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DG, in your WW's email she mention "tablet". Is this indeed a tablet like and iPad or Samsung where the keyboard is not permanently attached? Can you clarify that? If so, this is very different than a "laptop"

If so, then fire the MC. You are only setting yourself up for a beatdown tomorrow and the next time but you have the final word and power of the purse. Can her ass. And then write a letter of complaint to her superiors if she has one.

Next, you claim to want to take things in and reason things out before reacting while your wife is Mike Tyson getting inside and destroying you in the fight quickly before you can land a punch.

You need to think faster on your feet, anticipate arguments ahead of time and be prepared with quick one liners to put her back.

If you go to MC tomorrow, and yes I think based on what has occurred so far, you would be foolish to do so because the MC is clearly biased and setting you up, you should take a stand like Hobbes suggested. I would start by memorizing those 4 questions and keep it on focus until you get your answers. I would treat the MC like the enemy and if she talks you down, you talk her down and be prepared to walk out of the session.

I am trying to figure out why you are putting yourself through all of this bullshit if you are set on divorce. Just end it or fight back. Do something !!

DG - I agree it is like a temporary insanity...

I have heard it called 'situational breakdown' as well. Basically we are so overwhelmed by what has occurred we, well, lose it...

Fortunately it takes a trauma the likes of which we rarely see in a lifetime to cause it.

I read somewhere infidelity is measured at the second most stressful thing a person can face. Death of a child was first.

We are not all identical - but that sounded about right to me.

You really think she'll give up the passwords?

After 2 sessions, the MC will say how harmful it is to focus on the past, and that you should give back the devices add a sign of building trust. OF COURSE, out of concern for you, WW will refuse to give the passwords.

If you keep jumping through the hoops,I wouldn't be surprised if she lined up a few more for you.

stillnpain

“Point is – this is an avenue you DO NOT want to take. I tried to make this clear, earlier in this thread, about 4 pages back. The information is the ONLY thing that will preserve your sanity, give you peace of mind, and allow you to make ‘informed’ decisions.”

I am doggedly in pursuit of all the details. I am not closing the door to reconciliation, some day, after divorce, after a lot of therapy. At this point reconciliation is not even an 'if' on my screen; having the options make me feel a little better. However, if the lap top and cell are deleted, then we are most definitely, absolutely, completely done. I will still hold her to the polygraph and I also have a few other tricks up my sleeve. I can’t imagine how you cope. I know I can’t. I get angry just imagining trying to forgive her.

“Without it –

1) If you Divorce – you will always second-guess your decision to do so unless you have ALL the information to make an informed decision.

2) If you R – you will be struggling for years to come (like me) wondering if you know all that happened between them. Every time you snuggle up next to her – the thought of the OM will cross your mind – wondering what she did with him”

This is what keeps me going; WW knowing what ‘not having this information does to me’ is what is going to keep me gone. I am not strong, brave or courageous. It is my weakness that keeps me away from her. I am at a place I did not even know existed. I am the same man I have always been. I love my wife as much as ever.

BeerParty

MC is an absolute waste of time. I hope your WW is footing the bill.

WW is paying MC, however, I pay WW. How wrong is that?

“My only concern is that you are not communicating to your WW the same things you are telling us. Maybe you are but you don’t talk much about what you are saying to her. I hope you are telling her in great detail just what you think about her MC and what you think about her subterfuge and nasty tactics.”

I have been like a broken record to WW. “Passwords, passwords, passwords.” "Passwords, passwords, passwords." I have refused to discuss anything with her, at all, unless and until I have the passwords. I have not prodded her for information because she lied to me for at least six months and I am not prepared to believe anything that comes out of her mouth. Everytime she tries to initiate discussion, I say, "Passwords, passwords, passwords."

Jduff

in your WW's email she mention "tablet". Is this indeed a tablet like and iPad or Samsung where the keyboard is not permanently attached?

WW has a tablet which is on our Verizon account. I thought lap top and tablet was more or less the same. Could this possibly be a cause for optimism?

DoneGone

As your hide might have experienced then I‘m sort of the resident hard-ass here on SI.

So the following might come as a surprise…

IMHO it’s best when we BS have a sense of direction.

It’s best when we can take aim at some distant object and tell stakeholders that that’s where we are going.

To me that destination shouldn’t necessarily be divorce or reconciliation. It should be OUT OF INFIDELITY.

Deciding on R or D right away and committing to it is like defining whether you plan to take a car, plane, boat or bike for a destination you haven’t really realized where is. All you really know post-d-day is that you want out of infidelity…

Generally the path out of infidelity tends to be true reconciliation OR true divorce.

If our WS offers reconciliation and it’s based on commitment and ENOUGH initial remorse then and only then do we have a choice. We the BS can choose to reconcile or we can choose divorce.

[By ENOUGH remorse I’m referring to my thoughts that a WS isn’t really capable of showing true remorse until and unless they fully get the scope of the damage they caused, and that doesn’t happen until well into reconciliation IMHO.]

But most of the times the WS doesn’t offer what’s required to reconcile. They might say they want the marriage but with conditions, they might hide the affair, keep secrets… All sort of things that make R impossible. Then our ONLY option to our destination – OUT OF INFIDELITY – is divorce. That’s what your wife is offering right now. She’s offering R but without the necessary foundation to build R on.

Divorce isn’t the same as TRUE divorce. The Big D isn’t an alternative marriage. It’s the termination of a relationship. You two separate all financials and as much emotional as possible. You do your co-parenting and since your kids are relatively old then that’s rather limited. Do a “true” divorce and within 18 months you won’t be seeing your wife or contacting her much at all. Way too often people “divorce” but still live unnecessarily intertwined lives.

Now…

Your WW had an affair. That’s the only thing that matters right now.

Your anger is a total non-issue AS LONG as you don’t use the anger to control your wife, abuse her or dominate her. I sense that none of that applies to you.

This is where it gets confusing though…

You say that NO MATTER WHAT you will divorce your wife.

Then you say you wish it didn’t have to be that way.

Then you act in a way that doesn’t indicate a will to divorce…

You two have 25+ years history. Family, kids, joint friends… D is a big decision.

But why do you want to divorce?

Do you feel you have to? Some perceived pressure or expectance on your behalf?

Do you fear you won’t ever forgive?

Or… Do you WANT TO divorce?

Look – If the infidelity is a total 100% deal breaker then divorce. Go ahead. That’s totally within your rights or whatever you want to call it.

IF however you have doubts… well… there is no shame in changing modes of transport mid-way to your destination, nor is there any wrong in altering path as long as you are heading in the direction of your goal.

I for one think your MC is a waste of time.

I think an MC that interviews your WW for several sessions and then pulls you in for a joint session… There is no way that MC can be impartial. If you really have the money to waste on that sort of BS then please donate it to SI.

But…

You need the truth.

There are respected and major contributors here on SI that have reconciled marriages from numerous affairs. IF the truth is that your wife’s affair with this man was more extensive than she admits then YOU CAN RECONCILE if you want to.

There are respected and major contributors here that have divorced for less than what your WW has already fessed up to.

It’s TOTALLY YOUR CALL.

But… Working towards D while working at R is about as senseless as working towards R when working towards D…

IF you are determined to divorce then divorce. Stop the MC, stop the messaging, stop finding out more. The phone, the computer… totally irrelevant.

If you have your doubts about divorce then stop MC. Make it so very very clear to your wife that you need the truth for there to be ANY CHANCE of reconciliation. I have addressed this before: Create a situation where she tells you the truth without KNOWING it automatically leads to divorce. A situation where she realizes her only option is the truth.

This is possibly the ONLY use I can see in the MC. If your WW answers a list of questions you put forth regarding the truth and the MC acts as an intermediary. The MC could possibly read the answers to you that your WW gave her previously.

But DoneGone – IF you are determined to divorce then go ahead and divorce. Don’t prolong this for either of you. Tell your wife, file… get the ball rolling.

Freeme

Make it a goal to say as little and keep as calm as possible at the next session.

Two more to go. Are they once a week?

They are once a week. I attempted to get all three of them for last week and MC would not/could not comply. We have another session tomorrow afternoon and your advice is well received and will be taken. I am definitely going in with a different game plan.

We had our first MC on Wednesday. The session did not go well for me or my wife, nor the MC. I may have had a little bit to do with that. My goal was to hold my calm and keep my cool for 50 minutes. I did really well for about 15 seconds

When I arrived at the appointed time, I assumed WW would be in the waiting area. The receptionist informed me that she was in with the MC. So I asked how long WW had been there. I was informed she had an individual session scheduled before our joint session and it would just be a couple more minutes. This did not sit well with me and I do not know why.

Maybe I thought they were in there scheming. Maybe they were planning their strategy, plotting against me. I know I was experiencing an extreme dread of the entire process. I was about to sit in the same room with my WW and discuss the morbid details of her affair; maybe. I did not know what was about to go down and wild thoughts were running rampant through my head. I reminded myself over and over that I could do this. Literally, I sat there thinking to myself, “I can do this, I can do this, I can do this…” A sad caricature of my former self. I was sitting there thinking of the person I use to be, then I compared him to the person I am now and I did not compare favorably, at all. In fact, I would not have even recognized my former self. I say all this just to let you know I had already worked myself into a frenzy before the actual feeding frenzy began.

Eventually, I was allowed in the room with them, and the first thing MC wanted to know was, “Mr. BS, How are “we” doing today.” To me, this was so condescending. “How are we doing?” I thought her question was facetious, infantilizing and insulting. She was talking to me as if I were a kindergartener and it just went all over me.

So I said, “I don’t know about you, or that lying piece of shit sitting over there, but I think I am doing rather well for a man who recently discovered that the woman he has been married to for the last 20 years is a lying, cheating whore.” WW burst out crying, MC had a look of incredulous astonishment on her face, and I was pretty shocked myself.

A tablet would be a bit more complicated to access in comparison to a laptop. The tablet is essentially like an oversized smartphone.

I would consult with data recovery experts who specialize in accessing info from tablets and smartphones. It's not impossible, but it does get more complicated for a DIY effort.

DoneGone, I have been reading this thread I want to wish you the best, I can't imagine what you are going through...

While this MC may not be actual MCing, I would strongly encourage you to seek out IC you are comfortable with, when you feel you are ready.

In addition to requesting her passwords, request her to name all avenues of communication. Which apps did she use.

Make certain that you log on where there is no wifi that will connect and synch accounts. That might erase data by up dating. What has she done to replace her phone and computer? Ask to see them both now.

By not filing for divorce do you feel that you have given her hope?

Does the unity of the XX members of your family make you feel loved, protected, patronized and suffocated all at the same time?

How are your daughters coping?

Do they contact you often, trying to cheer you up?

Do they know about the destruction of the hotel room? Your wife's closet?

How long will you have to pay alimony in the event of divorce?

Has your wife ever suggested that you can have a hall pass to sleep with other women to gain some revenge?

Your reply to the MC was very funny.

[This message edited by LongWalk at 12:24 PM, May 5th (Tuesday)]

Okay DG, I have to say - your response to the MC's condescending 'how are WE doing today?' maaaaaay not have been 'according to plan' - but it was fucking brilliant in my book!

If they were expecting you to be polite and agreeable to the 'expert', and take your medicine like a good boy, well you certainly opened with a grenade-tossing flourish to let them know that wasn't YOUR plan.

Okay, stay calm STARTING.......... NOW!!!!

We've been there, buddy - strength!

Bigger

This is where it gets confusing though…

You say that NO MATTER WHAT you will divorce your wife.

Then you say you wish it didn’t have to be that way.

Then you act in a way that doesn’t indicate a will to divorce…

It is confusing. I will divorce. There is absolutely no way this marriage can survive because I can no longer survive in the marriage. I promised my three daughters that I would slow things down for a cooling off period. Perhaps a mistake but when I was sitting there facing all three or them and their mother, it seemed to be the quicker and easier way out of the room. The path of least resistance. What they have firmly suggested is MC, Passwords, Polygraph; then I can divorce WW if that's what I need.

My girls should never have been introduced into this equation, but they are a part of this now and I cannot ride rough shod over them. I have a very good relationship with each of them and do not wish to diminish myself in their eyes. I am sorry for them. They believe MC, passwords and polygraph is the key to reconciliation. I dread the day when they have to be told the truth. WW has mislead them.

jobin

Okay, stay calm STARTING.......... NOW!!!!

OK, easy.

I don’t know about you, or that lying piece of shit sitting over there, but I think I am doing rather well for a man who recently discovered that the woman he has been married to for the last 20 years is a lying, cheating whore

.

Did you ever know that you are my hero?

Seriously.

The only thing better is the woman who arranged a birthday golf date for her WH, and then proceeded while he was gone to pack up and leave her H. When he got back she was gone.

[This message edited by redsox13 at 1:01 PM, May 5th (Tuesday)]

frankly I think your plan of MC, passwords/poly, divorce is fine.

You are dealing with this the best you can and most importantly I really get the sense you are being honest with yourself about what you can and cannot accept going forward.

It is a process, it will take time, so by necessity things will 'slow down'. You didn't mislead anyone from what I have read, you are just trying to navigate some very shark-infested waters.

Really I think you just have to keep mentally checking in and do what you need to take care of yourself during the next few days/weeks/months and you are going to get through this.

And I think it is great you can laugh at the insanity a bit. We have to laugh sometimes at this ride, because seriously - we wouldn't believe some of this crap if it was in a movie!

DG,

SERENITY NOW!

that was a great response to the MC.

You are sold on divorce and I don't blame you one bit.

Regarding slowing it down, and I know you promised your daughters that, but you are not obligated to uphold those promises if you feel it's getting too frustrated. Your obligation is to yourself first as your daughters have their own lives. I understand their concern but why delay the inevitable ?

Great response to the MC!

DG, I'm rooting for you. But you are being set up yet again.

She will never give you passwords to access full information. Take the tablet and phone to IT professionals to hack. Advise that your WS likely deleted emails in the cloud and you need to access them before they are deleted remotely on the devices.

If you do ever get the passwords from her (which is doubtful) after you open the tablet and phone, they will synch to the cloud, where she has deleted everything for sure, and you will never know what was originally on there.

Right now the tablet and phone are the only bits of hard evidence, but that will change unless a professional accesses them with precautions.

[This message edited by Gradient at 2:03 PM, May 5th (Tuesday)]