SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You want it to function like the map to the next year or two or so of your life. You feel lost, you refer to it. Something new happens, you see what it says.

There is more than enough nervous energy from this shit. There are more than enough 'what if' questions.

Every time she does something right, okay what's the next step. And if she or you falter, what's the next step. Logical. Emotionless. There are no hostages, there are no more losses, and there will be no defeat. Only victory or counterattack.

I am going to lie low for two weeks and monitor things.

You have said this now a few times, in a few different ways. I want to make sure that you understand the consequence of this "plan" so that you know the potential ramifications of this decision.

The fact is, you have no idea how much they are talking and what they are talking about. You have no way of monitoring her work communication. You have no control.

After Dday, unless the affair is definitively put to an end, affairs will go underground. Why? Because there continues to be lingering feelings and it's almost impossible for two people to stop communicating when there's a route present to do so. So the likelihood is extremely high that they are continuing the affair - maybe in a different mode at the moment - but they are still "linked" by their emotions.

So you say you're going to "monitor things." How? Your wife has lied to you for a year - and you had NO idea. Do you think you're just going to "know?" What makes you think that you will be able to spend the next few months "monitoring things" sufficiently to discover an underground affair - one in which your wife is much more apt to cover her tracks?

Here's what you're heading for... 3 months, or 6 months, or two years from now. She's going to say, "I'm leaving." Why? Because the affair never stopped. Or... she will get sloppy again and six months from now you'll find out that the affair never ended.

Boom! Dday #2. But this time, as an earlier poster accurately stated, far worse - because this time you'll look back and say, "Why the hell didn't I lay down the law?" You will kick yourself for not being more assertive. You'll join the ranks of so many of us who tried to just get past it, just move on, just "monitor things."

I feel so awful for you - not only for the affair but because you are so afraid to rock the boat. Like with so many others here I have learned one invaluable lesson... in order to save your marriage you need to be ready to lose it.

You need to tell her that her work ends - now. If not, the marriage ends - now. You will very quickly see where you rank in your wife's order of importance.

Good luck, brother.

start with the obvious thingsa nd then prepare eventualities to deal with each scenario.

Do an outline to start

1) How to monitor

2) If she contacts him again, what do I do

If she has a PA with him, what do I do ?

If she gaslights me again, what do I do ?

and other things

3) Consult an attorney anyway so he can build a case file in case you decide to go nuclear.

4) Support system setup etc...

I work in IT. I'm going to find legal ways of monitoring. She's smart but I didn't know something was going on before so I didn't look too hard.

Now I know.

I don't want her to quit her job while I am still not sure what I am going to do with the marriage. No reason on ruining finances for a while. We have a mortgage, daycare, etc to worry about.

I'll find ways in which she'll know nothing about. I'm pretty good at what I do. The phone is more difficult but I'll figure something out.

I don't want her to quit her job while I am still not sure what I am going to do with the marriage. No reason on ruining finances for a while. We have a mortgage, daycare, etc to worry about.

I'll find ways in which she'll know nothing about. I'm pretty good at what I do. The phone is more difficult but I'll figure something out.

I'm in IT too. The things she is using to communicate with her boyfriend are legally-restricted from you "tapping into".

Keylogger on her laptop definitely prohibited. Monitoring app/MDM on her phone definitely prohibited (unless it's a BYOD and she hasn't signed an IT Policy). Their corporate messenger is assuredly something like Lync that does not locally log.

This is what I do for a living, she's not going to get caught by you at this point. There is too much of a china wall in place

I'm not saying this to be argumentative - I understand monitoring and forensics. My PM box is open to discuss a plan if you don't want to do it in a public forum.

Trust me though, I work in the financial industry and have seen this problem attacked with literally millions of dollars... and not get results.

[This message edited by eric1 at 11:16 AM, July 28th (Tuesday)]

You can't monitor her landline calls at work period. You can't monitor in-person meeting at work. Look up wiretap, look at your state, likely almost everything you can "monitor" it's likely illegal. Check your attorney if you don't believe it. If you pay attention to her behavior, you probably can figure it out.

Did your last update state that she had not yet decided to stay married? That she is considering divorcing?

So last week when I was going down the spiral, I brought up divorce several times. She was very worried, which is why she setup an appointment with a lawyer.

I have told her several times since then that divorce may still be our future. I have told her that I have to figure out if I want to be with her still. And she needs to do likewise.

She has read a lot of books on this stuff. She is reading "Just Friends". I tried to read that but it just pisses me off too much right now.

She says that she is committed to trying. I know she is still trying to work out her feelings for me. She has told me before that her head and half of her heart is here, with me. The other half of her heart and really her sexual desire (she didn't really state that but I knew what she meant) are not with me right now.

So at this point, neither of us has committed to the marriage. Our joint plan is to take it day-by-day for now. Try and get through two weeks. The MC was all for this. For us to try and "level-out" for two weeks, which is the next session and see.

The suggestions here are ultimately just to make sure that she is holding up her part of the bargain. She has lied to you for a long time and since she is 50/50 with her boyfriend, she could be telling him the same exact things that she is telling you. You have no advantage, no implication of the truth, no nothing.

But just start by talking to her boyfriend's wife. There is nothing stopping you from doing this. You were looking for a simple action plan - that's the next step :)

I see far too many similarities to the horrible moves I made here and you have certainly received a good amount of 2 X 4's so I don't feel the need to use them.

Read my original thread...then read my 2nd thread.

I really feel like you are walking the same path I did and I wish you wouldn't.

There are some things you won't find in my threads that I will tell you:

-I used to take breaks from this place too...I couldn't stand hearing hard truths...and they did become painful truths.

-I let her keep going to the class where her AP was.

-I fell for the deleted accounts and handing over of passwords...she simply went underground.

-I let her play pick me...deciding if she still loved me

-I chickened out going to an attorney

-I decided to forgive her (for myself) to put an end to the pain...and truth be told it did help a lot.

-I did a lot of the day by day stuff with no answers or commitment from her

Now I think you have some advantages here that I did not...despite you making some of the same perilous mistakes I did. The AP does not live in this country..that's a plus. The AP is not single where my WW's was/is. Your WW is reading where mine did not.

IMO...filing for D isn't going to derail R...frankly if the simple act of filing does than you know you made the right move. Just beware you making decisions based on HOPE... sitting there HOPING this is gonna work out is a recipe for more pain.

good luck

A lot of threads very similar like this that turned out terrible but very few where it worked out. If any. I think there is one poster who let his wife stay in the job, but it only got better until the wife finally left the job. I think it's something like "227 days until she quit" in his signature line. I think he is the only one where in the end it worked out, but this only because she did finally quit.

Why do your wife say other man is so sexually desirable to him? What particular qualities?

[This message edited by wk55hn at 12:40 PM, July 28th (Tuesday)]

-I did a lot of the day by day stuff with no answers or commitment from her

I remember franticly cleaning the house afraid she had stopped loving me because her love language was 'acts of service' and I was blameshifted into thinking that I hadn't given her enough of her love language as the reason she cheated.

Thanks for the update. Seems like you're a man with a plan, so best of luck with it. Do you have a VAR on you at all times when around her to protect yourself against false DV charges?

I strongly encourage you to get yourself to see a good individual counsellor with experience in infidelity.

Keep talking to us, we're here for you.

Best wishes!

I remember franticly cleaning the house afraid she had stopped loving me because her love language was 'acts of service' and I was blameshifted into thinking that I hadn't given her enough of her love language as the reason she cheated.

Oh yeah, I remember buying my XW a gorgeous bouquet of flowers a couple of days after the ILYBINILWY speech. I personally delivered them to her classroom, while the front office secretary, school nurse, other teachers expressed how sweet of a husband I was to bring flowers. Even the front office secretary even pointed out that I had always sent XW flowers every year and wished her husband had done the same.

Fast forward two months later I meet with the OBS for my Dday#1. One of the print outs of the messages that the OBS gave me as evidence showed that my XW took a pic of that bouquet that day I gave it to her and 10 minutes later had e-mailed it to the OM with the message underneath "Last thing I needed this week!"

It fucking broke my heart into a million pieces. That was my realization that "nicing" them back NEVER works. They just sense it as weakness and it empowers the wayward mind to be even more cruel.

ICO, you may think your WW is reaching remorse, but she may in fact just be testing your boundaries, your resolve to get out of infidelity, negotiating how much truth and her relationship with the OM she has to give up to keep you in the open M or delay you until she feels she has what she needs to D you. Anything is possible. Remorse isn't "committed to trying". Remorse is her being "all in" on the M whether you decide R or D, and supporting your decision regardless. She definitely isn't there yet.

You said a couple of times that she's smart. Then she is smart enough to get a new job fairly quick. You should take her up on her offer, and remind her that is what she offered.

God JDUFF, not to T/J but I hear you man...

Nothing like that fresh kick in the stomach when you find out your nice gesture was 'annoying' and 'ugh'...

Did you ever let her know you saw her reaction to the flowers? My spouse said she 'couldn't remember' her nasty response or feelings that I was never supposed to see...

So he called her today because I told his wife. She talked to him and she's pissed at me. What consequences for talking?

On DD and for many weeks thereafter, my WW tried to blame shift all the time:

1. I broke her heart first

2. She felt dismissed

3. She felt disrespected

4. I was making love to her body not her soul

5. I was using porn

6. I was out of shape

7. My politics shifted away from her

8. I was intolerable, inaccessible, narcissistic, argumentative

9. I yelled at kids to discipline them

10. I made her feel bad about herself

11. I treated her as less than.

12. I did not support her dreams.

So, tell me, which one of these issues gets fixed by having an affair: NONE.

Which ones cannot be addressed by talking to me and expressing her needs: NONE.

Which ones of these or all of these can justify or push someone to have an affair: NONE.

Blame shifting is classic Foggy wayward thinking.

Call them on it.

So YOUR wife is pissed at YOU for trying to stop her affair before she decided if she wanted OM.??? She is such a poor baby. i hope you do not expect anyone to feel sorry forher.

Do you still not get it. Your wife has been fucking another man for a year, has no intention of stopping the affair, and instead of siding with you, she is pissed off because now her OM may be in some trouble.

How much clearer do you need it spelled out?????

that is exactly why everyone, and I mean everyone told you to do it. You really believe now that she had any intention of not keeping this thing going

For heavens sake get to the attorney

[This message edited by nononsense at 5:08 PM, July 28th (Tuesday)]

Oh trust me, it's very clear to me. I told her that she was choosing him over me due to her actions.

She is seeing her IC right now. Good timing maybe. Regardless, she says she doesn't know who I am. She was mad that I didn't tell her that I contacted the OBS.

I stayed calm and just told her why I contacted the OBS and that there is no reason for her to be angry. It was none of her concern.

She didn't keep to the NC. I know people slip up and I believe her when she said that she didn't know that a UK number was him.

My WW was pissed when I exposed the OM. An hour later she became STBXWW.

I also feel like I was stabbed in the back. I was very clear about the NC. She failed at that. I feel like she should have immediately told him to stop since it wasn't professional.