. That's what he's trying g to do. Make you disbelieve the things you read. So I'd suspect ongoing affair driven further underground.

Contact with OBS?

Honestly, reading this just makes me angry. How stupid does he think you are? The arrogance of trying to gaslight you -- and the cruelty! Just so you know, the "she's scared of her abusive DH" line is textbook. Every wife of a WH is frigid and the marriage is "over"; every WW has an abusive DH that she's terrified of. (That's an exaggeration, of course.)

Your WH is lost deep in the fog. We talk about "the fog" on here to describe the deluded state of mind that people in affairs enter into. This allows them to distort reality to make what they're doing OK. People in the fog exercise bizarre feats of "logic" to justify what they're doing. Right now, you are just an impediment to your WH. He doesn't see you as a whole person, deserving of respect. You are in a box and you're supposed to stay there, dammit, so he can get on with life the way he likes it -- you managing his kids and happy home life, and his affair providing spark and excitement.

Your job now is to snap him out of that reality. We talk on here a lot about doing the "180". Look it up on the Healing Library. Essentially, it's counter to the usual logic that you need to win your WH back. Nonsense. That's just enabling his entitled, delusional mindset where HE is the prize. He's not the prize, you are, and until he gives you the respect you deserve you're going to treat him as if he means nothing to you. Because, no matter how this turns out, you're going to have to start thinking about your life and interests as separate from him. Because right now, he IS the enemy. He does not have your interests at heart and you cannot trust him due to his delusional state. He may never snap out of it, or he might. In either case, you're going to have to make a decision about whether you want to be with someone who does this horrible kind of thing.

I know this is a terrible, terrible new reality to have to face. We have all had our worlds turned upside down. It is comforting to want to go back to what you thought you had -- that feeling of being able to love someone unconditionally. Transitioning to a new way of looking at your WH and the world (people do this shit to one another?) is truly soul-destroying. You are in the very very early stages of hitting this reality and I'm not going to lie to you -- it's awful.

Please keep posting. We are here for you. But don't let your WH snow you. There is no innocent explanation for the facts you've presented to us, and it's frankly insulting that he thinks you would accept such a truly pathetic story.

Good luck.

[This message edited by Blobette at 8:55 AM, August 9th (Saturday)]

[This message edited by kaylee711 at 4:25 PM, August 9th (Saturday)]

Kaylee, I don't think anybody here said anything you hadn't already thought about and figured out for yourself. He isn't a nice person, so don't try to nice him back. Firm boundaries with consequences for crossing those boundaries.

I'll again quote Bigger who is a master of advice.

You are free to stay and work on this marriage. Or you are free to see her. But not as my husband. Tosses the old ball into his court, doesn't it?

Sorry for my wordiness - any advice from you guys on getting text transcripts (cell phones):?

The printouts I have - black & white LITERALLY - are all from an e-mail account. Does anyone know if Verizon provides text message transcripts? I am now "authorized" to obtain info on the cell bill account...Finally... WS always "took care of the wireless bills". Come to think of it, I've never seen a Verizon statement and have had this cell phone for 10 years. I feel so stupid... Haven't eaten for 2 days and actually show a 6 pound drop on the home bathroom weight scale.

I wouldn't bother trying to find more evidence when you already have so much evidence it's crazy that he is gaslighting you.

Schedule a polygraph immediately, not as a threat, I mean schedule a polygraph immediately for real. Tell him or don't tell him but either he takes the polygraph or hefty bag his shit and throw it on the lawn.

The type of gaslighting he's doing is down right sadistic. A woman actually married to an abusive husband would not admit to an affair that didn't happen. You already know the truth about the affair, now you know something else, your husband is a sadistic LIAR who would rather destroy your mental well-being than tell the truth.