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Why hide the truth about her affair? Your kids are adults. This will gain you nothing but help enable their affair.

The truth always.

BB, your kids need to know the truth. You need them to know the truth. Not only about this affair, but also about her past affair. And your past affair. It may hurt at the beginning, but truth is the best in the long run. It will relieve you from this burden.

Next, I would consider exposing this affair to other significant people. Your wife needs a reality check.

Finally, I would think about developing your support system. You need help from professional counselor, a good friend and a good read to stay sane. And you need a good action plan of how to take a good care of yourself and not let your emotions ruin your physical and mental health.

Good luck, BB.

I agree with the others. Tell the adult kids, they deserve to know about bikeboy. She clearly is in fantasyland. Also tell her if she continues to have contact with bikeboy she will need to find that place to live sooner rather than later.

Maybe biker boy and his Mummy can take her in?

Just my two cents.

Bikerboy isn't going to want her around too long. It's obvious that fitness is extremely important to him and ...she can't do long rides anymore. So he either gets to take care of her medical problems and give up riding or ignore her needs and go riding without her...The text messages it sounded like SHE was more into the fantasy then he was.

My guess is that she would like the separation so she can see what it would be like with biker boy and then either divorce or come back once she sees. For this reason I'd opt for going straight for divorce - you don't need to be a plan B and you certainly don't need to help finance her affair while you wait for her to decide.

I'm with the others. Tell your kids about Biker Boy. They need to know how crazy your WW is acting. They might have some influence over her thought process.

In conclusion I think your WW is living in fantasy land... and an old fantasy land at that. She now has health issues, she can no longer ride and she must be taken care of to some degree. She is chasing a younger man that focused on fitness. The best way to knock her out of this fantasy land is to tell the kids and have them talk to her about what she is giving up.

How do you get sleep? I finally dozed off around 2 or 3 am and popped back awake around 6:30 am. That's how it has been most nights. The first couple of nights I don't think I slept a wink. Best so far is around 6 hours of sleep. Can't take naps either. The minute I lie down my head starts churning.

Try meditation.

The reason our brains start running when we lie down to sleep is generally because we don't give them enough downtime to process things during the day. Car radio, work, car radio, dinner, kids, cleanup, bedtime.

Try giving your brain a break. Mindfulness meditation doesn't take long, and doesn't take much effort, but it does take practice.

Xhz700's suggestion is a good one. If you need help try typing in mindful meditation into Google. There are a lot of sites that have free guided meditation that you can listen to.

How do you get sleep? I finally dozed off around 2 or 3 am and popped back awake around 6:30 am. That's how it has been most nights. The first couple of nights I don't think I slept a wink. Best so far is around 6 hours of sleep. Can't take naps either. The minute I lie down my head starts churning

Welcome to the ride from hell. Sleep. I think my first entire week I had something like six hours total. LOL. It gets better. Techniques help. I got a script for sleep meds after my first week or so. Took them only as needed.

To help sleep I use EmergenZZZ (melatonin is the active ingredient). I add Tylenol PM to it, when it's really bad. It helps me fall asleep, but I do still wake up sometimes in the middle of the night. At least they help me fall asleep which is better than not getting any sleep.

Many people recommend getting prescription sleeping meds as well, just temporarily. Definitely not something you want to get hooked on though. I preferred to stay with over the counter stuff.

You're in the very early stages now, when it's the worst. It will get better! It took maybe 6 months for me to start sleeping better.

Have read your thread. If you want to start sleeping better the absolute best way to do that is seize control of this situation and get yourself out of infidelity.

The only and I mean ONLY person responsible for getting yourself out of infidelity is YOU. Not your wayward, not the AP, not anyone else... It is YOU.

I am an advocate of reconciliation but it does not happen by being nice. It will only work with a 100% all in and very remorseful wayward. Separations to 'think about it' or 'ease into it' do not work to your advantage only for the wayward.

Other have suggested you file for divorce immediately and I agree with them. Go all out.. Seperate finances, discuss only divorce related business and DO NOT lift a finger to do anything other the bare minimum to transact the business of separation. Tell the adult children EXACTLY what is happening and do not sugar coat it.

Affairs rarely survive exposure and a very harsh dose of reality. If you do this you will either have a wayward that quickly wakes up and sees reality, and is then 100% all in to fix the mess she has created; or you will seize back control of your life and be out a infidelity sooner than later.

Best of luck!

BEEBEE....

You interrupted what would have been her first strike...you beat her to the bunch...

STRIKE FIRST, STRIKE HARD, STRIKE NOW!!!

I say this not lightly bc it allows you to set the terms of reconciliation or scorched earth destruction, puts her on the defensive and that's exactly where you want her esp if she PLANNED TO DIVORCE YOU...you want her to guess your next move. Expose, expose, expose...kids too. they should know the truth, itll hurt more if they find out more later. You need to be in the driver's seat and setting terms. She appears to have been doing all of the driving and plotting so far.

The worse thing you can do is trying to nice her back. This is allllll about RESPECT esp for you. As a human being, you need to respect yourself first and demand others respect you too. Your wife has lost respect for you which allows her to be dishonest and deceptive with you. Now that you are on the offensive, don't stop. If she works for the government, she already knows what she stands to lose.....it was her choice to begin with and your choice to finish it.

Sananman: you're right. I've slept best on the nights after I've felt like I'd made progress. I've never done meditation, but certainly some down time, letting the gears spin would be better than filling time with distractions.

-------

Right now, I'm confronting her about the affair. We started a FB messenger chat and I brought it up, said it was the key thing to deal with as it was driving all of this. She denied it. I warned her I was going to tell the kids if she didn't first. She kept denying it. I quizzed her on her relationship with Bike Boy. Nothing to it, she said. I said, ok send me chats and emails. No chats to send, she said.

No worries, I said, I've got them. She said "you've got e-mails?" I didn't answer. Let her think about that.

She forwarded the email she sent to Bike Boy after I chucked him out of her hospital room. Ah, but she doctored it. She removed "I love you, Bike Boy" and she changed "I'll find a way to get in touch."

I just replied with the "corrections."

I also sent her this email:

"Consider that you are on something like crack - this affair. It makes you high, and your life, thoughts, and reason bend to rationalize getting more of it. You're slipping around anything that might get in the way of your high - sneaking around or using slippery words. You want to clear away all impediments to live in your fantasy world.

"You HATE this description. You're telling yourself I don't understand true love, I'm talking nonsense. This is just another example of how I'm so irritating and must be discarded.

"That's now addiction works. The only way I can help you cold turkey it is to show you what the consequences will be if you don't pull yourself out of it. When reality crushes your fantasy world, you are going to realize your mistake. I hope you can keep it from reaching that point.

"I spent months and years fighting the addiction. I did it for you, some times more successfully than others. Through it all, you held my hand every night. Sometimes it felt stifling, other times it was a welcome anchor, and eventually if was a sweet reassurance. And as my head cleared I saw how I'd deluded myself and how the "high" can take over the brain. I can hold your hand in return."

--

So I am poised to tell the kids unless she does it herself first. I'm also thinking about some select friends I could tell who might want to give her a good talking-to.

Yeah, yeah, I know, divorce might be better and easier than reconciliation. I'm seeing that more each day. But, I'm going to see this through.

BB , personally I think I would prefer to tell the kids myself,but that's just me.

The reason is she will more than likely try to rewrite your marital history and minimize as much as possible. Just a thought , but you know your kids better than anyone here. I could see her saying that there is nothing to it, "we are just friends" and that you are overreacting, etc.

BeeBee, I think your kids need to no the truth and you are the only person who can give them the truth. As far as I can see, your wife is not ready to confess.

Edit: I wish you could find a way to honestly and openly talk to each other. And I truly admire the part of your letter where you tell about your own story and her helping you to cope with your addiction.

If she is scared to accept the reality of her getting older, I'm wondering if it's possible for two you to have an honest conversation with no purpose to confront, but in order to understand each other. And if it does not work, I wouldn't wait to expose her affair. By the way, given that the BykeBoy lives with his mom, I would consider exposing this affair to his mom as well.

[This message edited by wordsofwisdom at 1:40 PM, August 23rd (Tuesday)]

So, are there any online Afairs 101 articles that I show the (adult) kids? NOT on this site. I don't want them stumbling onto this thread. If I don't have something credible to back up my "intervention" approach, it's going to be a case of "he-says/she-says" as far as they are concerned, even if they know of the affair. They may not buy into the same view we have of what an affair is all about. Legit sources would help.

Thanks

Exposure should be done without warning. She will now be working on how to counteract you. He's crazy, we're just friends, etc.

so you tipped off

- that you can see her messages

- that you plan to expose

she will now find another way to communicate and beat you to punch with exposurenand paint you as crazy and obsessive.

never reveal your plans or how you garner intelligence.

You don't need to explain EA vs PA or any of that to your kids. You say when your wife was hurt, you found proof she was having an affair and planned to leave you for the other man.

If they ask for a source, tell them you're sorry -- you can't say -- but there's absolutely no chance you're mistaken. There is not going to be any question whether or not they're "just friends."

Good luck.

Told the kids. Now they know. My son said she lied to his face when she said there was no affair. My daughter wanted to call and chew her out. But, they wanted me to show her more of what I have so she knows there's no denying it.

So, I'm doing that now.